One Night in Ooty

It was year 2005 and those days were special as it was not a very long time we got our first job.  The second and 3rd quarter of year 2005 was quite hectic as there was no holiday for a long period of 5-6 months. Everyone so eagerly waited for 15th august as it was on Monday. So, finally we had a holiday after a long wait and a holiday on Monday just spiced it up. Most of the people had some plan for the long weekend and we also had something on our mind.I, Lami and Kamal decided to visit Coorg. We heard a lot about Coorg from our friends who stayed in Bangalore for a long time. I tried to google about Coorg that time and was happy to see so many good reviews. In some of the websites they even mentioned Coorg as “Scotland of South India”. I was very much excited as it was our first Coorg trip.We booked our bus ticket from Bangalore to Coorg a week earlier and it was scheduled for Friday 9 PM. That particular evening we started a little early as we knew about Bangalore traffic quite well. We took a bus at around 7:30 PM and by 8:15 PM we were somewhere near the railway station. The bus moved very slowly but we were not worried as we had hell lot of time. At some point the bus was motionless for almost 15 to 20 minutes and that moment we started to worry a bit. We took a very good decision that time and we got out of the bus and started to walk. We walked for almost half an hour and somehow fortunately we didn't miss our bus to Coorg.

Coorg is indeed a very nice place situated in the Western Ghats of southwestern Karnataka. Next morning as soon as we reached Coorg we had to struggle for almost an hour to get a hotel, the kind of hotel which would fit into our pocket. After breakfast we had a chat with our hotel manager and had an overview of the places to visit out there. We hired a cab for the entire day and visited all the well known places like Abbey falls, coffee plantations, Harangi dam, the Tibetan monastery and few other places surrounding Coorg. 

It's really a very nice place to visit, the entire surrounding is refreshingly green, the streams are so beautiful and the weather is just fantastic. But in one day we visited all the well known places and there was literally nothing more to visit. Earlier we had a plan to stay the entire weekend in Coorg, but there was literally nothing we could have done there for another day other than chill out. Coorg was a perfect holiday destination for honeymoon couples that time and to be honest the entire Coorg overflowed with honeymoon couples that weekend.  

We decided to return Bangalore on Sunday evening itself instead of Monday and we were about to book our tickets on Sunday morning. To be honest I was not very much satisfied with the trip so far, may be because I had too much expectation for the long weekend and wanted to enjoy for another day or two. All of a sudden I had an idea “what if we go to Ooty from here?” My friends laughed at me and said that's a weird idea. I tried to justify but they said that's wild idea as everyone had to join office on Tuesday. I said if we hire a cab, it would hardly take us 6-7 hours to reach Ooty and on the way we could enjoy some beautiful scenery. Next day we could visit some of the places in Ooty and in the afternoon we could come to Mysore by the same cab and from Mysore we take a bus or a train to Bangalore. It took me a long time but finally I was able to convince them.

So, after lunch we hired a cab(Indica) for Ooty and we started at 3:30 PM. The journey was awesome and quite thrilling as we also had few sips of vodka on the way. We enjoyed some wonderful flora and fauna, sunflower garden and some dense forest. We missed some of the thrills when we passed through the Bandipur national park as it was dark outside. We expected to find some fierce wild animals on the way, but had to satisfy ourselves with some wild pigs. We reached Ooty at 9 PM and it was damn cold outside. We saw a hell lot of crowd outside; there were people all over the place, almost like a carnival. We saw a huge group of students enjoying their camp fire and most of them were singing and dancing.  We were so much thrilled and I said to my friends “see, Ooty is so lively and you guys were not ready for it”

We went to a nearby hotel and there was a huge crowd at the reception. We asked the manager for a room but not even a single room was available. We went to a different hotel and even there we got the same reply. So, we went to a 3rd hotel and there the manager asked us when did we arrive in Ooty? When we replied that we reached Ooty just half an hour back, the manager started to laugh.

He said “You see those people standing in the road? They came in the morning and till now they are not able to get any room. I just did a small favor as I agreed to keep their luggage’s safely here”

We were stunned with the manager’s reply. We tried our luck for another 2 hours and approached almost every hotel in Ooty but no where we were able to manage  a room for the night. It was a pathetic situation as we all were so tired. Our cab driver was also very much surprised and he said to us that he came to Ooty more than 15 times but never experienced or heard of such a situation. This kind of situation is quite common in Goa during New Year time. We even tried our luck in some expensive resorts but Ooty was on carnival mood that night. At around 11:30 PM we had our dinner and everyone wondered where to stay the night? Our cab driver was generous enough and asked us to sleep the night in the cab itself. That was the only option we had that night and the driver parked the car in a safe place and we tried to sleep inside the car. It was a pathetic situation and the vodka helped a lot but after sometime my entire body started to pain.

Early morning we went to a small restaurant  to have tea as well as to refresh ourselves. After tea we didn't waste much time and immediately we were on our way to Mysore. The early morning journey through the Bandipur National park was quite thrilling and the smell of the forest was so refreshing. On the way we saw hell lot of deer’s, few peacocks, some elephants and few more wild animals.

We reached Mysore by 10 AM and had to wait in the railway station for a couple of hours for our train to Bangalore.