[Chevy_lover]

After spending close to an hour in the church, we went back to Commercial Street for shopping. We had a gala time there. We also bought the famous chocolate fudge of King’s Bakery. It tasted awesome! Just for comparison sake, we bought chocolate fudges from three other bakeries too! King’s Bakery was the clear winner by a huge margin!

Later that evening, we had awesome grilled chicken from a restaurant in Commercial Street. We had our customary ice creams later and went back to our hotel and retired for the night by 10 pm. We had a long day ahead of us!

Day 14 – Ooty Sightseeing….

We woke up early by 7 am as we had planned to cover Doddabetta Peak that day. I also thought of visiting Kotagiri, if time permitted.

We had a quick breakfast of steaming hot Idlis from our hotel. We were in a very jovial mood, as the sky was clear and the sun shined brilliantly on us! With a song on our lips, we were on our way in no time.

I went inside the city and took the right turn, before the signal, to Doddabetta. The route was quite well maintained. But there were some hairpins en-route and the road was narrow too! So I drove cautiously uphill.



We covered the 4 kilometres to Doddabetta in no time and took the right turn to enter the reserved forest area leading to the peak. The road condition was very bad with huge potholes everywhere.






Doddabetta, meaning ‘Big Mountain’ in the Kannada language, is 8652 feet high. It was a near-vertical climb at some places. There were many vehicles following us and we drove slowly towards the peak. There was a traffic jam when we reached the parking space of Doddabetta. We were taken aback to see a huge crowd streaming towards the peak. We had to jostle through the crowd for a parking spot. They were so courteous that even my Hellas were unsuccessful in making those people move to the sides!

There was no parking space available when we finally reached the top. So we waited patiently for some time in between two rows of parked vehicles. Fortunately one Indicab came out of the parking space. We gleefully accepted its space with open arms!

Once Chevy was securely tucked away, we slowly strode towards the Peak on a trail cut through the forest.

At least 10-12 minibuses and about 150 light vehicles had arrived at the peak with tourists. They were all shoving each other out of the way, to reach the peak and the telescope house. I felt as though they were going on a Pilgrimage to Kumbha Mela!

I had never seen such a huge crowd in ANY of the hill stations I had visited! I must say that we felt as though we were also on a pilgrimage!

We reached the peak after a 5 minute walk. We stood in queue for 10 minutes to buy tickets and somehow managed to kick and punch our way inside.

There was a Telescope house near the peak. There were about a thousand crazy citizens pushing and shoving each other to climb the stairs to reach the top. Since I was lucky enough to see much better views and since I did not want a fracture anywhere on my body, I stayed away from the telescope house and held my wifey close to me!

Frankly speaking, it was disgusting seeing all the fighting going on for just a glimpse of the valley!

I got a feeling that those crazy people would be ready to kill each other for a view of the mighty Himalayas, if they ever get to the Tiger Hills in Darjeeling! The lesser said about those local goons, the better!

In retrospect, I think I should have taken my boxing gloves and running shoes along with me!!! Incase you are wondering why I need running shoes, let me shed light on my strategy. Running shoes would be needed for escaping after the boxing!!!

We soon got over our disgust, when we saw the view from Doddabetta. As usual, the cloud-lover in me woke up and I was running around photographing each and every cloud from the peak.




















Boy! I loved the view!!! :-)

[KRRaj]

Hi CL, I think you could have gone to Dolphin's nose in your Chevy. The roads were great when I went 5 months back and the drive is very nice through estates. Actually some distance is paved with tiles

Ooty is too crowded for my taste. We avoided Doddabetta for this precise reason when I went there

[Chevy_lover]

Originally Posted by KRRaj

Hi CL, I think you could have gone to Dolphin's nose in your Chevy. The roads were great when I went 5 months back and the drive is very nice through estates. Actually some distance is paved with tiles

Ooty is too crowded for my taste. We avoided Doddabetta for this precise reason when I went there

Hello Raj, the story continues.... and the plot thickens!!!

[Chevy_lover]

After we finished our photo session and exploration of the peak, we had ice cream from the canteen there. We decided to move on to our next point, Kotagiri. It is a major town in the Nilgiri Hills.

We went back to the parking and started our Chevy. The time was 12:30 pm. The pack of tourists had almost doubled by then and we ran into a huge traffic jam as soon as we exited the parking area.

