A trip to Ooty

Ootacamund is a "hill station". There are a number of such towns and cities around India that were popular with the British because they are cooler places to lie than most of India year round. Ooty, as nearly everyone calls it, is probably the best known in south India and it have gotten to be a bit large and overrun with people. It is in the Nilgiri Hills which is also know for its tea and probably a number of other things as well.
We had been thinking of going there for the past 18 months, but never found the time, We almost went a month ago, but Janet's Dengue fever kept us from going. This time Jim to one day of vacation on Friday and our driver took us on the 6.5 hour drive. We stopped 3 times on the way at Cafe Coffee Day or Barrista- two chains of coffee and food shops which are good and modern. We also stopped to take a few pictures here and there. The drive was mostly on good roads, but we went through a section in Bandipur National Park and Mudamalai Tiger Reserve and in the hills where the roads are a bit narrow and in less good condition. The winding roads in the hills are an adventure because people tend to drive a bit fast.
We arrived in Ooty in the afternoon and visited a book shop and a chocolate shop before heading of to our hotel in a nearby town- Conoor. We heard the hotel here had better service and was quieter than a similar one in Ooty. The drive on the winding road was slow and a bit stressful.
On the edge of town is the train station. India has 3 trains that have some historic significance. The one between Conoor and Metapalyam is a steam train dating from about 1890. This section has some steep parts for which the locomotive and tracks are specially designed. We did not get to ride the trai- there were no spaces available for this visit, so we only happened to be at the station when the train was there waiting to leave. They keep the old steam locomotives running because there are no modern replacements- and now it is a tourist attraction as well. The section from Conoor to Ooty is less steep so a diesel locomotive handle that section.
We checked into the hotel, which they said is about 150 years old and was once a friary attached to the large church nearby. It was pleasant enough - and cool! We actually felt a little chilled in the evening! The Indians were wearing heavy sweaters.
We asked the hotel staff where we could walk without any traffic and they told us a way down the hill side to an area where tea is grown and there is a cemetery. The instructions were not so very clear, but we found our way there. There was no one else on the path that went through the tea garden. It was getting near dark when we headed back to the hotel. These towns are very hilly- with buildings all over the sides of the hills.
This in Monsoon in India, which means you can have very heavy rain at any time, though Bangalore does not get so much. Because of the rains, it is considered "off season". It did rain every day, but did not cause us much difficulty.
On Saturday, we went to the Botanical Garden in Ooty. It was overcast, so that dulled the colors, but it is a nice garden. It is probably the nicest we have seen in India. Ooty was built up by the British and this place was certainly part of their efforts. After the garden we walked to a Coffee Day and then to another chocolate shop. We were told that Ooty is also famous for its chocolate shops. We think that chocolate does OK here because it does not get so hot as in the rest of India. We then went to have lunch.
After lunch we were going to walk around Ooty Lake which is man made and built around 1824, but it looked unpleasant, so we went to a shop we heard about so we could see what handicrafts are available. The shop was a little disappointing until they said they have another one next door. That one was also a little disappointing until we spotted a couple interesting things hidden amongst the junk. As we looked at those things the guy said that they have more and we should return in 30 min. It turned out they had a whole warehouse in a building out back that was much more interesting! We can only attribute this case and being either a) typically Indian or b) off-season. They just didn't expect tourists to be interested because its off season, or as we have frequently seen, they don't show their best things UNTIL you ask to see them. We bought a wood box and some picture frames. We were going to walk some more at the tea place near our hotel, but we were both tired by the time we got back. Besides, we decided to take a long walk on Sunday at a lake on our way home.
On Sunday we left a little after 10AM and stopped in Ooty to get more chocolates and tea and then headed off to Lake Pykara which we were told had good walking trails. It rained along the way so everything was wet. After a delay due to a small accident along the road- made worse by the driver's propensity to try to go around the blocking vehicles and then jamming the traffic once it clears up some.
We arrived at the lake, which is man made, to find cars partly blocking the road, so we walked the rest of the way and found one trail partly blocked by a fallen tree. We walked about 200 feet and found the trail further blocked and clearly not maintained. Because it was wet and we know leaches to be a problem, we turned back and walked along the road for awhile to go out of the park and along the main road which was not bad. Our drier caught up after about a 30 minute walk. The drive to Gudalur was ok, but winding steep roads. As soon as we reached that city the rains came pouring down. All the people and goats too, were standing under the overhang of the buildings until the rains slowed. The streets were flowing in places with red water from all the red mud in the water. However, we got through and continued our long drive back to Bangalore.
We drove through the Parks and saw some deer and a peacock in the wild and one wild elephant and two "working elephants"- one of whom broke loose from his or her chains and was wandering about. No tigers.