Saturday, 27 February 2016

Ooty - or, More Formally, Udhagamandalam: India's Deep South Part 4

To 'Snooty Ooty' The Queen of The Hill Stations

The Road to Ooty

Karnataka

India

The mist had cleared long before we left Kabini for Udhagamandalam, formerly called Ootacamund, and generally known, even on road signs, as Ooty. We were heading south towards the apex of the Deccan Plateau. Some 600m high, the Deccan is an inverted triangle within the larger inverted triangle that is southern India. Two mountain ranges, the Eastern and Western Ghats separate the plateau from the coastal plains. At their southern tips they almost meet.

A last look at the Kabini River

We passed through agricultural country, rice, sugar cane and cotton being the predominant crops. A temple under construction caught our eye near Gundlupet. The town, with 27,000 inhabitants, was the largest of the morning.

Temple under construction near Gundlupet

We paused for lunch at a Coffee Day, a chain of smart, clean and relatively expensive coffee houses that lurk beside main roads in the places you might expect them - and in several others besides. Lynne had a cheese and chilli toastie while Thomas and I shared some vegetable samosas.

Todays journey: Kabini to Ooty

Across the Bandipur and Mudumalai National Parks

After lunch we crossed the Bandipur and Mudumalai National Parks. At the park entrances we registered and received a list of instructions including 'do not park and get out of the car.' Apparently the tigers might mistake us for a packed lunch.

In the event we saw no tigers, nor leopards nor even elephants, though we did see piles of elephant dung - when elephants do a pile they really do a pile. The only animals in sight were the inevitable monkeys and some domestic cattle.

Langur, Mudumalai National Park

We did, though encounter several jacarandas in full bloom. Easier to spot than tigers and less likely to run away they are nonetheless a spectacular sight.

Jacaranda near Gudalur

Climbing the Nilgiri Hills to Ooty

The road rises gently through the parks and had climbed to 1000m before we emerged at Gudalur. The remaining 50km to Ooty involved 36 hairpins as we climbed a further 1,200m into the Nilgiri Hills. Etiquette on hairpins in India is not the same as in Europe. Trucks and buses have to take the bends wide so come over to the right hand side of the road for a left hand bend, cars going the other way just swap over and drive past them on the right. It works fine – provided no one is undertaking on the blind bend.

Up the hairpins to Ooty

At the top we stopped to photograph where we had been….

Looking back down towards the Deccan

Tamil Nadu

….and an even higher village. The houses, built on terraces and painted in pastel colours are typical of the Nilgiri Hills. Green tea bushes covered some of the agricultural terraces, though most were brown and uncultivated; the Ooty tea industry is struggling.

Village in the Nilgiri Hills

Outside Ooty Thomas stopped at a check point. We had entered Tamil Nadu some miles back and he needed to register that he was taking a commercial vehicle from one state to another. The check point stood beside a cattle pasture with a noticeably alpine look.

'Alpine' field beside the Tamil Nadu check point

Introduction to Ooty

We soon reached Ooty. A hill station and tea production centre, though the fertile soil produces many other crops, Ooty was founded by John Sullivan in the early 19th century and soon became known as ‘Snooty Ooty’, the Queen of Hill Stations. The Club, the social centre for sahibs and memsahibs escaping the sweltering plain, may no longer be Europeans only but standards are maintained - gentlemen dress for dinner and ladies do not enter the bar. Last year we stayed in the Hill Club in Nuwara Eliya, the Sri Lankan equivalent and found it an interesting experience, but not one we needed to repeat. Why some Indians and Sri Lankans feel the need to perpetuate a British way of life the British themselves abandoned over half a century ago is a mystery.

We drove through Ooty's centre known as Charing Cross...,

Charing Cross, Ooty

….past a not very attractive hotel with an interesting name….

Weston Holiday Inn, Ooty. I think its one of the Sheratin chain

....and St Stephen’s church, built for the British community in 1830, using timbers looted from Tipu Sultan’s palace.....

St Stephen's Church, Ooty
Church of South India (an alliance of Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists)

….before reaching the colonial quarter.

Ooty, Colonial Quarter

Our guesthouse was in a British built nineteenth century house along a street which could have looked English but somehow did not.

Guesthouse, Ooty

It was a fine old building and we were given a cup of tea as we sat in the entrance hall, before being shown to our room.

A cup of tea in the hall, guesthouse, Ooty
The door in the far wall opened onto our room

The House may have been nineteenth century, but the decor, plumbing and electrics had clearly been updated – in the late 1940s or early 50s.

Our room in Ooty. The television apart nothing has changed since the 1940s

Ooty Botanical Gardens

We did little more than park our cases before driving the short distance to the Botanical Gardens.

