In Ooty On the way to Mysuru

Varkala Beach, from one of the many restaurants

Some of the back streets are very English

Life is hard, for someone., somewhere.

The storm that almost blocked the sunset, then provided a lovely light show into the night

25/10/11

   Didn't actually make it away because the Rock 'n Roll bar had a local Tabala (drum) and Violin playing for the start of Dewali a 2 day thing with fire works and bangers, often big bangers. The night started well with a chance to watch a local fisherman jumping of the back of rocks with the swell, to catch crayfish apparently. This of course is when the sun is going down, aahhh lovely, then just to spice it up, a pod of Dolphins swam past out a bit further lol, awesome.

26/10/11

   Bit wet in the morning and realised I still didn't have a cover for one pannier after losing the one in Sri Lanka. So went to town to find a couple of cheap poncho's like I had in Vietnam, one for the bag and one to save me putting on the wet weathers. It turns out that the wet weathers they have here are proper ish, top and bottom set pieces, not what I'm looking for. I eventually found a place selling tarpaulins and bought one of those.

This did mean I stayed another day lol bugger.

27/10/11

   Rode out with every intention of heading into the hills, until the rain started. With everything covered I ended up staying on the main road up the coast toward Kochi, unfortunately I lost the other wet weather cover for my bags, grrr. Luckily the tarpaulin I had bought was big enough to cover both bags, yes.

 Lucky I'm not entering any fashion shows. Yes a police man has asked me to remove the India flag as it is illegal to have one unless you are a politician, but it was raining so he didn't want to get out of his jeep, so i couldn't be bothered removing it.

   I made it to Backwater town, Alappuzha about 4pm and hunted for a hotel. By backwater I don't mean middle of no where, I mean the place everyone comes to to do backwater house boat trips. The hotel I found even has proper hot water, what I mean is the water is actually hot, I have stayed in hotels advertising hot water, but really it's warm. And of course I've stayed in hotels that had tanks on the roof which got hot during the day. But this was HOT water hehe, it probably helped that I was wet and cool at the time of arrival, but then I did have 3 showers last night and I really cannot remember the last time I had a real hot shower, it may even have been in south Vietnam 9 or 10 months ago. No it was Singapore although I don't think I ever turned the hot on there, so maybe in the mountains of north Vietnam. It's two days later and it was Sri Lanka in the Hills (maybe).

Some of the canals here look like parks

28/10/11

   Been having issues with Vodafone so had to go to the shop, nothing really sorted as I'm in the wrong state apparently, that's India for you. Went for a ferry trip in the afternoon out on the canals, and I could happily spend a while here just catching a ferry out and then walking and ferrying back to town down the canals.

29/10/11

   Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, a ferry ride and a walk on the canals, a bottle of rum and a happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.

I was very impressed in the amount of coconuts for the size of the tree.

Not sure if this is a school bus, or just canoe pooling lol. a heap of ferry's took off just as wee got there that where definitely school buses.

30/10/11

   Happy recovery day to me lol, a movie or 3 and not much else, a happy recovery day to me.

31/10/11

   Another ferry trip and walk spent some time sitting on one jetty and got to see my first snake in India. It was a small green one that may have swam across the canal hiding in the river weed as it went, I say that because I saw one hide in one, after I first spotted it and before it climbed into the rocks on the bank. Otherwise a lovely day on the water and the banks.

From the jetty

1/11/11

   Rode off toward Coimbatore to see Vodafone Tamil Nadu in the hopes that I can sort out this Internet once and for all. The back roads definitely looked the best on the map so I headed out and around the other side of the lake to Kottayam. It turned out that the road I followed was a nice mountain road but took a lot longer than though so ended up staying in Munnar a hill station town.

Heaps of waterfalls all the way up into the mountains, and road side temples are everywhere over here. Almost as many as plastic bags.

loads of Christian churches too, the often have multi tears with priest, saint, Mary, Jesus on them

lol, lucky I had a month of bucket washing in Indo.

2/11/11

   Bike had a puncher in the morning so ripped the front wheel off and the hotel guy ran me down to the shop to get it repaired, turned out to be a little barb made a hole, R50 for the fix and my first real experience of people who don't really know what they are doing, doing the work for you. I was unable to put the wheel back on 2 locals HAD to do it for me, I've read a bit about this in India so you have to keep a close eye on them or they will break things when trying to help. Also is the first puncher on my own bike of the trip, there was the rental in Indo that got a flat.

   Anyway lovely mountain pass to go through on the way to Coimbatore, almost felt like the highest rode in Vietnam for a while there, loved it, a Nam flash back lol, even down to the road works and road condition. The only real difference was tea instead of rice paddies.

 Arrrrggg the smells, the sounds, the feel, Vietnam, all comes flooding back in a rush of niceness, but it's all done so bloody nicely... Yes that is a Young Ones quote, i watched some for my birthday lol.

  Once in Coimbatore the hotel I had found on wiki travel was full, but the Vodafone shop was near by so went and got the phone sorted, well if it wasn't India maybe. It appears I was meant to go back to Chennai, arh no. I managed to get a reasonable deal though, which is suppose to be good for all states and rechargeable in all states, hopefully.

   It started raining again as I left Vodafone and as it was getting dark, I decided to head towards Ooty and stay at the first place I found. Which was a R600 place that I would have struggled to pay R300 for, so rode on. Ended up in a flash ish place for R650 ($13US)

3/11/12

   Got 497km from 16lt very happy with that as petrol is higher in price here than Southeast Asia, that cost R1100 so $22US. Rode up some more beautiful mountain roads, on the way to Ooty, did not rain for the most of the trip but these mountains are like the Blue Mountains in Australia, there is even a mountain called Blue here, so there is often Clouds and rain. Saying that I had not put the wet weather cover on the bags so when it started raining at 14:00 I stopped at the first hotel I saw.

   Turns out it is only 4km from Ooty and much cheaper so quite happy about that. For the first time, possibly in my life, I said “If it is raining in the morning, I ride on. If it is fine I stay for another day” lol.

This is one of my favourite photos so far, possible better when you can zoom in and see the little village at the bottom.

Tea? In India? Who would have thunk it
 
4/11/12

   Lovely fine morning so decided to stay another day. Went for a ride out to the lake and up to the botanical gardens, which I though where great. The where created in 1847, so when Westerners where starting to move to New Zealand lol, I'm guessing you would love them mum, although I think they needed more chairs in a lot of nice quieter areas there where no seats.

 What are these called mum? The where cool little things.

   Then road up to Doddabetta Peak 2,623m, and arrived as the mist came in so turned around and left again lol.
 wow that's a big one
  Enjoy your life.