Ooty!

After Mysore we worked our way to Ooty (Udhagamandalam) via a day in Bangalore. Ooty, is a hill station in Tamil Nadu, so it's a little cooler here and was a bit of a respite from the hot and sticky temperatures we'd been experiencing so far.A veiw of the town as we bussed to a lookout point 10km out of town.
A view from the lookout....
On the way backdown I helped some Indians load cement mixer into the back of their truck. We saw them struggling with it as we walked down, and they really hadn't moved it by the time we got there. Trust me, the thing was bloody heavy, and these were not big men. With my help (and I gave it all I had) we barely got it in. Unless someone else came to help (which I am sure would have happened) they could have been there all day! Regardless to say there were pretty happy to have me helping out, as I don't think they would get much assistance from many other travellers foreign and/or local.
The highlight of Ooty was the setting itself, so after 2 day and a night of walking the town and taking it in, we jumped on the next highlight, the train down! Here are some of the stunning veiws that we saw.

Now the other novelty about this ride was that the train was a steam train! And because the decent was so steep they had a special method to ensure we didn't go flying out of control. I know there is a common name for this, but it has currently escaped my memory. In short it's operates like a cog/gear. See below to better understand my brutal description!

Stopping for a little water for the steam engine...
The track...
How the cars connect to the track...
And a sample cog/wheel on display at one of the stations.
Heading into a tunnel...
We arrived in Mettapalayan from the steam train, where we only spent the night before working our way to Trichy. Above is a picture of how cargo trains are unloaded. Of course it is all done by man power. And below is a couple guys on break whom were most friendly and REALLY wanted to have there pictures taken. I should have told them I held the power to make them famous simply by posting the picture on my blog! :)