There were hundreds of vehicles, big and small, coming uphill. We were trapped at a turn for twenty minutes. Slowly the traffic cleared a bit and we slowly crawled downhill at 10 km/hr.

We were shocked to see that the vehicles coming uphill were trying to overtake and came directly into the path of descending vehicles. Those brainless apes needlessly caused further delay. We were again jammed for another ten minutes. I used my Hellas extensively and gave those drivers a piece of my mind too! They did not utter a single word back! They just had a blank face, which just confirmed the fact that their brains were on holiday too!

Finally some drivers donned the mantle of traffic wardens and helped a great deal in clearing the chaos! My throat was coarse after shouting at those idiots! But I am sure they would have got a splitting headache after hearing my thunderous Hellas for over ten minutes!!!

We managed to reach the highway to Kotagiri after a delay of over 45 minutes, courtesy of those mentally retarded drivers!

The drive to Kotagiri was superb. We passed through countless tea estates and enjoyed the view tremendously.





























































There was only sparse traffic and we could drive peacefully.

[Chevy_lover]

We drove at a leisurely pace and reached Kotagiri by 2 pm.






Frankly speaking, I did not like the place at all and we promptly took a u-turn.

[hvkumar]

You should have bought "varkey" in the Kotagiri bakeries - the town is well-known for that.

[Majic]

CL, it used to be a very beautiful place around 20 years back, i see that now it has become more populated! I think you could have gone on for some more time you would have reached a place in the middle of an estate, Kodagu view point, i think

[dreamdiesel]

Chevy lover, there is nothing at Kotagiri town. You should have continued further towards Kodanadu view point. IMO the best view points at Nilgiris

[Majic]

Originally Posted by Majic

Kodagu view point, i think

Sorry as informed by Dream diesel, it Kodanadu View point, Off topic, Dream diesel, hey man no travelogues recently, Sorry Cl for using the space!

[i.1979]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

You should have bought "varkey" in the Kotagiri bakeries - the town is well-known for that.

Yeah it is famous in our place and all and known as "Ootty Verkey". By the way my place is just 112KM away from Ootty so this thing is available in most of the bakeries in our place.

[Chevy_lover]

Originally Posted by dreamdiesel

Chevy lover, there is nothing at Kotagiri town. You should have continued further towards Kodanadu view point. IMO the best view points at Nilgiris

Thanks for the info, Dreamdiesel. I am furious with myself that I missed it. I had read so much about it in various travelogues here. Still the name 'Kodanadu' escaped my mind! The main reason we drove to Kotagiri, was to go to that particular view point! But there is always a next time, right??

Can someone shed some light on this famous 'Varkey'? What is it actually?

[i.1979]

Originally Posted by Chevy_lover

Can someone shed some light on this famous 'Varkey'? What is it actually?

CL, it is a kind of pastry (Dry and slightly hard). and almost looks like the thing in the photo.

[hvkumar]

Kodanadu is just 18 kms away from Kotagiri and has lovely views of the Sirumugai Reservoir of River Bhavani, the Dimbam Hill range (Veerappan jungles) and Gobichettipalyam plains. Normally most tourists don't go this far, and always a delightfully less-crowded view point. Famous lately because Jayalalitaa has a bungalow there where she spends most of her political oblivion.

Varkey is available in all the shops in Kotagiri, most of the bakeries started by Keralites!

[KRRaj]

Originally Posted by Chevy_lover

Thanks for the info, Dreamdiesel. I am furious with myself that I missed it. I had read so much about it in various travelogues here. Still the name 'Kodanadu' escaped my mind! The main reason we drove to Kotagiri, was to go to that particular view point! But there is always a next time, right??

Can someone shed some light on this famous 'Varkey'? What is it actually?

I expected a response similar to the Story Continues from you...

[Chevy_lover]

Originally Posted by KRRaj

I expected a response similar to the Story Continues from you...

Hey Raj, I am furious that I missed that point. Sadly, the story continues in a different direction.... Coming up shortly... Dolphin's Nose!

Thanks a lot HVK sir for the explanation. I will surely visit Kodanadu the next time we are in the Nilgiris.

Thanks for the photo I.1979. I wish I could taste it!