This blog buisiness takes quite a bit of time, and so this is officially our appology for the lack of personal emails. We just can't be bothered spending more time at internet cafes! It already feels like more than a week ago that we had dinner in the mosquito infested restaurant of our hotel in Udumalpetta. As we headed once again to the mountains, the temperature dropped thankfully. Our guide book and many fellow travellers recommended the city of Ooty (Udhagamandalam) as a base in this area, but I read about the smaller city of Coonoor and it seemed more appealing. The picturesque hills around the town are covered in coffee and tea plantations, and at nearly 2000m there are no mosquitoes!

We drove around searching for a hotel that would let us sleep in the tent and use their facilities, but space was at a premium in the mountains and only the super expensive hotels seemed to have any grass or car parking area vacant. The landcruiser is a little to conspicuous to allow us to camp. By complete accident we happened upon a YWCA guest house which was recommended in our book. In an idylic location overlooking the city, we decided to take a room and spoil ourselves. Winding lanes, chickens in cages next to sari shops, small rivers full of sewerage and a market where a goldsmith re-shaped and resized a sentimental ring of mine in 5 minutes for less than $1. A lovely Indian couple we met had highly recommended a French restaurant near the YWCA - typically we read the menu and began to salivate. Non-Indian food - NO Curry! A lovely change from our usual diet. We chatted to the woman who owned the place about why she could no longer live in Paris, or France for that matter, and compared experiences we'd had in the much more spiritually aware India.

An old steam train runs up the mountain to Ooty - 4 rupees for the normal seats and 70 odd for 1st class. On the advice of the French woman we bought 2 first class tickets and caught the 7:45am train as "the 10:30am train is full". It was a bit ridiculous actually, us and a Scottish/New Zealand couple in 1st class, and about 10 others in the normal cheap carriages.
Ooty was for me a bit of a let down. Spoilt by the Cardamon Hills, the Tea Plantations and forested roads, Ooty was a bit dirty, busy, touristy in comparison. The Nigrils (the mountain region we've been in for the past week) are plastic free. Way ahead of their times in many ways, the area declares plastic bags illegal, and instead shop owners offer bags made from old newspapers. Ooty compensated for it's lack of plastic with cow dung everywhere and less well-kept streets. We did have a fun encounter with a large black cow at a jewelrey shop where we were looking at antique silver jewelry. I wandered into a wonderful shop while Andrew was using the internet where old statues and jewelry and sun dials were sold. I bought an Indian elephant mask in the style of Ganesh - son of Siva, for Andrew's birthday. I also bought a CD of MP3 files - Indian Hip Hop but unfortunately they refuse to play in the landcruiser...

Although Coonoor was a gorgeous spot we are aware of how fast time is passing and know that if we are to make Goa by the 7th March to meet Paul C, we need to make tracks north. We'd hoped to find an equallly nice and special place to spend Andrew's birthday on this journey northwards, and 'Jungle Trails' was it.

A short stop for snacks and to ask directions inadvertedly led us to Farook. He seemed to know 'Mark', the owner/manager of Jungle Trails well, and wrote down excellent directions for us. An hour later we were faced with a sign reading 'Private Property - No entry'. A little unsure, we slowley rolled the landcruier to the end of the dirt track where we were met by a friendly dog called BoBo and his warey owner Mike. Mike began by telling us that there was no restaurant anymore, and that to stay at his place would cost us 1000 rupees per person. To put this in perspective, we normaly pay about 400 rupees for the 2 of us in a city hotel room and the guide book had quoted 100 rupees per person. We were invited to sit on the porch of what looked like the main bamboo hut for a while to decide. Within 10 minutes spotted deer and wild boar wandered within 100 meters of us and Mark mentioned the monkeys and wild elephants he needed to provide water for in the dry season. He'd only just finished his sentence and I had our stuff out of the car and up into our bamboo hut. By 7pm we'd enjoyed a cold beer and seen samba, an elephant, monkeys, huge peacocks, pea hens, jungle squirrels, many birds and wild boar. What more could we ask for. We even had to move the landcruiser so that the elephants had a clear passage to water during the night. Mike mentioned that he saw tigers monthly, but was going to start throwing rocks at them to ensure they kept hidden from humans (poachers).

Mysore certainly was in contrast to Coonoor and Mark's place, and we both really liked it. The famous cilt beholding the Maharaja's Palace and silk and sandalwood production was well layed out with huge roundabouts featuring massive statues of Ghandi and an enourmous clock. Still, we are baffled as to how the law applies to using a roundabout. It seems that if it is a small one, say only 3 metres across (diameter), then you can cut in front of it, instead of travelling clockwise.
We found a nice hotel which is central but quiet, an allowed us to park the car safely off the road. On opening our morning paper Andrew spotted an article about a March against Terrorism that was taking place in the palace, though it was difficult to ascertain which palace. We asked a few people, and in the end assumed the protest was schedulled for the Maharaja's Palace, which we were keen to see. Given that the last few 'getherings' in India have lead to small bouts of violence, I was hoping we were wrong. Chatting with a guy who teaches 'clowning' in London, we walked around the northern perimeter of the palace grounds. Touts followed us for a while, selling sandalwood fans, plastic and wooden flutes and religious bits and pieces. The palace is certainly grand, with remarkable features such as a glass Bohemian chair, 2 preserved elephant heads (I did not like these), increadible carved teak doors, stained glass ceilings and to top it off, the palace is lit up with 50,000 light bulbs on each Sunday night.