“Listen to the Sound of Silence”

Aug 19th 2010 – Masinagudi - "In Nature's Lap"
After the cacophony at work and interminable phone calls – we craved silence. So we decided to head for the forests. Ranga and I left home at 6.15am with a glad feeling about the trip. Stopped at Kadambam and had hot steaming pongal for breakfast and continued on to Mysore. The weather was pleasant and traffic not too much other than a minor snarl in Bangalore itself (but then, that is now taken as a part of life) so didn’t let it dampen my happy mood. Reached Mysore and then took the road towards Nanjangud. Now that is one terribly crowded road up to Nanjangud. Continuous calls from work had also irritated us so took a small break near Gundlupet for coffee. Feeling decidedly better, started off into the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, ready to ‘shoot at sight’ – through camera – that is :-) !! Tigers – NO but saw a big group of deer, some elephants, a mamma monkey nursing a baby and several beautiful birds including a fabulous blue jay! The tag line of Sony Vaio – 'Go Vivid' is made for Mother Nature! Mood having gone from bad to buoyant, we slowly cruised through Bandipur and Mudumalai Sanctuaries, soaking in the silence and all the ‘foresty’ sounds! having been shutter happy, and thrilled. Roads are good and driving fun.
Reached our resort – the Casa Deep Woods, and checked in. We had clocked 239kms on the odo. A welcome cold towel and warm badam milk set the tone for a soothing day. The resort has some 20 rooms and each room is huge and comfortable with all modern amenities. The resort is clean and well maintained. Had lunch and crashed out. Woke up in the evening, went for a nice long stroll and the drove down from Bokkapuram where the resort is located to Masinagudi and back, about 10kms in all. Bokkapuram comes from the name “Bakka” of Hakka – Bakka duo, the founders of the Vijayanagara Kingdom, since Bokkapuram was his place of origin. Learnt an enormous amount about the tribals who even today inhabit the Nilgiris Bio – Sphere, a world heritage nominee. Some of them are the Todas, Badagas, Kotas, Iruvas etc. These are the original inhabitants of the Nilgiris and were inter dependent on each other both economically and culturally. After this “gyaan”, watched a lovely movie – Firaaq – by Nandita Das on our portable DVD player (no TV in the rooms) as we had dinner. Sat outside to enjoy the silence and the beautiful natural vista till we were literally driven inside by monkeys and dire warnings by the staff that many elephants tend to stray into these parts at night and it is better we stayed inside. We obeyed. :-)
August 20th 2010 – Masinagudi – Ooty
‘Misty Blue Mountains’
Next morning Ranga showered me with an armful of gifts, breakfast in bed and then we checked out at 10am and having bought some spices, we set off for Ooty. The distance to Ooty is 30kms from Masinagudi through some breathtaking lush green forests and steep 36 hair pin bends. The hair pin bends are in quick succession and pretty tough, though we had done this trip many times, we appreciated the fact that the roads had been improved and the signage good. When we were 5kms from Ooty, it started to rain and the mist rolled in as if by magic and the road became invisible. We crawled forward till we straightened out at Ooty and breathed a sigh of relief. We stopped at Charing Cross and picked up some famous home made chocolates at King Star, where else? – he’s been around since 1942! And then continued on to our resort – Club Mahindra Derby Green – which was the erstwhile Ooty Dasaprakash Hotel. The renovated hotel is lovely and affords a superb view of the Ooty Race Course. The honking of the buses at the Ooty bus stand is irritating when you are outside but inside the rooms, it’s blissfully quiet. The rooms are in typical English cottage style complete with white painted picket fence divider; a heater which was much appreciated as the temperature dipped at night to 13 deg. Relaxed in the resort and enjoyed the bonfire in the evening. Lovely resort and in true CM tradition of hospitality and comfort.
August 21st.2010 – Ooty – Coonoor
It had poured heavily the whole night and the sun was making a valiant effort to shine through but the overall weather was chill and just superbly invigorating. We decided to ride the Nilgiris Mountain Express to Coonoor and back but then when we realized it would take the better part of the day decided to scrap the idea and drive down instead. That was the best 36 kms in terms of scenery and the worst in terms of traffic. En route to Coonoor, we stopped at a point where the mountains rose high and it was like entire rolls of cotton had been stuffed within that, it was too beautiful for words – I realized I was smiling to myself – just with the sheer beauty of it. It was seeing this sight where the mountains looked blue against the wispy white clouds that I realized that Nilgiris was the perfect name for these mountains. God really had been in a bountiful mood when he created these mountains. But trust man to over populate and go around wantonly destroying beauty with loud blaring horns and the debris of humanity.
Coonoor was no longer the beautiful place I remembered, and I was disappointed at the humdrum city life we saw, so we started back to the resort. The climb back to Ooty was a little more pleasant with less traffic and the blue mountains did their magic spin on us again. At the entrance to Charing Cross, we parked and searched high and low for the Toda House because I wanted to buy an original Toda Shawl – these are hand woven jute shawls embroidered with geometric patterns and come only in white with black and red embroidery - and have been around since 1700s when it was first recorded. We finally managed to track down the Toda House which is an actual Toda Hut and a Toda tribal woman was selling these shawls. Ranga bought me one which had the maximum embroidery and this retails at Rs.1000/piece. I loved it, as much for the handiwork of the tribals as for owning a tiny piece of ancient history. Fortunately imitations are not available and everyone there is conscientiously trying to keep this tradition alive. Toda “jewellery” in silver is popular but actually they are used by Todas to adorn their buffaloes as the Todas are a dairy farming tribe. However not being much of a jewellery person, I just window shopped. By the way – did you know John Sullivan in 1799 – the DC at Coimbatore discovered Nilgiris and bought it from the Todas for the pricely sum of Re.1?!!
It was pretty late by then and we relaxed with a drink and watched a lovely movie “Australia”, had dinner and went for a walk in the cold night. Feeling drowsy and happy called it a day.
August 22nd – Ooty – Bangalore
Again it had poured the whole night and the clouds still looked menacing so we decided to leave asap as driving down those steep hair pin bends in lashing rain was not very appealing. After some hot breakfast, we left at 9am and reached Mysore via the sanctuaries, again spotting some elephants and macaws, by about 12.15. Thankfully, the rains had kept off. Had lunch at Siddharth Hotel and left for Bangalore. The Mysore Bangalore road was choc a bloc with holiday traffic, so, though we clocked it in 2 ½ hours, the drive was less enjoyable.
Reached home around 3.40pm. Clocked a total of 607kms and the car returned a mileage of about 17kms overall – pretty good, considering the ghats.
Super getaway and a lovely birthday. Will certainly return – maybe next year??