Incredible India - Part 2

Our second night in the Lalitha was unremarkable, save fishing a few frogs out of the swimming pool. Day 3 saw an early start, and as Mysore gave way to the foothills of the Nilgiri Hills, India proper (for this country boy, anyway) started.

The roads became a mix of old and new, with evidence of a massive road building programme going on, but not with very joined-up thinking. Several miles of road that reminded me of Ireland before the EU arrived would suddenly give way to a mud track with potholes that could swallow a small car, and buzzing over the mountainous surface like ants passed cars, trucks, motorbikes and cycles, with only placid cows moving serenely and untroubled through the mad scramble. Usually, the good road would be rural, and the unadopted stretches would be through ribbon villages.

We stopped for lunch after crossing the Cauvery River in a village just beyond Kashalnagaur, where we dined with the Somayas. Two notable things happened there. Firstly, I got the heebeejeebees when this critter flew in




It was dismissed as being a 'wasp', but it looked like a genetically modified hornet and scared the bejaysus out of me. The other noteworthy moment was seeing a photograph of me in this house in remote South India. I'll expand later, but both our families had been at the same party on the Hog's Back in Surrey last year.


Chez Somaya. The reason for my brandy glass figure is actually a money belt bulging with 10 rupee notes!

Next stop was our home for the next three nights, and an education in hard beds. It was the charmingly named 'Home Stay' offered by the Bopayas in the coffee estate near to the village of Chethalli, the village where our journey's end lay. But this trip was like pass-the-parcel, as there were many layers to unpeel before we got to the jewel, and despite being only four miles from Dalquarren Estate, the whole point of our pilgrimage, it was to be nearly 24 hours before we would see the wonder of the place.

After a night hiding under a linen cover, listening to countless drive-bys of a mosquito that I was obsessing was malarial, on a litter as hard as a Europallet, I felt quite humbled to find that Vasantha, our driver for the rest of the trip, had slept in the back of the tiny little Tata, and however we remonstrated with him, that was the way it was going to stay for the next five nights. This is probably as good a point as any to touch on the cast system. Our first brush with it was in a posh restaurant in Mysore, where we insisted our first driver dined with us. The staff looked him up and down, and short of shoving him out of the door, ushered him to a table near ours, but made it obvious he was not permitted to dine with us. Vasantha wouldn't even eat at the same times or places, as we learned on the road to Ooty later. Whilst every liberal gene in one's being wants to scream 'stuff your cast system', we were the visitors, and had to adjust to the 'When in Rome' principal.

The first trip of the morning was probably the high point for the girls, as it involved getting up early, and climbing into a river and scrubbing elephants. I scored major points with my Antipodean brother-in-law by keep the moral and literal high ground as official photographer whilst the wimmin rolled up their trousers and did what BIL referred to as 'Coolie work', all in aid of knowing what it is like to scratch an elephant behind the ear. I have a gross of pictures and few tales, apart from Mary upsetting a German lady tourist by loudly referring to elephant turds as 'Bismarks'.


The elephant wash had to be approached by boat, which was my yachting interest for the day.



This was the register, probably half of which turned up for scrubbing



The prewashing ritual


Up periscope


Down to business


And my favourite, looking like the next Spice Girls

Enough! Once decorum had been re-established, it was elephant feeding time, and for some time it seemed the heffalumps were being fed their own Bismarks, but we were assured it wasn't predigested and full of things pachyderms thrive on. These were, after all, working animals shifting timber in the jungle.



From there, Vasantha whisked us to Madikeri, but again we got tantalisingly close to Dalquarren, going past the end of the long drive, and seeing this sign, allegedly original from our grandfather's watch.



The drive from Chetalli to Madikeri is nothing short of paradise. By now I had fallen head over heels with Coorg, or Kodagu as it is now known. Madikeri is the new name for Mercara. Finally, I realised why when I had looked at the large scale maps of India (I must do a cartaholic post soon, I can't be alone in my mania for these wonderful artifacts, surely?) that I couldn't find a single name from the days of White Mischief without realising that neither could I find Bombay or Calcutta.


The Mountain Road (sorry, that's the name of one of my favourite Irish tunes)

Madikeri is absolutely beautiful. Our first stop was at the Maharajah's Seat, which affords quite the most beatiful view we had seen since arrival. It was so mesmerising, I could still be sitting there now, transfixed.



I think it was the feeling that my forebears had stood right there, a grandmother that died twenty years before my birth, an uncle who died a hero in Albania in 1945, a grandfather who died in my dimmest of memories and a mother seeing that vista with a child's eye that moved me so much, more so than anywhere else so far.





We went to the North Coorg Club, where we met by chance an Indian couple from Manchester and enjoyed a chotapeg. This was the hub of the social scene, and we were proudly told that whilst much of the fabric of the club had changed, the floor was original and had definitely reported the passage of my grandfather's brogues.


Perhaps Vasantha isn't David Bailey, but this does show the style of the North Coorg Club

The second poignant moment was visiting what is now the Madikeri museum, but it is in fact the deconsecrated Anglican church, where we virtually had to get local government permission to take this photo of our uncle's war memorial.



Mother always said that everyone loved Alex, who amongst other great character traits was allowed to stay on at Downside for gratis (when times were bad in coffee) as he was 'a good influence on the other boys', so much so that he rose to be Head Boy. I greatly miss having never met Alex.

In the next installment - Dalquarren! Better than my dreams.