India in flowers, Ooty Botanical Garden

Laid out by experts from Kew, the gardens were also a 19th century British creation, but one that has been well maintained and updated.

Ooty Botanical Gardens

Walking up the hillside laid out with a variety of gardens was good exercise but much easier than it would have been in the heat of Mysore or Kabini. Late afternoon in Ooty was like the end of a fine English summer’s day.

Ooty Botanical Gardens

Indian authorities love ‘do not’ signs, ineffective and sometimes counterproductive though they may be. Without the sign Lynne would not have thought of touching the hedge, but behind her back…..

Rebellious Lynne surreptitiously interferes with a hedge

And these guys cannot even read, though they would take no notice if they could.

Can't read, don't care anyway, Ooty Botanical Garden

The gardens are a popular Saturday afternoon excursion and were teeming with visitors. Sometimes in India the crowds are as colourful as the flowers.

Ooty Botanical Gardens

A Brief Drive Round Ooty

After the gardens Thomas drove us down to Ooty Lake, the drive giving us a good view up from the lower part of town. The soil and climate suit market gardening very well.

Ooty from near the Ooty Lake

The boating lake is a centre of family fun, while horse riding is popular among those who can afford it. Neither were of great interest to us as the sun started to set and the temperature seemed set to plummet. We did, though, like this stall selling palm nuts. Closely related to coconuts, these are the fruit of the palm from which toddy is tapped. We encountered toddy in both its fermented and distilled form in Myanmar while arack, a more sophisticated bottled distillation is the national drink of Sri Lanka. [And we would drink freshly tapped later in this trip see The Backwaters of Kerala]

Palm nut stall, Ooty

Finding no alternatives in the immediate surroundings we choose to eat in our guesthouse, as did the two other couples staying there. At 2,240m (7,350ft) the warmth of the day soon leaks away and the unheated dining room became uncomfortably chilly. We chose the 'non-veg platter', a variety of curries that turned out to be very good. Although the food was hot, both in temperature and spiciness, we were shivering by the time we finished. The only drink offered was water and we retreated early to our bedroom for a nightcap of Dubai Airport Duty Free.

Lynne eventually retired for the night wearing her fleece. I thought the blankets were adequate for the temperature, but did not particularly enjoy lying on a bed as hard as a door.

India's Deep South

Part 1: Bangalore to Mysore
Part 2: Mysore, Somnathpur and Srirangapatnam
Part 3: Kabini and the Nagarhole National Park
Part 4: The Road to Ooty
Part 5: The Nilgiri Blue Train to Coonoor
Part 6: Across the Palakkad Gap and up to Munnar
Part 7: Munnar - Tea, Dams and Elephants
Part 8: Madurai
Part 9: Rameswaram
Part 10: To the Very Tip of India
Part 11: The End of India and Beyond
Part 12: North to Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) and Kollam
Part 13: Ants, Mollywood and Varkala
Part 14: The Backwaters of Kerala (and some Coir)
Part 15: Marari Beach, Rest, Recreation and Refuse
Part 16: Kochi, a Second Visit

THE END

Kabini & the Nagarhole National Park: India's Deep South Part 3

A Evening River Safari and a Morning Forest Safari

26-Feb-2016

From Mysore to Kabini

Karnataka

India

It took a while to shake off Mysore and its outer suburbs, but eventually we found ourselves speeding south west across agricultural land. The main crops, rice, coconuts and bananas were interspersed with plantations of teak, eucalyptus and tamarinds. Casuarinas, huge rain trees and mangos in full bloom lined the roads and the field boundaries.

We passed through several villages, the land rising gently to the Nagarhole National Park and Tiger Reserve. We crossed a corner of the park to the Kabini River Lodge, just outside the protected area, in time for a briefing and to put our names down for an evening boat trip and a morning land safari.

Day 3 Mysuru to Kabini

Kabini River Lodge

Our room was one of half a dozen occupying a long wooden bungalow and while sitting outside with a cup of tea we were approached by a representative of the Ayurvedic Centre. I booked a full body massage for 7 o’clock that evening.

Lynne outside the 'long wooden bungalow' Kabini River Lodge

We strolled down to look at the lake. The Kabini River rises in the Western Ghats and flows eastwards to join the Kaveri, the main river of south India. The 700m wide Kabini dam was constructed in 1974 and the lake that formed behind it is 12km long as the crow flies – though it twists and turns to follow the course of the river. Perched on a bench in the shade of a kapok tree, we amused ourselves by unpacking a fallen pod. Man-made materials have reduced the use of kapok for stuffing, but it is a remarkable material. We extracted such prodigious quantity of fibre that it was hard to believe it all came from one 10cm long pod.

