Category - Travel
Place - Ooty, Coonoor, DodaBetta etc
Time- 3 Days ( Friday morning to sunday night)
Cost ~ 2000 Rs/ head Mode of Transport - Taxi
20th March night --->
We wanted to go to ooty next morning but didn't have a car till 11 PM the previous night. We tried arranging it from some travel agencies but nobody seemed to care. We went to sleep leaving it all where it was and thought we'll see it in the morning ! As the luck would have it, i got a call next morning from the travel agent even before i woke up and he offered us a Tavera at 8 AM. We didn't let the opportunity go by this time :) !
21st March ---->
So we quickly readied ourselves and set off at 8.20 on Friday morning. We picked up two of or friends from koramangala and hit the Mysore road at around 9.15 AM. After
coming to outskirts of Bangalore we took our breakfast. We spent an hour doing that. It was already 11 am by then. Journey was quite good. Weather was quite fine...it was raining lightly. We were enjoying the trip.
We reached Mysore at around 12.30 pm. Our first target place was Bandipur national park on the way to ooty. We wanted to make sure we reached there before 4 pm. As it is open only 4 pm to 6 pm in the eve. We reached there at 3.30 pm, got tickets for a safari for rs 95 per head. Though we did not see something great, safari was okay ! But we saw more animals (including elephants) roadside rather than on safari :D !
Well ! After an hour long safari we headed towards ooty. The next few hours were a few of the best in my life. Mood was upbeat. We were enjoying every bit of natural beauty and splendid weather.
We reached ooty by 7.30 pm. Driver took us to a hotel where we
checked in and had our dinner in nearby restaurants (one group took veg and another went for non-veg :D). We headed back to our rooms and had some serious discussions pertaining to trip plan and ...... :D :D !
(The Veg Group)
<<----Saturday 22nd March, 2008 (Holi - Festival of Colors) -->
We had planned to get ready by 8.30 Am and head to railway station to get a ride in ooty-coonoor train but as expected we were late by half an hour and we reached railway station at 9 am. There were no tickets available for the 9.15 am train. We went to plan B. We decided to visit ooty lake. It again proved to be a fantastic experience. We hired an eight seater motorboat and took boating :). We loved it so much that for a few extra bucks to the boatman we took an extra round. We had our breakfast in a nearby hotel and left for the railway station. We didn't want to miss the train this time round :D .
We got into the queue and got tickets after 40 minutes (There was
a queue even though the ticket window wasn't opened. :D).We were keenly waiting on the platform for the train to arrive. As expected there was too much rush and we had to put some real effort to get a seat. But the train journey was again memorable because of amazing surroundings on the way and in the train :). The man rightmost in the adjacent picture along with six of us made the trip memorable. We enjoyed the ride a lot and reached coonoor at 1.30 pm. rain had stopped.
We first went to Sim's park. It was a beautiful garden with lots of greenery. We even found rudraksh trees there :). With wide varieties of rare trees, plants, a beautiful boat house, lovely world map made up of flowers...it was worth visiting.
Close to SIM's park we saw a girl who had 'Holi' colors applied on herself. Mohit asked her about the place where she got the colors from. It was a shop we had left behind. Still en
thusiastic Mohit decided to hunt for colors. After half an hour the fact that Holi colors were not so common on Holi day itself here, dawned on him. We set off for our next destination in coonoor. Our driver cum guide took us to High-field tea estates. The place was amazing or it seemed so because we had never been to a tea-estate. With beautiful Neelgiri in background, the greenery of tea-leaves was a view to die for. We tasted various varieties of tea - Masala tea, chocolate tea, green tea etc on a nearby shop for free. We even bought packets of tea which cost each of us Rs 180. After taking some lovely snaps, we left for ooty.
We arrived in ooty close to 5 pm. We planned to visit botanical garden for an hour but most of us were unwilling to spend an hour looking at plants. So we decided to skip it. We took something to eat. Meanwhile Mohit found a shop from where he could actually bought small packets of Holi colors. We decided to go to hotel. On the way we found 'vantage Point' being screened in a theater. We were so thrilled seeing the box ticket price (Rs. 30 / head...average ticket price in a Bangalore theater Rs 130 ) that we decided to get in. Anyways we had nothing to do after evening.
It was a nice movie. It didn't took more than 90 minutes. We took our dinner at hotel patel which served us a marwari thali. We hadn't tasted such nice food for months. After having dinner and sweet, we left to our hotel room.
Holi hai....
after arriving at hotel rooms...we changed to our worst possible clothes and started holi celebration s :D ! It was more of a formal celebration to begin with but as time progressed, bitsian spirit caught up with us. Well ! We actually spent some 30 minutes playing holi and another hour cleaning the mess created in the hotel room. It was a nice feeling to have played holi despite all those hurdles (rarity of holi colors, suitable place etc). We formed the plan for the next days trip and went to beds.
<--Sunday 30th March ---->
We started at around 9 Am to dodabetta. It is the highest peak in the Nilgiri's at about 2600 meters from MSL. Supposedly we could have great view of ooty town, ketty valley, film shooting points etc using a telescope located at the top of the hill. Alas ! It was not to be. Telescope house was close due to bad weather. But experiencing the even more chilling weather was refreshing :D ! We set out for our final stop, Pykara falls after an hour. On the way we found some cool places. One was Kamraj sagar Dam. We stopped our car roadside and went downhill to the lake. It was a very nice picnic spot. But due to lack of time, we departed as soon as we could.
After a
short while on the way, we found many cars parked roadside at a place. Expecting it to be a nice place, two of us (including me : )) decided to go uphill promising others in the car to be back within 15 minutes. What we saw up their can't be explained here in words. You had to be there to feel it. Amazing blue Nilgiri standing tall all around a green hilly forest in a chilling weather ! After enjoying the beautiful natural sceneries for some half an hour we had to get back into the car to finish the trip in time.
We took another break at ketty valley on the way for two minutes.
We reached Pykara around 12.30 in the afternoon. Well ! We were not too impressed by the place. The fall which we found was only a few feet in height ( Though you may not notice the same in the picture). But we spend half an hour at the peaceful place and got back to a roadside restaurant. We had our lunch there and started our return journey towards Bangalore at 2.00 PM.
There is nothing much to write about it though. Yeah..well ! We also avoided an accident with a scooter- close to Mysore when the scooter driver suddenly took a right turn without giving any intimation at all. It was a real close shave. It could have been really bad had the driver of our car been not alert enough to react quickly ! Apart from that, we had a few good discussions in the car, mostly about the state of politics and education in India; and what could be done to better it. After reviewing the trip everyone was happy ! We left one of our mates at Bangalore City Railway Station as he had to board a train (that's why we tried to be strictly on schedule !). We reached home by 10 PM.
So ooty was indeed awesome. It was once in a life time experience. The kind of environment I saw there for three days is really uncommon. Surroundings were green and handsome too. I would recommend a trip to ooty to one and all as soon as it can get !!
Sayonara .....
