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8-Nov-2007, Thursday, 7.30 AM
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I woke up with a slight hangover after previous night's party at my friend's place. Washed my face and left for my room..Reached by 8 AM. At around 8.15 AM I asked my roommate... Amitav Sahoo (A kewl guy to hang out with)...
Me: " Amitav Bhai..Chalo kahin chalte hain.... for a trip."
Amitav: " Aaj office hai yaar".
Me: " Ek din chutti maar lo.. nikal chalte hain".
Amitav: "Hmm.. are u serious??"
I frowned...."Of course"..
Amitav: " Thik hai office mein muh dikhake nikal jaata hoon.."
Great!!! Its the beginning.. After that I asked my other roomies.. But they were pre-occupied. :(
By 9.30 AM we started off with my back pack full with clothes, camera, handicam and other required stuff for the trip.We reached Infosys by around 10.15 AM. He left me outside the campus. I waited till 10.50AM when he came back.
Now....the big question. "Kahan jaana hai?? Kaise jaana hai??".. Its true..it was a total blind trip.Well.. we decided we wud go to Mysore. And then decide where to go from there.We even planned to park our bike at Infy campus and catch a volvo bus towards majestic. Fine.. all set to go now..(We thought).
Ooooppsss!!! No Volvo bus available at this hour.... So instantanouesly we both agreed upon driving to our unknown destination.Now....We had some more small stuffs to finish off before we leave.
We went to a petrol pump.... "Bhaiyya.... tank full kar do!!"..
By 12.15 PM we set off towards Mysore. The Mysore road is damn good.. After reaching a place called Mandya, we had our lunch..And my partner was a bit exhausted.. So I took the riding seat. But PULSAR 180?? For thinny pinny guy like me PULSAR is quite a heavy bike to control..I made it clear that I cannot drive as fast as my partner with this heavy vehicle..
I started the bike and 50, 60, 80, 95, 100 KMPH.. I did not realise I was driving so fast untill I saw the speedometer..Quite thrilling...hmmm... 105, 110...113.. The red light on the speedometer started to glow.... my partner told me to maintain 100 KMPH... not more..
Now we were almost nearing Mysore.. we saw a diversion towards left that would lead us to Ooty... We knew Bandipur was on Ooty road.(In one of our previous discussions 2 days ago, we were talking about Bandipur..)
Chalo Bandipur!!!
After a few tea breaks.. we reached Bandipur at around 5.30 PM. We rested for a tea at a stall.. The owner of the tea shop (Mr. Swami) helped us a lot.He gave us all the details of the area. We entered the reserve area to see if we cud get some accomodation within that area. All the cottages there were booked.Tried a lot get a room with in the sanctuary..but no use.. All the cottages are booked. We found out that the Safari timings are between 6 - 9 in the morning and 4 - 6 in the evening..
We returned to Swami, Chai wala.. He told us to try at the nearby resorts..We entered MC Resorts. Yesssssssssssssss!!!!!!!! cottage mil gaya..Totally tired and exhausted with the day's drive!! In 30 mins we were ready for our dinner.. Had dinner.. Back to room.. And..fell on our beds..zzzZZZZ.
We had to wake up early for the safari..
9-Nov-2007, Friday, 6.30 AM
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After little effort we finally woke up at 6.45 AM. We discovered that we did not bring a tooth paste. :)We both were more than sure that our mouths don't stink.. So we dont need to brush. Had a morning tea at swami's dukaan.
We reached the place where the safari wud start at around 7 AM. Rs 95/- was the cost per person for the 1 hour safari.Quite enthusiastic we were to see some wild animals.. The Safari started!!! Not a single wild animal was seen.. Anyhow, we had the luck to see two monster lizards, 2 peacocks and a few hen (Must be wild hen!!) :)
We even saw a few deer on our way back.. took a few snaps.. We were disappointed with the safari.. "Murgiyon aur chipkaliyon ko dekhne ke liye 95/-".. :(
Back to our cottage. This time we bought a paste from Swami. We were ready again by 9.30 AM for breakfast.There was one more place to see (as per Swami's information)..... Gopalaswamy temple.
