Category: Travel Butterfly (Page 1 of 2)

Jannaram and Kadem!

GBee’s school had given the students 15 day Dussera holidays and we didn’t plan any travels, because of it being an important Hindu festival. We stayed back home and spent 10 days doing nothing much, except what we do in our daily lives.

Just 3 days before the end of the Dussera school break was coming to an end, we decided that we were extremely disappointed about not visiting any new place. That was when Mr.Bee zeroed in on Jannaram! (We had other destinations in our mind too. But both were more than 6hr drives from Hyderabad and 3 days is very little time for such sort of vacation.)

Mr.Bee brought out our car bed, inflated it, prepped it for our travel and I was incharge of packing the luggage. (I forgot to pack Mr.Bee’s evening shorts and he had to buy it at Jannaram, turns out it was the best mistake I ever made. Mr.Bee bought 3 new shorts and they were way better in quality than those he bought at Hyderabad!)

Day 1:

Aadi Yogi in our car, with beautiful flowers of Paarijatham!

We started by 7 a.m, (we woke at 5:30!) carried the kids into the car, even though they were sleepy and cocooned them in their blankets. But the kids were wide awake, it seems, our kiddos like us, love travelling. They were hyper to say it mildly!

We stopped at Minerva, Siddipet for breakfast. I ordered pesarattu, GBee his usual dosa and Mr.Bee ordered the breakfast special which saved our lives and mostly, energy. The breakfast special consists of an idli, a puri, a dosa and upma. This is the best choice when you have no idea what your kids might eat.

GBee’s dosa never arrived though! Mr.Bee scolded the waiter thrice and at last, the waiter packed a dosa for us, even though we said we were going to dine-in! We didn’t leave him any tip because we were vexed with the attitude. Imagine having to eat breakfast when your kids dosa hadn’t arrived. You don’t feel like eating by yourself.

At Karimnagar, Mr.Bee bought greenest of the green mandarins (Kamala pandu in Telugu) and surprisingly, they were yummy. Fresh fruits in towns and villages are generally of top quality.

We reached Haritha Resort, Jannaram by 1:45 p.m., gave the boys hot water baths, since they didn’t have one in the morning. We rushed to the in-house restaurant for two bowls of fried rice. The hunger we had, made the food taste heavenly. Even my picky eaters ate in silence!

At 3:30 p.m, we were ready for our Jungle Safari! (Always dress warmly and wear caps, sweaters if you are going for a safari. It gets cold in the forest.) A private safari for 4 is for 3500 bucks, a duration of 2 hours. We saw deers, eagle, wild boars(Adavi pandhi in Telugu), baboons (Kondamuchu in Telugu) and Cheetal deers.

The Three heads!

By the time we returned to our rooms it was 5:30 p.m, with dark sky and cold climate.It was only 21’C yet, it reminded me of Ooty!

We had our dinner in the room, phulkas, dal tadka and curd rice. (Our staple menu at any hotel stay)

Day 2:

After having our breakfast at the Udipi Hotel, Jannaram, we started for Kadem, a nearby town. We didn’t like the Udipi hotel, but that was the only mediocre one in Jannaram! We ate idli and vada. We drove 25km, to reach Kadem and the boys entertained themselves by watching the hundreds of monkeys which sat on both sides of the road, checking out the vehicular traffic. While the kiddos were half expecting to see elephants, like we did near the Bandipur forest reserve, I was reminded of my childhood vacation in a similar town of Wyra, where my paternal grandmother used to work. The most unexpected things remind us of deep rooted memories!

Anyway, we reached the Kadem Head Regulator to ride boat, but the boats were not taking tourists or anyone that day. I fail to remember the reason. We then went to the Kadem Dam, to look at it closely, mostly for my sake, trying to re-live my days as Design Engineer inspecting the site! But the dam was still not safe to drive on, deadly, in fact, if you have hyper kids, who think with their legs! (No parapet walls, even the stones which were placed on the sides were not of the required height.)

We decided to check out the Kadem Haritha resort, which is way better compared to the one in Jannaram, solely on basis of the play area for kids and food in the in-house restaurant. Kadem Haritha Resorts has the beautiful dam as background.  We had our lunch and returned to our room at Jannaram.

The beautiful Sunset

The funny thing is that, the vegetarian cook at Jannaram resort was on leave that day, so we had to travel 25km again, to have our dinner at Kadem Haritha, again! (we drove through the forest reserve at night and it was only 8 p.m. but looked like it was midnight. Even the town dwellers were surprised to see vehicles moving about after 8p.m.)

The dinner at Kadem Haritha was a bust, because, the waiter forgot to bring our rotis. We waited a whole half an hour, before we demanded him what happened. He had them made, but placed them on another table and forgot all about it. He was busy feeding his own 5 year old child!  After realizing his mistake, he gave us Rs.20 off on our bill!

We returned to our room, after travelling through the tiger reserve. (Rs.50 toll for late night travels. We should pay as well as risk facing the tiger too! Injustice!

We reached our room and slept soundly, making our room completely dark, since it was the night of Lunar eclipse.

Day 3:

Breakfast at the lone bearable hotel, Udipi, of idli and vada, again! We took a detour to Dharmapuri and reached Hyderabad by 6:30 p.m.

Our short and sweet trip had come to an end!