Underneath a kapok tree, Kabini Lake (or River), Kabini River Lodge

Deciding we could never pack it all back in, we made for the communal eating area. I am generally no great fan of buffet lunches, but for once I was impressed by the wide selection of vegetable dishes plus chicken biryani, fish curry and egg masala.

Evening 'Lake Safari', Nagarhole National Park

Later, when he heat started to wane, a crowd gathered for the safaris. Buses and jeeps lined the road and boats waited at the jetty. Kabini River Lodge is a central departure point and visitors were arriving from other lakeside lodges. Despite the apparent air of chaos and disorganisation, we approached a man holding a clipboard and he not only had our names on a list, but directed us to a particular boat, one of four, each with a dozen or more passengers.

Lynne embarks for the 'lake safari'

We pushed off roughly on time and puttered past a dead tree, obviously a favourite with the local cormorant population.

Cormorant central, Kabini Lake

We chugged down the lake for forty minutes or so without seeing much of interest. We did this trip in 2010 and knew that most of the animals were further down, inside the park, and mostly came out later in the afternoon. Seeing two women doing their laundry was the highlight until we spotted a distant pair of mongooses running along the forest edge.

Laundry in the Kabini River - the mongoose were too far away to photograph, so this will have to do

There was a lone deer…

Lone spotted deer, Nagarhole National Park

…..and a heron on a dead tree stump.

Heron, Nagarhole National Park

An Elephant and a Kingfisher

Then, somewhere near the park boundary we rounded a bend and right in front of us was a venerable tusker (although he only had one tusk) uprooting grass with his foot and rubbing it up his legs with his trunk - apparently a normal activity for elephants. The boatman stopped the engine as we paused for a stare.

One tusked elephant scratching up grass, Nagarhole National Park

After a while he restarted it and we crossed the lake to look at a pair of pied kingfishers.

Pied kingfisher, Nagarhole National Parl

Breakdown - Indian Darter, Swimming Elephant - Rescue

Then we crossed back and he stopped the engine again. I was trying to work out what we were supposed to be observing, then it slowly dawned on me that we had actually broken down. The boatman walked to the stern and used the hydraulic lift to raise the big outboard from the water. The propeller was not fouled so he lowered it again and tried restarting. The engine clearly wanted to go, but sounded starved of fuel. He changed the fuel line and tried to pump fuel through by hand, but whatever he tried the blockage remained unbreached. Eventually there was nothing to do but phone for help. I was, not for the first time, impressed by the way it is possible to get a signal in remote locations.

The thirty minute wait was not wasted. The boatman continued to tinker ineffectually with his engine while his passengers watched the one tusked elephant wade into the water and swim across the lake. I knew elephants can swim, but I had never seen it before. While their legs do a sedate doggy paddle - or rather elephant paddle - they swim just below the surface using their built-in snorkel.

As the heat abated a herd of deer came down to the water,….

A herd of deer come down to the water. Nagarhole National Park

…. while on a nearby sandbank an Indian darter was hanging out its wings to dry. Like cormorants, darters’ feathers absorb water allowing them to swim below the surface with only their necks protruding. Their unusual neck muscles make them look like rearing snakes, hence their alternative name ‘serpent bird’. From most angles, though not in my photograph, they are sinister looking birds.

An Indian darter dries its wings, Nagarhole National Park

Eventually the relief boat showed up....

The relief boat arrives.

... and we all moved across.

We all move across

Crocodile, Gaur and More Deer

We did not go far before our next halt. There on the mud was a crocodile, its mouth agape….

Crocodile, Nagarhole National Park

….while on the bank just above (the same tree stump can be seen in both photographs), sitting as relaxed as you like, was a gaur, the Indian bison and the largest bovine still in existence.

Gaur, Nagarhole National Park

As we left the gaur we entered the hour before sunset when all the animals come to the water’s edge.

We saw a herd of spotted deer….

Spotted deer, Nagarhole National Park

….several of the larger sambar deer and a few wild pigs…

Sambar deer (left), spotted deer (right) and wild pigs (behind) Nagarhole National Park

… and a whole herd of gaur and, in quieter areas, more elephant.

Gaur - and a few spotted deer, Nagarhole National Park

Back to the Lodge for an Ayurvedic Massage, Gin and Dinner

We made our way back to the lodge arriving just as the sun was setting.

Sunset on Kabini Lake

There were a few fishermen out in their coracles – I am not convinced I would back their flimsy craft against a crocodile.

Coracle fishermen, Kabini Lake

By the time we had disembarked I had to set off for my massage. A film about local wildlife was starting in the clubhouse at 7.45 and if the massage took an hour we would miss the first 15 minutes, but that seemed no great loss.

