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So the girls (Helen and Amy) arrived in Bangalore very early Thursday morning, around 1.00am. I quite enjoy my time spent waiting at the airport, I get a nice cup of hot chocolate and watch the plethora of people come and go, business travellers from Europe and America arriving in the chauffer driven cars from the 5* hotels, Buddhist monks peacefully just sitting around waiting for their plane, rather large Indian families watching their cousins daughter's husband's uncle move to the US, and this time was a real treat as the Indian Taekwondo team arrived, it was something very special. Anyway we got a taxi home, 10 times the price of the auto I had arrived in, and already the problems had started.
We stayed up pretty late, me excited by actually having more than one person in my apartment, and them I supposed confused by the time difference and excited by the prospect of being in India. The following day I had to go to work in the morning, they slept and we went for a little explore in the afternoon and had lunch in Empire, an India restaurant, as I wanted to get them of on the
right foot. In the evening we went to a fundraising event organised by some of my friends at the club Pebbles, a British owned establishment which is designed a bit like a beach bar cross jungle, pretty nice infact. Friday again I had to work, but the girls delved into to the danger that is Bangalore, and got a rickshaw to the malls.
That evening the monsoons arrived. The whole of JP Nagar (where I live) was pretty much flooded, water was coming in my apartment, rickshaws, cars, and bikes were all breaking down in the foot high waters that flowed through the roads. At this point we needed to make it into town to catch our Jeep to Ooty but no one would take us, eventually one kind, or perhaps poor, Auto driver took us. Finally arriving and soaked through we met the others and had dinner at Empire for the second time in 2 days. Ooty is a hill station (a place in the mountains) in Tamil Nadu where they grow a lot of tea, it’s just south of Bangalore and can be anything between 5 and 10 hours away. The jeep picked us up at 9pm,
there was 8 of us, Helen, Amy, Lisa, Milana, Hendrick, Stein, Berend and myself, however the travel company decided to give us a 7 seater Jeep, obviously because that would be really comfortable. Having complained to the company they told us that the driver was going to take us back to the agency where we can swap the car, however 25 minutes later we found ourselves on the Mysore Road heading for Ooty, I think they thought we wouldn’t notice. Kicking up a fuss we called the agency again, they said ‘don’t worry you have a DVD player instead’ almost falling for it we realised that a DVD player doesn’t actually create extra space and finally they sent out an 8 seater Jeep.
With the new Jeep came a new driver, at that point he seemed quite cherpy and enthusiastic, what we didn’t realise was that he is the spawn of Satan and was going to ruin our trip. We headed out towards Ooty, sleeping for short bursts. After dark we stopped to go to the toilet and have some Chai at the side of the road, and at this moment he started with his mental outbursts. He told
us that Ooty was 'closed' and we would have to go and stay in a hotel for the night in Mysore, likely to be his brother's school friend’s father's. Telling him simply no, that we paid him to drive over night he said “the national park (that we needed to drive through) is closed and dangerous, there are Elephants, they sit on the car and the car is gone” frightened by the prospect of Elephants sitting on our car and squashing us we said we would go and ask the police who had also stopped for Chai, but our driver also explained that Tamil police are dangerous. At this point we realised the danger and catastrophes that driving into the hills may involve.
Finally we headed through the national park, at every gate he told us it was closed, or that we would have to pay 500 rupees to get through, in other words it would cost us about 50 rupees and he would keep the rest for himself. Not falling for his devious ploys he started to get more and more frustrated. We finally arrived at our destination, the WYCA hostel in Coonoor, a smaller town just 20km
outside Ooty. We arrived circa 5am so no one was up to let us in, the driver insisted we get out and wait in the cold so he could sleep in peace. Not having any of it Berend and I got back in the Jeep to rest, and he went absolutley nuts. He drove of with us in there saying that he needed some Chai and also needed to take the Jeep to the garage to be cleaned, likely at 5am. Luckily at this point we were saved as the old couple running the hostel let us in.
