Sunday 28 February 2016

The Nilgiri Blue Train to Coonoor: India's Deep South Part 5

The Toy Train, Monkeys and Viewpoints among the Tea Bushes and Doddabetta Peak

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway, Oooty to Coonoor

Tamil Nadu

India

We were up early and after a breakfast of overcooked fried eggs and undercooked toast in a freezing restaurant, arrived at Ooty station in time for the 9 o'clock train to Mettupalayam. The Nilgiri Mountain Railway, also known as the ‘Blue Train’ or the 'Toy Train' is a narrow-gauge railway running 46km from Ooty (officially called Udhagamandalam) down to the Tamil Nadu plain, a descent of almost 2,000m. The lower section is rack and pinion and hauled by steam, but sadly we were only travelling the upper section to Coonoor where, despite a pro-steam campaign, the trains have diesel engines. It is a trade-off; there is little to do in Mettupalayam except take the train back, while Coonoor is another hill station and a major tea growing centre.

The Nilgiri Blue Train in Ooty Station

The first class compartment was hardly luxurious but all 16 seats - two pairs of padded benches each seating four – were occupied.

The first class compartment, Nilgiri Blue Train

It was a pretty ride, the land dropping sharply away on our right, while to the left was a scatter of villages in gentler valleys.

Villages and valleys beside the Nilgiri Mountain Railway

We trundled slowly through cuttings...

Nilgiri Mountain Railway

....and woods….

Nilgiri Mountain Railway

… pausing as stations with names like Lovedale and Wellington.

Lovedale Station, Nilgiri Mountain Railway

This was our fourth Indian train journey; all have started on time, but this was the first to also arrive on time, travelling 18km in a little over an hour.

Coonoor station where they connect up the steam engines and engage with the rack and pinion

Thomas picked us up in the chaos that was Coonoor station car park.

Coonoor Station - photographed at a quieter time when no train was due

Coonoor

Noticeably scruffier than Ooty, a more downhill and down market hill station, Coonoor felt livelier - and warmer. The town divides conveniently into a lower town with the bazaar and the railway and bus stations...

Coonoor, lower town

...and a smarter upper town, where we headed next.

Outside Sim's Park, Coonoor upper town

Sims Park

Sim's Park is another botanical garden built on a slope, but this time we started at the top and worked our way down.

Sim's Park, Coonor

Not, perhaps, as impressive as Ooty's garden, but it was a pleasant and shady place, with a pleasing rose garden and a boating lake at the bottom. Standing on the bridge over an outlet stream Lynne spotted a snake dangling from a drain. I raised my camera but it dropped into the water, swam a few metres and disappeared before I could locate it in the viewer finder. Behind us on the lake families piloted their pedalos unconcerned. I later learned that none of India's freshwater snakes are particularly dangerous - which is not the same as harmless.

Rose garden and boating lake, Sim's Park, Coonoor

Lamb's Rock

Being on the edge of the scarp Coonoor is blessed with viewpoints, though reaching them required driving several kilometres along narrow roads through the tea plantations. Lamb's Rock, named after a 19th century ‘Collector’, is 8km from town, just beyond a chocolate factory which sits incongruously amid the tea bushes. There was a fee to park beside the road. All over southern India people are paid minimal amounts to collect tiny fees for parking or sometimes for just driving into town along a certain road. It provides employment for some and irritation for others, particularly Thomas who has to collate dozens of scruffy little receipts at the end of the trip to claim his expenses.

Driving through the tea estates on the way to Lamb's Rock

We walked up to the viewpoint….

Lynne and Thomas climb up to Lamb's Rock

…. which was not at its best with a hazy mist hanging in the valley.

Looking down to the Tamil Nadu plain from Lamb's Rock, near Coonoor

Apparently, Lamb’s Rock is a favourite location for filming the big dance numbers that are mandatory in any Indian* musical. We failed to spot any of these famous locations, hardly surprising given our ignorance of the subject.

The view from Lamb's Rock near Coonoor

Chocolate and Monkeys

A stall in the parking area was an outlet for the nearby chocolate factory. Chocolate may grow in the tropics but chocolate bars are largely consumed in temperate latitudes, in usual Indian temperatures they soon forget they are supposed to be bar shaped. Only in the cooler uplands is chocolate made and sold. We bought a tub of mixed pieces dark, milk and white, with and without sprinkles and/or nuts. 'Watch for the monkeys,' the young man warned us as we handed over our money.

The place was seething with macaques, and macaques like chocolate as much as any primate so Lynne stuffed the plastic tub into her handbag as we walked back to the car. The customer behind us was a young Indian woman who would, I assumed, have more monkey savvy than us foreigners. Hearing a scream we turned to see her battling a macaque that had leapt upon her. She fought it off, but monkeys do not take 'no' for an answer. At its second attempt it wrested the tub from her hand and it fell to the road, spilling its contents over the tarmac. Once on the ground, it was macaque chocolate not people chocolate.

