The Ooty Trip
Being a Coimbatorian it must have been a frequent place of visit for me, but it wasn’t. I went to Ooty just once before, as an excursion from school at the age of 10 and I hardly remember anything. All that I could recollect was the bizarre journey on the hill and me vomiting all the way. Apart from that I could remember some carrots and flowers being sold on road sides.
Recently, I went Ooty with my family in the month of August which was completely different and enjoyable. The most amazing experience was the train journey from Mettupalayam to Ooty by the Steam engine train which moved as slow as possible. With lot of expectations, I was looking outside enjoying the window seat. As the train climbed up the hill, it looked absolutely splendid to look outside. It stopped at stations where the passengers can get down and buy snacks and tea. Ooty being famous for its tea estates, I wanted to taste the tea; we bought a cup and wasted it as it tasted very bad. Again we continued the lazy train journey. As the train went under the bride in darkness, it kindled child inside every adult and they started shouting in excitement. After a few hours, it stopped at a scenic spot for sightseeing and we got down from the train to find the magnificent mountains far away in front of us with dense forest beneath. We took few snaps and got into the train again. The train went even slower, that we felt that we could walk faster, and so it was kind of boring. Then we reached Conoor from which the steam engine was replaced with diesel engine and so it started to move fast.
We reached there by afternoon and booked rooms in a hotel. It was very cold that I couldn’t stand bare footed on the floor. We planned to take rest for an hour, get ready and start from there to visit the rose garden. The water was so cold and the heater didn’t work. Luckily aunt had brought the immersion water heater with which we managed to take bath and got ready. We first went to the rose garden by cab. Even though it was not the right time to visit the place, it gave me a pleasing experience to see roses with a varieties of sizes and colors. It was large in area than I expected and I was amazed to know that there are so many varieties of roses.
It was already evening and we started felling very cold. So we stopped at a coffee shop, had tea, coffee, hot chocolate as per each one’s wish and went back to the hotel. We felt warm wrapping ourselves inside the blanket, watched TV for a while and enjoyed the night’s rest.
The next day we had a confusion whether to go to Pykara falls or to the botanical garden. Anyway we decided to go to the botanical garden after going for a boat ride and headed on towards the lake by a cab. We reached there and went on a boat ride. I felt already cold and to be amidst the waters, I was almost shivering. It was a beautiful sight to look around at the tall trees and their images on the water standing at the middle of the lake. There were many shops at the bank of the lake, selling toys, gift materials, chocolates and snacks. We bought homemade chocolates from one of the shops and ate them on the way to the botanical garden.
The botanical garden was of vast area with so many beautiful flowers, plants, shrubs, tall trees, lawn, bushy tress which were cut so perfectly resembling various animals. It was so refreshing to walk around the garden. There was a political map of India made out of plants of different shades of green and red. There were many visitors at this place and many of them took photos with the India map as the background; we were no exception. There was a shop where they sold samplings of some trees and flowering plants. We wanted to buy dahlia, but as it would be difficult to carry home safely, we dropped the idea.
Out next place was the Dhotabetta peak. As it’s a bit far away, we decided to go back to the hotel, take our luggage and then visit the place. As we reached there, it was late in the afternoon and we had to walk for a short distance to reach the peak where people were selling corn, groundnuts, toys on the either sides of the path. There was an observatory there and as there were many visitors, we had to stand in the queue, to look from the observatory from which we could the city below. It was too cold because this is the highest peak of that place.
We traveled home by cab. As I have motion sickness, traveling down the hill made me feel nauseous; but I managed as I slept for some time. We reached home by evening and had tea and a nice time talking about the journey.
