Wondrous trip to Ooty -13th, 14th Mar ‘09

One interesting thing about this trip was everyone in the gang was very apprehensive of possibility of this trip going real until last minute. Although this was planned well a fortnight ago, nothing was confirmed till the last minute. There were lots of mad discussions and marathon convincing sessions took place before it actually happened. Last minute stunt by shiv went very well as planned. We were batch of eight with three being fairer sex of the species. It was a planned 2 day trip to Ooty on a weekend which completely went unplanned.
We started here on 12th night and by the time everyone was picked up and the vehicle propelled towards Mysore it’s well past mid-night. We eight were in a mad TT cruising over 100 kmph recklessly on Bangalore-Mysore road. This driving mannerism tips off the attitude of the driver isn’t? With few pit stops along Mysore-Nanjangud-Bandipur road we reached Gudalur around 0600 hrs in the morning. Day break was awesome.
Journey between Gudalur and Ooty was memorable for two things. First being obvious scenic beauty with the curves of the ghat road accompanied by early morning chillness, and second for non stop nausea of some of the fairer sex. After stopping for a tea break on entering Gudalur, the driver assured to reach Ooty in another one hour, unaware of what is in the store for him :). We stopped more than 5 times intermittently to release the feeling of nausea thanks to those of fairer sex who made us enjoy the scenic beauty in spite of their hardship. Gudalur-Ooty stretch was wonderful, there were lot of view points to enjoy, its better to stop wherever you feel like, as each and every kilometer of this stretch is relaxing and refreshing during morning times.
In spite of drivers’ frustration, we managed to enjoy the stretch with short walk, a short jog, that’s only me and pkja and few awesome clicks enroute Ooty. We reached Ooty by 0830 hrs in the morning. With some small glitches in getting a hotel, we managed to settle in the Hotel Lake View.
To say about the hotel, our feeling was, it’s not worth the money we paid. There was neither room heater nor carpets on the floor. The floor inside the room is so chill, that we always want to wear our sandals. By 1100 hrs we started to Dodabetta and we (except Mr. Rangaraj (RR), I will come to that shortly) enjoyed the scenic beauty of the peak there, a simple lime tea in the government tea store was so refreshing and worth trying one. For Mr. RR, there is something always unforgettable for not enjoying the beauty of dbetta. He along with Raman, Vinay and Sharath started for a horse ride and while coming back RR was walking with no horse but with some bad bruises in his arms along with damage of some internal parts. He fell down from the horse as the saddle slipped off as there was some hungama with horse happened. (Sows’ comment was he might have spoken with horse as with us)
We were back to our room by 1400 hrs as a short spell of rain smashed our plans for afternoon. By 1600 hrs we were (except Raman and sharath, they were still enjoying sleep at room) in boathouse and we enjoyed a lot that evening spending time in the park along with boat ride. We took two two-seater peddle boats with me and shiv in one and vinay and pkja in another. RR and Sow were reluctant to peddle (aftermath of Dbetta) and spent time sitting in the lawn. Toy train, break dance and Tusunami (3D movie) were other things we enjoyed in the park at boat house. We returned back to hotel by 8 in auto and again the dinner we ordered through room service in the hotel came slightly after 2 hrs.
We enjoyed the late nights with walks along the roads accompanied by chill atmosphere- the trademark of Ooty and small fireplace in one of the room, served as a camp fire. With sharath composing view tunes with his guitar and some non stop non-sense well extended till late night.
Day 2 started not so briskly, we were hurried to vacate the room exactly within 24 hours (0830 in the morning) and told, would be charged extra for every 30 minutes of stay. We rushed to complete the morning chores and by 0930 hrs we were out of the hotel. Botanical garden was the only agenda for the day and we after finishing the breakfast in a hotel nearby we were into b garden around 1030 hrs. Again we spent some nice time there laughing and teasing as usual. We would have been in bgarden for an hour, soon after rain made us take shelter in snacks shop inside. Rain lasted for more than an hour and as we were standing along with all others simply watching the rain, Mr. RR planned for some entertainment and so we actively involved sow and shiv in our discussion and within 15 minutes we got the result as expected. In another 5 minutes sow and shiv were in two corners of the snack shop, thanks to RR and others for well planned execution of task. We had some entertainment with that for sometime. By the time we came out of bgarden it’s around 1300 hrs. After some shopping we all were in TT cruising back to Bangalore enjoying the rain of Ooty all along the way back.
In all this was a refreshing trip for 2 days away from hustle and bustle of Bangalore, and we all enjoyed a lot.

Some facts
Total distance as per TT reading was 820 Km. I would suggest for people planning an instant trip, its better to rent a bike after going there. We got to know that bikes were available for rent after going there. Journey time was more than 8 hours.

Bapu's Letter

oflate there are lot of publicity in getting mahatma's tokens, and the worth of it and discussions on how to get back to india. In that line, I am proud of possessing (at least the soft copy)one such thing personally written by Bapu, the great.