Ooty during summer-2008
Ooty is a nice hill station to visit in summer. One would really feel the cool climate. In the month of April you need sweater in the early mornings and late evenings. Last summer we decided to spend a 3 day vacation in Sterling Fern hill resort.
I choose this resort simply because I own a timeshare here. The resort can be rated Ok. The exterior ambiance is really good and is located far from the madding crowds of Ooty down town and this makes this an excellent place for relaxing. However the interiors look very ordinary and you can still manage. The room service I felt was good. However I was disappointed with front desk and travel desk. I felt the response from them very much un-enthusiastic. The food is a big disappointment – The cost is very high and the taste is very poor. Most of the time we cooked or gone to restaurants in the market.
We started on a Thursday (3rd April) night from Bangalore. We took a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus. The bus started 2 hours late, however reached Ooty early in the morning (8:00 AM). I feel this is the best mode of transport to Ooty. KSRTC has lot of Rajahamsa and Mayura (AC) services to Ooty and Connoor starting everyday night and reaches Ooty in the morning. The other way could be to take a train till Coimbatore and take a bus from Coimbatore to Ooty. But this takes more time and additionally you need to manage the crowd at the Coimbatore bus stand. Further it takes 4 hours to reach Ooty. But it takes around only 8 hours via Mysore. The roads are repaired now (except in some stretch near Bandipur. So you can also have a happy drive with your car. On return journey we took a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus at 11:00 AM on Monday and reached Majestic around 7:30 PM. On the way we had lunch in restaurant in the outskirts of Gudalur and was good. The journey was nice. The bus did not stop in between and reached Bangalore in time
The most enjoyable thing you can do here is to trek between the resort and the Bus stand. You need climb down the valley in front of the resort. You can see lot of carrot fields and also a stream at the bottom of the valley. You can again climb up and walk through some lanes to reach the bus stand. This would take around 20 minutes. Plums trees also would be a common sight in this way.
We had lunch in different restaurants every day. On the 1st day we went to ‘Blue hills’ restaurant which is a non-vegetarian kerala style restaurant. The food is economical and taste is okay. This is similar to any kerala style restaurants you would have come across in Bangalore. Vegetarian lunch was good in ‘Durga’ restaurant near to the Botanical garden. There is one more restaurant which has a good vegetarian and north Indian menu which is bit expensive than other restaurants. All these restaurants are clustered near the ‘Charring Cross’. We had nice lunch in these restaurants
We cooked for breakfast and dinner. We made Uppumas and bought vadas from room service. We cooked noodles, chapattis for the dinner. We bought some bananas, plums from the market. We also had different egg dishes- boiled, scrambled…
We tried shopping in the market road. We bought Ooty chocolates in different shops in market road. I really don’t know which the best one is. We bought some Tea from Doddabedda Tea factory when we visited the same. We also bought some Cashew nuts which are very cheap compared to Bangalore (Rs.300/- against Rs.500/- in Bangalore). I thing the cashew nuts are from Panrutti. It should be much cheaper here. So don’t miss next time you visit Pondicherry or Tiruchi.
We did not go for any sight seeing this time since we had seen all the places during our earlier visit. However we went to Doddabedda and the tea factory. Views from Doddabedda are really good. I want to go to Avalanche. But all the taxi drivers were hesitant and demanded a very high amount. They also advised that the road is very bad and can’t drive cars, only Jeeps or SUVs can be driven. So I dropped the idea. I also want to try trekking in the Lovdale. But the guide were demanding an exorbitant amount of Rs.300/- per head which would cost Rs.1200/- for our family of 4 for simply walking for 2 hours. So I had to drop this idea also.
Overall Ooty is a nice getaway for Bangaloreans.
I choose this resort simply because I own a timeshare here. The resort can be rated Ok. The exterior ambiance is really good and is located far from the madding crowds of Ooty down town and this makes this an excellent place for relaxing. However the interiors look very ordinary and you can still manage. The room service I felt was good. However I was disappointed with front desk and travel desk. I felt the response from them very much un-enthusiastic. The food is a big disappointment – The cost is very high and the taste is very poor. Most of the time we cooked or gone to restaurants in the market.
We started on a Thursday (3rd April) night from Bangalore. We took a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus. The bus started 2 hours late, however reached Ooty early in the morning (8:00 AM). I feel this is the best mode of transport to Ooty. KSRTC has lot of Rajahamsa and Mayura (AC) services to Ooty and Connoor starting everyday night and reaches Ooty in the morning. The other way could be to take a train till Coimbatore and take a bus from Coimbatore to Ooty. But this takes more time and additionally you need to manage the crowd at the Coimbatore bus stand. Further it takes 4 hours to reach Ooty. But it takes around only 8 hours via Mysore. The roads are repaired now (except in some stretch near Bandipur. So you can also have a happy drive with your car. On return journey we took a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus at 11:00 AM on Monday and reached Majestic around 7:30 PM. On the way we had lunch in restaurant in the outskirts of Gudalur and was good. The journey was nice. The bus did not stop in between and reached Bangalore in time
The most enjoyable thing you can do here is to trek between the resort and the Bus stand. You need climb down the valley in front of the resort. You can see lot of carrot fields and also a stream at the bottom of the valley. You can again climb up and walk through some lanes to reach the bus stand. This would take around 20 minutes. Plums trees also would be a common sight in this way.
We had lunch in different restaurants every day. On the 1st day we went to ‘Blue hills’ restaurant which is a non-vegetarian kerala style restaurant. The food is economical and taste is okay. This is similar to any kerala style restaurants you would have come across in Bangalore. Vegetarian lunch was good in ‘Durga’ restaurant near to the Botanical garden. There is one more restaurant which has a good vegetarian and north Indian menu which is bit expensive than other restaurants. All these restaurants are clustered near the ‘Charring Cross’. We had nice lunch in these restaurants
We cooked for breakfast and dinner. We made Uppumas and bought vadas from room service. We cooked noodles, chapattis for the dinner. We bought some bananas, plums from the market. We also had different egg dishes- boiled, scrambled…
We tried shopping in the market road. We bought Ooty chocolates in different shops in market road. I really don’t know which the best one is. We bought some Tea from Doddabedda Tea factory when we visited the same. We also bought some Cashew nuts which are very cheap compared to Bangalore (Rs.300/- against Rs.500/- in Bangalore). I thing the cashew nuts are from Panrutti. It should be much cheaper here. So don’t miss next time you visit Pondicherry or Tiruchi.
We did not go for any sight seeing this time since we had seen all the places during our earlier visit. However we went to Doddabedda and the tea factory. Views from Doddabedda are really good. I want to go to Avalanche. But all the taxi drivers were hesitant and demanded a very high amount. They also advised that the road is very bad and can’t drive cars, only Jeeps or SUVs can be driven. So I dropped the idea. I also want to try trekking in the Lovdale. But the guide were demanding an exorbitant amount of Rs.300/- per head which would cost Rs.1200/- for our family of 4 for simply walking for 2 hours. So I had to drop this idea also.
Overall Ooty is a nice getaway for Bangaloreans.
Labels: cooking, Ooty, resort, restaurant, shopping, sight seeing, transport, trek
posted by ramesh83 at 4:06 AM
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