The ride from Mysore to the mountains of Ooty was beautiful, passing through two national parks full of deer and birdlife, as I entered the foothills and passed into the state of Tamil Nadu. At one corner, I found two cars stopped in the road. The drivers were very excited, pointing to the underbrush and shouting, "Tiger! Tiger!" It seems I had missed a VERY RARE tiger sighting by about 5 seconds. The usually shy animal had crossed the road right in front of them. Exhilarating to think I could have come across a wild tiger, completely exposed, on a motorcycle!!!

My spirits kept lifting as I got closer and closer to the mountains, which were stunning. Then began a long series of 27 switchbacks on a road so steep that I often had to use first gear to keep going. View image. Although the sun was still warm, each shadow became progressively colder with the elevation, until it was almost freezing! Ooty is at 2300m (8000ft). Just before I arrived, my kickstarter went limp and would not work. As I found a place to stay, I noticed an Enfield outside and asked the owner, the son of the landlord, where I could get my bike seen to. He led me to a really nice mechanic, Collin, who speaks perfect English -- as do many in Ooty (a throwback to colonial times), who fixed my bike and invited me to meet a fellow bike-traveller from Israel, whose machine he had also been working on that week. We met at a cafe full of young Indians who were completely different from those I had been generalizing about so subjectively. When someone pulled out a guitar, they all started singing country-and-western songs, in perfect American English, and harmonizing expertly with each other! I was feeling so embarrassed by my negativity from the past few days and realized that these were sweet, intelligent and creative guys who made excellent and warm conversation, and had their own little subculture going on. It was really touching. I was tired too, and nearly cried with joy at being surrounded by such interesting people.

The israeli guy was SelaView image, a 24 year-old "Kibbutznik" travelling around India on a similar Enfield, also on his own. We hit it off immediately, and ended up getting stoned together in his room, sharing our bike-travel experiences, and laughing for many hours. When I went home to bed at 2AM, through the deserted and freezing streets of Ooty, I was so happy about my travels, that I found it hard to believe that I had been making everything so difficult just a day before!