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Published: September 17th 2009
Ooty is quite unlike any other Indian town that I have visited. I think the reason for this is that it was, from its origin, a European town. Its founder, John Sullivan - I am staying in a hotel named after him, Sullivan's Court - bought up all the land (dirt cheap of course, roughly the same terms as when Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan) and from the beginning European style houses were erected. Many of them look vaguely Swiss, although it may just be that I have Swizerland on my mimd because of the story about the woman the elephants killed.
There is relatively little traffic here even through the centre of the town, which is known as Charing Cross. I couldn't see either a railway station or a cross there, though, but there is a niineteenth century painted fountain, pretty rather than beautiful, commemorating a former Governor of Madras and named Adam's Fountain after him. The main shopping road leads into Charing Cross and is known as Commercial Road. I don't know if it's named after London's Commercial Road in the East End, but if it is the irony is that the two roads are now resembling each other
more and more, as the one becomes Indianised and the other more Westernised.
I visited St Stephen's Church which is a short walk up a hill from Charing Cross. It has a pleasant whitewashed exterior and a quite beautiful interior. The roof is especially good and was made from teak wood brought from Tippoo Sultan's palace at Srirangapatna. The wood was hauled all the way by elephants. I looked at the plaques around the walls commemorating causes of death. Fewer than usual refered to those who died in battle but I noticed someone had died of "jungle fever" not far from here.
I think this church is still Church of England and right opposite it stands another church, almost as old - over 150 years old - which is regulated by the Church of South India and known as the Holy Trinity Church. I wonder if, in the old days, native Indians went to this church and sahibs and memsahibs to St Stephen's.
I was quite relieved when I found out that "CSI" stood for Church of South India. I thought it had something to do with the television programme.
Ooty is certainly not short of
churches and, returning down the hill to the centre, I passed the Union Church (Methodist, I think) which was nicely painted in a light shade of pastel green. From the outside. this looked the most attractive and it also seemed to be the most active.
Later I went back up past St Stephen's intending to visit the Government Museum. Unfortunately, it was closed for renovations, though a kindly curator did take me round a couple of rooms and describe the visible exhibits. Luckily, though, I remembered having passed a sign on the way saying "Bee Museum", so I decided to give that a go. I have no particular interest in bees or honey (apart from its general yumminess) but I found it very interesting indeed.
I hadn't realised but tribal people (largely Kurumbas) from around this area and in other parts of Tamil Nadu make their living by hunting for honey. They are not beekeepers but go out to take the honey from hives of wild bees. Most of the honey comes from the Giant Honey Bees' hives. These bees are so dangerous that even two stings from one could prove fatal to a man (who wasn't allergic
to bee stings). Their hives are always very inaccessible and the Kurumbas have to lower themselves on ropes made from jungle strands and use equipment that they make themselves from bamboo and wood to get close to them. The museum explained the whole dangerous procedure which is guided by ritual. The hunters purify themselves and refrain from food before hunting, they are accompanied by their brother in laws (a trusty comrade is a necessity) and sing songs to calm the bees as they approach. One such song did not sound all that calming to me. Its words were to the effect that the hunter would either get some honey or his wife would be a widow.
The museum had exhibits showing all kinds of bees. I was quite pleased to discover there was a stingless bee, until I found out that instead of stinging it bites!
There were lots of interesting facts about bees dotted around - it would only take 25 grams of honey (less than an ounce) to give a honey bee enough fuel to fly around the world. Thinking about it now, that doesn't sound so impressive as it did in the museum. How much
do honey bees weigh themselves? If you scaled this to jumbo jet size, I wonder what it would come to.
After touring the museum, there is a tasting session where you can sample lots of different kinds of honey. I was intrigued by the Bitter Honey. This comes from bees that have been getting pollen from coffee plants and it actually has a pleasant coffee flavour at first before the bitter aftertaste. There were also many other flavours of honey, cardamon, pepper (which I didn't like) and ginger (which was, perhaps, a little too gingery.
They had a shop, and it was hard to resist buying some honey. I just managed it, but ended up buying some candies and coffee instead. Coffee and tea are both grown locally. I didn't ask if there was a tea flavoured honey from bees who visited tea plantations, but I daresay there is. They also sold a sort of trubal flute that you didn't blow into but just whirled round and round. It was very interesting but I stoutly resisted the temptation.
I had originally planned to stay in Ooty for just one day but I liked it so much that
I decided to stay on, even though time is now getting short before I have to fly back.
Next morning I went to the Rose Garden first of all. This is actually right near my hotel. Infact, the ticket office is just 100 yards or so away. But in a typically Indian way the actual entrance to the garden was about a quarter of a mile further on, up a hill. The path upwards was lined with great trees on either side, with delicate violet flowers visible through the leaves of the trees. The Rose Garded was opened in 1995 to commemorate the centenary of the Ooty flower show. They claim to have over 3,000 varieties of roses there.
