Kerala / Tamil Nadu / Karnataka – day 10 / 11

Kochi – Coimbatore – Ooty – Mysore

Saturday, 8th April 2023 / Sunday 9th April 2023

We wake up at 6 AM in the morning. Because of the heat, I fell asleep around 3:30 AM, so I hope to get some rest on the train. We quickly pack up and walk to the ferry stop. We need to get to Ernakulam. Luckily, one is just leaving. From the other side, it’s only two kilometers to the train station, so we walk and try to find a place for breakfast. We end up at the same place we went on the first day. We’re not sure why they’re trying to push masala dosa on us, but we’re now familiar with Indian dish names, so we order idlyppayam with egg curry and chickpea masala.

Then we head to the train to Coimbatore, which we managed to buy online with great effort, hoping it would be better than getting it at the station. It turns out to be the same, except that three people actually sit on a three-seater.

Plus, you can do some shopping on the train. Train vendors offer t-shirts, shorts, scarves of various kinds, necklaces, keychains, lighters, flashlights, nail clippers, watches, headphones, adapters, and much more. And you definitely won’t go hungry or thirsty. Every five minutes, four men walk through, carrying food (biryani) on their heads, letting you know loudly. There are also vendors selling coffee, tea, water, snacks, and even a nuts. Then, a woman walks by “sweeping” under the seats with a few branches and her own body, stopping at every seat asking for money. Quite the variety of services! I slept through part of the journey before the train got crowded, and Jozef kept his headphones on the entire time because a kid was sitting next to him. Out of the window, we saw our first elephant in the river.

We have a six-hour layover in Coimbatore. The first task is to find the bus station. Coimbatore has almost a million residents, but they just write “Stop: Coimbatore” on the ticket. We have time, so we walk. The forecast says 36°C, but it feels better than in Kochi because we’re inland. We found filtered coffee, which helped a lot. We reach the biggest bus station and ask around. They write the name of the stop on the ticket and direct us where to go. To be sure, we ask at the first counter. They say no, that we need to go further. We ask at the second counter, and people in line tell us the counter is on the other side of the building. We go there, and a man sends us back. We find yet another counter we hadn’t been to, and finally, someone confirms that the bus is indeed coming and that we should arrive half an hour early.

We look for a place to eat. Around the station, there are lots of shady establishments, and sometimes it smells like sewage. We pick one place. I order fried noodles, and Jozef gets fried rice. It’s a lot of food, so we stay for a while. For dessert, we have mango ice cream. We still have plenty of time, so we head to a shopping mall, hoping for air condition. It’s about two kilometers away, and along the way, we see people running interesting small businesses. A small table with a chair and a typewriter is where a lady “lawyer” (probably more like a administrator) works. Another stand has many keys and second-hand locks. There’s a fire going, an iron, and a pile of clothes. All sorts of scenes.

We reach the mall, and it’s another sight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people in a mall. But at least there’s air conditioning, so we wander around for a bit. Our power bank stopped working today, so we go to a café to charge our phones. The lady tries to plug it in, but it doesn’t work, so we just have some coffee and again try, unsuccessfully, to find accommodation in Ooty, as we’ve been doing all day. We were supposed to arrive there tomorrow morning, but it’s so hot down here that we wanted to get to the mountains sooner. Everything affordable is sold out because it’s Easter weekend. We missed out on a hostel earlier in that day. I suggest we stay in Coimbatore and head to Ooty the next day, but Jozef isn’t too keen on that because we would lose our bus tickets and arrive too late the next day.

So, at 6:30 PM, we’re ready at the station, we find our bus, and we’re seated. It slowly fills up. I bought two tickets on a three-seater, hoping no one else would sit with us – very naive in India. The bus is supposed to leave at 7 PM, but we depart at 7:20 PM. It’s not ideal because we want to ask about accommodation when we arrive, and the bus is supposed to get there at 9:30 PM. It takes an hour just to get out of Coimbatore. We meet Skhumbra, who gives us a contact of a friend in Ooty who might help us with accommodation, but everything is fully booked. At least we ask him for tips on interesting places to visit. After another hour, we pass through Mettupalayam, and the bus stops for food. Two hours after departure, we stop for a proper dinner at a restaurant. We aren’t hungry, so we just charge our phones. At 10 PM, we set off again. The road starts to climb steeply. The bus lights go off, and loud Indian music plays.

