Ooty 'n' on

After being woken for the second morning at 5am by chanty/drummy/stringy thing i couldn't identify (temply thing?) I had an earlyish breakfast and headed to the bus station where I waited nearly two hours for the bus and headed to Mudumalai - a national park nearish to Ooty (ie a couple of hours maybe. I'm on Indian time, can't figure out how long things take any more!)

On the way to the park, saw lots of wild elephants on the road. One stopped in the middle of the road, and held up a lot of traffic for a long time. It was pretty amusing. The bus ticket man got me to come and sit at the very front of the bus so I could see all the action. Bless him!

The drive, of course, was absolutely lovely. Lots of fields, hills and trees as far as the eye could see.

Got to the park and saw lots of monkeys and monkey babies just hanging out all over the visitors area. I was staying for the night, but hadn't realised I'd booked an entire dorm of four beds for myself! - actually, it reminded me of the hospital ward I stayed in in Bylakuppe last year. Least said about that the better!

There was another guy in the other dorm in the same building. A hilarious retired Indian guy who'd lived in the States for the last 30 odd years. We enjoyed complaining to each other about the traffic noises in India!

After throwing my bag into my dorm room, I went and booked myself onto a safari around the park. The safari was in a minibus/jeep of 24 people, but it went off road into the jungle / forest (donno the difference. should probably find out.) unlike the private jeeps that only hit the main roads.

I saw a tiger! How fucking cool! I saw a tiger! It was just chilling out in the trees, lazily staring at us. Didn't manage to get a photo as everyone else was going so crazy but I saw a tiger!!!

Also, lots of wild elephants, various types of monkeys, deer, birds. It was VERY exciting! Later outside the only restaurant in the park, I saw a wild boar wandering around.

In the restaurant the non-veg option was chicken, but I was told I would have to have a whole one! I declined. It didn't register why until I later saw them (I had veg) carrying through a squawking bird!...

It was very peaceful in the park. Once the safaris had finished it was mainly just the sounds of the insects in the trees and the occasional animal cry. There weren't many other people staying in the park, so that was lovely.

The next day I got up early to go on another safari. Didn't see as many animals as the evening before but there were lots of deer, bison, birds, etc around so it was cool!

Headed off to Mysore on the exact same day I was there last year. With no intention of sticking around there! Luckily managed to get a ticket for a bus to Goa that left four hours after I got to Mysore. Had lunch, pissed around on the net for a while and then got on an ordinary bus for the 16 hour trip to Goa!

On the trip to Mysore, I realised that I actually like travelling between places as much as actually being there. Sometimes more, as it allows me to soak in the landscape and see village people going about their everyday lives. I can just observe everything without having to be a part of anything. Actually, that's kind of how I like to live me life generally, but that's something else. Best thing about the travelling is I don't have to interact with other people if I don't want to.