We found a man in the street in Mysore whom we paid to take us the 87 miles to Ooty. Formerly known as Snooty Ooty, it is a left over from the days of the Raj, where the Brits used to escape the heat of the searing summer on the plains. But we are going ahead of ourselves. The 87 miles took an agonising 3.5 hours, and for India the roads weren’t bad. We dodged trucks, rickshaws buses, potholes and cows crossing through a couple of National Parks. We started to climb into the Western Ghats. The mountains towered ahead of us and to get to the top at 6,000 feet we needed to negotiate 36 hairpin bends. This may sound easy but this was almost vertical, done in 1st gear in an Indian car with a severe overheating problem, weighed down by us and our luggage. This necessitated several stops to give a chance for the steam to subside. The views back over the plains were amazing until we entered the clouds. There were Nitms everywhere. Through the mist, locals appeared carrying piles of log faggots on their heads. And they needed them, the higher we went, the colder it got. It was not a peaceful drive, as well as precipitous edges, the very narrow escapes from hitting other vehicles, the cacophany of car, bus and lorry horns followed us for the entire journey.
It was with some relief that we arrived at Ooty and our home for the next few days, the Glyngarth Villa.
