A short recollection .. The trip started on an excellent note with all the participants making to the designated meeting spot by 8.30pm.

Let me go ahead and name all of them.
Geetha, Brinda, Sudha, Priya, Anusha, Angelyn, Suganya & Sangeetha
Sridhar, Kavitha, Ani, Abi (Sridhar's wife and two sons)
Gopal, Arun, Badri, Maha, Vinodh, Sai, Ulaganathan, Karthik & Balaji

Journey to Coimbatore

anusha and sridhar's younger son abi
The train chugged off at 9 and we were all set and folks started making themselves comfy around a game of cards. I was desperately trying to salvage a draw with sridhar's elder son Ani

"card gang in the train" .. clockwise... arun, ulaganathan, karthik, sai, sridhar, maha, geetha, sangeetha, suganya and brinda

I am not privy to whatever transpired after the game. I had tucked myself under the warm blankets. When I woke up at 6, we were almost entering Coimbatore, the nearest big town to ooty.

after alighting the train @ coimbatore

Coimbatore is known for its industrial hub, educational institutions, health care facilities, pleasant weather, friendly culture and hospitality (Coimbatore is called City of Hospitals and colleges). Apart from the above trivia, the real reason why Coimbatore is famous is because six people from the IVR and Imaging teams graduated from here. (Angelyn, Arun, Gayathri, Sudha, Geetha, Sai)

Van Drive to Ooty

inside the van.. geetha, anusha, arun, sudha & others.

After stopping for coffee at the station, we were all set for the 3 hour climb up the hills to Ooty. Gopal and Arun, the tour managers had everything under control. A van was waiting for us right outside the station. After checking in the baggage on top of the van, we settled in and set off on a long awaited trip.

At this moment, a brief description of Ooty is in order.

"Ooty also known as Udagamandalam is the "Queen of hill stations" and the capital of Nilgiris district. It is one of the most popular tourist resorts in India. Nilgiris means "Blue Mountains". It is a land of picturesque picnic spots. Used to be popular summer and weekend getaway for the Britishers during the colonial days. It is situated at an altitude of 2,240 meters above sea level."

The van ride went pretty much eventless until someone started clamoring for breakfast at 9 am in the morning. The tour managers finally relented and stopped by in a town called Conoor. At about two thirds of the way, Conoor is a nice stop to catch up with some hot breakfast and also stretch one’s legs.

Arun had used his local connections and had booked accommodation at Saagar with help from his friend mahesh.

the imposing saagar resorts . . .


It was a picturesque location perched on a mountain slope with a great view of the valley before us.

We just had enough time to check-in, freshen up and run out. This task was quickly accomplished within a couple of hours.

At the Boat Club
Our first destination was the boat house at the Ooty Lake. On the way we stopped by for a quick lunch.

sridhar & family . . .
The Boat ride was very enjoyable under the bright sun and chill weather. We had rented out a mélange of row boats and powered ones.

rowing : gopal, badri, sangeetha, angelyn & priya

pedalling: ulaganthan, geetha, maha & anusha

After we had pedaled / rowed, etc to our hearts’ content, we set our sights on two more rides. Dashing cars and Tora Tora. Dashing cars involves riding in an electrified toy car and bouncing against some other car. Of course the cars are well equipped to take a head-on collision. But don’t expect any airbags.

bumping : arun & maha

anusha & arun

Tora Tora is a merry go round that can go up and down as well. Leaves you a little giddy at the end.

on the boat club lawns . . .

near some pine forests

Set off to Pykara

After the boat pedaling / car dashing and big merry go round, we set ourselves down on the lawns for some hot coffee. Then we set out to Pykaara. A small water fall, Pykaara, is about an hours drive from the center of Ooty.

walking across pykara: arun, angelyn, sangeetha, gopal, anusha, suganya, sudha, geetha & maha

sunset near pykara

Restaurant Challenge

After wading trough water and walking on pebbles, and capturing sunsets, we set back to the hotel. We stopped at some place for dinner along the way. This is where we started the first of our many “activities”. I don’t think it would be possible to describe all the activities in full detail.

