Trip to Ooty

This trip was planned on the last minute when my uncle came to Bangalore. In evening we were enjoying our drinks when my uncle’s son requested me to take him to Ooty, I couldn’t reject that. As I never been to Ooty so I called couple of friends and they told me how to go about and all. So in the morning I took off from office and went to a BMTC ticket counter and asked for the availability of ticket and luckily tickets were available as this trip was planned in the mid of a week. Per ticket cost was 306/- on side (Mayura A/C Volvo) and per the information from the person sitting on the counter 2 days are more then enough to see Ooty and a place near by name Kunoor hence we booked 3 to and fro tickets.

Normally all the buses leave late in the evening and there are lot of tour and travel guys exists and depending on the passenger’s convenience they have pick up points. Since we have booked the ticket from BMTC so we have to go to there respective bus stand which was near Majestic. Normally buses leaves by 9.30 pm and reaches Ooty by 6 in the morning so by 9:10 we were at the bus stop and were looking at our bus.

Bus started at right time and it was semi-sleeper so we didn’t faced any trouble while sleeping and it was all together a comfortable journey. Morning 5:45 we were in Ooty, I was amazed that as soon as our bus reached lot of hotel people came started asking whether we require hotel or not. Finally we hooked to a hotel, tariff was also economical 500/- per day. If you go in off season you will get tariff like this only and if you go in season, starting tariff will be 1000/-. Ooty is full of hills so if you took a hotel in some remote area it will difficult to commute, that’s what my friend advised so based on that we took a hotel near to market.

After reaching room we got freshed and had our breakfast. We asked the hotel guy about the place to see and he advised us to take a cab and roam around and go to place named Kunoor. Kunoor is famous for coffee plantation. So finally we decided and asked the hotel guy to call a cab, the cab came and cab charges were 900/- for full day till 6 pm and deal was to take us to Kunoor and after site seeing come back to ooty and again do site seeing in Ooty.

We were all set by 10 am and finally cab and we headed to Kunoor. It is almost an hour journey to Kunoor and the cab driver showed us all the famous places on the way to Kunoor like movie shooting places, vegetables and fruits plantation. At 11:45 we were in Kunoor and he took us to the Tea Plantation, it was awesome looking at and he also took us to the factory where the tea leaves are processed and finally the tea is made. Same kind of place is in Ooty also and to visit that the charges are 50/- only, pretty economical. After that he took us to the lover’s point in Kunoor which was located on the hill and there of shops were there selling different kinds of tea like green tea, herbal tea, masala tea, mint tea, dust tea. On the way we picked up few flavor. Then he took us to see a toy train, toy train runs from Kunoor to Ooty and vice versa and lot of people travel in that, we took 3 tickets which costed us 15/-. In one hour we were back in Ooty, and the cab driver was waiting for us at station.

After that he took us to a flower garden were we saw 985 kinds of varieties of flowers, that was amazing and the charges were 15/- per person.

Once we are done with that then he took us other places like wax museum, water world. We saw all these places although I have seen places like this before also when I was child but seeing these again in this age, it was like going back in childhood and finally we were done and driver dropped us back to hotel and we started enjoying our drinks which we picked on the way back.

Next morning we were having plans to see Ooty once again and see small markets, take a horse ride but my uncle’s son got ill…stomach got upset, can not help it but still he did not gave up and came with us and enjoyed till his limits and we were back to hotel by 4, took some rest. Around 7 we did our packing and by 9 we left the hotel, 9:30 we were sitting in our bus and at last came back to Bangalore next day morning 6:45 am. It was altogether a good journey and someone who want a short break, Ooty is a place.