Back to Home Page       Ooty 17 June 05

Bet you can't guess what they call the tribes that used to inhabit Coonoor, yep 'Coons' so I can only assume that's where the slang name for coloured folk comes from.  Anyway Coonoor is another little town in the 'Nilgiri' Hill country just about 20k from Ooty.  Although we had a chauffeur for the weekend we couldn't resist a ride on the Nilgiri Mountain Express Train.  This was a little narrow gauge steam train of just 4 carriages which takes an hour to wind itself through the hills to Coonoor.  We got to the station and bought 2 first class tickets and were told to look for carriage with padded seats, shock and horror greeted us at the platform at how many people were waiting for this train, we got in our compartment with another Indian family from Bangalore with room to move about whilst the rest all crammed into the other 3 carriages.  I was looking forward to this as part of the journey takes a steep ascent and uses cogs underneath the train to link to rails inside the tracks to pull it up, sadly my research failed as we never saw this part so assume it must be a different part of the journey either beyond Coonoor or Ooty.

On arrival at Coonoor station we met our driver who had already lined up a tour guide to show us the various sights as this was unfamiliar territory for our driver.  It was only 100 rupees (£1.25) so well worth it.  Our first port of call was a tea factory, having already toured a tea factory in Sri Lanka last year this was nothing particularly new to us and in any case, the guide toured us through here in a real hurry simply desperate to get us to the attached shop to purchase some high priced tea in order to collect his commission, Indians tend to flavour tea differently to us so we declined and bought a couple of bags of nutmegs for Jen's mum instead at just 50p.

From here we headed for Dolphin's Nose, a peak viewing area where you can view the surrounding valleys, towns and an amazing waterfall opposite.  After a gruelling 10km drive up rough terrain with deadly drop offs on one side and no room to pass other vehicles we got to the top and couldn't see a darn thing thanks to the mist that shrouded everything, we waited a while but nothing changed so we made our way back down.  Dolphins nose is titled for obvious reasons and further down the road we viewed a range called 'Sleeping Lady' as seen below and then 'Lamb Rock', I remarked that this looked nothing like a lamb to be told it was named after a British Colonel called Lamb.

Jen wanted to go to a needlecraft shop that she'd seen advertised on the way up so we pulled into the most beautiful house and gardens we have seen to date in India and looked at all the needlecraft supplied from convent schools in the area, it was all a bit pricey to catch unsuspecting tourists but we bought a couple of cushions and had a good photo shoot in the gardens.

There wasn't a lot more to see in Coonoor particularly as the weather was pretty horrid so we headed back to Ooty for an early finish to our day and simply watched a movie in our hotel room and ordered diabolical room service.  Funny ting we noticed whilst in this area was the amount of people who wanted pictures taken with us as if we were some sort of celebrities, literally tons of people were asking everywhere we went so we jokingly asked for money from some!

The next morning we got up, had our 3rd awful breakfast of the weekend and headed to the health suite for a full body massage and steam chamber courtesy of the IRA.  Quite relaxing if a little painful and we were even bathed by the masseurs whilst sat on a wooden bench as if we were old and infirm.

We packed our stuff, found our driver and headed for the long journey back to Bangalore via the horrendous hairpins, this time in daylight so at least we could see where we were going if we went over the edge.  We went back through the jungles and typical of our luck saw nothing more than a load of fallow dear and numerous monkey's.  The last bit of the journey from Mysore to Bangalore is an incomplete highway where they are slowly building a dual carriage way for the entire 150km.  Some parts of this are complete for a good few kms so you can get good speed up, slightly surprising then when you are on a dual carriageway to suddenly see a truck heading towards you without any sign of shifting out of the way and yet the road on the other side is virtually empty of traffic.  These brainless imbeciles clearly have no regard for their own life, let alone anyone elses.  All the more shocking when our driver too chose to ignore a newly opened section deciding instead to drive the wrong way down a dual carriageway.  We saw hundreds of near misses but surprisingly no accidents, needless to say I was a gibbering wreck by the time we got home, i think we'll take the train next time!

Jen posing in her new shawl on our enormous bed!	Another arty shot of a table rose in the restaurant.	A view from the little train.	The actual train itself climbing through the hills.	Another view.	And another.	Winding through the woods.	An army cantonment.
Platform at Ketti station.	The train going over a very weak looking narrow bridge!	How close?	Another typically British name!	Arriving at Coonoor station.	Coonoor Station	Tea leaves in the dryer, freshly picked and carried in on the heads of skinny women!	Rolling and cutting, dangerous machinery without a guard in site.
Another drying process with Jen being sure to keep her clothing out of the way.	The final product before going to the blenders.	Outside view of tea factory.	Jen in amongst the 2000 acres of tea.	I purposely left this picture large so you can zoom in on all the various cures.	This is sleeping lady hill range, see if you can make her out.	Lambs Rock, used for military training and climbing excersizes.	A view down through the clouds at little village properties.
Jen in the stunning gardens of the needlecraft shop.	A view across same garden with Lamb's Rock in the backdrop.	The house again.	Fountain in the garden.	Malc having a little read and relaxation whilst nursing a very sunburnt head.	Ayurvedic Massage, courtesy of the IRA.	A brighter view from our room, typicaly a lovely day when we are about to leave.	Another angle
Our room with our enormous bed.	A monkey obviously very proud to be a man.	Stand up Jen, you're displaying your tyres love!!	A random sign, couldnt see it from a distance so took the shot anyway, boring I know!	Another hungry monkey.	The 36 hairpins to Ooty.	Fallow Dear in the Bandipur National Park	Fallow deer again with some monkeys in the tree.
Well we didnt see any elephants ok!	Hard to make out as she has blended with the tree in front of her but this lady has a huge bundle of sticks on her head.	Preparing our coconut drink with absolute dangerous precision.	The chop!	Success, all fingers intact!	Malc completely worn out at our final pitstop. 3 meals and five bottles of coke for £1.50, bargain!