Visit to Udagamandalam

Destination : Ooty (present name Udagamandalam), Nilgiri, Tamil Nadu

Departure : Sunday 20.11.2005, 2000 hrs by Yaswantpur Express to Yaswantpur, Bangalore at 1030 hrs on 22.11.05

Return : Sunday 27.11.2005, 1520 hrs by Coromoandal Express

Participants :

A dozen from the B E College gang

From Idle brain's paradise

The journey : This was one of those rare trips, where from the beginning the journey started pleasantly. We found our places in the train and settled down for a 2-night trip, the longest so far. Next morning, it was clear, that we have left North India and have entered the more civilized South. The people were more polite and considerate, there were no signs of the aggressively obnoxious North Indians. Loken even had a tough time to find a claimant for a Rs1 coin he found lying on the floor. By about 15:40, we crossed the 3kM wide river Godavari. The scenery changed form Tal trees to sugarcane fields, date palms and huts with roof of Tal leaves. All railway stations major and minor were exceptionally clean. The morning thereafter, we reached Yaswantpur, a railway station at the outskirts of the fast expanding Bangalore city. We collected Chitrita, who had split from her College excursion trip and came to Yaswantpur from Salem. She was sitting in a far platform. It was only by the strength of palwan Tulai, that her bag, containg a quintal stones from half of the hills could be carried to the platform of our arrival.

The place : By far the best boarding & lodging we ever enjoyed in all our trips.

Lawley Institute 19 13

The Gang

Moss grows lush in this high, humid hills

Indoor "adda" in a rainy day

The person : The one person, who single handed made our visit comfortable and memorable was Mr Krishnan, the local head of Nara’s Co. He was considerate and helped us in more ways than we could imagine, even going to the extent of acquiring a number of umbrellas for us, so that we could brave the rain and move about on foot.

Nara & Krishnan our organizers

Hi! Says hero # 1

Outside of hotel of hero # 2 filmstar Mithun Chakraborty

Inside of hotel of hero # 2 filmstar Mithun Chakraborty

Hither & thither :

Disregarding the rain, we hired a bus for sight seeing trips.

Chhñeiya Chhñeyia railway line

Train to Kunoor

Outing on a rainy day

On 25.11.05, the rain having practically stopped, we trooped into the Botanical Garden, a stones throw from our rooms. Compared with the sprawling and totally neglected Botanical Garden at Howrah, next to our College Campus, this one did not boast so many varieties of trees, but inspite of its smaller size and fewer collections, whatever it had was displayed in lovingly maintained, neat and elegant fashion. It was a pleasure to roam around. The pleasure was for an entry fee : Rs5 per child, Rs10 per adult, Rs30 per still camera and Rs500 per video camera. On enquiring about this high fee for video, we were told an intriguing tale. It seems, the film or ad industry people surreptitious shoot film sequences using the background of the Botanical Garden for commercial profit, but did not pay any utilization fee.

The astounding thread flowers

Hydrangea at Botanics

Lily at Botanics

Lunch on banana leaf

Delicious evening snack

Part of breakfast

The Governer’s house

The Governer’s drawing room

A traditional Toda (tribal) hut

Return journey : We had some time to kill at Mettupallayam Rly Stn, waiting for the Nilgiri Express to be put to the platform. It started raining. A local train came and terminated at this station. We spent the time, loudly teaching ourselves the Tamil script, by reading the nameplates on the local train, in English and Tamil, much to the amusement of local co-passengers. By and by, we discovered, that the name of the place, as spelt in Tamil is actually Mett-Upallayam.

Where do we go next :

Rosenheim, Germany

Sydney Opera