The India Chronicles 2000-2001

Toda house in Nilgiri hills

As the countdown to the end of our trip begins, we can't help but start making plans for visiting friends and family back in Canada. We are looking forward to seeing everyone again, but we are not looking forward to getting over jet lag and acclimatizing to the colder weather. We are currently getting our bodies used to tropical temperatures of over 30 C. We will have to keep all our woolies handy for our arrival in Canada on Feb 13, 2001.

Meanwhile, we have been having more adventures and experiences. We had enjoyed our few days of trekking in Madikeri so much that we decided to travel to another hill station, Ooty. We took the 7:30 AM, somewhat rickety, public bus and discovered to our surprise, that we first retraced the 3 hr trip back to Mysore. Everybody but us got off there and a large, extended family boarded for the 5-1/2 hour trip south to Ooty.

About an hour out of Mysore, we made our first stop at a small roadside temple. We had arrived just in time for the noon hour devotions and the bus driver got off to pay his respects. Two priests approached the bus, one stayed outside playing small cymbals and the other got on the bus carrying a tray with incense, an oil pot, flowers and coloured powder. He proceeded slowly down the aisle, allowing all the passengers to make a small donation and receive their drive-by blessings, complete with new tika marks on their forehead. Suitably blessed, we carried on, through two adjacent wildlife parks, Bandipur and Mudumalai, where we saw elephants, monkeys and spotted deer by the side of the road.

The last 49 K of the trip was the most spectacular as we climbed the Nilgiri hills in earnest. Nilgiri means 'blue mountain', from the haze that often covers them. There was a small temple on the top of a peak in the distance and much to our surprise, the road twisted back and forth, higher and higher, until we were far above the temple, looking down over the jungle below us. We passed through a huge grove of Eucalyptus Grandus and many tea plantations, where workers were plucking the new, tender leaves.

Finally, 9 hours after we left Madekeri, we arrived at the Udhagamandalam (Ooty) bus station, altitude 2,400 M. A tout, Sini, showed us his card as an officially sanctioned guide and suggested we follow him to a nearby hotel. Sini offered to carry my bag, so we hustled after him down the road and up some stairs to the Mountview Hotel. The hotel was originally an English summer home with nicely tended gardens and the room we were shown was large, with very high ceilings. Mountview Hotel was typical of many of the same kind in India. There was lots of potential if the management put as much care into the upkeep of the rooms as they did the gardens, but instead, everything had an air of neglect. Nevertheless, it suited our purposes, so we agreed to stay. It got quite chilly once the sun went down, and we needed extra blankets on the bed to keep warm at night, but the days were warm and sunny.

That night we discovered just how spread out and hilly Ooty was. Like Madikeri, Ooty is sprawled over several ridges and stairs, as well as switchbacks in the roads connect many of the streets. We took off to find a Chinese restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was a lot farther than we had expected, but we were glad to stretch our legs after the long bus ride.

We agreed to hire Sini to take us on a trek in the area, so the next morning, we were up and ready for him by 9 AM at the local bus station. In typically Indian fashion, he finally appeared at 9:30, with another tourist, Daniel, from Luxembourg, in tow. Even then, the three of us waited while Sini made his morning contacts and bought a pack lunch, so it was well after 10 when we finally boarded a bus to take us out of town to the start of our trek. We drove 17 k back towards Mysore and got off at a remote spot in the forest. From there we walked through Eucalyptus and Acacia forests to a fire tower on a hilltop clearing. Most of the forests in the area are the result of reforestation efforts by the British, using native Australian trees. They obviously suit the area and have done very well. In the clearing we were surprised to see several huge Rhododendron trees covered in red blossoms. I thought it was too early in the season for Rhodos, but not so.

We climbed the tower to enjoy a panorama view of the surrounding countryside, which is all protected forest with man made lakes in the center and surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the Nilgiris. The nearby lakes, created by damming of local rivers in the 30's, are a deep, green colour, the result of effluent from an animal gelatin factory. Sini told us there are plans to clean up the lakes, but nothing moves too quickly in India. In the meantime, the lakes are used for boating, but they are not safe for swimming by tourists.

