Wednesday 22 January

Wellington/Ooty

A much shorter day today with much less driving. 

Breakfast at the Sleeping Beauty by Nature Hotel was a little underwhelming – no non-dairy milk available … and when I asked if it would be possible to have some for tomorrow morning, they said no! So dry toast and jam and some fruit it had to be! It’s occurred to me that it’s actually been more challenging than I expected to be vegan – in this part of India at least (and Kerala where we are heading to is likely to be even worse – they eat a lot of dead fish there). Here at Sleeping Beauty, after we told them we were vegan and explained what that meant, they asked us if we would like an omelette for breakfast! Matthew had been wondering whether we should stay here for an additional night – it is a stunning location in the hills and among the tea plantations, I’ll admit – but on the strength of the breakfasts, I said no thanks!

The plan for today was to visit a tea factory and the botanical gardens in Ooty. Vaishakh collected us at 8:30 and we drove through Ooty and up to the Benchmark tea factory (they also made chocolate there). The drive on the road up the hill was amazing – terraces of tea bushes – with lots of different shades of green looked wonderful.

At the tea factory a young man explained to us how white tea and green tea and black tea all come from the same bush – the white tea comes from the bottom of the leaf which is handpicked. Green tea comes from newest, tender leaves that are steamed before processing. Black tea comes from the darker/older leaves that are dried and ground. It was interesting and we could see the machinery operating through windows, but we were out fairly quickly.

We were given some tea to drink and had opportunities to buy tea and chocolate! Matthew was considering buying some chocolate, but we were not allowed to taste any of it, which I thought was a little odd-and I was reluctant to buy something that I wasn’t sure whether I’d like it or not (I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth). Vaishakh wanted to buy some chocolate for his wife – he bought some for us too, which was very kind of him! It tasted good too!! Thanks Vaishakh!

The drive back to Ooty to the botanical gardens was nice and we discussed how tea might be made in smaller, more traditional business businesses. Vaishakh asked us if we would be interested in visiting a more traditional tea making business, and after the rather commercial and noisy tea factory we thought that would be a really good idea. He said he would try to arrange something while we were in the botanical gardens.

The botanical gardens were more like a Victorian British park – lawns, glasshouse, formal bedding, cascades and tree-lined paths. Not unpleasant, but it didn’t feel particularly Indian. We had to pay to get in and while Matthew was doing that, I looked ruefully at all the signs and notices at the entrance – there are a lot of signs telling people how to behave and what to do everywhere we’ve been – and they’re often ignored by the people that they’re directed at and I wonder if everyone else, like me, just finds them really oppressive?

Matthew will write separately about the Botanical Gardens – he knew all the plant names and can describe it better than I can. 

Before leaving Ooty we went to the railway station – I’m very excited about tomorrow because we’re taking the Ooty Toy Train (or Nilgiri Mountain Railway to give it it’s proper name) we’ll be on a three hour ride to Mettupalayam. We went to the railway station in Ooty to book our tickets.

I was disappointed to find that all the bookable availability was sold out! However, we can buy walk-on tickets in the morning, so we’ll be back at Ooty station at eight tomorrow morning!

We walked back to the car and Vaishakh had found a small tea plantation and factory that we could visit – the Glendale estate. We drove there past the huge Wellington Cordite factory, it looked pretty forbidding – surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. Someone who working our hotel told us that they make munitions for the Indian military at the site here.

The Glendale tea plantation was beautiful – an 85 year old factory and surrounding fields of tea buses being worked (mostly by women workers). The factory was closed for a holiday, but we were allowed to look around – the machines looked very dangerous with unguarded mechanisms. It was fascinating to get so close to the process and the people working there – the previous factory was interesting but more commercial.

After the second tea factory of the day, we headed back to our hotel. One of the staff offered to walk us further up the hill to see the sunset – he was a sweet local man … he asked us about our relationship and while I was contemplating whether or not to tell him that we’re married, he said “You’re soulmates.” I happily agreed with that.

It was becoming more misty in the valley and so there wouldn’t be a good sunset to see. We could see lots of sold plots on the hillside – with tea bushes still growing on them. It’s likely that these plots will be built on and it was really sad to think that this beautiful natural landscape and space for wild buffalo and leopards will disappear forever.