Sunday, September 21, 2008

Coonoor and Ooty 9/15-21/08 (hill stations in the Nilgiri Hills)

Taj Garden Hotel in Coonoor
Savoy Hotel in Ooty
Garden at Savoy
Ooty Lake

Horses in the Ooty streets
Tribal Museum near Ooty
Erulappan and Gopal


Tribal Museum
Erulappan, Gopal, and Umesh
Since we're leaving south India at the end of this month and are particularly fond of Tamil Nadu, we decided to check out the Tamil Nadu hill stations. The heat is too difficult for me, and the hill stations are cooler. That's why they were colonial hangouts. Gopal and I caught a 7:30pm bus from Puducherry to Coimbatore on Monday, 9/15, where we caught another bus up into the hills to Coonoor. We arrived in Coonoor around 9:30am the following day. The view from the bus en route to Coonoor was gorgeous, mountains and forest for over an hour with hardly a building to be seen. Unfortunately, our new camera somehow misplaced our pictures of our ride up, as well as most of our pictures of Coonoor. The irony of this is that we fell in love with Coonoor, and unless we find another place more wonderful, we would love to live there. We looked at a couple rentals available in January. We'll see. We need to look at a couple other areas of India before we commit. We spent three nights in Coonoor, one night in Ooty, then took a bus back to Pondicherry. We weren't very crazy about Ooty but found a great Tribal Museum outside Ooty, thanks to an autorickshaw driver, Umesh. The museum was closed, but the security guy, Erulappan, opened it and gave us a personal tour. It was very special in many ways. If we settle in Coonoor, we are going to get involved in NGOs in Ooty assisting the Nilgiri tribal people and helping at the museum. Another interesting aspect of Ooty is that there are more horses wandering the streets than cows! Apparently, people have a hard time affording the upkeep of the horses so let them wander loose to feed themselves.
Note: It would be fun to get a comment here and there. You can click on "Comments" at the end of the post and leave an opinion or note if you feel like it.

5 comments:

Dexter said...

Yay!! I'm so glad you finally found a cool place, I'm just sorry it took so long. I googled Coonoor and it looks lovely! I hope you can settle there soon and make it your home base.

I hope we talk soon.

Miss you so much,
Suzie

Carolyn said...

I'll call this evening, which will be your morning Tuesday. I miss you too, Suzie.
We want to check a couple other cool places before we commit, but it was heavenly to know there was a place we could be.
Talk to you soon.
Love

Carolyn said...

And, we can rent a 3-bedroom house for $300 a mo.!

Anonymous said...

I am glad that you have at least one location to possibly settle. That must take a layer of stress off. You are looking thinner in the first picture. Nice.

Hope to talk to you soon. We are meeting Luke and Diana in SF tomorrow. Will tell you about that soon.
Love and hugs!
Joan

mike_huhman said...

A big namaste to you two.
Throughout all the trials and tribulations of your journey, it appears you maintain a smile on your face. I take that to mean you are having an adventure! We do miss you on this side of the pond though. It is awesome to see all your photos. India seems a little more exotic than Europe!