The bus to Mettupalayam was indescribably horrid, we had to fight to get on the overcrowded bus, I was fighting the women at the front and Djalma the men at the back, neither of us did particularly well. The idea that you should wait for people of the bus to get off, and thus have more space for yourself once on the bus, actively contradicted everyone's actions – there clearly was no rational thought except – eff you man I'm getting me a seat. Despite extensive training in the Moscow metro I found myself helpless in the throes of group aggression, it all left me feeling a bit sick and therefore my elbows were useless against the much hardened witches I was fighting against to get into the damn bus. Djalma got in before me, with all our bags no less, and I felt miserable at being there and miserable for having let him down. He was in a rage to make the group of ferocious Indians fighting for seats look like docile pussy cats and told one particularly annoying, pushy (and fat) man who was trying to push past him to get to a seat his wife had saved him, things about his mother that he had no way of knowing. This same annoying, fat pushy man, once in his seat broke into a glut of self satisfied smiles that he'd made it to a seat, meanwhile small children were getting crushed in the continued onslaught, grannies were getting trampled underfoot and women with babies were studiously ignored by anyone in a seat. One of these women with a crying baby on her hip caught the eye of my beloved who then shouted at the beaming fat idiot in his seat to be a man a give the woman his seat, he took the baby on his lap refusing to get up and made the small child cry even more. It was monstrous. The ticket inspector shouted out Djalma to get out of the stairs although where he was expected to stand I'd no idea, he then vented a hugely long tirade probably against stupid white tourists, which Djalma and I didn't understand and were the only two who didn't. A group of three ladies sat right under my nose started laughing uproariously at whatever was said and then had the nerve to try and make conversation and smile?! in the trip. The one sat in the middle was transfixed by the sight of my tongue piercing and wanted me to show her my tongue, I didn't of course, I just stood there looking down with evil glares thinking how ugly and horrible she was, I drank some water and she asked for some which gave me an excuse to lean over and tell her why I wasn't going to give her any water. By this time we'd all had a while to calm down but she had laughed the most at whatever the ticket collector had said and so I told her that she and her friends had been mean, that I didn't like her and at no time was she ever going to share my water. Bitch. I felt very unchristian. The bus ride lasted about an hour and at our stop I gratefully climbed off feeling subdued and tired, we trudged up and down the street near the bus station and found a cheap room for the night. After a much needed shower and some fresh clothes we had dinner, picked up some bananas for breakfast and walked to the train station where we would be catching the mini train from the following morning.
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| From Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India |
We got up early and left at 7.10am for our 7.20am train. The miniature train was a lot bigger than I was expecting and without a toilet (although this didn't matter in the end). It took five hours for the 46km to Ooty and we shared our compartment with a friendly Canadian couple, it was an exceedingly long but beautiful trip and stops along the way were very welcome, not least because we had tea and something other than our bananas to eat.
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| From Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India |
People that we met later commented on the fact that Ooty, short for Udhagamandalam,was a lot bigger and busier than they were expecting. And it was big for a quiet hill town but very colourful too, we walked up to the YWCA (The women's half of the YMCA – Young Man's Christian Association) and after an abnormally long wait due to the inefficiency of the receptionist we checked into a small fusty dorm room at the end of the hotel, it was especially creepy at night. Despite the long train ride neither of us were particularly smelly so we went out for lunch and a little look round the town where we picked up some water, biscuits and fruit for the following morning as well as a much needed towel (we'd been drip drying for a long time without a problem but it was significantly colder in the hills) and some suspicious smelling dandruff oil (I've yet to ascertain whether this helps or hinders the production of dandruff and at the moment I am sceptical). We walked back past the Rose Gardens, with a very promising sign 1km before the ticket office which was up a hill, only to find that all the roses had just been pruned and to see the stumps we would have to pay 20Rs, I was quite disappointed to say the least especially after a long walk uphill.
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| From Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India |
Back at the hostel we picked out a couple of books from the fusty old library (just in case you were wondering the YWCA seemed fusty all over) and sat in the upstairs drawing room which had a lovely ambience full of natural light in the afternoon, spoiled only by the huge menacing portrait of Jesus hanging at an odd angle over the door. We went down stairs for a small bite to eat before bed and while we were tucking into thin, oily, milky soup with tiny bits of carrot and something green floating in it we started talking to Monique an American with an affinity for India but managed not to talk out of her arse as so many seasoned travellers do.
