Ughagamandalam - A Hill Station in the South

town fountain
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I arrived around 7pm. The bus seemed to tak for ever. I had tied a scarf round my head and for most of the journey held my head in my hands. I took some more tablets and sipped more water, but did not eat anything. I couldn't face food and felt sick. As soon as the bus pulled in I got the rickshaw man to take me to the YWCA. I hadn't booked a room, but they had plenty. I took a room as I was feeling ill otherwise I would have gone in the dormitory. I checked in and dinner was being served. All I asked for was soup. I thought I better try to eat something for my energy. I managed half a bowl and took some tea upto my room. I found some night nurse tablets in my bag so took them. I wrapped my head up again in the scarf and put the spare blankets on my bead and wrapped up and tried to sleep. It was difficult. I was so restless and one minute hot and the next cold, but I did manage to sleep some.

St Stephens Church
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The next morning I decided to take it easy. I felt a little better, but it was early yet. I wanted to be surer. I went down to have breakfast after showering and actually ate. I ordered a spicy masala dosa, which was good for my sinuses. The sun was out and it looked nice out. I took some more tablets, wrapped up and went out to walk. I didn't have much of a plan as it all depended on how I would feel. I went to find the tourist information office, but it was closed. So looked in LP for guidance. I walked past St Stephens church. It was built in 1829 and is one of the oldest churches in the area and was built on a Toda temple. It was one of Ooty's first colonial structure.

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I visited the Botanical Gardens. The area was huge. I knew I didn't want to walk around the whole of it but walked around some areas. They was a map of India on display with various items planted to make the shape. I took a photo of that. There were so many plants and trees and flowers. It was pretty. I sat on a bench for a little while and watched others. There were schoolchildren, couples and families. Some were playing games on the lawns, others sitting around chatting and others wandering about and taking photos. After a while I decided to leave. On the way back I walked past a cinema and saw they had a showing at 6.30pm of a hindi film, so I decided to come back to watch it later. I was feeling hungry again so went to get some lunch. I found like a diner place called Sidewalk Cafe and had a toasted sandwich. I liked the menu and decided I would have dinner there after the cinema. It was nice to get away from Indian food. I needed something different.

map of india - Botanical Gardens
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After lunch I walked to the bus station to find out times to go to Mysore. I decided to go by private bus instead as the local bus would take too long and keep stopping, whereas the private bus was non-stop. It was only a matter of price. I didn't have the patience for the local bus. I would beleaving the day after tomorrow as I wanted to go on a trek tomorrow. After the bus information I went for a walk around the lake. It was huge and lots of boating was going on. Round the corner from the lake I visited the Thread Garden. It houses a collection of flowers all made of thread. The technique was introduced by a Kerelan artist Anthony Joseph. Apparently it took him 12 years to make 150 speices of flowers. When you first see the flowers they look as if they're real, but when you get closer you actually see the thread. I didn't take any pics.

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Afterwards I walked back into the main town and went to get a cuppa. It was almost 6pm by the time I finished, so I had enough time to walk to the cinema to make it for the showing. The film being shown was Bhool Bhuliyan and was about an exorcism, so it should be an interesting film. I enjoyed it. It was the usual masala mix movie with comedy, songs, drama & romance. After the movie I went back to Sidewalk to have some veg soup.

I was defo feeling better and was so glad I didn't have to spend more time in bed. My time is precious and I had train tickets booked in advance for the next couple of journeys otherwise it gets difficult to get a seat or berth to sleep. I would defo go on a trek tomorrow. Back at the hostel I went to sit in the common room where a fire was blazing. I met a spanish couple. They had been on the trek and were telling me all about it. I warmed up for a while and then went to bed.

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Next morning after breakfast I asked whether I could join the trek. I could. There were 2 Dutch girls also going, so I chatted to them whilst we waited for the jeep. The jeep came and drove to another hotel where it picked up some more passengers and another jeep came. Off we set for the hills of Ooty. After driving for a while we were dropped off on the edge of a Toda village where we met out guide. The sun was out when we set off, however when we got to the start of the trek it was overcast. I had my fleece on and brought my raincoat, so I was prepared. It was 10am when we set off. We followed the guide up and down and around. Every so often he would stop to chat about something, but the weather didn't improve so we didn't get to see any of the nice views. At 1pm we stopped for lunch. Most of the group also had some tea to warm up. We watched the man who served us as he was cooling it. He seemed to pour from one glass to another from a great height.

tea
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Shortly after leaving the canteen place we set off again, but it started raining so we had to take some shelter for a little while to let the rain pass. We set off again when the rain eased a little. Again we didn't see much except tea plantations, cabbages and carrots. No views. Ah well you can't predict the weather. It was such a shame, but good exercise.  We had to take the bus back down to Ooty, so had to wait 30 minutes or so for it. It had started to rain again so we took shelter until it came. We met some villagers as we were waiting and chatted for a little while.

tea being cooled
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Back at the hotel I went to take a shower as I was cold and my trousers were wet with the rain. I met the dutch girls for dinner and we had pizza at Sidewalk. We enjoyed dinner and got a rickshaw back tot he hotel. I packed my stuff ready for the early start in the morning. The bus was leaving at 9.30am. I read a little before going to sleep. It was s lot cooler in Ooty, but not very cold. It was nice to have some fresh air and have no mosquitoes biting.