snooty Ooty

I'm in Ooty, the biggest hill station in the Nilgiri hills, where they grow a lot of tea.  It's really beautiful.  The guidebooks decried it as "built up" but I like the madness in the side of a mountain.  The town isn't all that big--just strings and strings of little stores and some biggish hotels.  All the signs are still handpainted and there are still plenty of cows.  Ooty has a long way to go before it reaches the disgustingly touristy heights of, say, the Outer Banks.  And I don't mind the touristy things, they're really kind of comforting.  Because yes, I do want to trek, thanks for asking. Sure, I'd like some chocolates (Ooty is famous for homemade chocolates.  Do you believe this?  Chocolates and mountains in one glorious place).  And thanks for not staring at me for being white and/or wearing the same pants three days in a row.

But there is Jolly World.  Right next to the lake (and my hotel), it has light-up giant bears, some flowers, and a go-kart track.  The sign says "Get your daily speed fix!"  I don't get it--why do they think that when you go to the mountains, you'll probably also want to go-kart race?  This happens at home, too.  It's some kind of universal human phenomenon.

Maybe I've been grinning more, but riding buses has gotten much more pleasant since the kids started smiling at me.  And since every bus ride has also become the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.  I got off at the wrong bus stop trying to see a famous peak today, and instead of being in Queens or East Jesus or the Middle of Nowhere, PA, I was in the tea plantations in the middle of the mountains a couple of miles up.  Some farmers gave me the old "What the hell are you doing here?" look, and I actually had no idea.  It was pretty neat.