P.S:

  1. We didn’t see any tigers in the forest reserve during our jungle safari, because most of the roads inside the forest were flooded during the rainy season. The tour guide told us, it will take atleast 3 years to completely mend it! He suggested us to visit Kadem. Thanks man!
  2. The play area at Kadem Resort is huge. I played on the swing for 20 minutes or so, till KBee discovered that I was enjoying! I love swings.
  3. At Dharmapuri, GBee bought a toy trumpet and on our way home, we felt our ear wax melt!
  4. When we stopped at the Mayura Veg restaurant and the food was good. The cricket world cup had already started and on that particular day India was playing against England. We selected a booth in the restaurant, which was near the big screen!
  5. The Aadi Yogi that adorns our car is from Subrahmanya, Karnataka! We are hopeful, that someday, we will visit this original at Coimbatore.
  6. The incharge at Jannaram resort took immense liking to KBee and wanted to keep KBee for himself! The surprise was KBee, being a 2.5 yr old trying some stunts and surprising us all! (I don’t know where he picked it up!)
  7. I have a tiny cartoon regarding this trip, which I will post later, because, this post is already long. Till the next post, cheerio!

Returning home!

Day 12:

Since it was a Sunday, the resort was full of people, coming in with their families, young and old. Every room was filled.

Today was the day of us travelling back to Bangalore from Mangalore. We had our baths and came down for our breakfast at 9 A.M. The breakfast was being served outdoors, thanks to the increased number of guests. (Eating outdoors reminded me of my village!)

I ate idli, the kids ate vada and Mr.Bee was more adventurous, so he ate the upma from the breakfast buffet! The summer staple fruit watermelon was available too. The kids had a serving each of watermelon. The serving bowl was the size of a chutney bowl at Chutneys, Hyderabad! I had a piping hot cuppa masala chai too. 

Chutney bowls to serve diced watermelon

We returned to our room, after asking our caretaker to help us move our luggage to the car. We started off from Hyderabad with three suitcases full of clothes.  Depending on the place, we would take out one suitcase at every part of our vacation, Here too, we had one suitcase and a bag of clothes along with our beach tools etc. It is no mean feat, bringing down the kids to the car (KBee is prone to running head on into the road and the traffic!) so we needed help of the caretaker guy. He got a well deserved tip too.

KBee, GBee and I got into the car and Mr.Bee packed the luggage into the dickie or trunk and we started our long drive. Google Maps showed us that we may reach destination in approximately 7 and half hours.

It was an uneventful drive, thankfully and we stopped at Ossoor at Sakleshpur. The restaurant is in a coffee estate and most of the points go to the beautiful ambience. The food could have been better. We ordered tandoori roti with broccoli curry and paneer sabzi. We were not sure which curry the kids would like, so we ordered two. Turns out, they liked neither! Kids had watermelon juice and I ordered mosambi. (By now I was sick of watermelon!) I had to drink it as soon as it came to the table, because mosambi turns bitter within 5 min. Mr.Bee had a piping hot coffee with his lunch. He had long drive ahead of him, so caffeine is helpful for his system.

We shopped a little at the gift and toy store in the estate, both for our kids and Mr.Bee’s cousin’s kids. While Mr.Bee was busy ‘Gpay’ing, KBee and GBee had fun running around the estate and I took my time looking at the surroundings! The best thing I liked was,seeing some couple  bikers who had come to have their lunch there. (It is our dream to drive a bike in Leh, Ladakh!)

Can you spot the puppy?

Anyway, we were on the highway, after spending a leisurely hour at Ossoor. We made another stop later to buy farm fresh jack fruit and baby cucumbers. I was salivating at the fresh produce.

Once inside Bangalore, we made a pit stop for snacking near Bangalore outskirts. I saw groups of bikers again, here. I forgot the name of the eatery, but it is a popular hangout, if the people and the parked vehicles are anything to go by.

Also, if you are a biker, Karnataka is the place for you. The tea and coffee estates, the ghat roads and hair pin bends make for a beautiful drive. I think we stopped for tea at 6 or something. By the time we reached the cousin’s place, it was already 9 P.M.

All we did was, take a quick bath and have dinner and hit the bed. The kids, though they met for the first time, bonded well, that too within the first 10 minutes.

Day 13:

We woke up, got ready and were on the road by 9 a.m. We hoped to visit the Dodda Ganapathi temple, but thanks to the traffic which started from the apartment itself, we had little hope!

We went directly to Mr.Bee’s office at Bangalore, chatted happily with his colleagues P and N, while KBee and GBee ran around in the plush lawns. GBee fell into a foot deep pit, where the controls for lawn watering equipment were present! (The tiny pit was hardly knee deep for a 6 year old, thank God.)

We later had Team lunch with Mr.Bee’s Bangalore team at The Big Baadshah. Everything, the food, the buffet menu, the ambiance, the mocktails were fabulous, impressive.

Baadshah ..oh Baadshah!

We later went to play box cricket,  where GBee had fun running around, getting in the way of everyone, while Mr.Bee played cricket with his teammates. I couldn’t join the fun, because KBee had a nap on my shoulder! (Generally, he only sleeps on his dad’s shoulder, but since his daddy was busy, he adjusted on mine!)

Once again we returned to the cousin’s home at 9 P.M, thank you, famed Bangalore traffic!

GBee, KBee and V had most fun that night, jumping on the beds, running around playing football and what not! At night KBee cried too, waking up from his slumber to complain of pain in his legs. Hectic day. Phew!

Day 14:

Returning to Hyderabad.

