Rakesh Prasad

The weather was cold and cloudy. It was drizzling here in Coimbatore. Over and above we had three consecutive days holiday. In short, it was an ideal time to go on a road trip. And what other place to go to in such romantic weather than the beautiful, scenic hill station, Ooty!

We booked an Innova and were off to a journey of fun and adventure in the cloudy weather.

As we crossed Mettupalayam on the way to Ooty, it appeared as if we were moving from land into the mistic clouds. The earth and cloud came together to create a beautiful scenic view. Our cameras were going 'click!click!click!' as the Innova manoeuvred the turns and twists of the road.

Travelling to Ooty is literally uphill task. It really requires an expertise in driving a vehicle enroute to Ooty. The roads are not so broad and are full of curves. In fact there are 14 Hair Pin bends on the way to Ooty.

As your vehicle moves towards Ooty, you will be lucky to see some small waterfalls. Now a days it's become a rare sight. What you will find a lot is jackfruit trees with huge jackfruits hanging from the trees.

The route to Ooty is also inhabited by monkeys. You will find lots of monkeys along with their little ones sitting on the side of the road watching the vehicles go by. Watch out for them as you drive.

Before reaching Ooty we crossed another beautiful place called Coonoor.

Coonoor is a Taluka and a municipality in the Nilgiris district. It is known for its production of Nilgiri tea. It's a beautiful place for a stop over and spend time here. We did not stop here as our destination was Ooty.

As we neared Ooty the weather became natural AC. In fact you may find the inside of your car warmer than outside, even with AC on.

This is the kind of weather that remains from April to December. January to March is considered as dry season here. During thsee three months, the sun shines bright in the sky. So if you like Sunny weather, you can plan your trip anytime between January and March.

We were in the month of June and the weather out there was all wet and chilling cold.

As we had started at 6:30 in the morning, we felt hungry on the way. We stopped at one of the restaurants to have some delicious South Indian breakfast. We entered the restaurant at about 8:30. We were surprised to find that most of the dishes on the menu was over. That's the number of tourists arriving at Ooty.

We reached our hotel where we were going to stay, just after 11:00 AM. Even though we had enjoyed our early morning journey to Ooty, we had to wait for about 45 minutes to check in our rooms. The check out time and check in time at the hotel is 12:00 PM. We sat in the lobby. It was raining outside. By looking at the weather outside you can never guess that it was almost twelve in the afternoon. It still appeared as if it was around eight in the morning.

One thing we learnt while waiting in the lobby is that you need to have lots of patience when you travel to such places. The life moves here at a totally different pace. You cannot expect the hurry - burry of a city here. Things happen here at its own pace. So we just sat and relaxed waiting for our rooms to get ready. The staff at the hotel did their best and gave us our room before time.

Before we settled in our rooms we decided to start our exploration of Ooty after lunch.

We had the tourist points chalked out where we had to go.

As for Now, it was time to freshen up and take some rest.Read more