Ooty and the Mudumalai Nature Reserve

Thursday morning we left at 6:00 a.m. to take the three-hour drive with a hired driver to the town of Udhagamandalam, affectionately known as Ooty, up in the Nilgiri Hills about a mile and a half above sea level (half again as high as Denver). Seventeen hairpin turns to get there from the south, 36 from the north, on a road built by the British. We went straight through Ooty and down the other side to go first to the Mudumalai Nature Reserve. We didn’t see any tigers, but did find several wild elephants, many spotted deer, and numerous monkeys, as well as birds and beautiful scenery.





























We learned to count to 36 backwards in the language of the state of Tamil Nadu (which is Tamil) as we retraced our 36 hairpin turns to return to Ooty. We stopped at the “Indira Mess” for lunch (though the name didn’t sound inviting to us, it clearly meant something different in Indian English).


Among other things, Ooty is a plastic-free city.


































There we visited a beautiful and lush botanical garden that was established by the British in 1847, i.e., 163 years ago.














On the way back we were amused to encounter India’s “Quiet Corner.”