The restaurant challenge, consisted of building a bridge using knives between two glasses and trying to support a pepper shaker on top of it.

Camp fire

After dinner we came back to the hotel grounds for the camp-fire. As every one huddled around the fire, the music started to play full blast. There were some spirited performances then followed by Sudha’s fine display of a formal dance. We shook our legs until we were exhausted and followed through with some more songs, mimicry etc.

It was a little beyond 12 and end of a long day and everyone wanted to catch some sleep.

Activities on Sunday Morning
The next day started very early and Sridhar and his team of volunteers had setup the paraphernalia for a couple of more activities.

sunrise .. i never saw this..but someone must've clicked it..
above: view of the valley from the hotel.

below: the famed "world heritage" nilgiri mountain train.

The first activity was fairly benign involving self introduction in groups of two. The next group had to repeat every detail from the first one and add on theirs and so on.

Breakfast was quick and we gathered around the grounds for the next activity.

Activity 2: Toxic waste removal

The group was split into two and given two resources kits. Some rope, tape and elastic bands.

team A tries out a strategy

The playing area was marked off into a huge square with a small circle in the center. A mean looking bottle was placed in the middle. The task was to use the resources to remove the toxic waste (“mean looking bottle”) outside the outer square. The area between the square and circle was out of bounds for the participants or the resources. One could do it as many times as possible, each time using a different set of resources. The focus was on team work, planning and execution.

how we made it

At the end of a couple of hours, we had removed the bottle seven times and stomped over the dreaded square (unintentionally of course) six times. This left our (Team B) score at (7 * 200 and 6 * (-50)) 1100. Strangely enough, Team A had identical scores.



sai and angelyn discuss stategy, while priya evaluates


team B doing the victory fotos

By now it was time to check out of the hotel. We packed up and boarded the van and went straight to grab some lunch.

The Dodabetta peak

The next stop was at Dodabetta. “At a height of 2,623 meters, Dodabetta Peak is the highest point in the district. Situated at about 10 km from the Ooty town, it is one of the most prominent view points around Ooty. The top of the peak remains covered by mist most of the time but on a clear day, you can have a look at the landscape as far as the plains of Coimbatore and the Mysore plateau.”

the famed telescope ...
l2r: sudha, geetha, anusha & suganya

Finally the Botanical Garden . . .

The final point in our ooty trip was the famed Botanical Garden in Ooty.

“This garden was laid out in 1847 by the Marquis of Tweedale and is spread over 55 acres. Lush green well maintained lawns, rare tree species (like the cork tree which is probably the only such tree in India, the paper bark tree and the monkey puzzle tree - monkeys cannot climb this tree), a 20 million year old fossilized tree, an Italian-style garden bordering a clear pool, a vast variety of flowering bushes and plants in myriad hues (exotic and ornamental), fern house with a vast range of ferns and orchids, are some of the many highlights of this garden. A flower show along with an exhibition of rare plant species is held every year in the month of May at this garden.

The Garden is maintained by the Horticulture Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu and has a very wide variety of plants that include different types of roses, imported shrubs, rare flowering plants etc.” Details are from here.

no ...! we don't want to go...!

Some of us who had seen this place inside out since our high school days, decided to go to the lawn and play for a while. The whole group collected back at the lawn and after some shopping for some homemade chocolates, decided to finally board the van late in the evening.

The drive down the hills was incident-free for most parts and we managed to reach Coimbatore station in time for our train at 10pm. And the next day morning, we were back in Chennai by 6.30 am.

Overall, I enjoyed the trip and got a chance to really get to know everyone in a casual backdrop. A final word of thanks to the tour managers. They got together the plan and worked out the logistics with great precision and élan.

Three cheers to Gopal and Arun.

Hip Hip ...
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