OOTY our stay in the hills

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(b) 25/11/02 (day 70 )(/b)
Woken at 05:00 by teh mosque calling people to prayer over loud dpeakers! Quite eerie really. To breakfast for 07:00- finished by 07:20 and waited for the bus for 45 minutes . Got on bus- apart from a french lad (Nicholas) - who'm we've seen in hospet and bangalore and mysore!! Sat at the front with plent of leg room- thought it was too good to be true and sure enough it was!! Lasted for all of 10 minutes before we were asked to get on a different bus and quelle surprise....... only the back seat was free!! So 5 of us and several bags sat on the back seat of a mini bus!!
Drove through bandipur wildlife park and saw spotted dder and elephants- although they were in a hospital compound. Views magnificent on the way to ooty- waterfalls/ mountains/ tea plantations. Drive up teh mountain to ooty was hair raising( over 35 hair pin bends) up 2500 metres. Travel sickness tablets should have been taken!
Eventually got there and us and nicholas booked into Reflections guest house which is basically like a shared house! You have a dining room/ lounge and order homemade food. Our room is large and clean. Had lunch and went into Ooty, althoughthere is bandh (strike) on today to support tea pickers who earn rs 4 / kilo of tea- outrageous. Nothing was open, but it seems interesting enough- very quaint. No intenet places open, which probably isn't a bad thing! Back to hotel- have ordered our meal for tonite (yum yum!) Sat in living room (brought a tv in for us!) and waited for our home cooked fayre! 6 of us (3 english, us and nicholas sat around the "dining room table"- we could have been in England. I had the yummiest chicken casserole adn Bri had a veg casserole. Bri proclaimed "it's like being at your mums!" Had 2 flasks of chai and homemade cookies and watched pet detective! on tv. Went to sleep in my sleeping bag, with a blanket and quilt on top- bloody freezing!!
(b) 26/11/02 (/b)
Woken at 06:00 by a siren, which sounded like an air raid siren from the war!! We have hot water today, after bri reattatched the plug socket to the wall!!! Hooray for hot water!! Had brekkie, which was nice adn headed off to the boating lake, where Bri demonstrated why he should be in the olympic rowing team!! Initially the "oars were crap!" however miraculously after a short time they started working !! Lots of indian people on the lake having a quiet reflective time...... not! We then pratook in the favourite past time of travellers- trying to book a ticket , so you can travel!! We want to go to mangalore but we don't want to spend 14 and a half hours getting there on a bus! with a 3 hours stop in mysore, therefore off we go to mysore again on friday!!
Going to try and stay in Parklane hotel... where the yummy restaraunt is. We then went for dinner at "hot breads" , where infact we got warm bread, which was an achievement seeing there was a power cut! We both had very tasty footlongs. We then went to the botanical gardens, which was a very well kept garden, however had lots of tacky features in it... like plastic crocodiles in the water feature and plastic deers/ peacocks dotted around!! Then tried to find an email that was working- 2 cafes later we found an okay one, providing you didn't want to do much on it!! Left to return to the hotel at 16:30. Very wierd weather; hot sun, but we both felt cold. The locals had sweaters / scarfes and bobble hats on!
Had evening meal- cheese macaroni at our guest house. Chatted to a scottish/ new zealand couple for a while and watched the 21:00 movie about submarines and war! very boring! To bed at 22:30 - knackered!
(b) 27/11/02 (day 72) (/b)
Up at 07:45 to turn the hot water on!! Had brekkie before heading off on a trek; there were 4 of us on it; us, nicholas and a german guy. Packed lunches had been made for us (aah how cute! packet of biscuits (milk maid) , chocolate bar, banana, egg and cheese sarnies, water!)
