A memorable trip to Nilgiris

Last week, took some days off and went to OOTY, the Queen of Hill stations in South India, also called "Nilgiris" because of huge amount of Nilgiri trees present in this region. I didnt opt for any package, rather arranged the stay and travel on my own.

Booked our travel in our state owned KSRTC bus and journey was not so good, in terms of getting sleep in bus, due to bumpier roads and mainly due to switching on the lights very frequently, for one reason or the other. I had the wrong notion of that this bus will be a non-stop Bangalore-Mysore-Ooty route but I was proved wrong! :-(

Anyways, we reached the much hyped hill station, OOTY, in early morning 0630hrs. First thing you will see is lots and lots of greenery surrounding this place. Next thing is that u tend to pull up your woolen wear since the weather is very cold out there. Though we had our sweaters on us, we were still literally feeling the cold! I enjoy this cold weather where as my wife is not so ok with this type of 'very cold' climate :-)

We took a hotel, which I thought would be gud but ultimately turned out to be not so interesting. We had to pay Rs 600/- for one small room, which didnt have a proper ventilation also! I even thot of changing the room but on the other hand thot it is a matter of only 1 night and 2 days and above that,we will not be in this room for all the day since we have come to this place for enjoying the nature. Hence we settled in that room.

By around 1000hrs, we boarded a sight-seeing group van which first took us to Conoor, yet another nearby hill station. Enroute we stopped to see the nature's beauty - green everywhere, some snaps in the tea garden, some masala and chocolate tea to sip :-) and lot of beautiful snaps to take! We saw the India's gun powder making unit in Aravanakadu (on the way to Conoor) - called Cordite Factory and is out of public reach! :-(

We also passed thru yet another town called Wellington (Late Mr. Sam Manekshaw's place) which is pretty famous as an Army training camp for South Indian states.

When we reached Conoor, we went to SIMS Park (no idea of why this name!) where we saw a huge garden in front of us with different varities of flowers, plants and trees to explore the nature!

Back to OOTY, post lunch we visited the DODDABETTA, the highest peak point in Nilgiri hills. It was so awesome on that day that we could feel the clouds touching us and it was very chilling! I really enjoy this kind of weather. Wanted to stay in that place for long time but we had to move as it was very very cold and it started raining also.

Finally, we went to the Boat house, where the famous ooty lake is situated. It was raining when we went there and I was not so comfortable to take a boat ride, though my wife wanted to go. We just roamed around in that place and came back.

Our day 1 experience was good with lot of mother nature to see and store in our memories to cherish later! But what I didnt like about this OOTY is it is very crowded town/city, with lot of residents more than the tourists! Cost of living is comparitively pretty high here, with breakfast for two people in a normal restaurant costing you nearly 60-70 INR and lunch/dinner nearly 200INR for 2! Anyways, we were there as tourists and wanted to enjoy our stay in the hills! :-)

Day 2 morning, I decided not to take any of the conducted package tours as we wanted to roam around freely, by ourselves and believe me, this is the best way you can enjoy any place, exploring on your own, without any time constraint!! So, we set off to visit the most awaited and the most famous Ooty Botanical Garden, maintained by the Government of Tamilnadu. Initially I didnt have the idea of how big this garden might be (since when I visited this garden with my parents, it was way back in 1990s, nearly 16 years back!) but when we walked into the garden, we could see an amazing world of greenery, so well maintained (could not believe that this offering is from the Government!) and all paths well laid out to walk easily savouring every second of this amazing nature! I really find it difficult to explain how green it is unless you visit this beautiful garden and then feel yourself the nature!! :-) We spent nearly 5 hours in this garden and it was the perfect combination that was pulling us not to go out of that place; the combination of nature green, superb climate with mild sun and lot of cool wind breeze...ah! just amazing!! Literally, in simple words, it is a Heaven on this earth!! With a big heart, we had to say bye to this garden and then came out to have a good lunch.

Post lunch, took some rest in the hotel room and in the evening, we set to visit the last spot left on our plate - The Rose Garden!

Reaching that place is like walking amongst the huge Nilgiri trees and its worth the walk! When we entered in front of us, we could see a small garden, which you will discover later of how big it is! Roses, Roses and more Roses...this is what the garden is about and you will find amazingly muliple colored varities of roses! This garden is also maintained by the Government and its very nice. You can see beautiful roses and a snap of them will be very memorable! Spent nearly 2 hours in this garden and then came out to explore bit more of ooty by walk.

Ooty as a town, is very small with one main road forming the heart of ooty. This is the 'Commercial Street' that runs from Bus Stand till the Charring Cross (I liked the name!) and one walk in this entire stretch will cover you most of this place. A very old Race course runs along this road and I am not sure if it is operational. Home made chocolates are a craze in this place,with every other store displaying this chocos, waiting for someone to buy. But the cost, its way too high and I really donot understand why! For instance, 100 gms of white choco costs nearly Rs 50/- whereas Almond ones cost nearly Rs 70-80/- But this is the main craze of this city! We walked till the Charring cross and sat for sometime near the road observing this city and the nature it has to offer!

Finally, time came to depart from that place, to say bye and thanks to mother nature for giving us so much green in life, to enjoy and cherish in our memories! The bus departed at 2220hrs and first thing I observed was that the driver was very rash and aggressive! In no time he overtook previous 2 buses that had departed nearly 15-20 mins back! I thought this ride will be interesting till Bangalore and yes, it turned out to be very interesting!! When I was thinking of getting sleep for sumtime, suddenly at around 2350hrs, the driver stopped the bus in the middle of the road! When I went near the driver, front of the bus, I could see a female Elephant was in front of us (single -> 'Ontisalaga' in Kannada -> Single elephant is always dangerous as they prefer to stay and move in group and if it is single, then definitely there is some trouble!!), nearly 100 meters from us. Since the road passes thru the Bandipur Wildlife Santuary (Forest range), sighting the Asian elephants, which are common in this forest, is very common. It was very disturbed and angry I think, throwing itself left and right! It was going itself into bushes but coming out again angrily and hence we could not move forward. The best thing to do in this situation is to close all the windows and then either switch off all the lights of the bus or to continuously do dip-n-dim of the headlight! Our driver was pretty experienced with these elephants coming in the middle of the road and hence he managed to do dip-n-dim continuously for couple of minutes before this huge gigantic 'Vegetarian' animal went into bushes! We then moved and were amazed by this experience! It was first time for us, though I had heard my father say about elephant coming in the middle of the road and experiencing it was just breath-taking! :-)

Little did we settle in our respective seats that we spotted one more elephant now right in the middle of the road, just after a very small U-turn! This time it was a male Asian elephant, single again, with 2 huge tusks and lucky us, our driver was about to hit that animal before he applied a hard brake, as it was just post a downhill U-turn and I guess you can imagine! :-) If he would have hit this elephant, then it would be a catastrophic result and it chills me if I imagine it!! But this elephant was so kind that it aptly gave us way by moving to a small corner of the road, within no time! Wow! two amazing experience within a span of 10 minutes! Uff...:-) But the sad part which I still repent is that I was unable to capture these two incidents in my cell phone, though I had camera and video recording also! The reason being that due to the kind of excitement state we were in, I did not realize that I shud take a shot at these two friends and when I realized, the bus had passed a long distance!! :-((

Anyways, all in all, wonderful experience in this two days, enjoying the nature with its full force! Lot of superb memories to cherish for...More than visiting OOTY, looking forward to meet my friends at night when I travel next time :O)

The snaps of OOTY and Conoor are available @ www.snapfish.co.in

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username: pradeep.guests@gmail.com

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Hope you will enjoy! :-)

Cheers...