We woke at 5, got ready and were on road by 6 A.M. There was no traffic at all, since it was a weekday, the highway and the roads were practically empty. After admiring the beautiful hills and the windmills at the Karnataka – Andhra border, I was once again reminded of the Grandfather Mountain, which has similar topography and climate. The drive from Bangalore to Anantapur is a memorable one.

We reached Seoul Store, Penukonda by 9 A.M. Thanks to the KIA manufacturing unit nearby at Anantapur, there are Korean stores and restaurants near by. I bought myself some Korean products and toffees.

We had our breakfast near Anantapur, where the piping hot tea I was carrying to my table, fell on my index finger and burned it badly! (It was self serve eatery and I drink chai when travelling!) My long skirt got in the way when I was walking, so my skirt is the culprit!

Anyway, we had our lunch at a drive-in at Mahabub Nagar. The food was good. Even pets were allowed inside and I saw one old couple with their Pomeranian in their lap, eating some non-veg dishes and feeding the animal.

We reached home by 4 P.M. our first ever looongggg vacation came to an end at last!

P.S:

  1. Mr.Bee wanted to visit the Fort at Sakleshpur, but we missed it! We had to take a right somewhere but we forgot completely about it, until we passed it and went ahead for 5 min! It is difficult to take U-turns on highways, because we have to first search for an opening in the heavy vehicle traffic.
  2. On the highway, I came across many name boards of different homestays and estates. In between all that, I also saw FulJar Soda boards everywhere. Mr.Bee and I were skeptic about trying it, but later, on reaching Hyderabad, we were told that we made a grave mistake by not tasting the FulJar soda. It is a summer drink to refresh the parched souls! Don’t forget to try it, if you are in the vicinity of Ooty and Karnataka.
  3. I was happy looking at the leather jackets and helmets of the bikers and their beautiful bikes. It reminded me of the 2007 comedy movie, Wild Hogs, starring John Travolta. It is a favourite of Mr.Bee and me.
  4. GBee still remembers his cousin now and then, whom he considers his best friend too and asks us to take him there. He thinks we can go to Bangalore in an hour or two!

Till the next post, cheerio!

Little Krishna’s Udupi!

Day 11:

Although it is a blissful life, waking up, playing in the beach and soaking in the pool and all, but we wanted to travel out for a little bit and visit Udupi. It was my idea to visit the Udupi Krishna’s temple and have the authentic local Udupi food and satisfy my curiosity.

It goes like this, during my childhood, my dad would take us on long drives and whenever we could, we would stop at the Udipi Hotel near Suryapet, which was then a major hub. I would always eat their puri and sabzi, which was always out of the world. Now that Suryapet has undergone a major makeover, the restaurant we would  frequent, has been demolished. I wanted to compare my childhood memory of Udipi Hotel and the authentic Udupi food, at Udupi!

Anyway….

We started for Udupi at 10 A.M, after having a couple of uthappam and the usual ice cold watermelon pieces (frozen for storage, apparently) with a cup of poha. I also had a cup of hot chai. The drive from Mangalore to Udupi was 20 minutes over an hour. The drive was pleasant and the traffic was mild. We had fun during the drive.

The huge kamaan, the arch at the entrance of Udupi had a chariot with Krishna as Saarathi and Arjuna, with his bow and arrow. It is a scene from the battle of Kurukshetra, Mahabharat. (It is not visible in the picture below, you can only see the horse hooves. This is the only image which is aesthetic. The only other image which is clearer, has been locked for free usage by others!)

Even I tried my hand at photography by clicking the Udupi kamaan, but I am at the best, a still photographer! Taking a pic out of a window, in a moving car, with a baby in my lap is too much pressure to perform! That is the reason I don’t have an ‘uploadable pic’.

The Udupi Kamaan – Source:Google

Sadly, we forgot it was a Saturday, until we reached the temple. The hoards of devotees waiting in lines for darshan reminded me of it being a weekend. I cursed myself for lazing around on Friday and visiting a temple on Saturday! Mr.Bee refused to go to the temple. He didn’t want to deal with standing in a line with a kid in his arms and another on his shoulders! (Whenever we visit temples, both the kids perch on their dad’s body, like birds!) I accepted defeat for the moment.

Since breakfast was not the strong point of the resort we are staying at, we were famished. We ate like a family of hens, which nibble selectively! As a last resort, I asked Mr.Bee if he was willing to return to the temple after a meal, to check how the crowd was and then think of darshan or not. He agreed, at last.

We let our car stay in the parking lot, since it is difficult to get good parking spots anywhere in India, much less tourist destinations on weekends! We hailed an auto, asked the autowala to take us to a good restaurant nearby and that was how we landed at Woodland, Udupi. For anyone interested, Udupi is a humid city.

At the restaurant, Mr.Bee ordered a North Indian thali and I, a South Indian thali. We always order different food, because we never know what our picky little eaters want to have. We also ordered watermelon juice, our staple. Sadly, GBee managed to disturb his juice and it fell, drenching my beautiful sunny green and pink tie and dye dress, which I love and incidentally, was my first time wearing it. I cried sad tears in my head, gave an in-promptu lecture to GBee about the importance of looking at where their hands go! (He has the habit of getting distracted easily.) The lecture was a success as GBee offered a sorry and some tissues to me! I was the highlight at the restaurant with everyone’s pitiful glances. I managed to clean most of the dress at the washroom and since it was summer, my dress was dry by the time our lunch was done and we were on the road. (Thank you Sri Krishna. You helped Draupadi by giving sarees and You helped me, by drying my dress on time! Of course both incidents are as different as chalk and cheese, but let me show-off my mythological gyaan! Incidentally, I bought myself a Kanchi saree. in Udupi.)

