Ooty, Ooty, Ooty -- Isn't that fun to say?

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  Ooty, India
Sunday, February 12, 2006

After spending many days in the vast flat areas of India, we headed to the hills for a little of the cool mountain air. Our destination -- Ooty (also known as Udhagamandalam, but for understandable reasons no one actually calls it that) in the state of Tamil Nadu. Besides being the summer capital for the British government in Madras, Ooty has always intrigued us because it has such a funny name. We were thrilled to discover that the town is more than just a name, attracting both Indian tourists as well as westerners. But it is still fun to say; Ooty, Ooty, Ooty...

To get to Ooty we hired a car for the five hour drive from Mysore at the very reasonable price of 1500 rupees (nearly a thousand rupees less than the quote from our hotel, by the way). The drive took us through tea plantations, around hairpin turns up to an elevation of about 1800 meters. The driver was very cautious and gentle with his car, slowing nearly to stop before gently rolling over the numerous potholes

01 Mudumalai Deer

. While it's nice not to be bashed around in the back of a car, it's maddening to drive at 5 miles an hour as buses and motorcycles zoom around you, horns blaring (especially when you have to pee).

The drive gave us some fantanstic views, but the highlights were found as we drove through Mudumalai National Park, which is about halfway between Mysore and Ooty. As soon as we entered the park grounds we spotted a pair of Cheetal Deer munching away on the roadside grass. Being the city slickers we are, we told the driver to pull over and took some photos (or "snaps" as they are called here). We then drove on, only to find dozens of deer further up the road. Moving a little further we saw a few tame elephants, wild peacocks, and a new type of monkey for us called a langur monkey. The langur has a dark coat and a white face and is a bit larger than the standard "temple monkey" which we see everywhere. Who would think you would get to the point of saying, "oh look, another monkey. neat."

About a kilometer past the park headquarters we had our best sighting. The driver pointed straight out of the front windshield, down the road, and shouted "Tiger!" We scrambled forwards in our seats and looked out and indeed about 50 meters up the road, a tiger was nonchalantly crossing the road

02 Tame Elephant

. We were all stunned, driver included, because seeing a tiger in India, even if you go on some serious national park trekking, is an extremely rare event. To see it cross the road in front of your car, as you are just passing through, seems incredible. We were particularly thrilled given our sorry history of wildlife expeditions, which we have discussed earlier. The tiger sighting was a highlight of India and of our entire trip.

Once in Ooty we checked into a homey place called the Reflections Guesthouse. A nice feature of the guesthouse is the local guide named Anthony they work with to run treks through the surrounding hills. We signed up for one and the following morning set out with a nice group of people to see the sights. Throughout the 7 hour, 12K hike we passed through tea plantations, high plains, scrub forests, and hilltribe villages. The kids in the villages all loved to see themselves on our digital cameras so much that Matt had to finally claim the camera was broken in order to escape their clutches. More hiking brought us to a high ridge with stunning view of the surrounding planations and forests. Matt had his binoculars out and was scanning the forest for glimpses of wild elephants or tiger. But lightening did not strike twice. Can't complain.

We ended the day with a dinner out with two other couples we met on the trek; Fran and Seren from the UK (we make sure to say the UK because Seren is from Wales, so you can't say they are English - as we finally got straight) and Tyler and Mairi from Toronto, who were on their own seven month long round the world trip. Great fun which we ended by us all piling, local style, into one tiny autorickshaw. A photo of the ridiculous event will be coming as soon as we get it sent to us (ahem, attention Fran and Seren; Mairie and Tyler). Mutual invitations to visit were passed all around so we expect to have some visitors just as soon as we have a home for people to visit.

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03 Peacock	04 Traffic Jam	05 Festival	06 Tea plantation
07 Hilltribe Kids	08 Mountain Matt	08 Mountaintop	09 Mountain Kristy

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