Odakamund – famously known as Ooty – April 2006

This was the first & most romantic tour we had, as this was our first! Away in the hills, with solitude, getting to know each other, & the best part of this drive was the our first car –The Zen – fully modified & people stole looks when we passed..….all put together a complete bliss!

The drive that started on a Friday night around 23.30, seemed really long, stopping in every pit stop we could find for various excuses, just wanting the night to continue forever, we finally made our way to Mysore around 2.30 & has to spend the night there as the we dint not get permission to pass through the forests of Bandipur at that hour (may be they thought that we may scare the animals) , Nevertheless, reluctant about it, we stayed in Mysore, driving thru the deserted streets looking for chaiwalas, eating samosas until morning!

Then, we set out again at the break of dawn...the beautiful villages passing by, the lovely roads, the tender coconut vendors....adding to the romantic mood! Finally we reached our destination at around 11 in the morn & stayed at the guest houses of the Horticultural dept of Karnataka, adding to the greenery!

Ooty, for us was just a hill station until the light pitter patter of the rain drops started, it suddenly turned out to be bitter cold! Each raindrop touching the skin was like a knife cutting through the skin coldly! Painful though it was, little did it hamper our spirits or forced us to stay indoors! We got out all packed set out to the hills, the various view points, tasting the different flavors of tea that the locals served us, eating home made chocolates etc, taking rides on horses, buying chocolates & some herbal massage oils for people back home!

One of the best & educational parts of this tour was, out visit to a tea factory! Here we saw the entire processing of the tea, right from the plants to the packets!
Good stuff…tasted some fresh chocolate flavored tea as well! Yummy yummy!
We then went to a few famous places around. The best among them was our crazy drive to a places 2 hours away from Ooty called Connur…..this is a crazy uphill drive, the roads here are cut from the mountain & are just mettled & no tar on them, there are little streams flowing everywhere in between these roads & no 2 vehicles can pass at the same time! Need a real expert driver to navigate through these rugged roads …..& there was Pavan doing the job that he best at!
We picked up some fellow travelers from UK, who were trying to make their way up this crazy hill – trekking & had given up & was waiting for some savior to just come & pick them….& we appeared! We still continued our journey upwards on this road less path until the tip of the hill just for the kicks of driving & when we reached there, we realized that it was all worth it! Never seen anything more spectacular!
That was it, never realized when the 2 days passed, left Ooty at 17.30 on Sunday evening, driving through the jungles of Bandipur with Deer & Elephants giving us company through the way until Mysore! Back to Bangalore at 23.00 hrs & back to work the next day! There it was the end of our first tour together!