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Last weekend, seven of us went to check out the Queen of the Nilgiris - Ooty. It’s lovely hill station situated in Tamil Nadu, and is about 325 kms away from Bangalore.

On the way to Ooty, we stopped over to have a peek at Mysore Palace. Since it was around 2am in the night, we were not allowed to enter the premises. But, I must say the view was spectacular. The palace looked majestic in orange light.

The drive is great! Chasing down into valleys and up the hills through small villages gives a chance to enjoy some amazing views.

It was monsoon time and watched the cloud covered valley and the misty hills from Conoor view point under the ephemeral drizzles of May on our way.

We managed to get nice rooms in a guest house in Cantonment area, Wellington.

We left the guesthouse early to visit our first destination - Sim’s Park. It’s lovely well maintained garden with plenty of different specied of flora and fauna.

Ooty & Coonoor are famous for their tea plantations.

In the evening, we set off for main bazaar. Every hill station has some speciality, and Ooty is not an exception. Home made chocolates is must buy if you happen to visit the place.

Next morning, we went to the famous Doda Petha peak. This is the highest point in South India. To our amazement, we didn’t missed Bangalore’s traffic there. On reaching there, we found a long queue of vehicles ahead of us.

The temperature there was above 10 degrees, and we super dudes braved it with just half-sleaves t-shirts. It couldn’t had gotten better than that

We chilled out there for couple of hours. Had all kinds of rubbish that was available there - masala peanuts, carrots, popcorn, mangoes, tea, and even ice-creams!

Next stop was the beautiful Pine Forest on the way to Pykar Lake. Yes, this is the point where upteem number of hindi movie songs have been picturized. But, unfortunately, we couldn’t found any Madhuri, Urmila, Bipasha, Aamir, Kajol, Rani, Shahrukh etc running around the trees.

Just besides the Pine Forest, there was a lovely lake. And, while I was trying to focus my camera on this pony, it started running away. Maybe the pony was camera shy!

Ooty Lake has become very commercialized, and has lost its charm. So, we decided to check out Pykara Lake instead which was about 20kms away from Ooty. Even though it was raining continously, we went for boating. It was amazing fun ride. By the time we were back in our car, all of us were literally shivering.

We wanted to visit other spots as well, but due to rain, we couldn’t. So, had to go back to the guesthouse. And, next day i.e Monday early morning, we left for Bangalore. By 2 in the afternoon, we were again staring at our computer screens in the office

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Posted at : June 3rd, 2006 - 11:26 am
Filed under : Freaking Out, Summers in Bangalore, Travelling
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