Ooty Trip

Ooty – a small town in the Nilgiris made famous by lush green tea gardens, Rose gardens, some of the highest peaks in the region and of course our own disco dancer, Mithun da.

For me it was a sort of trip I wished for a long time – we were with Abhijit and his wife Priyanka. Abhijit is one of MBBS, who recently got married. So going with them was something that always crossed my mind and I wondered the moment when 6 (may be now 5) of us will be with 6 (5) of ours… so it was a step towards that moment that we all go out with our wives and freak out like the old college days.

Coming back… we had planned for the trip on my Getz, so Abhijit would come down to Bangalore form Chennai on Friday night and we head towards Ooty via Mysore. (Bangalore – Maddur – Mandya – Mysore – Gundlupet – Bandipur Forest – Gudulur) It was 280 km through the Bandipur and Mudumalai forests. We preferred to take the longer route through Gudulur, there is also a short cut to Ooty from Bandipur which is a steep 20 kms stretch with some 25 hairpins, the diversion is on the left at the Mudumalai forest office. Its not recommended for amateur drivers. The longer route was pretty scenic with tall eucalyptus trees, green tea clapped mountains and some 80s Hindi movie shooting spots! We had done prior booking in Lamlin Cottage which is some 3 kms from Charring Cross ( It’s like India Gate of Delhi, Central Park of NY). Though it was a off-season (we went on Jan 26th long weekend), it was hard to get a reasonable priced resort or cottage. I found Ooty Cottages are comparatively cheaper than those of Munnar, Coorg or even Chikmagalur. We reached the cottage in the afternoon and to our amazement we found the cottage to be pretty good. It was a 2 BHK (yes kitchen) with TV and all facilities for someone to spend some time. After having the lunch (we ordered from a nearby restaurant), our lazy spirits took over and we slept till we felt hungry again. We woke up at 8 pm and then took some time to figure out a decent restaurant (something Ooty lacks, unless s the Hotel or cottage provides) Its bit tough to find some food joint in Commercial street. I knew a small Chinese Restaurant (reference also there in Outlook Traveller) called Shinkows. The food was good and cheap, it is near the Cafe Coffee Day on the Mysore Rd.
It was very freezing in the nights, so the next day we woke up late and started at around 1030. We headed towards a south Indian breakfast joint on the commercial street, had some dosas and headed out for our first destination in Ooty – Dodda Beta. This is the highest peak on the Nilgiris. The drive was very disgusting and the traffic was like any crowded city roads in office hours. Anyways some 8 kms to the peak, and guess what there was swarm of people in there… as if we have reached some temple. We were pretty lost there as there was not much to see, other than people people and more people, that too mostly guy-gangs… We clocked some photos and then headed back. On the way down we visited one of the Tea factory (entry fee RS 2, you get free T inside) where you get to buy the authentic and different varieties of Tea leaves of Ooty. I felt like walking inside a prison camp though… Then we realized we had used up another 4 hrs and hardly have seen anything that makes Ooty one of the most visited tourist spots in southern India. We planned to do a pick-up of some sandwich form Café Coffee Day and headed towards out next spot – The Rose Garden. There are some 1919 varieties of roses and it was good to the extent that we had our food, saw some nice roses, clicked some pictures and there weren’t much crowd. There is also a Botanical garden which we had to skip due to time constraint. It has a very old tree fossil, some million yr old !!! May be this would have been a better ooption than the DoddaBeta. We also planned to go to Connor a nearby town some 18 kms from Ooty towards Coimbatore side as it s very scenic. It was getting late but we took chance to score some points on the scenic scale. Connor was very nice - the road towards Dolphin Nose, the landscapes - one needs to get down and take notice. It might be a good idea to go to Connor, stay there and visit Ooty. Connor is connected by steam engine drive n trains from Metupalyam, which is connected to Chennai. One thing I missed was to visit Sam’s Garden. We got back to Ooty and thought to spend some time walking down the Commercial Street. We had some evening snacks and then picked up some grocery form a shop for next day’s breakfast. Again, we struggled to find a good place for dinner, there are some Vegetarian places, but we preferred to drive to the Monarch, the hotel owned by Mithunda. The food was okay and the place was good. We tried wine, but it was one of those Golconda wines… yaaak.

Next day, we started bit early as we planned of visiting the Ooty Lake before heading towards Bangalore. Ooty lake was very nice, we had fun spending some 1 hour there. From there we headed straight for Bangalore as it was 12 pm . We did make a small halt in rose garden again to pick up some saplings as Tumpa is crazy about them. Way back we thought of saving some time and take the short route, but the cop didn’t allow any KA registration cars to enter there. With one meal break and some photo breaks we reached Bangalore at 9 pm, so dropped Abhijit in the bus stand and headed home.

When I look back, I don’t see much of what we did in those 3 days only things I remember are the chats, the talks, the pranks, the secret sharing sessions, the pep talks… that’s why I am writing this travelogue before I forget the places and their experience. For rest of the things… they are etched in my heart for life… but yeh dil maange more…. Looking ahead to the day when we 5 will go with our wives and just do nothing!!!