Beanies, drizzle and eucalypts.....is this india?

Up at 4:30 in the morning to get the train from combitore which connects with the steam engine in mettapulayam. The 40km narrow gauge journey took a quaint 5 1/2 house, too misty for views, but the mini-train is very unique and one doesn't feel in a hurry.

eucalypt forest

Spent two nights and three days in this hill-station town....blissfully cool, actually pulled out the woolies. Took a local bus out of town to Dodobetta, highest peak in southern india (Ooty is over 2,000m)... a 3km walk up to the top from where the bus dropped us off. Lots of indian tourists around, had to pose for a couple of photos...Mark tried to pick up a little bub, but he screamed, all the way through the photo...as we walked off up the hill the poor little fella was still whimpering, mark turning aorund and sent him into another spasm of screaming; not so cool. Walked the 8km back to Ooty, took a shortcut through stands of eucalypts and wattle, no noise, rubbish, cows, rickshaws and a very Australian setting; quite bizzare, but india often is. Great walk, punctuated by plenty of snack stops (of course)...

little steam engine that could

Really friendly and vibrant municipal market, had a lot of fun browsing through it on two consecutive days. Usually when one pulls out the camera, the vibe can become a little frosty, but the dudes in this market loved it, born posers... Had a nice cup of chai with a few of the boys, really good feeling overall and great produce (brussel sprouts, artichokes, coffee...)

met up with our ubiquitous travel budy, Rickard, after the market. Great to see him, only caught up briefly in Bombay, so we found a grassy spot and talked about all the great food we'd been trying (among other things). Mark got a sudden spurt of adventourousness (i know that isn't a word!) and tried some "Mitha Pan", sort of an indian style after-dinner mint. Basically it is some sweet stuff (mitha means sweet) and a mild narcotic wrapped in a Pan leaf; was pretty disguisting, Mark needed to spit it out and gargle some water...

making friends

nice to be in our sleeping bags cosy, instead of having the fan pumping, in a futile effort to stem the constant streams of sweat...

On our last morning in Ooty, met Julia, a lovely Kiwi lass, at the breakfast table and tramped around town as a foursome with Rikard. Visited the botanical gardens which were pretty tacky, had a great south indian lunch on bannana leaves (really good coconut chutney, sambar (saucey stuff that goes on the rice), lime pickle, fried/salted chillies, beetroot masala and other tid-bits, cost us about $1 Aus each).

About to get the bus to Mysore...need to catch up on some of the entries, might get the chance there....

smiles

stylin'

three stooges

turnips

unloading

vegies