Ooty to Bhadravati.... ten bloody years!!

After a few days recovery, we loaded our bikes once again and began the final ascent to Ooty. We managed to find another peaceful resting place having battled through the Ooty smog centered around Charing Cross and the Ooty Racecourse! As we wanderered around the town, clutching scarves to our faces, diesel fumes on our breath, we tried to imagine what it must've been like nearly fifty years ago when Kat's dad last visited.

Luckily, in our lake side guesthouse (trees perfectly positioned to obscure the open sewers bubbling into one of Ooty's main attractions) we befriended our first foreign fellow tourists, Nico and Julie. We chatted over tea and breakfast about the beauty of India's many unfathomable and at times laughable contrasts. Somehow, despite the pollution and waste, beautiful flowers and butterflies still manage to thrive.

We said our farewells and set off to Masinagudi, a small village on the edge of the Madamalai and Bandipur Wildlife Reserve, a park with the highest concentration of wild Tigers in India. Having spent the previous afternoon chasing park rangers all over Ooty to see if safe passage was possible, all we'd managed to discover was that if we survived the 36 hairpin bend road to the reserve, a tiger mauling or elephant stampede would be almost an inevitability.

As we descended the hairpins, brakes squealing we found our first fellow cycle tourer, Jo, a 23 year old Brit cycling from Canterbury to Australia! He had faired less well on the descent having suffered his 15th broken spoke and 80th puncture by hairpin 10! We then stopped to chat every 10 hairpins or so to allow our brakes to cool. 

It was a mixed blessing the next morning when park rangers denied our entry into the wildlife park proper. Although disappointed not to be cycling, we persuaded a friendly truck driver, Ramesh, to take us the 28km through the park. Bikes strapped in the back we piled in excitedly for a morning safari, secretly hoping to spot an elusive elephant along the way. It dawned on us why people might think we were mad cycling, when it feels so good standing in the back of an open truck, wind in hair, driving through untamed wilderness. We'd spotted wild boar, spotted deers, monkeys, peacocks, before rounding a corner and seeing a swaying elephant deliberately munching her breakfast in the undergrowth. We stopped and watched with no one else around. It was hard to imagine she would ever be aggressive to two passing cyclists, but I guess that's easy to say from the safety of a truck!

It was hard to believe that later that same day we rolled into Mysore (Mysuru - population 1 million!). We were a bit paranoid about entering such a big city but India's second cleanest city proved to be more like a suburb of Barcelona with wide open tree lined roads and reasonably well behaved traffic! That night we headed into the city proper to see the Palace illumination which happens for 45 minutes every Sunday. The lights themselves were dazzling but what was more amazing was being swept up in the wave of people there to see them. A city break followed with a day of slowly losing ourselves in back streets, soaking up the sensory overload in crowded ancient markets, finding the best street food vendors and sampling the local delicacies. It again showed how India can amaze in a day from hitching a ride in a truck and seeing elephants to the bright city lights!

Leaving Mysore before the sun rose with a waning moon overhead, we made good progress escaping the city traffic. It was a cool morning with mist slowly rising over the surrounding rice paddies. There was an option of a little shortcut which proved a great decision. A dusty road over an ancient bridge ran alongside a steel monster under construction. Rice paddies gave way to coconut plantations as we wound through small, peaceful villages. Passing looks of disbelief told us that this was a route rarely taken by cycle tourers! One chai wallah was so amazed he gave us our teafor free! The rest of the day passed in a dream state as we took the pilgrimage route to Shravanabelagola. We noticed the architecture had changed since reaching the heart of Karnataka State. Vibrantly coloured mud houses in azure and pea green, terracotta tiled roofs and carefully swept red earthen floors. We arrived in S.Belagola with enough time to ascend the 614 steps to the Jain 2000 year old monolithic statue but having made it down we barely had enough energy to muster a conversation over supper. All this 'zen-like' discovery is pretty exhausting!

We'd plucked up the courage to try our first couch surf in a coffee plantation in the mountains above Chikmagalur, but our legs couldn't face an 80km uphill detour so we gave in to Air-con in a bustling commuter town in the foothills. Our disappointment weighed heavy on the bikes and one of our shortest days proved to be one of the hardest so far... legs like treacle and Ed in a horrible mood!

As Ed sang on his bike this morning... 'what a difference a day makes.... twenty four little hours....' Ed's little black cloud had passed as we rode through coffee plantations and jungle, around perfectly banked curves before descending 30km to Bhadravati as we celebrated our tenth anniversary..... bloody hell!!!!

Apologies for the rambling, for future reference, best just to look at the pics!

Love to all... next stop a little break with the Hippies in Hampii.

Ed and Kat xxxxx