When? - Mar 27 - Mar 29, 2009 (3 days)
Where? - Bangalore to Ooty
Who? - Pauly, Sreenivas, Tony and our couple (5 people)
How? - 3 Bikes (Pulsar, CBZ, Passion Plus)
Budget? - Shoestring
Last month, we got a long weekend. Thanks to
Ugadi. We thought of riding to Waynad, but at the last moment we decided to head to Ooty. On the festival day, my better-half woke up early and prepared boorelu, payasam, puliyogarai and ugadi chutney. Our friends arrived by 5'O clock and had some of the delicacies. We packed the remaining stuff and started early to beat the morning traffic. On the way to Mysore, we finished the rest of the food. Before Mysore, we noticed some oil leaking from my bike. We waited for the shops to open and got it fixed. Then we headed to Ooty.
We took the ghat road up the hill through 36 hairpin bends. That was hell lot of a journey. After having lunch, we found a place to stay with the help of a local guy. That day we rested most of the time except for a visit to the lake.
The next day, we found a nice restaurant for breakfast. The server cum cook cum owner was treating us like we're his guests at home. All of us ate like it was our last meal. After breakfast,
we decided to ride to Red Hills. Red Hills is the not yet spoiled part of Ooty. Most of the regulars don't go there as it's far. We visited a lake and couple of dams on the way. At the Red Hills, we trekked for a little while and dropped the idea of reaching a peak as it's midday. We came down the hill and stopped at a local shop to have some drinks. Some old man was running the shop. It doesn't have any soft drinks, not even mineral water. So, he offered us some water from his home. Our friend Pauly spotted some lemons there and made us lemonade. We ate all sorts of candies there. On the way back, we stopped at Fernhill Palace for lunch. That was a nice place. We had some drinks and nice leisurely lunch there. We spent that evening shopping around.
The next day, we had some breakfast and started back. Descesding the hill through hairpin bends by bike was a good experience. The ride upto Bandipur jungle was good. After that it wasn't fun in the heat. At Mysore, we stopped for lunch. The rest of the journey was just fighting through the traffic till home.
Here are some pics.
I'm little paranoid about the petrol bunk i generally go to, but i don't have much of a choice as that's the nearest one. To be on safe side, i'm always extra vigilant while they put the petrol. Today i noticed one more way of cheating. For 100 rupees petrol, i gave them 500 rupees note and was waiting for the change.