I think in the history of temple visits, this one stands out for us, because, we never eat when visiting a temple. We eat only after the darshan. But this time, we had a meager breakfast as well as a hearty lunch, before entering the Udupi temple. The darshan queues were parallel to the perimeter of the temple and we could peek inside to see the close to 50 turtles in the temple well.

The temple well as visible from outside – Source: Google

I bought a plastic hand fan and fanned away for the kids, mostly. The darshan queue is near the shops, so I managed to shop a little, while Mr.Bee waited in the line, to hold my spot.

The darshan itself took us ten minutes, but the wait time was close to one hour. I was happy, I could visit the temple. The main idol is only visible through the windows. I still remember the eyes of Lord Krishna. It was beautiful to say the least. The statue of Krishna is jet black and the eyes stand out. Here Krishna is in a child avatar, with a stick in His right hand, may be to signify that He was once a cow-herd!

After another bout of shopping for sovereigns, we were on the road, to Mangalore.

Mr.Bee had other plans, though! He took us to Pithrody. This is how the beach looks from a drone.

Ocean and River separated by a tiny village – Pithrody – Source: Google

The peace I felt here, can never be put in words! It was awesome. I even had my favourite choco bar ice-cream here and sealed the moment in my memory!

The coconut trees look like slanting lines…

After taking in as much positivity as we can from the nature, we started for the resort, at Mangalore for another bout of beach fun and pool games. We ended our day with a simple dinner.

P.S:

  1. If you are a keen observer, you will know I have been using two different words. Udupi, Udipi! Udupi is the original city in Karnataka one and Udipi is the stuff we normally get anywhere other than Udupi! (and I am referring to the food)
  2. Kamaan is an Urdu word, so people from other states, if you are reading this post, you may find the word new.
  3. Pithrody village in Udupi is the Key West of India! Key West is a similar island in the city of Florida. Mr.Bee wanted us to travel to Key West during our stay in the US, but we couldn’t visit, because I was expecting GBee then and my gynecologist warned us against visiting Florida in particular. We ended up visiting Niagara Falls!
  4. Let me add that the constructions in Pithrody are small scale and that is the reason the  shuttering being used is wooden. That is the first time I saw a wooden shuttering (only read about it). I have visited less number of villages and towns. So it is a new experience for me, as a civil engineer.
  5. The one hour we spent at Pithrody reminded me of the 4 day vacation we had at Maldives, another natural beauty!
  6. I almost forgot to mention Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA. It is the peninsula in Atlantic Ocean. It is like staying in the ocean. I saw many natural wonders here. So this is one of my favourites. It is also the first vacation Mr.Bee and I ever had. Magnificent, isn’t it?

The pointy tip in the ocean visible from space is Cape Hatteras

I still have so much to share about Udupi, but this post is already huge and I don’t want to scare off my readers! Cheerio friends, till the next post.

Of the Ocean and the Beach!

Day 10:

All the four of us are lazy souls, so we wake up late, at every possible chance we get! We don’t have exams to prepare for or have a flight to catch, so yes, waking up at leisure is not that bad. (Warning; Don’t try this at home! If you get beatings from your parents for waking up late, it is not my fault!)

As we were lazing on the beds, watching Insta reels and FB posts, the caretaker assigned for us at the resort came up to our door, begging us to come have our breakfast! It was hardly 8 A.M. (Either he had other stuff to do or is a punctual guy!)

That’s when I took the matters into my hands, woke up both the kiddos, gave them baths. All of us were ready by approximately 8:40 A.M.

Our caretaker brought us 4 thalis filled with neer dosa, onion poha and slices of ice cold watermelon, along with yellow coloured kesar. I don’t know if people in Mangalore ate sweet for breakfast, but I hardly eat sweet 10 times throughout the year. I prefer sinful chocolates and sinful is not a brand name!

Anyway, breakfast was a bust. What is this Neer Dosa? I couldn’t eat it, even if my life depended on it. It was bland and soft to touch. I like dosa which is crunchy and crispy and nothing could change my prejudice against neer dosa, not even the chutney or the sambar. (I had to wash it down my throat with huge sips of water or neer, maybe that’s why it is called Neer Dosa!)

neither crispy nor crunchy – no second chances! – pic source: Google

The breakfast menu sucked big time, mostly because I am also not a fan of poha, but if it were batata poha, the breakfast would have been in my tummy in a jiffy, thanks to the potato, but onion poha was a no-no. (It seems, the caretaker is not a specialist when it came to making breakfast!) Interestingly, this caretaker guy thought that both my kids, who are less than 7 years old combined, would eat as much as us, adults. Their plates were exactly plated like ours, in adult portions! Such wastage of food, that too, the food which none of us like!

After our not-so-satisfactory breakfast, we rushed to the beach, applying 2mm thick sunscreen and continued playing till black spots began appearing before our eyes. (Playing under the scorching Sun can do that to your eyes!)

Three to Tango!

We returned to the resort, showered under the shower head and got into the pool.  We continued our fun in the swimming pool for more than half an hour, before returning to the room, taking baths again and changing into fresh dry clothes. It is hard to make the kiddos come out of the pool. Their favourite pass time is playing with water and they love swimming pool, more than anything.

The Ocean meets the sky in the background while the foreground has a cutesy pool.

For lunch, we had Veg Fried Rice, Paneer Sabzi and a foot long glass filled upto brim with masala buttermilk.

