Yoga at Sunrise

We stayed overnight outside of Valparai at one of the business men's house named Vinoj. He is the manager of a tea plantation, and therefore stays in the "manager's bungalow" which is basically my dream house. Not only is the home itself gorgeous with the furnishings on the inside and the structure on the outside, but it sits at the top of one of the taller hills among the many covered with tea plants and has a view of the ENTIRE valley below it.
I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and got Rianna up so that we could do some yoga together (we've been planning this for weeks but haven't found the time...) after using the bathroom and having to attempt flushing the toilet twelve times before it worked...it was such a cool toilet! It had a chain hanging from the ceiling to flush it! We went out and said good morning to those with us who were awake and had some tea. Then we watched Vinoj's wife do her morning yoga and got inspired to go out and ACTUALLY do our own. We walked out the back door to the driveway, cleared off a small spot on the cracked cement and faced the sunrise. I then taught Rianna the yoga practice that I had learned in school and we did a few rounds of it together before going back to all of the adults (who were all awake then) and telling them that we were going for a walk among the tea bushes. We set out down the steep hill where they grew and took a hike. We walked among the clusters of green (here they were planted in clusters instead of rows), finding our own paths and taking some photos of each other in the early morning light. We walked halfway around the hill before climbing back up to the house where we packed up our things, got into the car, started out of the driveway and had to stop because of a flat tire at the front right of the car. We all got back out of the car and Suresh, Rianna and I relaxed in the grass lawn for a while before we could leave again.
We went to another house where we had tea and some snacks. It took us awhile to get there but the drive was beautiful, and this house was just as beautiful as the other.
On our way back down the hill later that day, the rain started up and poured on us for a little while before stopping abruptly, just in time for us to stop at "Monkey Falls!" (That is the real name, I promise!) Rianna and I and Ram (the other Rotarian) all got out and hiked around a short bend to a magnificent waterfall- there were people and monkeys EVERYWHERE! Wherever there wasn't a person (usually dripping from their bath in the falls) there was a monkey. We took some photos- me of the falls and myself putting my feet in, and Rianna of all of the monkeys (she LOVES them!). It was so exciting for both of us when, on our way up we stopped at a bend where there were several families of monkeys sitting on the wall. We got out of the car and went up to them- at first they were a little shy, but after only a few moments, they were surrounding us and we even got to shake their tiny grey hands!