There is a time for everything (this is NOT my quote..the Bible says so)..There’s a time to laugh and a time to cry. There’s a time to smile and frown. There’s a time to blog and then there’s a time to slog (This one is original!!!!)..and once in every while, there’s a time to holiday too..The last two days have been just that – a getaway from it all types holiday..
I’ve had this strange habit of being in certain cities and not going to must-see places..I was at Delhi and didn’t make it to the Taj, I was at Mumbai and I didn’t make it to Khandala, I was in Bangalore and I haven’t been to more than a couple of pubs, I BELONG to Kerala and I haven’t been to most of the places there, and I’d been in Coimbatore for more than a year and I hadn’t been to Ooty..well, I’d not been there before last Saturday. And I had two charming blogland friends, Maria & Helga for company…
Day One – November 19, 2005 – 3 PM thereabouts.
Budget tourism was the name of the game so the first leg of our journey to the hills started at the Coimbatore bus stand. It cost us 30 bucks for a 5 min auto trip through a dull but noisy city road to the bus stand. And it took us just around 90 bucks for a 4 hour climb up the Queen of the Hills. Doesn’t say much about my negotiation skills with auto drivers now, does it?? (You don’t have to really answer that…) The journey was interesting alright..Maria seemed to have lost her mobile for a while and we tried to locate it by calling her number..the phone was ringing, but it sure wasn’t easy to find…Eventually we had a couple of rows of people helping out to fish the mobile out from beneath the seat. I had the same old luck with people sharing my seat. This time it was a guy who looked quite doped out. He was asleep and as usual almost dropping onto my shoulder every now and then. Surprisingly, he too woke up during the cell phone incident and offered expert advice. My friends found an old lady sharing their seat. She was old alright, but she was yapping away to glory..I didn’t understand a thing of what she said though..It didn’t matter anyway-she wasn’t talking to me. But what caught me eye more was the tattoo on her forearm. No it wasn’t a snake or a dragon..it was just a tamil word. It caught my eye more than once all the same..
Climbing up the hill on a State Transport Bus is guaranteed to put you in St. Peter’s evil doers list. The bus sounded so in pain! It was grumbling, moaning and groaning all the way up till Ooty!! Every now and then the bus driver would look out the window to glare at an apparently careless driver coming on the way down, but he was relentless in his goading of his old green warrior (a slight exaggeration..J) ..And what sights from out of the window. I’ve seen drops before, but man oh man, these were stuff that dreams were made of. But I just had to look at the inadequately protected sides of the road to stick my head back inside the bus and look the other way.
We reached Ooty by around 7. Walked our way through the crowded market place and to the club where we were to stay..The rooms were so cozy that I would have loved to crash straightaway..it was warm enough inside to do just that..I would have too, if it weren’t for a stronger call..that of hunger..Found our way to a Chinese restaurant whose walls were decorated with the Zodiac..My zodiac sign, pisces, looked kinda odd if u asked me..there were two fishes alright, but there was something like a pipeline coming outta the mouths of one of them fishes and into the mouth of the other one! Looked almost vulgar!!
Found a CCD* on our walk down after dinner. This outlet is the most sittable and enjoyable of all CCD’s in India..(that maybe a presumptuous statement to make considering that I have gone to only 3-4, but I will take my chances)..Quite big, cozy chairs, sofas, very few people, and A FIREPLACE!!! A couple of fireplaces in fact. The fireplaces were occupied, but we managed to wedge ourselves near one of them anyway. It was all very good till our fire started to die a slow death. Maria wanted to stoke it and she tried her hands at it. Was doing an ok job I guess (gotta be safe with words now!!), but then one of the CCD guys came and poured some kerosene over the fire. That sorta upset the equilibrium. The whole place was then as smoke filled as one of those bars in Chennai. Couldn’t keep our eyes open at all, and we were literally smoked out of the place.
We did the tourist routine and tried our hands at taking snaps out in the night. The moon was shining and blah blah..but we came out with more than our share of bloopers. Couldn’t see for nuts in the night after all! Walked back down to our rooms. It was almost 11 now but we were not alone. There was a huge group of fellow tourists walking ahead of us. They were neighbours from Coconut land. How did I guess you ask? Well, one of the guys was wearing a wildly printed dhoti. To top that, he had it folded such that his claim to manhood was in all probability freezing to a very unmanly death..How on earth did he manage to walk like that in the cold, I’ll never know. But by the time he reached the junction below, he had wisely covered his legs and , in the process, his manhood too..there were also a couple of ladies who looked very much drunk. They were wrapped in a single shawl, had their arms around each others backs, and were swaying this way and that….I am sure that both were ladies!!! Both had churidars on!!!
On reaching our rooms, it was a quick lights off..there was a tv in my room though..and that kept me awake for some while more..they were showing one of those funny movies on Zee TV again…
Day two- will come tomorrow..hopefully!
Shain
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