What shall we do next??
Swami told us that there was a shortcut to Ooty which is just 40 kms from there as compared to 80Kms by the usual route.No prizes for guessing our next destination!!
After consuming 4 plates of Puri-Sabzi we checked out of the resort and were on the way to Gopalaswamy temple. Initial stages or the route was full of cattle.!! Chalta phirta tabela!! We drove through the cattle on the roads for about a kilometer, then the road was good for a while untill we reached the bottom of the hill. The temple was 7 Kms from there. The roads were quite steep. We drove to the top in 1-2-3rd gears only. The temple was really good. The view from that place was worth that hectic drive.
After a few 'nautanki' type snaps we came down the hill and were on out way to Oooootttyyy....We were told by one of the staff member at the resort that we need to take a left turn at Mudumalai (For the short cut).The drive was again through steep hills.. but this time we were enjoying the beautiful scenery around us.. The views were really exotic.
On our way we saw a board that read.."Kalhatty Falls..View point 100 mts". We decided we wud see it on our way back.
We reached Ooty at around 2.30 PM. We wandered around the streets there before we saw a Tamilnadu Tourism office. We went in there and took the details of all the places worth visiting. The guy there was generous enough to even tell us to try our luck at the Hotel Tamilnadu(Govt. hotel).Well we did as he told us. We got the last cottage there on the condition that we wud check out before 10 AM the next morning.. We took it happily.
We had our lunch at the hotel and set off for visit into the city. We went to the ooty lake. Nice lake.. We thought of boating. but all the boats were occupied already and we wud have to wait a lot for getting the boats. So dropped the plan for the time being. Roamed around the lake for a while. We even boarded a toy train. It was not much exciting..
We were just about to leave when a guy came to us and told.."Sir, Horse ride". I and Amitav looked at each other.... in next 5 minutes were riding on two stout horses.The ride was quite exciting. We took a few snaps. The horseman hit the horses and stayed behind. We were on out own on back of the horses.. God damn.. quite thrilled we were..100/- bucks each for the horse ride.
The day was not bad at all..we thought. We were on our way back to the cottage when we saw a poster of the movie "Sawariya". :)Rs 25/- per ticket... 2nd class.. Pathetic movie..
After the movie we were back to our cottage. Helped ourselves with a drink at the permit room. Then dinner.. Off to sleep.
Oooppss.........Happy Diwali!! :)
10-Nov-2007, Saturday, 8.00 AM
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As mentioned earlier Hotel Tamilnadu is a government run hotel, all the facilities were okay. The cottage was great.There was a huge geiser. But the only problem for us on that cold morning was.....the huge geiser was not working. :( We were sure again that we were already fresh. We knew we smelled great even with out a deo. So we decided not to waste any ice cold water.
After breakfast, we checked out of the cottage and we went to the Botanical garden. Nice place.!!We took a really good snaps of the flowers with water droplets on them. Amitav's camera had a 48x zoom. We were able to take snaps of the droplets as well. As usual we had taken a few more of our nautanki wale snaps.
Amitav's camera had a 48x zoom. We were able to take snaps of the droplets as well.
Earlier, during breakfast, we decided that, after Ooty sight seeing, we would go to Kunoor (17 kms from Ooty). So we set off for Kunoor. None of the sight seeing places were in Kunoor. These places were around kunoor.
While we were roaming around Kunoor, we thought if we finished all the places in Kunoor early, we can move towards Coimbatore (80 Kms from Kunoor). But the drive to St. Catherine falls took a lot of time. Though we enjoyed the trekking there in the tea gardens.
After the trekking to the tip of the waterfalls it was already 3 PM. We made a quick descent and reached down by 3.45 PM.
Now what?? Where?? Coimbatore?? Just 80 Kms from here.. But by the time we reach there it would be dark. And we just had one more day in hand. The distance between Coimbatore and Bangalore is around 400 Kms. It would be too hactic to drive that distance in one day. These were the points we were discussing over a cup of tea.
We dropped our Coimbatore plans. One more interesting thing. One of my friend's, Rabi and his room mate were on a trip to Ooty through some travels. So I called him up to find out where he stayed in Ooty. He had reached there early in the afternoon that day.
