Day 74 : Monday May 24th. RTU

As good luck would have it, Fr Anthony turned up with a motorcycle that I could use, and a helmet, because it was thought a motorcycle would be safer than cycling for getting around the local villages. The motorcycle was very welcome, since my intention, which I hadn't broadcast, was to go to Kodaikanal, where Jacinta had worked for a year thirty years before. I certainly didn't fancy cycling to an altitude of 8,000 feet in one day and then cycling back down again.

As I began the ascent of the Kodai Road, I caught site of the Munjala Dam, where, a few months after I returned to England, my friend Dorosamy died. He was a leprosy patient and in charge of one of the rehabilitation workshops. I don't know the full story of what happened, but I was very sad that he had died.

This was a fresh overnight crash. Although the road had been widened, it was clear that drivers were still as bad as ever. Car, bus, lorry drivers and motorcyclists all drive as if there's no-one else on the road, and no-one behind every blind corner.

Some of the scenery of Kodai and the surrounding area was spectacular, and although the pollution made everything less visible, it was still possible to make out this view of the waterfalls. There is one waterfall where the water pours over a sheer drop of 1000 feet- I had not been able to make it out from the plains, but I think this was it.

Before too long, I passed another minibus which had crashed. I wondered how many more I would see before I reached Kodai.

One of the loveliest sights of this road used to be the ruins at a sharp bend. It was always covered in bright purple bourganvillia, and the air past the house was always cooler. But now, there were virtually no flowers, and the air was not cooler. Was this something to do with global warming? Was it the local effects of pollution?

Further on, I past a group of monkeys who obviously knew where to stand to catch waste food from passing tourist buses and cars. Drivers would frequently stop at certain spots for fresh coconut, or 'jack fuit' or other fruits, and monkeys would be ready for the leftovers.

As I entered the town, it was clear that it was much more built up. It was much busier than when I was last here. I had expected to need a jumper, but it simply wasn't cool enough. Something else was missing too - the wonderful aroma of eucalyptus, which used to be ever-present, simply wasn't there. What had happened to this place? It had little of the charm of previous years.

It says the 'Kodai International School' was established in 2001, but actually there had been an international school here for many years. Originally it was a school for the children of missionaries and diplomats, after which it became accessible to Indian citizens too. Jacinta taught French at this school for one year, and her happiest memories were of a fellow teacher, and a wonderful human being, Nargis Cama. Nargis had a daughter who lived on Marine Drive in Mumbai.

Nargis and Jacinta lived in adjacent houses, which looked something like this, made from blocks of stone, with cement mortar and a tin roof. I was not sure about the exact spot where Jacinta lived, as so much seemed to have changed, and it may have been demolished anyway, but it could actually be this dwelling too.

The grounds of the school had been kept reasonably well, unlike the rest of the town, but I was not able to have a proper look as it was approaching lunch time, and I would have to wait for 2 hours to get permission to walk inside the grounds. The doorman had not been helpful, and I felt he was being deliberately awkward, so I didn't waste any more time there.

The town used to be full of Eucalyptus trees - many many thousands of them. It wasn't possible to breathe the air without smelling Eucalyptus. But now the opposite was true. The trees had been stripped of their bark. I didn't know if this was due to disease or whether the bark had been stripped by man or monkey, but there had certainly been a dramatic change.

Rather fed up with what I'd seen, I decided to head back down the hill. The place had simply become too crowded, with rubbish everywhere, noise, smoke, and buildings that were simply not in keeping with their surroundings. I found myself behind this lorry, which more or less summed up for me what had become of Kodai : smoke poured out of the exhaust, polluting the air; the driver kept sounding one of two horns, for no apparent reason, polluting the tranquility of the hills; the driver would not move over to allow me to pass in safety - instead he stayed in the centre of the road; the vehicle was over loaded, so it kept catching the trees above, and finally, the load was not properly secured, so every few seconds, a used plastic bottle fell off the back of the lorry, leaving even more rubbish lying around.

I decided to let the lorry go, and to take it easy riding down the hill, whereupon I spotted these monkeys. I wanted to get a really good photograph of the monkeys, especially for the children of Roach Vale Primary School in Cheltenham, but the monkeys were quite shy, and with every passing vehicle, they moved further away. I think this was because one of the monkeys was carrying a baby.

By the time I'd reached the plains, I was pleased to be off the hill. I'd had a look at Kodai for Jacinta, and I'd seen what I'd seen. In May 2010, Kodaikanal was just an overcrowded dump. I hoped it would be different at other times in the year, but on the day I visited, it was nothing special, contrary to the adverts which lined the road at the bottom of the road to Kodai.

When I got back to RTU, I spotted a squirrel in a tree, and tried to get a photograph for the school children, because Indian squirrels are smaller than the Grey Squirrels we find in England. I wonder if they can see the squirrel in this tree!