After an hour or two, we returned to the beach, with the plastic tools bought in Subrahmanya, to make the sand castles. I would make a sand castle and the baby KBee would have a hearty laugh after stamping and razing the buckets of sand, every single time. He would laugh out loud and once he is in his fits of laughter, he ends up with hiccups. So ya, its interesting watching him laugh between hiccups! (I know who he takes after!)

We also fought each other in the sand, took some pictures and again had brief fun at the swimming pool before calling it a day.

Baby with an Umbrella as a shield – KBee after a sand fight!

I took loads of pictures of Sunset and one Mr.X, an uncle of a close friend advised us that it is not a good omen to take pictures of ourselves with the setting Sun. So, there goes our beach photo session in vain! (We decided not to show them to others, lest they pass any such comments!)

Morning to noon – empty beach

Another click from my cellphone….

Coconut trees on a beach have a charm of their own.

We ate paper thin pulkas, dal tadka and had fresh watermelon juice to finish off the dinner. Both the kids are extremely picky, so the only juice they like having is that of watermelon and I too order watermelon juice if mosambi is unavailable.

With a completely satisfied stomach, we ended our day, with the background music of the rising tides of the ocean waves. Another day of leisure comes to an end.

P.S:

  1. Sorry folks if I offended anyone about the neer dosa, but honesty is the best policy and I follow it everyday of my life.  Andddd, people do have varied tastes and thank God for that!
  2. Even if Mangalore is a beach city, we didn’t feel the humidity at all, maybe because we dressed appropriately for the beach. Food for thought!
  3. The caretaker looked like a pukka South Indian, but turns out, he is from Assam and had relocated to Mangalore during the pandemic! That maybe the reason why his South dishes failed to impress us, whereas, pulkas and rotis were fabulous! I still can’t understand, how anyone can make a paper thin pulka! I am not giving neer dosa another chance though. It is completely opposite of everything I like, it is a no-go!
  4. Visiting a beach on weekday, from morning to noon is the best thing one can do. No human traffic, which means, we can have the beach to ourselves. Beach at Mangalore felt like a private beach for a whole day!
  5. Like I mentioned in previous post, never miss the masala buttermilk in any city or town of Karnataka. It is the best.
  6. Sometimes, when Mr.Bee and I drive to far off locations, with mountains and hills, we remember Charlotte and miss those beautiful mountains, we would frequently visit, every month! I miss you GrandFather Mountain, Gatlinburg and Mt.Soma! I miss you too, Pigeon Forge and Chimney Rock!

Cheerio, till the next post.

Days of Leisure

Day 8:

We had been travelling for a week already and Mr.Bee is the sole driver for our trip. Adding to that, KBee and I were down with cold. I had taken a head bath and towel dried my hair, still, I caught a cold! (Carry a hair dryer with you, if you are going to visit a temple and have little time to towel dry the hair, thanks to the temple timings and travel constraints.) Hotels in India don’t provide hair dryers, except for super luxury ones, which have foreign visitors! (The Jaipur Hotel we stayed at, last year had hair dryers, separate ‘he’ and ‘she’ wash basins and Jacuzzi too, with two different doors to access the area! Such opulence!)

Anyway….

We woke up early, had our baths, had breakfast, rode an auto to reach the Kukke Subrahmanya Swamy temple.

A clean and peaceful temple town – Subramanya, Karnataka — Pic Source : Google

Although the distance from the hotel to the temple is walk-able, we preferred the auto, because it was quite sunny! (The temperature App in my cell showed it was 32 Centigrade and we are used to more than that in Hyderabad, but we were closer to the beach city Mangalore!) It is best to use the auto services than take the car and face parking difficulties.

We breezed through the temple, with it being an off season for visitors. We returned to hotel in half an hour, spending more time near the ATM to draw out some cash, than in the temple itself! GBee and KBee wanted to buy the beach toys which were readily available near the temple shops.

One set each for both the kiddos.

With this little purchase, we returned to our room. At lunch time, we went to the in-house restaurant, had our lunch and returned to the room. We decided to not travel anywhere for the day. We ate, we drank, we watched T.V. and overall had a lazy day. Our original plan had been to visit either Dharmasthala or Sringeri, depending on our mood that day. Interestingly, our mood that day was to be lazy. So we didn’t budge from our hotel room!

Meanwhile Mr.Bee got the car checked and cleaned, since we travelled in rains and the car mud guards were heavier by a couple of kilos!

With a simple dosa dinner, we ended our day.

Day 9:

After the much needed rest, we woke up by 8 a.m, freshened up and had our breakfast.  We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. We were on our way to Southadka, an open to sky Ganesha Temple (no structure is covering the Moola Virat, Maha Ganapathi), 35 km away from the Kukke Subrahmanya temple! (Visiting both the divine brothers Ganesha and Subrahmanya in the reverse order has been fun. I was happy, because both GBee and KBee are named after the said Gods as Ganesh and Karthikeya.)

A one-of-a-kind temple, without a Garba Gudi. Deity is visible to all, from far and wide! Pic Sourced from Google.

BTW, if you are up for it, there is a shopping complex with spices, coffee powders and antiques available and you can shop till you drop. We avoided the shops because the kids wanted junk food and we had to divert them with all our new found street smart attitude.

Well within half an hour, we ended our darshan and started our journey to Mangalore. Incidentally, when I turned on the radio, I could hear Malayalam songs, so between Subrahmanya and Mangalore, I think we also crossed the Kerala state border for a brief period of time.