Our guide for the day was anthony- he informed us we were going 20km (ha ha does he know we have been sat on rickshaws for past 10 weeks!!) Got a bus for 5km, then it was our legs for transport! We firstly walked through a forest, which had many eucalyptus trees in it (if you rub the new leaves together it smells of vicks vapour!) also waw some poisonous mushroom (good job we weren't collecting mushrooms on the onny trail!) There were also alot of pine trees. We rested for a while near a toda village (fascinating culture- pure vegetarians) that see the buffalo as sacred; they only kill 1 if there is a human death to accompany them to their resting place. At 14/15 (girl) , they go to live with the family of the boy they are planned to marry. They only marry when the girl conceives- how liberal is that! Went into a "shed" covered with eucalyptus leaves to see how the oil is extracted. I then nearly decked it in a river! Crossed the stepping stones with too much vigour! We rested for a while and sat near a village, where the men were actually working- sorting out and washing carrots! The view where we ate lunch was superb and we saw many toda women- very friendly / smiley race. On the way back to the tea plantations we saw black languar monkeys (bloody huge- but luckily they were more scared of us!) The tea plantations are pretty cool- all the plants are set on terraces. We saw men picking the leaves. Apparently every 15 days there are new leaves to be picked. 4kg of leaves = 1kg tea- no wonder tetleys costs us so bloody much! We then did our last bit of walking before resting on top of the long mynd(!) Lots of sheep! We tehn had an emergency rescue moment!! A swarm of bees made a beeline for us. There were 100s- luckily we were all sat - me and bri lay on the floor with our jumpers over our heads! The german bloke sat up taking photos(bloody hard or what!!) Thankfully they passed over us without stinging!
We then got a local bus back to ooty- saw some filming on the road side! Back to room and had hot chockie! Meal was a bit poor (chicken tikka) but ne'er mind, it can't be good all of the time!
It was carol singing tonite! the schools break up on december 1st (lucky buggers) and they have to have finished their xmas programme by the time school ends! The "tourists " were invited, however we preferred beer and cake!!! Sat chatting to a mancunian-john voer a couple of beers before hitting the sack!
(b) 28/11/02(/b)
Had a shit nights sleep- so woke slightly tired. Ready for trek number 2! Five us of today- us/ two frenchmen.... that were like mountain goats and John . It took 2 buses to get to "glenmorgan" where we started the trek. The land/ forest is only open to tourist who are with government trained guide so we were one of the lucky few......... There were lot of "natural " forestation and alot less planted trees(ie accacia and eucalyptus) The initial landscape was "rolling hills" - reminded us of wales/ yorkshire dales. Sat at yet another beautiful spot for lunch prior to this we had stream jumping- John and I lost! After lunch we set off more into the forest- they call it a rainforest; moss on all of the trees. Tigers are apparently in these forests...... so we were all keen to see one, although not close up! None were seen but we saw skeletons of animals that looked like they had, had a run in with them! We thought we saw claw marks on trees, but that could have been our vivid imaginations!! Stopped for a breather near a dam where water buffalos were also stopped- seemed quite curious of us! We then climbed a hill to see the most amazing view - looked off the edge of the nilgiris plateau- never been this far up. We also walked through terraces of crops being grown (potato, carrot, oat, cabbage) Visited a family where we filled up our aqua pure with natural spring water. Visited a toda house and drank water buffalo butter milk( like a sour youghurt)- but pleasant. We then had to walk down the hills and true to form I decked it in a load of bright orange clay!! fantastic!!- rajiv presented me with a long stick to help me with my balance (mm wasn't particularly convinced and descended like a 70 year old!!) Once down the views were fab; walked through lots of tea plantations and saw lots of tea pickers. Ended up missing our bus- probably due to me! So sat in an chai shop for half an hour which was interesting! Saw a kingfisher . Had to do another walk as a bus had broken down on a hill and our bus couldn't get down (3km). Eventually got the bus frozen but felt I had achieved something. Lots more interesting and demanding than yesterday. FAB! Got back and had hot choccie and casserole (yummy) .Sat and watched tv- chatted to the french men and retired to our cold room!

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