From Goa to Chilly Hill Stations

Although the tiny coastal state of Goa draws hordes of travelers to its clean sandy beaches, multi-cultural cuisine and active night life all year round we needed to explore a new place. It is not uncommon to see Goans travelling 100 odd kms to Belgavi in neighbouring Karnataka to enjoy a cool overnight for much needed respite.

Since the last four years, my family (me, my wife and our little 4 year old daughter) have been going to the hills on a weeklong family sojourns. This time around, we planned our annual May sojourn to the twin hill stations of Coonoor and Ooty in Tamil Nadu. Upon reaching Coimbatore, we planned to stay overnight at Mettupalayam – a town between Coimbatore and Ooty- to board the early morning “Nilgiri mountain train” to Udagamadalam (Ooty). Travelling over 900 kms from Goa to Ooty without experiencing the mountain train journey was not what we were looking forward to as we did not want to miss this once in a life time experience of travelling through the mountains.

But things do go awry during travel for reasons beyond our control as it happened with us. Not to be deterred by the turn of events, we stayed put at a hotel in Coimbatore that night and hired a cab early morning and reached Mettupalayam railway station. We somehow managed the mountain express and travelled through the hills up above. The breath taking views of the hills, valleys, waterfalls, the flora and the pleasant cool climate all along was more than everything and made us forget all the troubles taken to undertake this lifetime journey.

We went to the High Hill residences located at Bandimi a little 5 kms away across the Wellington cantonment for a homely stay, quite similar to Bella Vista where we lived.

While on a holiday, we seek relaxation and are not in favour of hopping at all different tourist points which make you tired and weary leaving nothing to differentiate between a busy and relaxed day. We spent most of the time walking through the lush green tea gardens around and enjoyingour time. Some notable places that we have been to at Coonoorare the Madras Regiment Center of the Indian Army, the church of St. Theodore, located amidst lush tea gardens all around and the Sims Park at Coonoor which is a trove of lovely flowers and plants that we seldom get to see and grow in our coastal state. The cool climate makes a variety of plants and flowers thrive even in wild and by the road side.

We boarded the mountain train at Wellington railway station and dashed to Ooty for a quick visit. Ooty is generally crowded with travelers and appears to be commercially exploited. We picked up some spices and other hill station souvenirs from the variety mall or Tulsi mall on Mount Pleasant road. As we do every time, this time too, we did not miss our ritual of sampling the local cuisine in the hills. We tried authentic non-veg Tamil cuisine at Ramachandra and veg food at Sri Lakshmi which is located in the vicinity of the Coonoor bus stand. Hyderabadi biriyani house is also another option if you wouldprefer to eat north Indian cuisine. Unlike at other hill stations, the food in Coonoor is relatively reasonable and not overpriced.