The place was really charming, huge and with colonial style architecture. We managed to get a 9 birth dorm for 650 rupees, about a pound each. We woke up around 11 and they made us toast, tea, coffee and eggs before we headed out. The driver seemed fine at this point and very willingly drove us further into the hills where we could go on a lovely walk through the tea plantations, was a really great day. He picked us up later and we decided we wanted to go into Ooty for dinner, and this completely changed his mood, apparently Ooty
was closed again, my god, we phoned the agency again and eventually we got him to take us. We found a little seedy Indian restaurant where we ate in out own ‘family room’. Getting them to sneak some beers in for us along with our Indian feast it was quite enjoyable, but bloody freezing. Poor girls came all the way from England to India to be in the cold.
The following day we went into Ooty, discovering that the driver had a CD filled with Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, Venga Boys, Michael Jackson and Shaggy we all had a good sing song, I sat next to the driver and he said I sang beauty, haha, I think it put him in good mood and he was good for a few hours. We had planned to go horse riding, boating on the lake some more walking, but it rained, and rained and rained some more. This resulted in us taking to the mini fair that sat beside the lake. Beggining with dodgems I felt as though I was back on Marford Playing fields. This followed by Lisa taking part on the buckaroo, which invited an audience of about 100 Indian men,
and then we went on a tsunami simulator, which apparently won the entertainment prize of 2006. The rain didn’t desist so we had to admit defeat and resided to coffee day for the rest of the afternoon.
We headed back home around 3 or 4pm, we drove through the national park in daylight and managed to see and Elephant with a baby, the fear of it sitting on our jeep scared our driver so he wouldn’t stop for us to take pictures. Mysore was on our way back so we thought as the driver was so intent on us going there on the way to Ooty he wouldn’t mind stopping on the way back. Sunday nights the Palace is lit with thousands of little lights, so we all thought this would be a great opportunity for all of us to see. We arrived in Mysore and we asked to driver to stop outside the palace so we could take some pictures, but oh no he was having none of it and refused to stop at all, eventually after a lot of shouting he stopped, we all got out sreaming and shouting, he involved a pedestrian walking along the road
The Jeep
Fun times.....in our dispute and before we knew it 30 or more Indians had gathered to see what was going on. He was honestly going mental, Stein took away his keys to stop him driving of which fuelled even more of his anger. The surrounding Indians took our side and tried persuading him to calm down and take us to the palace; he was having none of it. We was there for about 25 minutes, in which time we could have taken our pictures and moved on back to Bangalore. We again got hold of the agency who told him to take us there. We arrived at the palace and really took our time, 10 minutes later all the lights turned off so was quite fortunate we made it but well worth it. We had some pizza and headed back to Bangalore, we was told by the agency not to pay him the rest of the money, I think he is now without a job.
Monday the girls went shopping and to botanical gardens in Bangalore whilst I worked. That evening we met up with Alex and his parents who are over from Holland. Again we went to Empire. Ordering
Satan Himself
Looking happy after I sang to him. a mini feast I avoided the Tandoori Chicken. which makes me feel ill after I was sick on it a while back. I warned them but no one listened, the following day Amy, Helen, Alex and Alex’s Mum were all ill, Alex even ended up in hospital on a drip. Tuesday night we all stayed in, my friend Jess came over and those of us who could eat had a Chinese and we watched a film. Was nice to have the girls there, would sit out on the terrace at night just chatting. The following night my friend Mies was leaving so we went for dinner and went to a few clubs after, and on Thursday my friend Ayo was leaving so we had another dinner. The girls left on Thursday night.
On Friday night a few of us went out for dinner, see why I haven’t lost weight, and then went to a club Fuga. Saturday I went for a facial which the girls had paid for and Saturday night we went to see Aerosmith in the Palace Grounds of Bangalore, was pretty cool.
Off to Sri Lanka next Saturday to renew my visa, do some work
and a little travelling. In the last week there has been a mudslide and some killings, I think the driver would be very scared.
Not much planned this week.
Lots of Love
Kate
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anonymous
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""In the last week there has been a mudslide and some killings, I think the driver would be very scared."" Great last sentence! Dont worry mummy Hall!