India 7 – Tea and Cakes in Snooty Ooty

Tea, tea and tea

Onwards to Coonoor,  which is a 2-hour drive straight up 32 hair pin bends, away from the wild jungle, elephant, tiger landscape till you reach the top of what feels like a massive precipice,  And suddenly we are in sweetie land – all the houses are pastel coloured, soft pinks, sickly violets, lemon sherbets, limes and blues.

There are tea plantations everywhere, carving their way across every hill as far as you can see in every direction, with little figures clad in brightly coloured saris and bundles on their head, weaving their way along the rows, depositing their bundles of tea at road-side points. This is a big business here. Every truck we see is laden with tea. We even spot a zip-wire linking one mountainside to another. Clever idea!  And lots of tea plantations and factories with names like Glendale and Highfield Tea Planation. We pass Ooty, otherwise known as “Snooty Ooty”, where the first came to the cooler hills, and the first British church was built here in India in 1832.

I can’t help thinking of my own relatives on my mother’s side of the family, my great-great-great-great-grandfather who was out here in India, building the railways and married a local Indian woman.

This magnificent rail network,  which links every bit of India from high to low, North to South, making travel so accessible to all Indians in all the regions. (Now I understand how Ghandi was able to communicate  to so many people and promote his protest in such a relatively short time)

I think of my mother’s mother, born in Calcutta, her mother (my mothers grandmother)  for some reason was disgraced from her family in India and exiled back to England. She was buried in a paupers grave in Southall, unreconciled with her family. What had she done that was considered such a disgrace, we have never a managed to fathom.

What was life like for these expats living here?

We descend the mountain, passing places like Teddington, Bedford,  Runnymede, but not before a stop at a very surprising place along the way. We stop for tea – actually latte and hot chocolates. We are now at a higher altitude and all of a sudden hot chocolates seem the right drink for theses chilly mountainous regions, but cakes! And lattes ! Cappuccinos and macchiatos, eclairs and quiches, almond mocha, macaroons… sausage rolls, egg sandwiches. Hang on a minute which country are we in? This is confusing. I have been struggling to get my children to eat anything remotely spicy, and all of a sudden there’s little people’s foodie heaven handed to them on a plate. It’s also a bit surreal – anyway of course we indulge, but even more surreal, there is a proper wool and embroidery crafty shop right next door. We walk in and that’s it – all of sudden all they (the kids )want to do is knit and do embroidery, so we browse a bit and then buy a few things. They choose some wool, some knitting needles, a crochet hook, a French knitting reel and all incredibly cheap. it’s all light stuff and it will be great on car and train journeys, so I am happy to top up the hobbies bag.. This is an investment for Mark and I. This is great!  I wonder how long the idea of this will appeal. Or will it be me who ends up knitting my way around the world?!

Another few sharp bends before we reach Coonoor and then off the road, down a bumpy track down, down more tea bushes and then Wild Acres, a lovely dairy farm perched on the side of a hill. We are staying in a little cottage called  Haloumi. It’s lovely and cute with its own kitchen and a sitting room – hey! This is the first time we haven’t all been cooped up in one room – and there’s a fireplace and a fabulous view over the mountains and tea plantation. Our two day stay stretches to 3,4,5,6,7. Shame to leave here. We explore the surrounding hills. It’s truly beautiful here and a lovely climate. We do a few walks, and a few  drives, a visit to a tea plantation, eat corn on the cob and samosas from a road side stall. But generally enjoying being back at our wee house, where Gabriel but especially Jemima, take on the roles of preparing meals, making tea in the morning and generally playing house – that’s fine by me – long may it continue. And embroidery takes over, they wake up with their yarns in their hands and carry on…..The children milk a cow (by hand)… The barn was a bit smelly for me to even enter and we watch them making cheese – CHEDDAR CHEESE, delicious. This is surprising.

The kids make some bread with Mansur, the owner of Acres Wild, and even having a go at making soap, though they get a bit bored with the technicalities.