Originally Posted by harishnair (Post 1566549)

Nice travelogue wmanu.

Sadly I have some dire memories of my last trip to ooty some 2 years back. So here it goes-

One fine day we friends decided to go on a trip to ooty in our rented Scorpio. Calicut to Ooty shouldn’t take more than 4.5 hrs. So we set out at 10am in the afternoon to ooty via Nilambur as this was the shorter route. We stopped at Nilambur town(2hrs from college) for diesel and there falls the first bomb, we came to know that the road to ooty is closed because of heavy rains. So now the only way was to go back all the way and go up the wayanad hairpins and proceed to ooty from there (this will take 4hrs). Halfway through the drive, our tire got punctured and to our utter luck the Scorpio didn’t have a jacky and the stepney tire was bald (it looked like one giant tube with no threads). So now we had to find a tire repair shop and with the help from some private bus guys who were kind enough to lend us their hydraulic jacky we got moving again after 2 hours. Again during a pit-stop before the hairpins one of my friends went and stamped on some excreta (s***) and the whole car was stinking from there on. So after some 8 hours of driving we reached Kalpetta and then proceeded towards Gudalur. So now it was 9.30pm and the road through the national park was closed and we were asked to take an alternate route which although not being paved was shorter in distance. Now here begins the real adventure, the road was virtually non-existent and the light from our scorpio was not able to light up the entire road. The entire path was a climb with some hairpins too, both sides of the path had some mega forest with huge trees and some trees were uprooted due to the rain and leaning on to the road, moreover the road was very slippery. The experience was really eerie like some horror story. After almost 2 hours we reached ooty and found some accommodation. The guys at the hotel were kind enough to open up their restaurant and provide us with some food. So there ended our 14 hour ordeal and what a fine machine the Scorpio is, a true offroader. The return trip was incident free through the national park.

PS- During our stop at gudalur we bought a beverage (b***) called Kalyani, please never buy this c***, it was like drinking water.:D

Originally Posted by ampere (Post 1567301)

What time of year did you go?

Originally Posted by Majic (Post 1566676)

Hey wmanu, first it was Wyanad and now its Ooty, Like Shankar balan this place is also a favourite of mine. Nice narration and pictures, do keep posting more!

Originally Posted by kannan666 (Post 1566863)

Nice travelogue wmanu ! Although the Bandipur roads were good, the last time I drove on those roads, there were speedbreakers at almost regular intervals on that stretch, have they been removed now ?

Originally Posted by pramod (Post 1567071)

I liked the Angles in some of your photographs.
Thanks for the travelogue

Originally Posted by hillram (Post 1567166)

Ooty aka Udagamandalam stirs some grear memories for me as we had our honeymoon there way backin 1999.
Awesome pics.

Originally Posted by anekho (Post 1569821)

wmanu, short and sweet travelogue - I really enjoyed it!

Now I really wanna go to Ooty :)

Originally Posted by @400Kph (Post 1569711)

@ wmanu, i have planned for a trip to ooty on 14th this month.I was about to create a thread for details of ooty and i came across this thread.I have already visited ooty 2 years back and now want to revisit but this time with my wifey.Can you share the details of which hotel you stayed in and room rent and any other details which you think will help me ? I will be leaving from Electronic city and i too have decided the route you have taken.

Originally Posted by @400Kph (Post 1569711)

@ wmanu, i have planned for a trip to ooty on 14th this month.

Originally Posted by harishnair (Post 1568062)

@wmanu- i apologize for hijacking your thread.

Originally Posted by gadadhar (Post 1576994)

BTW. did you notice the No Photography signs in Muthumalai national park, not sure why this is in place.

Originally Posted by gadadhar (Post 1576994)

Today's TOI says Ooty is being cut off due to land slides, not sure which all roads are badly hit. BTW. did you notice the No Photography signs in Muthumalai national park, not sure why this is in place.