It is always difficult to leave my village or reach it , there are very few buses and if one bus is cancelled then the next one will be about 45 minutes later. I finally got the bus and reached Palakkad by around 12:45 pm. I remembered that there is a direct bus to Ooty from Palakkad, it was the one we would come by after the school holidays. Got to know it was at 1:30 pm and had ample time to have lunch before boarding the bus. It was one of the old CTC buses with the window opening mechanism faulty. I had to search and finally found one seat with a working window.

The driver took his own cool time. We had a refreshment break at Burliar which is the stopover for buses going up to down Ooty.  The winding roads took me home (I still consider Ooty as my home). Reached Ooty by 7:00 pm and took an autorickshaw to my friend’s realstay.

The auto fare was kind of a rip off but being dark and an uphill walk, I did not mind the charge. There was a cozy room for me and asked for dinner and curled up with a new book ‘The Snow Leopard’ by Peter Matthiessen. I had no trouble falling asleep.