We descended the fire tower and walked over to a small Toda farm. Only about 1,500 Todas remain in the area, and they are rapidly being assimilated into the general population. The government has provided money to the Todas to help build homes using traditional materials and methods. The farm consisted of one mud farmhouse and one traditional Toda house. The Toda house looked like a Quonset hut with a thatched roof. The rafters were Acacia branches and the straw for the roof was bundled and held in place with bamboo strips. The only opening was a small door in the center of the flat front, constructed from eucalyptus planks and decorated with a stylized buffalo head, which they worship, and black cross designs. We weren' t able to go inside this hut, as the owner was away, but we were able to view the interior of another one later in the day. The inside was just one room, with a sleeping platform along one wall and simple open shelves to hold all their stainless steel dishes along another wall. An open cooking fire was in one corner of the room and of course there was no chimney to let out the smoke.

At the first Toda house, we were served tea by the sister-in-law of the Toda house owner and shown one of their beautiful ceremonial shawls. The shawl was like an oversized sarong made of simple, white cotton. A panel about one meter wide at one end was hand embroidered in red and black designs, so that when it is wrapped around a person, the design is displayed down their front. The Toda women make the shawls for special occasions, such as weddings, and nowadays, for sale in some of the markets. The ones we saw were not for sale.

After thanking the woman for the tea, we hiked through more forests down to the shore of the lake, where we ate our pack lunch, then we hiked back to the road and caught the next bus heading north. We rode a short distance to the gates of a hydroelectric project. Sini went into the security booth where the guards were busy playing cards, and for a little baksheesh, got permission for us to tour the site, normally closed to visitors. There are 12 dams in the Nilgiri area, named Canada 1 - Canada 12, in honour of the Canadian help and expertise that built them. We walked past sections of pipe about 3 or 4 M in diameter to a viewing platform at the edge of a cliff. The government is in the process of assembling the pipe sections in a shaft at the side of the mountain to deliver water from a dam across the road from the gates where we entered to the power station at the bottom of the cliff 970 M below. This is to replace an older system, built by the British in the 30s, which we could see from the viewing platform. The old system had a pipeline and a rail track to carry supplies straight down the side of the mountain. Construction of the new pipeline is halted now, pending the outcome of an investigation into a fatal accident that occurred just a few weeks ago. It seems that workers were being lowed in an elevator in the pipeline shaft when the cables broke. We ignored the large signs telling us that photography was prohibited, and took a few photos of the spectacular view from the cliff top.

We returned to the road and got on another bus taking a side road further into the countryside. Here we walked a short distance to another Toda village, complete with a Toda temple. If I had been Toda, I would not have been able to come within 20 M of the building, but foreign women are allowed to go closer, but not go inside. The temple was the same construction as their houses, but larger and had more decorations on the outside. We walked over to a third Toda house, where an extended family, friends of Sini, lived. The men were away at special religious ceremonies, but the four sister-in-laws invited us in and prepared yet another cup of chai for us.

We ended up spending quite a while with them, while Sini was off socializing in a neighbouring cottage. We admired the family ceremonial shawl and looked at photos of the family posing formally in their shawls. They told us that the shawl they had was made for their father-in-law and it would become his funeral shroud when he died and would be burned on the funeral pyre, along with the body. That is why you do not see any antique shawls for sale. Before we left, the women draped me in the shawl and we all posed for group photos, on the proviso that I would send them a copy.

It was after 5 PM by the time we left, but Sini wanted to show us a forest with native Nilgiri trees, so we followed him, bushwhacking our way through dense, thorny bushes, ending in a tea plantation. The first part of the tea plantation was nothing but almost leafless stumps, the result of pruning that is done every 3 to 5 years. We followed the paths over the hillside through un-pruned tea plants, heading for a road on the other side to catch the 6:30 bus back to Ooty. As we got nearer, we saw a bus grinding up the hills, and to Sini's surprise, this was the bus we had intended to take, leaving 20 minutes early.

