Coonoor – the place has been very dear to me as a long lost friend (35 years back) who lived in the area had painted vivid descriptions. For years I have carried those images. It is a different matter that such images of Mussorie, Nainital got battered when I actually saw them for real. So when the trip to Coonoor got planned, I said ..dekhte hai !!! The plan to do a road trip from Bangalore with my children and their friends meant party time for sure! Both children living in Banglore with WFH option made our life easy for sure 🙂

Children found a AirBnB Igloo Premium- Wood house, and a travel agent on the internet for an Innova and we made the payments and were set to reach Conoor by May 14th, 2022. The plan was to start early for Coonoor. On the way we had wonderful breakfast with super coffee …. and reached Mysore around afternoon. The roads were super smooth and we spent the time singing songs and crossed Mysore. Miyaji was very excited for the onward journey was through Bandipur and Madhumalai forests. I had never even heard about it 😀 but it became an eye opener. The journey through the Bandipur forest extended for an hour and the whole time everybody in our car jumped up in excitement. I pinched myself for being so lucky. The greenery around us was amazing and after every five minutes we would see a group of elephants just 15-20 meters from our road. A Tusker heading the clan had a baby elephant too and for few moments I wondered the baby elephant looked like sucking milk but didn’t understand …. that was the first time in my life I saw Elephants have mammary glands between the front pair of legs unlike cows and buffaloes !!!! Herds of deer in its soothing calm setting, sitting for the afternoon was a priceless scene !! Peacocks, Langurs and occasional Neelgaay made the journey towards Ooty better than a safari. Crossing Bandipur and Madhumalai was super bonanza.

Onward journey was more twists and U-pin turns and after some time the valley and road was so foggy we couldn’t even see beyond 10 meters! Temperature dipped suddenly and we knew finally we were reaching Ooty. We realised our BnB was in between Ooty and Coonoor and and we were pretty happy as the destination was just another 20 odd kilometers. By then it was 5 pm, and we checked with the BnB contact person and were told to reach CSI Engineering college and then call again. I asked for this College to a Traffic police and she said – ‘Go Straight on this road.’ What seemed like another five kilometres took us nearly an hour !!!! It was a wild goose chase of finding CSI Engineering college – all the help of the GPS, the local people failed. By then we were tired and batteries were discharging quickly – man n’ machine both equally. Tempers were rising !!! OMG I badly wanted to pee…. It was getting dark and finally we found the college and on calling the Manager, asked us to reach a square and the BnB caretaker is waiting , will guide us to the location. We located the caretaker at a crowded junction in Coonoor, by 7 pm. He was in a two wheeler and said ‘follow me….’ The BnB was further down somewhere, we could just see some lights far away as we went down in the twisted road down the hill, behind the caretaker!!! Our driver was simply flabbergasted – who takes such locations to stay and was angry to have come to this who-knows-where corner.

We were told on reaching the BnB location that food was not available anywhere nearby. But the caretaker said he will arrange some food in 30-40 minutes. By 8 pm we had all freshened up and ran around the BnB, thrilled to be staying in this wonderful wood cabin. We got a campfire started in the little garden. The caretaker poured engine oil on two three tea bushes and we sat for few minutes … it was very cold in the open and we were hungry and hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. Till 9 .45 pm we kept waiting. Appu had gone to sleep. We were all so tired, I was barely sitting upright. After numerous calls finally the caretaker comes in with few chapatis and a litre of Sambhar !!!!! OMG !! Such a disastrous end to a wonderful day! Nothing wrong with Chapatis with Sambhar but we were on a ” Holiday” !!! Anyways the caretaker Mr. Yusuf promised he will bring in proper breakfast and asked us our choices. Idli vada laa dena chalega par laa dena. He agreed.

Morning was fantabulous .. Coonoor at its best. All of us sat on the floor of the balcony and watched the clouds float by. We could see the beauty of the place, the house was surrounded by vast terrace farming hills. It had rained all night and even now it was drizzling and saw people (looked like ants) slowly walking up the hill to the road. There were few BnBs near us but the balcony facing area was devoid of any houses and we had the best view of Coonoor. The landlord lived on the ground floor and we were occupying the first and second floor, in total three bedrooms for six of us. The property was simply marvellous, this house built in wood was very cozy. We had booked the place for two days.

But the joyous mood floated off with the clouds when we realised we are not getting any breakfast! The caretaker refused to come as the rain made the kaccha road slippery. We were furious, got ready, packed the bags back and decided to vacate the property unanimously. We called the property manager for refund, told him about the food problem and left the place. We had spoken to the manager so many times, he never gave any indication about difficulty to deliver food. We came to Coonoor city, had breakfast and then made plans for the day. A tea estate, a garden, a cemetery, toy train was on the list. We took lodging in Ooty hotel and spent the day roaming. Could not get a seat on the toy train sadly, so that will be done next time. Discovered a quiet YWCA Anandagiri while visiting the Chocolate museum. It had a large collection of flowers and those flowers were used to fill huge vases in the dining area of the YWCA. We sat there for a long time having coffee and talking about childhood times. Had we known about this, we would have surely taken rooms here. One can check online for boarding. Returned to our hotel room and sat for a game of cards over few glasses of wine and ice cream 🙂

We liked YWCA area so much that we were there again for breakfast which had sumptuous Ghee roast, idli vada, Uthapams and best cup of teas. All of us wanted to keep away from all the touristy places. Visited Crown Bakery – seems it was founded in 1832, and found kinds of freshly baked breads and nankhatties and cutlets. We couldn’t gorge on it so got few packed. While returning from Ooty, visited Pykara lake and enjoyed boating in the vast expanse of the water, best spot to end our short trip. The Bandipur forest area had to be crossed before 6 pm, so we started the return trip by 1 pm and reached Bangalore by 10 pm.

Very rich experience and a happy trip … wanted to write about it to share the joy.