Dolphin's Nose, Tea, Eucalyptus and More Monkeys

Dolphin’s Nose was a further drive through the tea.

More tea, near Dolphin's Nose

Stands of eucalyptus lined the road and populated the few tea-free patches and on the way we passed a small factory producing eucalyptus oil. When I was very young my mother used to take eucalyptus oil to the beach in South Wales. Back then oil tankers in the Bristol Channel regularly deposited tar in the water and more than just the odd globule found its way onto Rest Bay. Eucalyptus oil was the most effective way to remove it from skin and clothing. Tankers have cleaned up their act and apart from feeding koalas, which are thin on the ground in southern India, I had no idea what use eucalyptus is. I looked it up; it has applications in pharmaceuticals and, perhaps surprisingly, in the production of flavourings and fragrances.

Eucalyptus oil factory near Dolphin's Nose

Dolphin’s Nose was a better view point...

The dolphin's Nose at Dolphin's Nose, near Coonoor

...and the best place to see the full 80m drop of the Catherine Falls.

Catherine Falls from Dolphin's Nose, near Coonoor

A line of stalls led up to a viewing area and although we did not see monkeys steal anything here, there was a moment when they all ran clattering across the corrugated iron roofs like a marauding gang of unruly if abnormally nimble teenagers. It is quite easy to dislike these creatures, but when most of them had collected noisily in a tree at the end of their run, I noticed two new mothers, sitting quietly in a tree away from the others nursing their babies.

Maternal macaques, Dolphin's Nose near Coonoor

Lunch at the Hyderabad Biryani House

We returned to Coonoor for lunch. Thomas thought the Hyderabad Biryani House opposite the bus station looked promising so we climbed up the outside steps. It was certainly popular and, being a little late for lunch, we found the last available table right under the television screen. There were four of us for lunch, Lynne, Thomas, me and a large and loud David Attenborough – not to mention several hundred penguins and a pod of killer whales.

Hyderabad Biryani House, Coonoor. Highly recommended

They had a full menu but biryani was the speciality so we ordered three ‘individual’ mutton biryanis; the waiter suggested we share one ‘medium’. This advice not only saved money but provided enough food for four or five. They also offered a ‘large’ which feeds an extended family - and the bowl can be converted into a studio apartment afterwards. I had never thought much of biryani before, but this was so good they made me revise my opinion.

Back to Ooty and the Top of Doddabetta Peak

After lunch we returned to Ooty. The drive up was not generally as scenic as the train ride down, but we did get a good view of the town of Wellington.

Wellington, Nilgiri Hills

Doddabetta Peak, at 2637m (8650 ft) the highest mountain in the Nilgiris, is 9km east of Ooty. As all the land around is high Doddabetta is not as prominent as most mountains of its size and it is possible to drive to the summit, indeed people do in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, every day. We walked the short distance from the car park to the view point in the company of several busloads of Indian tourists. As viewpoints go it is not that spectacular. In a topological sense it was the high point of the day, indeed of the whole trip, but seemed an anti-climax after the views and marauding monkeys at Dolphin’s nose.

Ooty from Doddabetta Peak

It was cool at this height and as Ooty is not much lower it was cool at Ooty too when the sun went down.

Just a reminder of where we were. On this scale map Coonoor is too near Ooty to mark separately

The Savoy Hotel, Ooty

We arrived back at beer o'clock and as the Savoy Hotel, a member of the upmarket Taj group, was at the end of our road we strolled up to check out the bar.

The hotel is a low, rambling mid-19th century colonial building which the Taj web site describes as having ‘a cottage like atmosphere’. If you can imagine a cottage with a hundred metre frontage, then that is the sort of cottage it is. We had beer and a chat with the young barman who was on the Taj management training scheme and had been sent on placement from his native Assam - about as far away from Ooty as you can be and still be in India – and the second Assamese we had met in the last three days.

We left promising to return later for an aperitif and dinner and in due course we wrapped up warm and made our way the short distance back up the road and the slightly longer distance through the grounds to the hotel.

'Nilgiri Veg' Savoy Hotel, Ooty

There was a roaring fire in the dining room but it was not quite enough to persuade Lynne to remove her fleece. A pianist in the corner entertained us with what was probably a selection of popular melodies but it was hard to tell as his idiosyncratic phrasing was enlivened by a Les Dawson-like feel for the right notes. We had eaten the Nilgiri non-veg platter at our guest house the previous night so we went for the veg version here. It was good without being memorable, but surprisingly reasonably priced considering where we were.

* I wrote 'Indian' rather than ‘Bollywood’ as Bollywood is not India's only film industry. Locally ‘Kollywood’, the Tamil film industry produces more films than Bollywood, and ‘Mollywood’ the Malayalam language film industry of Kerala is close behind. Each state has its own language, so each has its own cinema.

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

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.