Ooty Hill Town

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Ooty, not exactly an easy place to get too. Caught the 5 a.m. train out of Trichy to Coimbatore, then a bus to Mettapulayam for the night. Went to buy our tickets for the steam train, but was sold out. Shit!! Had amazing dinner at this little hole in the wall place; I say this all the time! Excellent tandoor chicken!
Anyways were up and at the train station at 0520 hrs to stand in line for last minute tickets. Got lucky, and got seats, even a window seat, however was on wrong side of most of the views. It took 7 hrs to climb the hill to Ooty. A very cool trip, as how often do you ride a steam train from 1857!!. It had to stop frequently to re-stock coal, yes coal, and to clean out the oven. Once again very cool, however after 7 hrs, was done.
Ooty, a hill station town, famous for its chocolate, who would have thought. Was excellent as well. Only a night here. There are some great hikes here but we are time crunched to meet up with friends, so onwards. Took bus down hill, that was an adventure finding the right bus, then connecting bus on to Coimbatore. Made our train by an hour, which is very close when in India!!

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Photos

Ooty
one of the bridges we crossed

Ooty
The engine

Ooty
Sun rising as we started out

Ooty
Jo

Ooty
Views from the top

Ooty
Going thru a town

Ooty
River view leaving town

Ooty
another

Ooty
Our train cars

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7 hrs of train and Jo sleeping!

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Snake skin I found on side of train tracks.

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Argh!

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Jo always has puppy cookies! Skinny little mongrels.

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I have a few photos like this, always seem to be a train conductors hat!! They should not leave this stuff lying around.

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The road down from Ooty