Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Udagamandalam (Ooty) 9 February 2009

While I was attending the church wedding reception on Sunday, Gopal was going to the Coonoor train station to pick up our arriving guests, Krishna and Vijaya Gosavi. The Gosavis live in Mumbai, but traveled to Coonoor from Chennai where they had been attending meetings and conferences. They took a train from Chennai to Mettapalayam where they boarded the narrow-guage "toy train" up here to Coonoor, a 3-hour ride through the gorgeous landscape up into the mountains.
Janaki, Shemi, Mariama, and Vijaya Gosavi outside our house
Krishna, Vijaya, Gopal, Carolyn outside our door

On Monday, we took the Gosavis to Ooty. After lunch, our first stop was to climb the Six-Mile Hill (6 miles from Ooty). Apparently, this is a very popular place to film Indian movies.

Beautiful Mariama on Six-Mile Hill

Vijaya, Carolyn, Mariama

After Six-Mile Hill, we went to Pykara Falls. This is the river leading to the falls. Apparently, this river's flow is dependent on rainfall, so sometimes it is dry. This is another favorite filming place.


Gopal, Carolyn, Mariama, Vijaya, Krishna

Boat ride on Ooty Lake

Krishna, Rajan (our guide and sometimes driver), Vijaya, Carolyn, Mariama


Vijaya, looking very cute in Gopal's hat
(The hat looked so good on her, we gave it to her.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ooty is the capital town of the district of nilgiri. I would say that the climate in ooty is pleasant and is a great place for leisure tours. There are many places you can tour, such as the Botanical Gardens, Lamb's rock and Dodabetta Peak, Ooty Lake, Kodanadu's View Point, and also weekend trips like: Madumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, Kotagiri, Kalhatty Waterfalls, Dolphin's Nose, Avalanche, Coonnoor, on tours to Ooty India.

Some of the tourist attractions of Ooty are Ooty Lake which was was built for providing an irrigation tank to the people of this region, Botanical Garden situated on the lower slopes of the Dodabetta peak and Kalhatty Falls which is located about 113 kilometers away from ooty.

Ooty is on the narrow gauge railway, connected to Mettupalayam (47 km), which is directly connected to Coimbatore and Chennai. The famous toy train connects Ooty with Mettupalayam and Coonoor. A good network of roads and national highways connect Ooty with all major towns and cities. There are regular bus services to and from Coimbatore, Trichy, Bangalore, Madurai, Kanyakumari, Mysore, Palghat, Calicut, Tirupati and other important destinations in South India. Ooty is also well connected with major cities of Kerala and Karnataka. Coimbatore, 105 km from Ooty, is the nearest airport.

You can opt for a 3 days ooty tour or a 4 days coimbatore ooty tour or a mysore ooty tour to enjoy this beautiful destination of charming hills and pleasant climate. I think it is during summer vacation most people are visiting this place. Ooty is also a honeymooners paradise in south India.

India is truly a great place with lots of diversity and is a unique place in the world. Indian tourism industry has performed well in the recent years. You can follow my updates on @india_tourism in twitter or in my india travel blog.