Ooty

Ooty is a Hill Station high in the Nilgiris Mountains at about 2200 metres above sea level. The climate is very cool and when it rained the climate is not to dissimilar to Manchester in Autumn.
The village was 'discovered' by a man called John Sullivan and the name of the village was changed from Udhagamandalam to Ootacamund, With the arrival of a large number of the upper crust British due to the 'pleasant' climate developed. Many of the British remained in Ooty after Indian Independence and were stoically British in their outlook and the place gained the nickname 'Snooty Ooty'. The Ooty Club has a claim to fame that this is the place that Snooker was allegedly invented, and still insists on full formal wear to be worn after 7pm each evening.
The centre of the town is known as Charing Cross but most of the British have now left and the place is a typical Indian Town full of tourists and locals. A small supermarket just off Charing Cross still stocks everything an Ex-pat Brit could want including imported Heinz Soup all the way from Wigan!
We went to a local coffee shop/cafe for tea and had fantastic pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven (They are speciality of the place, and not just because we didn't want Indian food)
We took auto's back to the chalets we were staying in which looked and felt like they had not been renovated since the '50's. They were actually full of charm and very very typically British both in style and fixtures and fittings right down to the carpet in my room that had defiantly been replanted from somewhere else as there were odd gaps as my room was obviously bigger that original. (Job for you here Dad!)
The next day we left (early again) to drive up to a tea plantation, I say up but it was actually up, down, up, along narrow mountain roads surrounded by tea plantations and amazing views. Arriving at the tea plantation we were taken on a tour of the production plant which took the green leaves from being picked to been dried, curled, chopped and ground to what we know as tea.
Walking down through the plantation we were then led to the 'gift shop' where we sampled the 3 types of tea they produce here, Black Tea (it was full of Milk and tasted of sugar) Chocolate Tea (it was full of Milk and an tasted of Sugar) and Green Tea (which had NO Milk but still tasted of sugar) This is apparently the way Indians like their tea, sorry sugar with tea. Pam (one of the tour group) decided that there was definitely a missed opportunity to set up a typical English Tea Shop here and sell Scones and Cream and a nice cuppa, Michael the tour guide strongly agreed, I would have liked to have bought some of the Tea but the smallest pack it was available in was 500g polythene unmarked bags, hmm... I think Singapore Customs may be a little suspicious of that so I declined.
Driving back to Ooty we stopped at Conoor one of the Nilgiri Blue Mountain Railway Stations. Unfortunately due to the extreme rains of the last Monsoon season the Train is not running as there are may land slides and the track is missing or covered in about 30 places. The central section of the line is very very steep and a special cog and rack system is used in the centre of the track, because of this the originally Steam Trains are still used as the Diesel's can't be converted.
We asked around on the platform as initially the Steam Loco's couldn't be seen, an old man just pointed across the tracks and said 'shed' so we jumped down onto the tracks and crossed over and found the Loco Shed behind a small rise. It was like the Marie Celeste all the tools were out and the loco's were in various stages of maintenance, but not a sole was about, so we spent a good 15 mins climbing up on the footplates and down in the inspection pits taking loads of photo's. Excellent fun! Coming out of the shed and back to the station we found the Assistant Station Master who willingly allowed us into the control room to take photos of all the equipment and plans - despite the large imposing 'No Admittance' sign over the door. (Geoff Edge would have been drooling!) Driving back to Ooty we kept been diverted onto small back roads as the main roads were still been repaired due to landslides and we drove through some fascinating little villages and hamlets, past large colonial 'villas', tiny villages, one room low houses and at one point stopped to watch a local cricket match in a field only to discover we were blocking the view of the sizeable crowd watching, much to their displeasure. ( It was a cup match and the trophy table was beautifully laid out in the centre of the crowd)
Back in Ooty it was time to visit the Cinema and we watched a Tamil film which was fairly easy to follow despite not understanding the language however it went on and on and on. The cinema was a real flea pit type of place, we had the 'slightly' better seats which basically meant they once had velour on them but didn't any more and were very hard.
After a return to the Coffee Shop we returned to the chalets and stayed a Second night in Ooty then got up early (again) at 5:30am to drive down back to Cochin.