Down the hill

There really wasn't much to do in Ooty. I stayed about 48 hours in all. The second day was filled with just some random shopping, where I managed to find flouridated toothpaste, several chais, some internet, and a trip to the botanical garden. There was a school excursion to the gardens that day so there were tons of kids around. I walk slow, so I'd hear them coming up behind me, practicing a few different questions to ask. Sometimes they would pass me and turn around to talk, sometimes they'd take shortcuts and approach me from the front.

The train service to Cochin was spotty. I looked into a private bus, but the companies in Ooty just have you take the local bus to Coimbatore, then get on their bus there. I decided not to book in advance, and instead boarded a local bus from Ooty, down the hill to Coimbatore. Per usual, I sat in the back of the bus so that I could 'hide' my bag and avoid strapping it to the top. Please indulge me as I share a bad, modified phonetic joke - this is really just to make light of my discomfort. What kind of dinosaur do you find in the back of an Indian bus? Give up? The megasaurus. Ha! Now let's move on.

Coimbator was, in theory, three hours away. I guess we took the scenic route instead. Ooty was fine and all, except for one thing. There was no mazaa! I went to many stores who all explained that there is no supply of mazaa, fruitnik, or any other mango sodas in the entire city. Well, the one nice thing I can say about the bus ride was, we stopped halfway down the mountain and I got my mazaa fix.

So I arrived in Coimbatore, that was the easy part. Next up was the longer step from there to Kochi. I let some tout lead me from the bus stand to a private bus. It was about twice the price of the government one, but the perk was there were only like six people on it.

The fellow near me took maximum advantage of this. He reclined his chair, he reclined the chair next to him, he reclined the chair in front to put his foot on, he opened the window to stick his other foot out, and he unbuttoned his shirt. All in all occupying six spaces.

In Cochin, we delivered some packages. I guess this is how they can afford to run the bus with only a half dozen passengers. One of the recipients wasn't home so we had to go to some alternate destination. What-ever! I had these passing fits of rage where I wanted to just destroy the bus. I was all alone in the back with my knife, I felt the need to inflict a lot of damage on their seats.

It turned out the bus wasn't going to the part of Cochin that I thought. Rather than try and deal with this (it was night), I rode on to the next stop : Kottayam.