One of the qualities I respect the most in person is the ability to do different/exciting/dangerous/selfless things but not lose sight of the small and relatively inconsequential day to day things or talk down at you as if they were an enlightened ninety year sage having experienced these amazing things. It was so nice to talk to a women who was volunteering with children who'd been involved in the sex trade from a very young age but didn't shove it down your throat or behave as though everyone should do these things (which really we should), she was funny and clever and had a passion for travelling and life and was completely unpretentious and lovely. I admit, I am fan – I was one of many, she had accumulated a small group of young English traveller the man of the group having quite a sizeable crush on her and we met them later after we had finished dinner. We sat round talking until it was too cold for shorts and flip-flops and Djalma and I went to bed.
The next day we got out of the wrong side of bed and took our aggressive selves for a walk around a big lake close to town. We stopped off for a bad breakfast and were a bit mean to the overly attentive young waiter which we then felt bad about as we continued around the lake. After deliberation we rented out a row boat instead of a pedalo and vented our hostility on the water. I was much better at rowing than Djalma and surprised myself with the smooth co-ordination and minimal splashing that had always been lacking in previous rowing attempts. As I rowed us round the lake, my man lazing and sunning his midriff in the bow, I began to feel more and more at peace, it was a beautiful day, the sun was out and we were pootling around a pretty lake in the midst of some lovely greenery. It was about that point I realised that having lugged my camera this far had left the memory stick back in our room and was therefore unable to record the beauty of the moment.
We decided to use up our deposit and spend the next half an hour in the boat, this time with Djalma at the helm, zigzagging us all over the shop and splashing me with stagnant pond water – it put him in a good mood too.
We got off the lake, ate some boiled sweetcorn and took a look at the world's first thread garden which was so full of itself in proclaiming to visitors at the ingenuity, originality, skill and all-round fabulousness of the project it actually made up for the abysmally lit dusty display of the different plants and flowers. There were plenty of huge boards proclaiming the projects grandness but none to tell the visitor what the flowers and plants were, and it was all over in under a minute. We walked further round the lake (apparently it was 10km round the circumference) and rented out another row boat in a different section, I was a little too enthusiastic about the boats and didn't factor in my sore palms which would have blistered if Djalma hadn't taken over. Feeling much happier we walked back into town and had a thali in a small hole-in-the-wall joint before walking back to hostel to rest our aching bodies and sit and talk to Monique and the kids and drink tea until the cold moved us indoors.
During a dinner of mildly horrible vegetable curry I started to feel quite ill and after we said goodnight and went to bed I didn't climb in properly because a part of me knew that I would be back out again and hugging the toilet. I was right and soon enough I was in the bathroom emptying one end and then the other getting bloody cold (I forgot to pick up a jumper on the way to the bathroom). I came back to bed, Djalma of course was sleeping soundly, and so was the guy who was sharing the dorm room with us. I popped a couple of pills and waited for the rest to make itself known so I could get that out and go to bed, I only had to wait an hour before I was back in the bathroom chundering and spurting bum wee, feeling sorry for myself, cold and miserable. A couple more pills and a sip of water and I decided that that was probably enough and I could safely climb in my sleeping sack without the need to run for the toilet again. Morning came round and I regaled Djalma with the story of my antics during the night and he went and got us a private room so I could be ill in peace. I spent most of the day convalescing and reading numerous books to pass the time in between napping.
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| From Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India |
The next day Djalma pestered me out of my sickbed and we got the bus up to the highest peak in the Nilgiri hills, it would have been an excellent view if not for the haze that covered Ooty but it was nice enough. We got back into the Jeep we took from the bus stop to the top and then the bus back into town where we had some really good fried tomato with parota (flaky pastry bread) before walking out to the Government Botanical Gardens to take in some more pruned rose gardens and flowers which were still attached. It was really peaceful and very beautiful although not as big as it claimed to be – on the sign by the front it said that it was one of the oldest and biggest Botanical Gardens in the world (the Indians do seem to be a bit too quick to use the suffix 'in the world' when comparing places and things to others). We walked back to our hotel and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.
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| From Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India |
We left the following morning, I didn't want to stay in the cold any longer and wanted to get back down to the beach despite not having done any kind of trekking which is what Ooty and anywhere in the hills for that matter is famous for, so we got on a morning bus to Kannur, which is on the Keralan coast facing the Arabian Sea, prepared to elbow our way to some seats.
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