At the Ayurvedic Centre the proceedings were similar to those I experienced in Sri Lanka, except the Indian way is to provide a loose cotton g-string, more for show than to cover modesty, but it is not a good look for a man of my build. I sat on a chair for a back and shoulders massage then lay on the slippery, oily wooden bed for the body massage. For 45 relaxing minutes I was rubbed from head to foot in warm oil. When that was over I had a steam bath and finally, unlike in Sri Lankan, I was offered a shower before putting my clothes back on, not that soap and water did much to remove the oil.

Lynne was a little miffed when I returned at 8.20 rather than the promised 8 o'clock. 'We've missed the film, ' she said. 'But at least I smell lovely,' I countered. She had a sniff. I expected her to say something about sandalwood and cinnamon but instead she said 'smells like cooking oil to me.' We may have missed the film, but were in time for the bar where we had a gin and tonic and a chat with four other survivors of the broken down boat, an American IT entrepreneur and the thirty-something senior managers of his Indian company who were on a 'bonding trip’. Then we went to the canteen for a different but equally good buffet.

Gecko on the wall at Kabini Lodge - These little fellows work tirelessly to keep the insect population down

27-Feb-2016

Morning Land Safari, Nagarhole National Park & Tiger Reserve

We were awake before the 5.45 knock on the door. By 6.15 the safari departure point was full of milling people but again, despite the apparent confusion, a man with a clip board told us which vehicle we were assigned to and around six thirty, pretty well on time, we set off towards the forest. With so many vehicles we were concerned that it might be like our Sri Lankan experience in Yala where the crush of snarling jeeps frightened the animals away. We need not have worried, Nagarhole was big enough to absorb all the vehicles and ensure we rarely met.

It was a misty morning and chilly, too, at least when driving in an open vehicle. Our Indian companions wore woolly hats and pullovers, but as hardy north Europeans we eschewed such comforts, confident it would warm up later.

According to the white board outside reception tigers had been seen on three of the last five days, but only one vehicle had to see a tiger for it to be recorded so the odds were still against us. At the point where we left the tarmac and headed onto the rough forest roads I saw this poster and photographed it in case it was the nearest thing to a tiger we saw. As I have reproduced it here, you may deduce that it was.

The only tigers we saw

Peacocks and a Racket-tailed Drongo

For a while we did not see much except trees and mist. We did see peacocks, looking far too exotic to live in the wild, but they are always common.

Peacock, Nagarhole National Park

A racket- tailed drongo - another fairly common bird, but always worth seeing - flew across the path and posed in a tree. My picture is no danger of winning a wildlife photography award but you can see the unlikely rackets that dangle from its forked black tail the best part of a body length below it.

Racket-tailed drongo, Nagarhole National Park

Deer and Mongoose

There were, as ever, spotted deer among the trees…

Spotted deer among the tress, Nagarhole National Park

…and then we saw this magnificent stag looming out of the mist by the lake and things started to improve.

Stag looming out of the mist, Nagarhole National Park

here are 29 species of mongoose. These two, I am fairly confident, are stripe-necked mongooses which we have seen in India before but this is by far the best photograph we have managed (and even then is not good). The common grey mongoose in Sri Lanka is much cooperative.

Stripe-necked mongoose, Nagarhole National Park

Monkeys and a Giant Squirrel

As the day warmed the monkeys came out to play, bonnet macaques and black faced langurs. At one point a large male langur came swinging down from the trees, calling angrily and dashed across a clearing to chase away a potential challenger and reassert his authority over a group of females. The best langur picture I have though, the family group below, was taken in our previous visit to Nagarhole in 2010.

Black faced langurs, Nagarhole National Park (2010)

The Malabar giant squirrels can often be seen in the trees but for the first time we also saw them on the ground. Brown, tawny and white, larger than a domestic cat with broad bushy tails they looked too large to scurry about like squirrels, but that was exactly what they did. We have seen them several times, and this 2010 photograph is the least unsatisfactory.

Giant Malabar squirrel, Nagarhole National Park (2010)

Serpent Eagles and Wild Pigs

Serpent eagles sat at intervals, wherever there was a good vantage point, waiting patiently for a snake-y meal to appear. There are, apparently 16 species of serpent eagles. This a crested serpent eagle, spilornis cheela (I think).

Crested serpent eagle, Nagarhole National Park

We drove through the forest, along the forest edge…

Along the edge of the forest, Nagarhole National Park

…and down to the lake where we saw some wild pigs.

Wild pigs by the waterside, Nagarhole National Park

Tiger's Paw Print - That was as Good as it Got

We saw no elephants, no leopards and certainly no tigers. Overall our safari was a little disappointing and even seeing a very clear tiger paw print was only a small compensation.

Tiger paw print, Nagarhole National Park

We were back at the lodge by 9.30 for a late breakfast, before setting off south with Thomas towards Ooty.