At midnight, we arrive in Ooty, two and a half hours later than scheduled. A tuk-tuk driver asks if we need a ride, so we ask about accommodation, but everything is expensive. It’s 15°C, so we dress up near the station and start looking for a place to sleep. We meet one person who offers us a room for 4000 INR, but that seems too much for just a few hours. Then a car pulls up. The driver doesn’t speak much English, smells of alcohol, and tells us to get in. We don’t have much to lose, so we go. He drives strangely, first turning into one street, then turning around and stopping by a parked bus. We think maybe sleeping in the bus would be okay. Instead, he pulls out some blankets and puts them in the car. We continue driving and stop in front of a house. It looks decent from the outside, but then I start to understand his English better – he’s offering for us to sleep with him in the car (a very small car). We don’t have many other options, so we agree, thinking it’s better than outside. I take the backseat, and Jozef sits up front. Jakob (the driver) apologizes and says he’s going to have another drink to fall asleep, and we say that’s fine. He tries to make a few phone calls but seems to have no credit. He drinks more whiskey and starts mumbling and singing; we think he might cry. Then he apologizes and starts covering Jozef with a blanket, which feels really odd. We thank him for the offer and leave.

We find an empty bus stop, lay down, and sleep for over an hour. Then it starts getting cold, so we go for a walk. Jakob’s car is no longer parked where it was. We check the station again, but it’s full of sketchy people, so we don’t want to stay there. We head towards a church, but almost get attacked by a dog. After walking for another hour and a half, we return to our bus stop, warm and tired, and sleep for almost an hour and a half. A man from the station finds us there, which is unsettling because the stop was pretty isolated. I don’t want to fall asleep with him sitting nearby, shaking. So, we start walking again.

By 5 AM, we hope something will open soon. We find a place and have overly sweet tea with milk and a coconut bun. It’s slowly getting light, so we walk to a higher spot.

We wander around, hoping to find someone open, as Jozef’s phone is out of battery again. Still, nothing is open, so I take a short nap. Jozef finds out that renting motorbikes in Ooty is banned, as local taxi drivers lobbied for it. We ask at the tourist information office. As with all Indian information desks, we don’t understand him, and he doesn’t understand us. But later, we read that it’s possible but not exactly legal. We’re figuring out what to do next.

We head for some food. We find a nice restaurant, I have egg curry, and Jozef orders chicken curry. We charge our phones there. We decide to take a bus to Mysore, which is a 3-4 hour ride (150 km), rent a motorbike, and head back to Ooty.

We arrive at the station just as a bus is leaving, so we hop on. It’s 9 AM, and my watch shows 19,300 steps. After an hour, the bus stops at roadside stands, and people grab snacks. Another hour later, we stop again for food. We don’t get it. Five minutes later, we stop again. The road through the national park (28 km) is closed because the Indian Prime Minister is visiting. They tell us we’ll be waiting for two hours. We are trying to figure out if we should split up, but after half an hour, they reopen the road. In the national park, we see elephants, langurs, axis deer, and peacocks.

We’re only an hour away from Mysore when we stop again for lunch. At this point, we don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Finally, after 6.5 hours, we reach Mysore. We start searching for a rental. The one we had in mind has moved, so we head to another. We get there; it’s open, they have bikes, and Jozef is already celebrating. But then they tell us it’s an online-only rental, and we can’t rent on the spot. Big disappointment. We search for the relocated rental. We find it. They look at Jozef’s international driver’s license and tell him it’s not enough – he needs some additional Indian permit based on that license. We had previously rented a bike, but it was in another state. So, no luck again. It’s scorching hot, everyone’s honking, people are shouting at us, we’re exhausted, and we don’t know what to do next.

Ooty seems like a cursed city for us, and we should have abandoned the idea earlier instead of dragging it out this far. We don’t want to go back, so we write to the accommodation to cancel. Still no response. We book a hotel with air conditioning, negotiate a tuk-tuk ride for 100 INR, and get to the hotel in 10 minutes. After two days of traveling, we take a shower and head into the city for dinner, grab a beer each, and go to bed. We don’t know where we’re going tomorrow.