Last week we visited Ooty, a much needed break from the office environment in Bangalore, for both of us.
We went to Ooty by the famous heritage train. While going we catched the Rajkot express from Krishnarajapuram, Bangalore by 4pm in the evening. As the train came late an hour, we finally saw the train by 5pm. I have been thinking of escaping from Bangalore in train for a long time. We reached Coimbatore by 2.30am in the night. Next we had to catch the Mettupalayam-Uddagadamandalam heritage train by 7 am. But you have to book the train ticket before hand. Thanks to online ticket booking facility on www.irtct.co.in, the Official Indian Railway site. And we had around 4 and half hours time to reach Mettupalayam from Coimbatore. I opted to stay back for some time in the railway station as it was cold outside of the station. Further it's not that safe for a couple, to go out, in the middle of the night. We started from Coimbatore station by 4am in an Autorickshaw to a place called Gandhipuram, from where we had to catch a bus to Mettupalayam station. We paid Rs.50 to the auto fellow, and got on board into a bus. This was the 4am bus, a bit late by 10mins. We were lucky enough to catch this bus, otherwise we had to wait for another hour in that bus station. By 5am, we reached Mettupalayam. The train station was a walking distance away from the bus station. We preferred to walk to the station. We saw the mist covered, surrounding area in the early morning. And when we saw the heritage train it was really a pleasant experience. This train was painted dark blue. We had a reservation. So, we were lucky again, we saw people still standing in the waiting list queue for a ticket. We took some idli and vada as breakfast in the railway refreshment center. It tasted good.
By 7 am the little train started chugging its way to Mettupalayam. The scenic beauty from the heritage train is really great, you cannot capture those frames in camera, you have to see and feel the beauty of nature. This was the best part of the travel. We took numerous snaps along the trail. Some passengers shouted in joy as the train went through the railway tunnels.
The engine of this train is specially made to snail through the trail, which is the steepest one traversed by the Indian Railway. The train engine is a steam engine, as diesel engine will not pull that much horsepower to push the train up the hill. The engine of this train is in the back side, so that the train can be pushed from the back.
We reached Uddagamandalam railway station right on time by 12 o'clock. Ooty is also knows as Udagamandalam. Then we set out for our cottage in Lakeview hotel. This is a really nice hotel. Rather that normal rooms, they provide cottages. It's a bit far from the main Ooty station, so the air was bit more fresh, cold and crisp. The hotel also had a facility to burn firelog inside the cottage itself, at a charge of Rs 75. It was a real good experience.
Next day we planned to go for site seeing in and around Ooty. we had heard that Coonoor is also a very beutiful hill station, and is just 20km apart. Though we have seen glimpse of Coonoor, while coming via the train, we decided to go around Coonoor also. The best part of this journey is the greenness our eyes had enjoyed.
Everywhere it was green, green and more green ... in various shades.
Though we reserved one day for a trip to Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary also, we decided not to go there on the third day as we were returning on the fourth day from Ooty. We took enough rest in our cottage itself that day.
We started our backward journey from Ooty on the fourth day after some Ooty Tea and Chocolate shopping. Ooty is famous for tea and chocolates and eucalyptus oil.
By 1 o'clock we had our lunch and ready for deparature from the hotel.
We had confirmed tickets for our journey including the return journey. We had to start by 3pm from Ooty in the same heritage train, reach Mettupalayam, and from their we had to catch the Nilgiri express to Salem. We were supposed to reach Salem by 12 in midnight and next had to catch the Mysore express to Bangalore by 12.50am in the midnight.
We got confused as the Nilgiri express would start by 7.45 in the evening, and we thought that we would miss the Nilgiri express, as the heritage train would take 5 hours to complete it's journey. When we enquired in the railway enquiry they said, the Nilgiri express will not leave the station till the heritage train reaches Mettupalayam. That was an welcome relief.
We were not able to sleep properly the whole night as we had to catch the Mysore express in the middle of night. But, we caught it and finally reached Bangalore the next morning by 5am.
Ooty proved to be a tourist's dream, all thanks to the cool weather there, the scenic beauty that Ooty offers and ofcourse the Heritage Train trip :-)
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