McLeanCamino: 18 – 19th March, 2013 Colombo to Madurai to Kodaikanal

18th March - leaving Colombo

Due to problems in on-line check-in, we called our driver to take us to the Colombo airport 3 hours before departure, and this worked quite efficiently. The problem was evidenced later when the plane was 2 hours delayed, so we did not leave Colombo until 4PM, arriving at Madurai at 5PM, and after an hour to clear immigration, customs and get some Indian rupees from the ATM, it was 6PM when we started our drive to Kodai, driven by Kodai Alumni’s contract driver Jay. We reached Kodai main gate before 9:30PM, but the guards said they had not been given the keys to Bachman Cottage at Loch End, as we had been told they would. We called Yvonne of Alumni Affairs, and she apologized and brought the keys to us, and then we went in to our little cottage and settled in after 10PM. We spent a cold night because we did not take time to light a fire in the pot-bellied stove, sleeping with our fleeces on top of our pajamas and wearing thick socks as we listened to the sounds of dogs barking most of the night.

19 March Kodaikanal - Waking up we found there was no electric power, so no lights or hot water. We walked over to the Carlton Hotel and had a sumptuous buffet breakfast for about $6 each. We ran into the admin manager who had been to Oman and knew a lot of old Kodai staff, and he offered to help us in any way possible. Heading to the Alumni Office at the old KMU building, we met Yvonne, chatted a bit, and paid our bill for the taxi pick-up and 8 nights in Bachman. We also arranged with a guide named Peter to pick us up and take us on an “easy, not very hot, and not uphill” hike to “see butterflies” for a half day starting early Thursday morning.

Kodai School front gate

An elderly Indian lady peeked in and suddenly hears I was David Bosch and rushed over to hug me. She was Ms. Curlin David, daughter of the Golf Club manager Mr. David, and she had worked as X-ray technician from 1956-61 in the Mission Hospital in Kuwait, where she worked mostly for Dr. Lewis Scudder, but also for my father the year he had been there in 1958. Her sister Pauline David had worked for Dr. Thoms and Dad at the Mission Hospital in Muscat. Curlin said she would bring some old photos next day to the same place at noon for us to see.

Next we visited the Archives Office next door in the KMU and met Ms. Suvidha. We then went for a quick tour with Yvonne to see the tennis courts, gym, old dorms Phelps Hall, Block, and Wissy, all of which are now occupied with older girls, with the boys banned to live off-campus. I noticed that the former boys’ dorms now have steel grates to prevent girls from getting out or intruders from getting in through opened windows, unlike when we boys lived there. Leslie took a picture of me outside the window of Phelps Hall room 10 where two other miscreants and I had jumped out to make our way across campus to raid the girls’ Boyer Hall at 4:30 am in pre-dawn darkness.

Lower Boyer Hall that David raided (the basement) in 6th grade

The KIS graduating class is now up to 120 pupils, so Kodai has expanded substantially, with the younger students being off in a different campus altogether, and KIS absorbing adjacent space in the old Swedish school and Lock End, as well as many of the other compounds around the lake. KIS also has a lot more staff housing than it did. We bumped into the principle, an Australian named Ian who had been there only a short time.

Eating at the dining hall, we paid 200 rupees each for a meal coupon which entitled us to all we could eat buffet style. The food was definitely better and more plentiful than in the old days, but I kind of missed the served meals and round wooden tables I remembered.

David's Graduating note in 1967

Later we walked down to Spencers and bought a few items for the cottage. They must have seen our Alumni badges that we had on which are necessary to get onto the campus as they gave us some small plastic containers as freebies. We then had light supper at Two Brothers Tibetan Restaurant, and went back to light a fire in our fireplace to heat the cottage up for the night. There was no electric power when we arrived at our cottage but it came on again later on. We had already done our “bucket showers” with warm water from electric water heaters, so that was good. Leslie did laundry and has hung the clothes near the stove hoping they are going to dry overnight (only partial success).