The drive was less than 2 hours and we reached Mangalore on time for lunch. I was reminded of my Infosys Mysore roomie, RR, who worked in Mangalore for 2 years. God, I am out of touch with most of my friends! (Sad reality of stay-at-home moms, who also happen to be introverts!)

We stayed at the VAZCO Mangalore Beach resort. All we had to do was cross the 10 feet road to reach the sandy beach! (Best experience ever!) As we checked-in, I observed that the  resort was empty except for us and a couple! I was disappointed.  But since it was Thursday and  people generally don’t travel to beaches on weekdays, I decided to wait and watch.

We had yummy, paper thin Chapathis, with paneer sabzi and lassi glass-sized watermelon juice, to wash down our food! We had booked a family room which comes with a separate seating area outside our room and that was where we spent eating our lunches and dinners during our stay. The separate area comes in handy if you have kids who throw half the food outside their plates! The kids would eat messily and we could go into our room and sleep, while the service staff would clean it without disturbing us and our privacy, a win-win.

After the lunch, we rested for an hour, freshened up, wore our beach outfits with me applying ample sunscreen lotion. (Turns out, at the end of our beach holiday, only I didn’t tan at all. The kids and Mr.Bee had a Mangalore beach tan!)

KBee, GBee and I had a blast, making sand castles and Mr.Bee ended up being our beach photographer. We took a zip lock pouch with us to store our ‘so-called’ water-proof cells and the room key fob. Zip locks are life savers!

We returned to the resort, spent another hour completely hijacking the swimming pool. We had a blast. After washing off most of the sand from our bodies, we returned to our room and ordered garama garam onion pakoras with green chillies for added effect! Yummy! Even the fault finding kiddos ate in silence!

Onion Pakora with added green chillies – Soul Food!

We spent the rest of the evening watching T.V. and resting. KBee had been doing good. He didn’t have a relapse of fever and I was happy and thankful for that. (I met some other mothers during our course of vacation and they would judge me for bringing a tiny kiddo for a 10 day vacation. If we are prepared for food and medical requirements, no harm in travelling with a 2 year old baby. )

We really needed a break from our mundane life and thankfully, the vacation had done the trick of recharging our depleting batteries.

With a yummy yummy fried rice and lip smacking masala butter milk, we ended our day and slept like logs!

P.S:

  1. Don’t ever miss butter milk in Karnataka. Anywhere in Karnataka, buttermilk is to die for.
  2. Who knew a vacation can be at once hectic and leisurely!
  3. Queen Bee’s favourite food is anything with ample green chillies! Weirdly, green chillies make my mouth water!
  4. If you ever have severe cold or if you have breathing issues and allergies, it is always best to visit a beach area. The salty beach air works like a natural nebulizer and clears up even tough sinuses!

Till the next post… cheerio!

Subrahmanya, here we come!

Day 7:

We woke up early. KBee  and GBee looked active and happy. One night of peace can do that to anyone. Both had fun playing in and around the cottage, while Mr.Bee began searching for his shoe!

Yes, you read it right. One of Mr.Bee’s shoe was missing, but we found it soon, at the bottom-most step.

The kids running up and down the steps

Like Sherlock Holmes, Mr.Bee looked around, found footprints and decided that they were made by a deer. (At first, I wanted to believe they were made by a Cheetah or Tiger. That would have made a very compelling story for my travelogue!)

A deer must have taken the shoe, God knows for what and left it after dragging it for a while and ran away!

After the brief sleuthing, I gave both the kiddos a bath, had a bath myself and waited for Mr.Bee to return. Our car battery had died and he had to call in a mechanic.

By 8:30 a.m., I was already so hungry and I didn’t know how my kids were still playing without hunger pangs stopping them!

We went into the dining area of the resort and sat at a table. The two other tables were also filled up by families of 4. Interestingly, all the families had two sons each! (Not a single girl child in the whole resort. So sad!)

We found Telugu people from Hyderabad at the resort in Sultan Battery! When we went to Delhi, the next room neighbours were Telugus. We went to Taj Mahal, Agra, heard pukka local Telugu from fellow travellers. (East, West ,North, South, you can meet Telugu people everywhere!)

We had idiyappam with matar masala curry, rice rawa khichdi, bread with steamed banana (yummy), freshly cut ripe mango and warm Pathimugam water which is pink in colour and only available in Kerala.

Who needs jam when you can steam ripe bananas?

After our hearty breakfast, we had a quick photo session, before checking out of the resort.

One of the Art installations at the Resort

Mr.Bee bought coffee powder at Sultan Battery, because that is what Wayanad is famous for. We also bought some yellow banana chips (which are GBee’s favourite) and jack fruit chips. Since our stay at the Thejas Resort was not in our original plan, we didn’t extend our stay. We were already 1 day behind our tour schedule! (We had called the hotel in Subrahmanya to postpone our dates by one day.)

The drive from Sultan Battery to Subrahmanya is a pleasant one.

Clean and Green roads – C/o Sultan Battery

The villages near Sultan Battery made us sit up and take notice of them. Every little village was clean and well kept. I could hardly find a chocolate wrapper on the road! Everything was spic and span. Both sides of the road was lined with greenery, with beautiful red hibiscus plants near almost every home. As we drove through the roads, we saw medium sized jack fruits weight training the trees! (May be the huge harvest of jack fruits is the reason, Kerala started making jack fruit chips.)

