Tuesday 21 January

Bengaluru – Wellington

Today we continue our journey from the east coast to the south west, from Bengaluru through Mysuru, to stay for two nights in a nature reserve (hopefully to see monkeys, elephants and even leopards and tigers!) in Wellington, (between Ooty and Coonoor). It’s about 180 miles and that’s 6 hours driving here!  But first, Matthew wanted to see the garden festival in Bengaluru.

Breakfast at the Raddisson Blue was served from 0730 and we were up, packed and ready to eat so we could get away early. Our room was lovely and included a pod coffee machine – we had some soya milk in little pots, so we could have coffee as soon as we were awake.

After breakfast Vaishakh was waiting for us and we drove to Lalbagh Botanical Garden, on the way we passed the extraordinary local legislative assembly building.

The flower show in the botanical gardens was in a glasshouse (which really reminded me of a miniature Covent Garden market building). The park itself is lovely – very obviously designed by the British colonialists with fountains, big lake, statues and formal flower beds with winding paths.

The garden show was nice – not too busy and as well as the formal displays there were stalls selling food, gardening paraphernalia and food. 

Vaishakh had been on his phone quite a bit and he said that he had a surprise for us – I thought that he might set up a video call with  our friends Bharath and Shubhi back in the UK. Anyway, while I was preoccupied reading about some of the mythical stories that inspired the flower display, Vaishakh tapped me on the shoulder and said “I want you to meet someone.” I turned around and there was Shubhi! I was amazed!! I knew that Shubhi’s family lived in Bengaluru and I knew that she was coming to to India, but we were talking a few weeks ago she’d said she was returning to the UK from India on 15 January, so we thought that we’d miss each other. Last night when we were driving to the market and Bugle Rock Park, Vaishakh had said that we were in the area that it was where Shubhi lived – I asked him if he’d seen her when she was here in India a few weeks ago. He said “No, I didn’t know that she was here.” I was a little mystified by this, but didn’t pursue it. I just told him that she had been here, but that I thought that she’d gone back to the UK last week. Now we know that this was all a big fib and that Shubhi had decided to stay on in India and they’d been plotting for this moment all along – the pair of scamps!

It was such a wonderful surprise to see Shubhi – she looked so beautiful in her blue Sari and we talked about Bengaluru and the flower show and what she’d been doing in India. We had some delicious street food: fresh mango with salt and a little curry powder, some popped rice with onion and tomatoes; we also tried gooseberry tea (yuk). We talked about Barath and his work. We visited some of the stalls. We saw some more monkeys in the park and we watched some of the park rangers capturing a big snake that was in the grass and putting it in a white bag. Shubhi assured me that the rangers would take the snake to the woods, away from people and release it  – not kill it. This was such a wonderful, lovely surprise – I didn’t want this part of the day to end. However, we had a long drive ahead – so we said our goodbyes and set off to Mysuru.

Vaishakh lives in Mysuru with his wife Sindoo and one-year old son. We’d been very kindly invited to his house for lunch and we were also going to leave the fabric that Matthew bought for Janet’s kurti with Vaishakh’s cousin who’s a tailor and will sew it for us.

Shortly after leaving Bengaluru we were on much quieter roads and surrounded by palm trees, forests and fields full of sugar cane. We passed lots of trucks piled high with sugar cane and we stopped to buy coconut from a stall.  

Lunch in Vaishakh’s house was delicious – lovely crisp rice flour pancakes, coconut chutney and salad. I picked up a child’s book to help teach them English words – I thought that it was extraordinary that it was published in India yet all the photos of people showed White people – but as I looked through there were some even more alarming things:

We met Vaishakh’s cousin and Matthew gave her Janet’s measurements along with a photo of Janet to work from … should be ready for collection at the end of the week.

The final leg of today’s journey was breathtaking, bringing us on a very quiet road through the Niligri Biosphere – a UNESCO environment programme. Mudumalai National Park and Tiger Reserve was the first wildlife sanctuary in India. We passed through a Eucalyptus tree forest and travelled high up to the Nilgiris mountains through the hill station of Ooty to Wellington. The views were spectacular and the setting sun and we had fantastic views of the misty mountains and the river valley as the road twisted and turned uphill. Vaishakh’s driving was superb – some very tight bends and steep turns to negotiate! 

At the start of our drive through the wildlife sanctuary we saw a mother elephants with her calf. Amazing – I’ve never seen an elephant in the wild before. There were more elephants as we drove … and monkeys and deer, wild boars, peacocks and a buffalo. It was utterly amazing. 

Vaishakh was relieved that we had seen some elephants – he didn’t want Bharath ribbing him for not being able to show us one!

We’re here in Wellington for two or three days (we’ve not decided yet) and we’ll be exploring around. We know that the views from our hotel will be spectacular … it’s dark at the moment, so we’ll post pictures of the views tomorrow.