Ooty - Queen of hill stations

On the road to Ooty there is a patch - quite a long one, of road where we drove more off the road than on it :-) as the roads were dotted with miniature potholes along the way. The road gave way to a smoother one after some time and the landscape became picturesque once again with huge sugarcane fields, coconut trees, lots of greenery and white fluffy clouds! We passed 2-3 small flocks of sheep walking idly in front of their shepherd, when suddenly our car went off the road and on glancing thru the windshield I saw the road being dominated by 6-7 cows walking aimlessly all over the road! This can happen only in India! :-) As we entered Tamil Nadu we drove straight into the Mudumulai tiger reserve - we did get to see wild monkeys and wild elephants but no tigers! As we drove through the tree lined road of the reserve, our driver narrated an incident he had experienced some months ago – he was travelling at night and a wild elephant suddenly came out from the trees and stood in the middle of the road. The rule of the jungle is that if you ever encounter a wild animal, stop and don’t move a muscle and that’s exactly what he did – for over an hour till the elephant decided to move on!

As we entered Tamil Nadu, after paying the relevant RTO taxes, our driver informed us of the other traffic rules in the south - did you know that private taxi drivers have a dress code? Different in each state? They have to be in white shirts and blue pants in Karnataka and in a white shirt with white pants in Tamil Nadu and the fine for not wearing either is Rs. 300 and Rs. 500 respectively!
We started our ascent onto the Nilgiri hills. The ascent proved to be an experience. There were 36 hairpin bends along the way! Few of them were very steep and at times I thought we would start moving backwards instead of forward! Half way up we suddenly saw a small fountain of water come up from our car bonnet (check pic!!) - our engine had got overheated! We stopped for a while and opened the bonnet - I did get to see an ambassador's car engine! :-) Because of our engine overheating we managed to have around 3 stops. At one of these, we encountered a cute stall displaying its wares of mangoes, cucumbers, small red plums grouped in small packets and never before seen really, really orange carrots - just like the ones you see in the cartoons! We tried out the cucumber n plums - both were extremely fresh and yum! As we reached higher n higher the climate became cooler and cooler. The air now had a nip in it and we saw locals waiting at corners for a bus in sweaters - we even saw a nice old uncle in a very old grey suit making his way up the hill!

We reached Ooty and our hotel - The Kings Cliff, amidst the cool breeze. Rows of brightly coloured flowers greeted us at the gate. Our footsteps echoed on the wooden floors as we made our way to the room where as we crossed the threshold we gasped with delight at the lovely sight in front of us - our room looked like it had stepped out of a Shakespeare play! It had a canopy bed and there was a fireplace too! And guess what? There was no fan in the room! :-) Our hotel had more surprises for us - there were 2 small chocolates that sat on our pillows and a bathroom so huge that it had two door to it - I am serious!! In the evening the main sitting room fireplace was lit and 2 young local lads entertained us by singing the latest and some not so latest English songs. All in all a lovely experience!