We found similar jack fruit trees in Karnataka as well…

Jack Fruit tree – zoom in to see the fruits clearly

While we drove through forest in Kerala and entered the Karnataka State Border, it began to rain heavily. We had to have the hazard lights blinking and wait on the road, because we were unable to see anything at all.

Beautiful Forest Roads

We met a monkey on the way. Just as the monkey was nearing my side of the car, Mr.Bee opened the window (he thought I would enjoy chatting up with the tiny wild dude!) and I thought for a minute that the monkey would jump in! Luckily, I closed the window before anything untoward happened. (I felt as if I was escaping a dinosaur, closing a window at the last minute!)

Scared of the monkey, but can’t resist taking a photo!

The roads leading to Subrahmanya from Sultan Battery were ghat roads and by the time we reached Subrahmanya, I was sick of ghat roads! At some places on the road, it felt like the road suddenly came to an end, because, it would suddenly slope downwards!  (reminded me of Carowinds!)

Let me include the 5th member of our trip, our Metallic Grey Itachi

We finally reached SR residency, KBee and GBee stopped by the reception to admire the fishes in the aquarium! KBee began yelling at the fish, trying to make them look at him. Obviously fish don’t turn and look at anyone, not even a 2 year old boy, even if the kid is shouting at the top of his lungs for their attention!

A new kind of notice board (comes with a typo!)

We reached the room, made ourselves presentable by taking hot showers and started for the temple, to visit Kukke Subrahmanya.

Thankfully, it was a working day and that too, schools had already re-opened after the summer vacation. So the temple had hardly any crowd. We had a good darshan of the God and returned to the hotel.

We had dinner at the in house restaurant at the ground floor. We ate masala papad, roti with dal tadka and palak paneer and to satiate our thirst, we had  watermelon juice.

With that, we returned to our hotel room, to end the day!

P.S:

  1. One lady sitting beside us during dinner looked so much like the actress who played Sai Pallavi’s sister in Fida. Mr.Bee and I took our time observing her and turns out, she is a doppelganger (a dupe, in short)!
  2. Incidentally, I met the director Shekar Kammula, director of Fida during my days of working as a Design Engineer. We shook hands, but I was tongue tied. I couldn’t tell him how much I loved his movie, Godavari! (He came there with his kids, who were in ‘tantrum’ mode)
  3. The doppelganger first ordered masala papad. That made me order it. After seeing us eat masala papad, another couple ordered it! Before the closing time, every table at the restaurant had masala papad either in their mouths, hands or on the table! It was yummy too.

Till the next post, cheerio friends.

Ooty, got his Goatee!

Foreword!

Thanks to the recent incessant rains in Hyderabad, the internet in our area was down for 5 days. Once the internet was up and running, schools declared holidays due to rains. Since the kids were home, I hardly had free time on hand. That dear friends is the reason I couldn’t complete the post on time.

****

When I look back and think about our visit and stay at Ooty, I can’t help but feel bad for Mr.Bee. Can you imagine someone pulling at the hair on your chin? Painful, right? That’s how it felt looking at Mr.Bee trying to drive peacefully in Ooty!

Ooty, got his goatee! Goatee is Mr.Bee’s signature style. Many thanks to him, for never going through the ‘No-Shave November’ phase. I am sorry to all the bearded dudes out there, I am not a fan of beard and that is me being nice about it!

Day 6:

We woke up at 7 a.m. Our plan for the day was to check out of the hotel and go to Subramanya, in Karnataka.

But thanks to the hectic schedule of visiting Parks and what not, KBee was under the weather! He was down with fever. Two year olds have little stamina. Crocin came handy in this situation. (We took a medical kit with us.)

Mr.Bee and I, both wondered if we had to extend our stay in Ooty for a day, to give the much needed rest for KBee or start to Subramanya, hoping for the best!

We decided on going to Subramanya and sticking to our initial itinerary. The cold weather and rains had gotten to KBee, at-last! (Weather in Subrahmanya was more to our interest.) But since it started drizzling again, we waited it out and by the time we had our breakfast, it was well past 9:30 a.m.

Our host in La Montana wanted us to shoot a brief video and we spent another 30 minutes there. After loading the car with all our suitcases and stuff, it was 11:00 a.m.

Once we were on the road, the respected Traffic Police of Ooty didn’t let Mr.Bee drive in peace. They made us go about in circles on the roads. That is their way of controlling traffic, sending people into any road they find empty!

We were still in Ooty by the time it was 12:00 p.m! What sort of technique the traffic personnel use to divert people, I don’t know, but it frustrated us to no end. Mr. Bee was pissed off from driving in the same roads again and again, going in circles.

After wasting an hour, we came out of Ooty town, to the outskirts. While Mr.Bee went out to buy the pocket friendly fridge magnets, I and the kids sat inside the car, me thinking about my hunger pangs! (It was nearly lunch time and we were hardly out of Ooty!)

Anyway, I love to decorate the fridge and the Godrej almarah with funky magnets of every place we ever visit. Hence fridge magnets seemed the best choice of souvenirs.

After the brief halt to shop, we sadly bid goodbye to Ooty, bye bye Ooty! (I had fun at Ooty and at the end of every vacation I become sad!) and were en route Subrahmanya, Karnataka.

Once again, we were not allowed to take the route from Ooty, to Mysore. We were diverted again. (The roads and traffic is highly dependent on the climate, forest and animals about. This is a personal opinion. So, it is like a lottery!)

Our already late start was delayed yet again by the horses crossing the road!