The garden is laid out beautifully and it is clear that a lot of thought went into its design. Even the flagstones are decorated with roses and there is a nice pergola called the Nila Maadam from which you can see the whole of the park, which is built on the slopes of the hill with the entrance at the highest spot. There are also some interesting statues and pools and arches dotted throughout the grounds.
I was
glad that I had changed my camera's memory card (goodness, I must have taken over 1,500 pictures so far!) the day before as I couldn't resist trying to photograph many of the beautiful roses. Unfortunately, their natural beauty did not translate well when I tried to photograph it.
The roses had many interesting names. Some sounded beautiful: Perfect Moment, Blessings, Morning Sun, Our Love, Lady of the Skies, Happy Days etc. But I had my doubts about some of them: Bad Fussing and Mascara, for example. I wasn't sure if some of the names were correctly transcribed. There was a Point de Avingon and a Tornville and Dean. And I thought the rose labelled as Colour Purst might really have been Colour Burst. In any case many of the roses were not labelled at all and I often saw the same variety more than once. I'm not sure how they decided on the "more than 3,000" total, but I think they may have double counted.
There was a very beautiful pink rose called Dana and a light peach coloured one called Lapa Jodie. Another similar rose that I liked was called Jodie. I noticed that neither Margaret Thatcher,
nor Indira, nor Nancy Reagan was in flower.
A dramatically yellow Golden Times caught my eye as did an unlabelled rose delicately variagated in white and pink and another in a beautifully creamy colour. The trouble is that as soon as had enjoyed one rose your eye fell on another and the impression of the earlier roses was eclipsed, not necessarily because of greater beauty but because of sufficien beauty coupled with novelty. I could not stand there looking at one flower, no matter how great its beauty, admiring it, but must move on and see the others.
Only a few roses had names that sounded Indian - Balwani and Mahadini, for example (and Indira, of course) - but no information was provided on the provenance or natural habitat of any of them.
There was an interesting explanation of the Language of Roses. A red rose means "I love you". That's fair enough. But I'm not sure that recipient of a Japan Rose (whatever that is - I didn't see any labelled as such in the garden) would be pleased to know that the donor felt of her that "beauty is your only attraction". Or maybe she
would.
The rose garden was a beautiful place. Not all were in bloom, apparently the best time of year to see it is in July. The roses were isolated beauties against a pleasant background. I could not smell their scent.
After this visit I went to Ooty Lake, but before going to the shore I opted to continue the horticultural theme by visiting the Thread Garden. I had read about this in the book - it is a garden where all the plants have been woven by hand out of thread - not even a needle has been used. I'm afraid I found it interesting merely because of the inherent difficulty of such an achievement. The artificial plants are laid out in long parallel rows and only one of them is labelled. I asked an attendant about the absence of labelling. His response was "Oh, there are over 150 flowers here. We don't know what all they are!"
The one labelled plant is something called Strobilanthus that apparently grows only near Ooty and blossoms only once in every twelve years. I can see it would be something to see the flower itself on that rare occasion. But
seeing the simulacrum in thread did nothing for me.
It was a great achievement though. Fifty artists toiled for twelve years using only thread, copper wires and their bare hands to create it. Only natural colours were used. But surely the point of flowers is their impermanence. The roses I had admired would fade and die. These would continue (for ever, according to the attendant, but to my eyes they were already fading) never changing, never growing. This wasn't art, so far as I could see, but no different to the photographs I had taken, albeit in three dimension. The originator of the idea, Anthony Jacob from Kerala, claims they have four dimensions, I suppose that's their unchangingness.
After that visit I walked down to the lakeside (there's a small entrance fee) and admired the views. I sat down on the grass and read my book and had a bit of a picnic.
I've now finished The Moor's Last Sigh and think it's much better than Midnight's Children. The ending is superb.
Outside the boat club, I took advantage of an offer of horseriding. I'd never ridden a horse before but they gave me a small
horse or pony called either Blackie or Birthday Girl who was very docile and easy to manage. I don't mean to say that I am in doubt as to the horse's name. She went by both names. South Indians seem to have a need to multiply, change and abbreviate names so that the same thing or place can have many names. I understand this in cases where the names emphasises a particular aspect. Parvati is a goodess as loving wife and mother, but the same goddess becomes Durga or Kali in her martial and vengeful aspects. If Blackie were called Blackie throughout the year and Birthday Girl on her birthday (15 January) I would understand it. But using both names all the time puzzles me.
