[akroy]

nnandi, excellent pics again. I specially liked the family dosa pic spreading across the entire table. man, thats huge. Could you all finish it?
The pics from Shooting point was indeed great and I am sure you had a glorious time in Pykara Lake.

Waiting for the next installment.
Abhi

[Jammy70]

hi nnandi,

This is a very well written travelogue supported by some lovely pictures! Ooty and its surroundings go back a long way for me - did my schooling there - and your travelogue and pics bring back fond memories!

Thanks & cheers,

[mobike008]

Oh boy! Is that the 70mm dosa? It's been ages since i had that dosa. As far as i know, it is always a plain dosa, no masala stuffed in that.

Btw, curious to know did you folks manage to complete that? if yes, then kudos to you. Also, what was it priced for?

[pjay_in]

Loved your report and pics, nnandi.

[skmami]

Thanks for the beautiful narration of the trip. It certainly helps lot of us plan our trips wisely.

I was curious about the heavy crowd. Is it because of the summer holidays for kids or this is the peak season to visit that place.

I am planning on visiting in the months of July or August and I don't like crowd. Is that the best time to visit Ooty and avoid crowds.

Thanks

[MileCruncher]

Nice pictures and roads look good too.

Been in South India for the last 10 years and still not seen Ooty and Kodai. Time to go I guess

[akroy]

Originally Posted by skmami

I am planning on visiting in the months of July or August and I don't like crowd. Is that the best time to visit Ooty and avoid crowds.

Thanks

See proper ooty always have crowds. It is like this round the year. If you want to avoid crowd then go to adjacent places of ooty like Avalanche, Kotagiri etc.

Abhi

[nnandi]

Originally Posted by akroy

nnandi, excellent pics again. I specially liked the family dosa pic spreading across the entire table. man, thats huge. Could you all finish it?

Originally Posted by mobike008

Oh boy! Is that the 70mm dosa? It's been ages since i had that dosa. As far as i know, it is always a plain dosa, no masala stuffed in that.
Btw, curious to know did you folks manage to complete that? if yes, then kudos to you. Also, what was it priced for?

hehe! Well, each of us had already eaten 1 plate puri sabzi before that giant thing came to our table. The first reaction was "Holy cow!", the second was embarrasement and the third was ducking under the table and all four of us laughing! Best comment was my son- he shouted "co-co-dile dosa!" We managed to eat only half of it, packed the rest but did not eat it later. Had to throw away finally. Cost was Rs. 85. And yes, it was a plain paper dosa.

Thanks Jammy70, pjay_in, MileCruncher for your kind comments.

Originally Posted by skmami

I was curious about the heavy crowd. Is it because of the summer holidays for kids or this is the peak season to visit that place.

I am planning on visiting in the months of July or August and I don't like crowd. Is that the best time to visit Ooty and avoid crowds.

As far as I know, like akroy commented, Ooty is like this all thru' the year. But right now, it's both peak season as well as summer vacation in schools! If you try in Jul/Aug, it might be raining here.

[kannan666]

Originally Posted by nnandi

Kannan, why not posts your pics and experiences, it would be nice to have so many views of the same place and would make it ecen more interesting!

Hmmm, Nandi, problem is that I'm a better 'reader' than a 'writer' !!

Did manage to pen down (read as type) a few lines about my trip though, you can read it in this post here - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...rmation-4.html

Don't want to hijack your thread, will try and post a few pics of the trip right here once you are done and dusted !

[smsrini]

My most memorable place from an Ooty trip is the GlenMorgan. Amazing greenery and lovely drive.

That the name sounds like that of a Single Malts helps!

[nnandi]

After Shooting point, we headed for the final spot in our vacation, Pykara Lake. It was also called “Pykara Boat House”. The road deviating from NH67 to the lake was 1 km stretch, but it was bad. The narrow road was potholed and we had to navigate to extreme corners to avoid them.

Bad road leading to lake


As we reached the lake, we could see glimses of the water and I could hear the gushes of “wow”, “beautiful” etc remarks from my co-passengers! The surroundings and the lake was a beauty, a balm to sore eyes! I remembered the saying- "save the best for the last". I quickly parked my car, my mom declined the boat ride and I ran to get the motor boat tickets. The motor boat ride was for 20 mins and the charge was variable, depending on the number of people in each boat. We paid Rs. 100 for 2 tickets, kid was free for a 6-seater motor boat. The money was worth each and every penny. We clicked a lot of pictures of the lake so as to completely devour the beauty.
Some pics at Pykara Boat House.







Finally it was 12 noon when we started our journey for bangalore. Continued on NH67 and reached Gudalur at 12:40pm and continued till Mudumalai. Though this route (NH67) is scenic with awesome views, it is a much longer route than the Masinagudi one. We crossed Mudumalai at 12:55pm. By the time we reached Bandipur, we were hungry and luckily the kid woke up. We halted at the JLR pugmark restaurant at 1:30pm for lunch. The place was overflowing mostly with KA cars and people. Interesting thing to note here, there is a white board kept right at the entrance steps of this restuarant where a daily count of tiger sightings are noted down. I noticed that the last 3 days, tiger sightings were in the numbers of 2-4, but that day (12-Apr), no tiger was sighted, atleast in the morning. We ate the non-veg buffet spead (which had egg curry & chicken curry in addition to the veg spead) at Rs. 200/person (Veg spread @ Rs. 150). The food was okay, because we were hungry I thought we liked it, my dad complained that the chicken was not properly cooked! We started again at 2:15pm and reached Hangala village in no time. Yet again, the car effortlessly went thru’ the bad patch. Some pics of the road condition.




