The beautiful hills of Ooty

Saturday / Sunday 24-25 November
I feel like I should be arriving in Sedan chair, this place is so 'Raj'. It's the guesthouse of the Maharajah of Mysore's summer abode, Fernhills Palace and for the first time, there is total peace. No horns, no hawkers, nothing.
I enter down a long corridor, lined with antique photographs of the Mysore Royal family and past a vast sitting room. There are staff everywhere, each dressed in a different colour according to their remit. A man in brown greets me and barks at a boy in red to take my bag in. The sitting room turns out to be a bedroom - my room. I've never seen anything like it. About 20 feet square with 2 beds, a dining area, writing desk, dressing table and sitting area, that'll be 6 tables and 10 chairs in total. Not to mention a drinks cabinet! The bathroom isn't a lot smaller, but suitably Indian with a strong whiff of mold and pre-historic plumbing. The fittings look Victorian and the ridiculously long loo-handle feels like I'm ringing a church bell.
Another man in green invites me to take lunch in the garden outside. He looks an awful lot like Freddie Mercury; the Freddie look is quite popular here, thanks to the prevelence of taches and gappy teeth. "I am Villiam"he tells me with a welcoming wobble of the head.
I've noticed the wobbling in the South is a different motion from that of the North. It's quicker and much more side-to-side, especially during moments of intense agreement, excitement or approval. A simple "this paratha is excellent" will elicit a painful-looking see-saw action which would give you or I a jippy neck.
Villiam's colleage, Jankin takes me up the driveway to the palace proper, a bright red affair built early 19th Century and now a heritage hotel. They are currently doing it up so I am treated to a full tour, including many of its 19 bedrooms, which, despite being 6 times the price, are not that much different from my own. They've wisely done away with the old bathrooms and installed new ones which sadly look like a job-lot from MFI and don't go with the building at all. To protect their well-paying guests from the nightime cold, they are installing special heating machines, magically powered by steam. I turn to look. It's an everyday radiator. Well why would he have seen one before?
The rest of the place is wonderfully British Raj. A huge ballroom dominates the entrance and is lined with photos of celebrations from the early 20th Century, featuring many Edwardian ladies in all their finery, escorted by various Colonels and Captains. A lot of the pictures are depicting a hunt. Yes, a fox hunt, way up in the hills of Tamil Nadu. Complete with, horses dogs, horns and important old buffers in the full gear. Now getting my one suitcase up here was an ordeal, how the hell did they get all those petticoats and britches up there before buses?!
The boy showing me round apologises that some of the furniture is missing (I hadn't noticed). "It is because of the shooting Mem". Shooting?!! Yes, there was shooting which took three days to film". Phew.
In the gallery upstairs is the world's biggest billard table, complete with original baise. Round the corner is the Fox Hunt Bar complete with mounted fox heads and whisky. In the grounds, they are turning a large, equally red outbuilding into a games area. It's the size of a barn and I ask if they used to keep horses in it. "Elephants". Cool!
Back at my new home (I wish), I ask directions for walking down the hill to town. "Simple Mem, take a left at the bottom and then walk along the railway line" Errr....OK. I do just that, and it's a lovely stroll. The weather is perfect, clear skies, fresh air and soothing, not sweltering sun.
As is typical of the hill stations, sunset is followed by very cool air and the woollen shawls are immediately whipped out to form a personal blanket. Central heating is yet to come to my little palace, so a boy offers to light a fire and when I agree, he re-appears carrying his own bodyweight in firewood. At least I think it's him beneath all those branches....
Yesterday I was scrubbing the sweat and city grime from my poor pasty skin. Today I am playing with my own little bonfire, which I'd forgotten what fun it can be.
The next day is spent exploring my new back garden. Down the one side of the hill are perfectly kept tea plantations, neighboured by Ooty's biggest crop - carrots. Today's walk along the railway line is a little more dangerous in that as I approach the only section where you have to walk along, rather than alongside the track, along comes the train. A quick sprint over the sleepers and I can stand alongside, waving back to excited passengers who have no doubt enjoyed watching me almost be killed.
The track ends near the lake, where it's only a quick shimmy down some lose bricks and over the barbed wire to Jollyworld, Ooty's shimmering amusement park. It's certainly a whole world of jolliness, the focal point being the boating lake, which is surprisingly well equipped, thanks in no small to the large 'Vodafone' awnings at each jetty. You can hire a pedalo or take a ride in the larger motorboats, whose safety levels are apparent from the skippers seat being a plastic patio chair, tethered to the post supporting the overhead canopy.....
I could fill this entire blog with Indian toilet stories - but shall refrain for fear of 'oversharing'. This one was particularly special however, not for its cleanliness (or lack there of) but for its unusual instruction, painted in large, red letters on the outside:
Pay & Use
No Free
(Urine Only)
I get laughed at pretty much on an hourly basis here, but the hysterics from the ladies outside as I photographed this gem made me hope they hadn't peed too soon....
Next Jollyworld stop.."First Time In World! Thread Garden!". It does what it says on the tin, a garden, made of thread. Imagine if you will, a large, murky greenhouse with no natural light, containing hundreds of ornaamental pot plants, each flower, leaf and petal made entirely of tightly wound silk. It has taken 50 people 12 years to make. Why??!! Who on earth thought that one up? The viewing path goes up only one side of the shed, so most of the exhibits are a good 15 feet away and the poor strip lighting means you really can't tell what they're made of, hence it just looks like a garden centre with a powercut. The clearest exhibits are the inevitable 'Do Not Touch' sign, writ large in red. Touch? I'm not even close enough to see them!!!
Ooty's pride and joy is without doubt its spectacular Botanical Garden. Easily the most impressive thing I have seen in India, with beautiful plants and landscapes, all lovingly tended and NO LITTER!! Not even any little piles of rotting plastic bags. Being a major exhibit, it is a Studley's paradise - they're getting their own separate thread.