Lost but not Found

It was an I-spy game between sun and clouds ….sunlight kept appearing ,disappearing and then again appearing. Standing on top of South India called Dolphin’s nose, I was wondering that there must be a painter of this megacosm…..A painter who makes errors in form of dark clouds covering the entire top view and then erases it from sunlight!!

Be it the Nilgiris(The Blue Mountains), apparently appearing to me as a gigantic lady who is sleeping in between mushrooms (The Eucalyptus trees)..or the sunlight coming from window of Chaiyya Chaiyaa train and piercing my body…or angelic blue colored flowers bidding adieu to the passengers of the train….or the Sun rays ,falling on leaves of coniferous trees and making their green leaves glow with white shine ……I was lost in Koonoor.

Journey to this place with six other friends started with a deadly stare of Bison in Bandipur Jungles which is on the way to Koonoor,a hill station 18 Km east of Ooty. The time was 4AM in the morning and as usual, I was awake along with my friend for the journey…the gibbous moon .The shriek from Chandan made all of us to look into shining eyes of that Bison and after that, those who were sleeping in the Qualis were also looking for more adventure…..sadly we could find few stags and herd of deer in the Bandipur and Madhumalai forests.

Ooty is artificial,Koonoor is natural
when Raja guide said this, he meant it. But our decision to stay in Koonoor was purely based on financial constraints. We were in middle of tea estates and then in SatyaMangla forest where brigand Veerappan had monopoly few years back accompanied by the guide who told about the numerous bollywood movies who were shot in the areas where we went. There were lots of view points on the way…sadly I forgot the names!!

Koonoor is the fifth hill station I have visited but number of view points make it rank two after Nainital in my list…no doubt why Bollywood should not come here to take a shot of The Painter’s outstanding creativity…or why love dales in form of honeymoon couples should not come here …Love and beauty of nature flows with cool air and to feel it, you got to be present here.

The train from Koonoor to Ooty (The Chaiyaa Chaiyya train) is an experience in itself. This historical steam engine passes through two tunnels and scenic hills.You can see the houses very beautifully arranged on different levels of the hill,as if one little nudge on the topmost house was sufficient enough to topple subsequent ones…so delicate was their placement. I was lost third time while on the journey ,only to be recovered once we reached Ooty,where we visited the Boat house for a four seater paddle boat ride and then to rose garden… full of all kinds of hybrid roses. Ooty is a crowdy and ear popping place, basically abundant with couples. It didn’t strike me at all. We decided not to visit Botanical garden (very similar to Lalbagh botanical garden of Bangalore) but we left Ooty to have some fun in between the way to Bangalore and that we did by stopping at some unknown place and freaking out with locales!

It was not that I was lost in nature only…but was Lost in translation too. Four of my Telugu friends kept chatting in their native language and me trying to decipher them was a fun!! In the end I could figure out two-three telugu words. Horse riding with Shrek was also interesting.Helper whipped his horse who jumbled and mumbled and Shrek started shrieking …stop stop. Sadly,my horse was also stopped and fun ended soon.

The height of excitement came to me when I fell in mud twice!!..one while crossing a long passage and second time while pulling out my beloved shoes from the mud result was myself half into mud….but the spirit didn’t end here…third time I crossed the same passage successfully!!

It was a nice change from Bangalore’s routine life…I suggest,if you go to Ooty,don’t give much weightage to Ooty city.Lots of unexplored places such as tribe’s village, trekking spots and the places I described are waiting…..

In the end It’s all about experimentation, bodaciousness and the limit to which you want to have adventure and fun.