The horse wasn't black, by the way, but brown. She did have a black mane. I suggested Brown Bess just in case they might need another name.
I rode all the way around the lake on Blackie / Birthday Girl, which took about an hour. The lake is an artificial one and used to be larger still. The groom explained to me how to use the reins to steer the horse and as
a brake. He also explained that I could accelerate by pressing my heels into the horse, but I didn't want to do that.
He walked and sometimes ran behind Blackie / Birthday Girl as we ambled around the lake. The scenery was glorious and it was nice to see things from a different angle. I found it much more comfortable than either elephants or camels and was really happy at being able to steer it myself. When the roads branched I managed to get Blackie / Birthday Girl to take the correct route. Once she started to jog a bit too quickly (surprisingly enough this was going up a hilll) and the groom yelled to me to stop her and I did. Sometimes, though, the groom did have to correct her movement. Dismounting was easier than getting on.
At the lakeside I had seen an advertisement for a Tea Museum. The extra day in Ooty means that I won't be able to visit Munnar, so this seemed like a good idea and I got a taxi there.
It is actually a working tea factory as well as a museum. As soon as I entered I could smell
the strong smell of tea. I saw green leaves being heated up and then tunnelled down a shute to the lower floor by a worker. There were a series of placards explaining both the history of tea and the way in which it is made.
After reading these I walked through the rest of the factory downstairs where I could see all of the different machines clearly labelled. At the end of the tour I got a free cup of tea (chai, actually) which was worth the entrance fee in itself. Then there was a shop selling tea.
After leaving the museum a thought struck me. I had now been to the Bee Museum and the Tea Museum in Ooty. Two of the letters of the alphabet. And if the Government Museum wasn't reopened after renovation it could be the X Museum. I started to wonder if Ooty could attract more tourists by alphabetising its museums.
A is actually a difficult letter, so I'll come back to it.
B is easy - they already have an excellent Bee Museum.
C - the Sea Museum. A maritime museum and one specialising in trade routes to India and how
patterns of trade affect culture. It could have a big section devoted to the Cutty Sark and tea clippers.
D - a museum explaining the Scottish connection with India and the colonies generally, specialising in people from Aberdeen and Deeside generally. Lots of the men here, for example wear dhotis with patterns similar to Scots tartan.
E - the E Museum would cover the most recent e-technology. This will tie up well with the work done in Bangalore and Hyderabad and the connections with Microsoft and Infosys will be very useful.
F - the F*** museum will be a museum of euphemisms and swearing and, by extension, banned books and works of art. At the moment, for example, there could be a large exhibit about Jaswant Singh's new book, Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence.
G - this would be a museum dedicated to horses and equestrianism. This will tie up well with the horseriding around Ooty and the local racecourse.
H - another problem letter, which will be considered with A
I - the I Museum will be dedicated to the organ of sight and to vision generally
J - the J Museum will be a museum of birds, covering
Hotel advert
I just liked the wording!all birds but with special emphasis on the Jay family. It would consider birds in he wild. Domesticated birds will be exhibited elsewhere.
K - a museum of gold and silver artifacts, always showing the number of karats (k)
L - a museum of the afterlife. Not just Hell but also Heaven as considered in all world religions.
M - The M Museum would be dedicated to stuttering and to famous stutterers. It would have exhibits explaining why people stutter and how the condition can be cured or ameliorated. Famous stutterers would include Moses and Ronnie Barker's character from Open All Hours.
N - this would be dedicated to poultry, hens and roosters and also other birds. It would be differentiated from the J Museum by concentrating on the domestic, economic and culinary aspects of the birds.
O - this museum would be dedicated to musicals - Hollywood, Bollywood, sage musicals, films in Telugu and Tamil and called Oh Museum! on the model of Oh Calcutta!
P - the P Museum would be dedicated to human urination and defecation and would include exhibits about sanitary matters, sewers etc. It wouldbe interesting to have an exhibit comparing toilets around the world
The Thread Garden
The prize exhibit and through the course of time.
Q - this museum would concentrate on crowd management and the problems of fair allocation of resources. Americans could call it the Line Museum if they prefer.
R - dedicated to piracy and pirates.
S - herpetology and hissing serpents
T - they already have a Tea Museum
U - this would be a great mega-museum complex which would incorporate the letters V and W which are merely variants of "U". It would be dedicated to a complete explanantion of human biology and psychology - what YOU are really like
V - part of the U Museum
W - part of the U Museum
X - either used as a depositary for unused exhibits, the Ex Museum, or dedicated to mysterious phenomena, like the X Files
Y - the Y Museum would be a museum of museums, explaining just why we need museums and how useful they are. There could be agreat display of exhibits on loan from other museums and of copies of world wide exhibits, so that people here would not need to visit London to see the Rosetta Stone etc.