Sini confirmed with several local people that the last bus to Ooty left at 7 PM, but it left from another village that he pointed out in the distance. We all hustled down a road that climbed steadily upwards until we reached the bus stop 45 minut es later. It was then that Sini admitted that his original intention, seeing our elderly state, was to end our walk after visiting the power project. He intended to send Ray & I back on the bus to Ooty while he continued on with Daniel. He said he changed his mind when he realized we were experienced hikers, so we got to go along for the longer hike, although it turned out to be much longer than even he had anticipated.

A rickety, noisy bus turned up within 10 minutes and we rode back to Ooty. It was dark by then so we could only guess at the spectacular scenery we were missing. Sini took us to a local Thali restaurant for supper on our return. We were late to eat in this restaurant, so two young boys who were working in the restaurant hovered around until they could clear our plates. Sini told us there is new legislation in India prohibiting children younger than 16 from working. I said we had seen an awful lot of very youthful 16 year olds around.

January 26 is Republic Day for India, commemorating the creation of India as a republic. As part of the festivities, the tourist department in Ooty provided a free tour of a tea plantation and a tea factory for visitors. We joined about 15 others in a minibus and headed down the south side of the moun tains to Coonoor. We all admired the lush green tea plantations covering most of the steep hills and the numerous small villages nestled on the ridges. Even the appearance of clouds covering the lower valleys failed to mar our good impression of the area. We stopped along the way to watch some of the tea pickers at work. Workers carry large cloth sacks on their backs into which the put the top 3 tender leaves from the tea plant. This is a continual operation, as the entire area must be picked about twice a month. All the leaves are brought to the tea factory, which we visited. The leaves are air dried to remove 50% of the moisture, rolled four times to break the leaves down, then heated for 20 minutes in special ovens to reduce the moisture content to 3%. The tea is then graded according to leaf size. The largest pieces are the top grade and the smallest, tea dust, is what the teashops use to brew chai. We were treated to cake and lemon tea at the factory, and then we drove to a small hall where we were provided with box lunches.

The bus returned to Ooty, letting people off along the way and bringing some of us to Reflections Lake at the edge of the town. The lakeside park was crowded with local people renting rowboats and paddleboats to go out on the rather green looking waters. There was a stage set up for musical entertainment and several of the local tea businesses had displays of their products. We stayed for a while, talking to several of the people we had met on the tour, but the music was too loud for our tastes to listen for long.

The next morning we took a rickshaw to the other end of town to visit the Botanical Gardens. The gardens, covering 20 hectares over steep hillsides, were beautifully cared for and impressive even by North American standards. The British established the gardens in 1848 and included samples of nearly every type of tree and plant growing in the area. The gardens are a favourite spot for locals, but there was lots of room for all of us to spread out.

After lunch, we packed up and left to catch the Blue Mountain railway down the south side of the mountains. We were glad we followed advice to buy a 1st class ticket for Rs 90, as by the time the train pulled in at 3 PM, the platform was full of waiting passengers. We learned later that buying the cheap Rs 10 ticket meant you were crowded into standing room only cars, unable to enjoy the view. There was a rush for seats, but Ray took our large packs and I took our daypacks and managed to find a good spot for the two of us near the window for the 3-1/2 hour trip. The British built the train in 1898 and the original style, if not the original carriages are still used. The 5 cars are pushed up the mountain and pulled back down the 2,000 M drop. The lower, steeper portion still uses a coal-fired steam engine, but the train switches to a diesel for the top half of the journey. There was a general party atmosphere to the whole trip as every one enjoyed the scenery. The train travels over switchbacks through tea plantations and lush jungles and past rivers and waterfalls. We made a few stops, where we got out to stretch while the engines were switched and more water was added for the steam engine. Every time we passed through a tunnel on the way down, passengers in some of the other cars would call out to hear their echo.

We arrived at the bottom in time to take a connecting train to the town of Coimbatore. Rather than take the late night train, we decided to stay overnight in Coimbatore and take the day train to Madurai. Ray got the impression from the ticket agent that the day train only had hard seats or first class, so he bought us first class tickets. When we arrived at the train in the morning we saw that it did have the relatively comfortable padded second-class cars, but we decided to take it easy. I think we were the only first class passengers and we enjoyed the 'luxury' of our own two-person compartment for the six-hour trip.

Continued...Next: Episode 8: Part 2