Queen of Hills

I spent the weekend at Ooty with my wife. It was sort of a delayed honeymoon for us. Ooty is a mountain retreat situated in the heart of the Nilgiris(Blue Mountains), a southern Indian mountain range. It is a nature lover's delight, with mist covered mountains, exotic flora and fauna. Every summer, hordes of tourists seek refuge here from the intolerable heat of the plains of Southern India. The entire economy of the area revolves around tourism.

We decided to take a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus to Ooty. These are advertised as Ultra Deluxe buses. But, luxury should be the last thing on your mind if you are planning to take such a bus to Ooty. The seats seem ok when you first settle in, but halfway through the journey your neck hurts like hell. Add to that the problem of less than ample leg space. If it rains you have had it, for these buses can leak like a bucket with bullet holes. Also the cabin needs more sound proofing and some more work needs to be done on the suspension. In line with my rotten luck, it was raining hard on the night we embarked on our trip. The Bangalore-Mysore highway looked more like a war zone than an intrastate highway. There were ditches all along the road and suddenly I got the feeling that the Karnataka government had been digging for gold there. There were occassional traffic snarls and by the time we reached Ooty it was 8:30 in the morning and we were 3 hours late.

The thing that strikes you most about the place is the air. Its light, cool and loaded with exotic fragrances. One whiff and I could smell Eucalyptus and the fragrances of a dozen flowers mixed together to form a curious but breathtaking mish-mash. The greenery was also breathtaking. All around us was greenery, not the fresh green kind, but the kind of mature green you get from plants when they have soaked up a lot of moisture. The tops of the hills seemed to be perpetually shrouded by thick layers of mist. After recovering from the initial shock, we got into an auto and asked the driver to take us to Hotel Lake View(dug up on the web). Autos in Ooty dont have meters but have an elaborate rate charge on their sides that documents the accepted fare from any place in the city to another. That way tourists dont get cheated. Halfway through the driver offered us to take us to some other hotels so that we make an informed choice before committing ourselves to some hotel. We looked at Hotel Darshan situated right over the lake but somehow didnt like it much. One piece of advice to prospective travellers would be to take up accomodation somewhere in the middle of the town, because Ooty doesnt have a good public transportation system. Living in some place away from town would work out to be more expensive due to an increased cost of commuting and also because you are restricted to eat at the Hotel's in house restora and thus cant get good deals on your meals. We finally took up a 550($11) a day double-bed room at Hotel Venus, situated right in the middle of the town. The same room is rented out for 1000($20) a day during peak season.

We then decided to make arrangements for sightseeing. We had four options. Taking a package tour, renting out a bike and driving around, renting out a car for a day or taking auto rickshaws from one spot to another. I was initially reluctant to take a package tour but gave in at the end because all the other options seemed either too expensive or too restrictive at this time of the year. I ruled against the bike(300 INR) option as it was the rainy season and the skies could open up any time. The car option for just two of seemed too expensive(650 INR/Day). The auto option seemed infeasible as autos in Ooty are not allowed to go to all the destinations. We got ourselves booked to a package tour run by the hotel for INR 125 p.h. The trip was to be of 7 hours in duration.

To be continued . . .