We hit Gundlupet at 2:35pm. We did not stop, went straight past CCD and reached Nanjungud at 3:10pm. Continued from Nanjungud and reached Mysore at 3:40pm. Entered the city and inevitably like always, lost way inside Mysore before the locals guiding me to the right direction. Then we continued straight to Srirangapatna amid immense traffic, seemed like everyone was trying to reach Bangalore before evening! The entire Mysore-bangalore stretch had heavy traffic. We had 20mins of standstill jam, twice (once after Maddur and once before Ramanagram) due to some buses broken down on the middle of the highway! Finally, entered bangalore via Rajarajeshwari Nagar at 6:30pm and reached home at 7:25pm.

Total Distance covered (home to home): 643km
Bangalore to Ooty (via Masinagudi): 277km
At Ooty: 49km
Ooty to Bangalore (via Gudalur): 317km. (40km more than Masinagudi route).
Final Odo reading: 6369km
FE: (Bangalore to Ooty + Ooty sight seeing) – 11.9 kmpl, return journey (BP bunk, Ooty till home)- 13.73 kmpl.

Had a great time spending 3 days on the one of the best hill station of South India. Everyone in the family enjoyed the vacation (specially my Dad who visited Ooty last in 1973 before his marriage!) and decided that we should do these family trips more! I was happy as it was a good drive after 3.5 months and the first one for this recession-hit year!

Few notes before ending this journey:

1. Thanks Abhijit (“akroy”) who’s spot on road directions and later helping me planning this trip made me see all the must view places within Ooty/Coonoor, specially the train ride which was the icing of the trip for my kid.
@akroy: whenever there is a next tbhp meet, I would for sure like to meet you and thank you F2F, as till now, our interactions have been only thru’ posts and PMs.

2. Everyone says Ooty is very crowded, I agree. But what I second is, Ooty is one of the best hill stations of the India and world with the best scenic views, great roads and lovely climate. That’s why, people long to go there again and again, some even after 35 years!

3. Inspite of Ooty being so populated and over-crowded with tourists, it is notable the way the place is maintained without garbage/dirt on the streets. What is recommendable is, everyone in ooty takes an honest shot at not using polythenes and plastic bags to make the environment better. They use brown paper bags for carrying stuff from stores (which we commonly see in the US).

4. Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata indicab/taxi drivers and auto-wallas should take an educative lesson from all the TN-43 and TN-38 registered drivers. These drivers in Ooty drive fast thru’ the narrow winding roads, but never for a moment do they break the traffic rules. Even if there is a jam at peak hours (mornings or evenings), then won’t continuously honk, nor would they clogg the jam more at the signals by breaking the queues of cars and jumping in front. I was really impressed with their self restraint and discipline!


With this, I rest my honest attempt to reclaim Ooty after 12.5 years!

Cheers,
-Nandi.

[travelwriter]

Nandi,

I really enjoyed reading your reports. Made me feel as if I had visited myself.

It seems that you had a hectic journey. You didn't get much time to relax and laze around, did you?

I was in Ooty some donkey's years ago but don't remember a thing. I am sure it is one of the best places to visit down side of the Vindhyas. But one of the best in India? Well, I might have my reservations on that. I am biased against places with too much 'tourist' crowd. That is why I don't fancy places like Naini tal, Simla, et al.

You should plan a trip to Himachal some time and travel to the 'off-the-beaten-track' places. I am certain you and your family will cherish that trip for a long time to come. And, of course, we all will have another interesting travelogue to relish!

[nnandi]

Originally Posted by travelwriter

Nandi,
I really enjoyed reading your reports. Made me feel as if I had visited myself.
It seems that you had a hectic journey. You didn't get much time to relax and laze around, did you?

Thanks for enjoying my report. Yes, we had a hectic schedule, not much time to laze off. Infact yesterday, my whole family spent sleeping at home while I was penning this at office!

I was in Ooty some donkey's years ago but don't remember a thing. I am sure it is one of the best places to visit down side of the Vindhyas. But one of the best in India? Well, I might have my reservations on that. I am biased against places with too much 'tourist' crowd. That is why I don't fancy places like Naini tal, Simla, et al.

Down south, Ooty's a hot fav destination. If you see, the early 70s saw a lot of Hindi movies being shot here (and of course in our top most part of country, which is now off-limits). What amazes me, Ooty remained the same "hot" tourist destination with every generation! Honestly speaking, I also don't like crowded places myself (maybe because we stay in cities which are always crowded), but inspite of the crowd and my aprehensions, it was a good trip! My wife, who has been to Nainital, Shimla & Darjeeling kept comparing Ooty with those places, picking out what is better there vs Ooty. Somehow, I don't compare nature, they are always too beautiful & pristine to me!

You should plan a trip to Himachal some time and travel to the 'off-the-beaten-track' places. I am certain you and your family will cherish that trip for a long time to come. And, of course, we all will have another interesting travelogue to relish!

Definitely, HP/J&K/Rajasthan are places which I am yearning to go! Infact whenever I plan one, I now know whom to contact!

[pulsar56]

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

Been in South India for the last 10 years and still not seen Ooty and Kodai. Time to go I guess

I am visiting in May! Wanna join?
nnandi, excellent narration and amazing pics again!

That’s why, people long to go there again and again, some even after 35 years!

and we were talking about 10 & 12 years gap!
I hope your dad was the one who enjoyed this trip more that anyone!

What is your feedback about the place you stayed? tried reading the posts again but could not find anything!

[mail4loys]

Excellent travelogue ! I enjoyed your narration and pictures. One coincidence! i was at Masinagudi on 10th (took Bangalore->Mysore->Bandipur->masinagudi) and i was in Ooty on 11th & 12th and back to Hosur by 12th Evening!