So it is almost time for me to make the big trip back to India and I haven’t even finished telling you all about what happened before I left. Its official I am a bad blogger! Totally out of date! Anyway to try and rectify the situation here is a brief run-down of how I spent my last week in India before returning to our English summer. Where I left off Lucy and I were having an excellent and very relaxed time doing very little apart from enjoying the pace of life in rural India and each other’s company.
To be honest that is what we did spend a lot of the time doing looking back on it. On a couple of occasions we had to break from the self-imposed chill out to do something entertaining or practical but we tried to keep this at a minimum.
In order for me to actually leave the country however there was at least one very practical thing which we could not get away without doing and that was travelling up to Ooty to apply for and collect my visa exit permit! Ooty as I have told you all before is our nearest hill station up in the blue mountains. Full of slightly decaying imperial Englishness, coach parties of Indian tourists and more than a few dead rats. When I first went to Ooty I thought it was awful, massively over hyped by the guide books and generally more than a bit unpleasant. As a town it is a bit of a crumbling mass of concrete buildings with very little in the way of architectural merit. Doubtless the surrounding scenery and countryside is stunning but so is a lot of the region and I never felt that Ooty itself was much of a draw. My opinion I must say has changed. In between the nondescript concrete buildings I now notice more of the eccentric old and higgledy piggledy brick building with their warped and wobbly tiled roofs. I like the slightly hyped up over excitement of the Indian holiday makers, as long as it’s not high season obviously that is just too extreme. I like the obvious pride that Ooty takes in its little gems of tourist attractions, the bee museum, the massive botanical gardens, the charming little mountain railway on which you can tootle along to Cooinoor, the next hillstation on the line.
I am sure that some of my affection for Ooty is related to the fact that compared to my little back-of –beyond adopted Indian home town you can get a lot more creature comforts and exotic food, for example good quality chocolate and western style cheese. Not something one bothers about when you have only been in India a few weeks but I must admit after five months I was rather excited to sit in Café Coffee Day, a large Indian chain of coffee shops and drink Choccacino while polishing off some very sweet snacks (as me and Lucy did on a number of occasions).
The main thing to mention about Ooty apart from the chocolate is that it is cold. Really blimmin cold. As the bus climbs up the mountains towards its destination you find yourself slowly layering on more and more woollens. This creates a very amusing branch of Indian fashion which I like to refer to as the Ooty look. Many layers of chunky knit wool, waterproofs in rainy season, the obligatory umbrella topped off with some variety of slightly mismatched head wear, preferably slightly comedy earmuffs or a sort of woollen bonnet specific to the region! I love it.
On our trips to Ooty we did I feel make the most of it, we went to the bee museum (highly recommended), the botanical gardens (where we were photographed by a large number of over excited Indian holidaymakers) and even took a trip on the mountain railway. We only went as far as Cooinoor but it was lovely. We stayed in the YWCA which although run by slightly intimidating people (long story) is certainly clean and comfy and joy of joy had hot water! After months of cold water washing I ran myself a bucket of water to wash in that was so hot I ended up clean but looking very similar to cooked lobster.
All in all our adventures to Ooty were rather lovely in a cold and damp way, a little bit of proper old fashioned tourist fun. Slightly reminiscent of the faded glamour of the average little forgotten English sea side town but with crazy Indian over the top ness for added effect.
This little reminiscence is all I have time for now which is a shame because I wanted to tell you about the elephant ride. Ah well perhaps another time but until then much love and ever yours sincerely,
A x
So to make up for the lack of telling you all about my wonderful elephant ride, here are some pictures!
Getting "on board"
Prime position
Enjoying the view from the Ooty toy train.
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