Z - problematic as Zed, so I would use the US
Thread Garden
These were at the end and hadn't been exposed to as much light variant of Zee and make this Zee Museum, a museum of the French influence in India.
That just leaves A and H and I thought we could either have the AH Museum which would exhibit cute babies, pussy cats, young penguins and anything else cute enough to evoke an "ah" from people. It would go on to explain just what characteristics produce this response and why the response has evolved in humans. Alternatively the HA Museum would be a museum of world humour and of Indian humour in particular.
I think that would work and would make Ooty more marketable as a tourist destination. It could be known as the town with the A to Z of museums. It already has Bee and Tea so I think it should go for it.
It's also interesting how many things that we thing of as quintessentially English are actually Indian in origin. Rupert Brookes famously asked: "Stands the Church clock at ten to three? / And is there honey still for tea?" The honey and the tea may both well have come from here - and Indian clocks are not known for their reliability.
After my visit to
the Tea Museum I returned to my hotel and checked out in good time to be at the local station by 3pm to catch the train to Mettupalayam. In this case the journey was more important than the destination. I didn't particularly want to visit Mettupalayam but I did want to travel on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway by steam train. Because the gradient of the hillside is so steep ( as much as one inch to a foot in places) the trains use a rack system to prevent their losing friction with the rails for part of the journey. As this system is not compatible with more modern trains, only steam trains can be used for this part. To prevent the train running away, the engine is at the front when going down and at the back, pushing, when going up! Interestingly enough, it was the tea trade that made it essential to construct a railway in this very challenging landscape. They had to get the tea down safely!
I had a first class seat and three other people shared the compartment, which was at the rear of the train, with me. There was certainly a lot of space
compared to other Indian trains I have been on.
We started dead on time at three o'clock and the train was sent off with the waving of a green flag and a cheery blow on a whistle. Surprisingly we went upwards at first to Lovedale station ( many of the the stations have names resonant of Olde Englande - Lovedale, Wellington, Runneymede, Hillgrove and Adderley) but after that it was downhill all the way. It didn't feel dangerous at all. I had imagined something resembling a roller coaster, but the train proceeded at a sedate pace and the slope was noticeable but not worrisome. The average speed of the train, in fact, was just under 8 mph. The journey is 29 miles in length and took the train three hours and forty minutes to complete, arriving in Mettupalayam at twenty to seven.
This part of the journey was by diesel train but even so whenever we went into one of the short tunnels along the route the sound was amazing. It was like demons arguing in Pandaemonium.
We soon reached Coonoor, the second largest town on the hills. I was surprised at first when we started going
backwards but this was just part of teh procedure to put the steam engine on. I would have liked to have got out of the train at this point so as to see and photograph the engine, but no-one was sure how long the train would be stopping for.
We carried on downwards and I could feel the slope increasing. The track follows the crest of the hills for some time and then goes down the slopes, so there is almost always something interesting to see from the windows.
The view started to become more dramatic and I could feel the jerking of the train caused by the rack system. We passed an ammunition factory where photography was strictly forbidden, but apart frrom that I was taking a photo almost every other minute, so picturesque were the surroundings as we descended through the low monsoon clouds.
We passed by the Glendale Tea Plantation, which is one of the largest in the area and I saw workers in the field collecting tea.
As we got lower down and I looked up, the rows of trees at the top of the hills looked like tiny models.
At
Hillgrove Station, I think, there were wildernesses of monkeys. They came up to the carriages hoping to be thrown pieces of fruit and happily gambolled about on the railway tracks.
Now I could see forested slopes high up on both sides of the train and far off through the mist another longer hill. The train squeaked forward, slowly and loudly.
Out of the right hand windows we could se the sun set down below the hills.
We went through a station called Kallar and the compartment filled with a strange and unpleasant smell which quickly dissipated.
The chug chug chug of the train was sounding like drumbeats by now and there was a loud whistle echoed by lowing cattle as we pulled into Mettupalayam. It was dark as I descended from the train and there was no opportunity to take more pictures but I quickly found Rangam and we drove to my hotel. The train had taken nearly three and three quarters of an hour to travel from Ooty to Mettupalayam. He had done the same journey by car in less than two hours, but I'm sure that my journey was the more enjoyable.
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Vishal
non-member comment
The Train Ride
Hi Steve, I have experienced the Train ride and loved it. Ooty though was a disappointment for me as It is now overgrown and lost its Hill Station charm. Remember it from my first trip 25 Years ago and it was amazing then less people, less development and lots of Peace and Quiet. Have a Great trip. Vishal Mehra www.askindiaexpert.com