Ooty.

This doesn't feel like India! In any way, from the temperature to the people. The population here dress in thick 'Toda' (hill  tribe) heavy woollen garments swathed in dark colours and this strange look was rather intimidating at first.
But in the last few days I've adjusted to cool air, unearthed my lurking jumper from the depths of my case, and discovered the gems up here high in the hill stations.
The highlight has to be travelling down to Coonoor on the Nilgiri mountain train.
Travelling on this steam train which rattles, chugs and groans slowly up and down the single track using the same system put in place when the line was originally built by the British in 1908 to transport tea down the mountain is like going back in time

Boarding the train

View from the train as we climb the hillside

I got a 'golden ticket' i.e. one of the 16 first class seats, by dint of queuing in the station on my very first morning. Well worth it. For three  pounds I avoided the rush and crush in second class and was able to ride in relative comfort. Relative in that the carriage was over a hundred years old! But we had sash windows(ish) useful for cutting down the biting wind, and padded seats-bliss for my aching bones.
So on my second day here I got up at dawn to catch the early morning  train down the mountain to Coonoor. As the sun rose we set off in billowing clouds of engine steam. Two splendid hours passed in a flash gazing in awe at the glorious hillside scenery, the tea plantations, tiny villages, Wellington Army base (not so tiny and guarded by security patrolling the station to check no photos!) the terraces of vegetable gardens and in places thick forest, which plunged us into sudden darkness.
Arriving in Coonoor I and another solo mature female, the first I have met, enjoyed each other’s company: the sights of Sims Park ...it's so wonderful to walk the parks as if in England, the peace is wonderful after the constant city hassle...the huge town market with its fragrant flowers masking the smell of the sewers and where I made the mistake of glancing up and seeing the stall roof being used as a tip, and admiring the skyline of churches and mosques. It seems as if catholics and muslims are in the majority here, there are few temples, again at odds with the India I am familiar with.

Modern India - A Mosque, A Church and an open sewer.

Coonoor flower Market

Checking out the roof is not a good idea!

In the late afternoon we boarded the train for the return, ushered on by railway staff who operate the train with a system of red/green flags from bygone times. This time our first class carriage was in front and we opened the windows to sit facing forward which gave me rather too close a view of the ancient rails and the sheer drop!  But, mesmerised by the reflections of the setting sun over the lush hills as we rocked and swayed slowly back up to Ooty, the journey is a memory which will stay with me for ever.

Engine arriving to push us back to Ooty

First Class splendour

 

Views over the hills on the way back

Views of the train