Me: "Kaun se hotel mein ruka hai?"
Rabi: "Hotel Sapphire".
Me: "Try to see if you can book a room for two people there."
Rabi: "I am out for sight seeing. Will check about the availability once I reach there."
We decided we wud go back to ooty and stay in the same hotel as Rabi. We reached Ooty by 5.30 PM. We enquired about Hotel Sapphire. We reached the Hotel. We asked for a room. There was one last room. The hotel guy told us there was one group from Bangalore who had booked most of the rooms. Well, this is it. This is where even Rabi is staying. We took that last available room.
After checking in, I called up Rabi.
Me: "Kahan hai?"
Rabi: "Abhi Hotel pahuncha hoon. Tu kahan hai?"
Me: " Hum log hotel mein check kar kiye hain. Room No-105".
Rabi: "Arey sahi.. Mera room no - 107".
My room was the last in the row. My adjacent room was 104.
Me(to hotel boy): "Room no 107 kahan hai??".
Boy: "Sir, is hotel mein 107 hai hi nahi."
Me :"Abey is hotel mein 107 nahi hai.. tu kis hotel mein hai."
Rabi:"Hotel Sapphire."
Me:"Main bhi hotel sapphire mein hi hoon. hotel ka poora naam bata.."
Rabi:"Hmm... SGV Hotel sapphire Garden view"
Me: "#$$^**&%^* &*&)& *%*^%&^% &(*&(*& ** ****"
Me (to hotel Boy): "SGV Hotel Sapphire Garden view yahan se kitni door hai".
Boy: "1.5 Kms"
Me: " Ok.. We will come to your hotel after sometime".
We reached his hotel by around 6.45 PM. After hitting Rabi a couple of times, we went for a dinner.Rabi and his friend told us about their frustration in their tourist bus.He said that there were 3 couples, 2 families and these 2 people. :)
Reached back to room by 9 PM. Off to sleep.
11-Nov-2007, Sunday, 8.00 AM
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We were planning for a little more sight seeing in Ooty. We thought Pykara lake would be a good option.After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and started off towards Pykara lake.The road was in a very pathetic condition. We still headed forward in a hope that road might be better after some distance.We saw a car coming from the other direction. We asked the driver how is the road ahead. He said it is in same condition till Pykara which is 10 Kms from there..
After driving on this road for 10 + 10 Kms, we will not be in a condition to drive back till Bangalore. So we opted to move back from there and headed for Bangalore. :)
On our way down the hills. We kept our vehicle in neutral and engine off. We traveled a stretch of 30 Kms without burning a single drop of oil. :). And guess at what speed? It varied between 20 - 50 Kmph.
We remembered that we had to see kalhatty falls. We stopped the vehicle and went to see the falls. The view was great.We crossed Mudumalai and reached Bandipur.
With in the reserve area no vehicle is supposed to halt. But we had to break the rules partially. Now, here is the reason why.Remember, I told that we could not see even a single wild animal while we were in Safari. This time around 50 mts off the road there were two wild elephants. They were probably having their lunch. :)
Amitav got down to take a snap while I was still driving @ 1 KMPH.(That is what I call "Partial breaking of rules!!" :)) Again after driving for 5 more kilometers we saw another elephant just beside the road. This time we did not stop. But since we could see it from a distance, Amitav had enough time to prepare the camera to take the snap before we neared the beast.
We finally reached Swami's tea stall. He enquired about our ooty trip. We had our tea and headed for Mysore.
We reached Mysore at 2PM. Had our lunch. And hit the best roads of the trip....Mysore-banglore road.
Once we reached Bangalore we decided to go and watch "Om Shanti Om". We did not get the tickets at Innovative multiplex.So we headed to our room. We reached back to our room by 7 PM.
That was the end of our blind trip. We did not know where to go and how to go in the beginning. But as and when we reached to some place we decided our way further. None of the rooms were booked in advance. Still we were lucky enough to get an accomodation where ever we wanted.
Now.... What next?? Where next?? And when??