Horses on roads – A rare sight indeed!

We took brief halt at the most beautiful scenery, the Picnic Lake. We took loads of photos, before getting back into our car to continue our journey. (I remember buying similar framed sceneries to give away as gifts. I liked one such frame so much, I gifted it to my mom on her birthday, when I was in primary school! Who even gifts their mom a scenery? Lol! Those were the days!)

Scenery to die for!

And more…

Lake view!

We had a hurried lunch at Gudalur, Tamil Nadu. The food was passable, but the buffet was ready to be served and we hardly had time on our hands. It was already 2:30 p.m. by the time our hands reached our mouths, to feed ourselves the lunch! (If I were to eat such food everyday, I would surely become waif thin!) I bought some fruits too, before starting our long drive to Subrahmanya. But, God had different plans for us, He changed our itinerary!

Gudalur Road – Pic Courtesy – Google

We took a wrong turn near Gudalur and instead of going towards Karnataka, we ended up going into Kerala. Imagine our surprise when I began seeing name boards in Malayalam! The roads were picturesque, scenic, beautiful as well as calming! (It felt like dejavu, a dream moment. Such simple village roads had a deep effect on me.) I began rewinding my brain to all the South Indian movies that I have seen, which must have been shot in similar locations!

We had a silent drive through Kerala. It was mesmerizing to observe each and everything, that I forgot to talk and my chatter box of a mouth was shut, for once!

Mr.Bee and I were worried that we wouldn’t be reaching Subrahmanya before 9 p.m.! We debated among ourselves about the best course of action. We are not comfortable with night driving, that too near forests and with kids, one who had a slight fever and another who ended up vomiting his lunch, thanks to the Ghat roads and Mr.Bee’s fast and furious driving! (Thankfully, Mr.Bee has hair on his head, he is not a taklu like Vin Diesel and the Rock!)

We took the advice of Mr.Bee’s colleague, R. He told us to halt for the night at Sultan Battery, since it is the biggest town in Wayanad, Kerala, instead of driving further. It was hardly half past four in the afternoon, but we decided to stop at Sultan Battery and give the much needed rest for the kiddos.

Clean town – Sultan Battery

We checked into the Thejas resort. (I selected the resort, as it was my younger son’s name!) Turns out, this was the best decision we ever made in our entire trip! The resort took us close to nature and left a lasting impression on us. While Mr.Bee was busy with the check-in procedures and the likes, GBee and I were busy clicking photos. KBee was fast asleep, though.

Sunset @ Sultan Battery – View from the resort

Our cottage looked like this….

Cottages are the way to go!

I didn’t leave out the flowers in the resort…

Violet Beauty, might be a Lily!

We ordered food from Zomato to our room. They only serve breakfast at the resort. It was the simplest and the tastiest dinner of our trip. Ghee rice with tomato curry! (Since both the kids were under the weather, that was what we selected as our dinner.)

We slept, with me admiring my room and the surroundings and Mr.Bee enjoying the IPL finals in his cell! (No t.v. in the cottages!)

P.S:

  1. We gave KBee another dose of crocin at night and he was already showing improvement. GBee had motion sickness, so nothing to worry about.
  2. The crickets, the peacocks and the birds in Thejas resort made sure that I wouldn’t forget the experience soon. They kept reminding us that we were indeed in Kerala! There were mosquitoes as fat as houseflies. Once the mosquito repellent was switched on, the mosquitoes were not a problem anymore.
  3. Since there was no T.V. in the room. GBee and KBee entertained themselves with the iPad Mini and had their dinners.
  4. Do you know about the 36 Hair Pin Bends road in Ooty? It is said to be a dangerous and difficult road to drive. We didn’t drive in this route, we have our children to thank for! We thought it was better if we didn’t go in this route. Check out this video.

Till the next post. Cheerio!

Ooty to Coonoor and back!

One of the first things we decided very early on is that, our main stay would be at Ooty, in our 14 day vacation. The other thing we were sure about is to ride the train from Ooty to Coonoor, to take in as much nature’s beauty as we can, to last a year or until we took another vacation, whichever is the earliest!

Day 5:

We woke up early, got ready. Mr.Bee and I wore matching jeans jackets whereas the kids, as usual, were stuffed into their rain proof, winter jackets, thanks to their mom being a scaredy cat! (You would too, if you too had a toddler who has an affinity to catching cold at the drop of a hat!)

We, GBee, KBee and myself,  stuffed ourselves silly with toasted wheat bread and grape pudina(mint) juice. The juice was a little bland for my taste. Only Mr.Bee didn’t have bread toast. The three of us were bored of eating the dosa. (I can eat toast everyday!)

Mr.Bee wanted to surprise me, by taking me to the famous Murugan temple at Elk Hill. The statue of Murugan/ Subramanya is famous and similar one exists in Singapore!

Murugan @Elk Hill

We started for the temple, thanks to Google Maps. But the over enthusiastic Ooty Traffic Police, diverted us to some other road. From there, we were re-routed by Google Maps, only to end up at a dead end. (The French people call it a cul-de-sac!) We cursed under our breaths and ditched the plan of going to the Murugan temple, because, with the snail paced Ooty traffic and the Traffic diversions, thanks to the government servants, we were getting late for our train.

At the Ooty railway station, we wasted another 20 minutes, to park our car.  We ran into the railway station just in time for our train. As soon as we got in, the train had started! I played the Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge and Jab We Met train scenes in my head and rushed towards the window seat, making the petite lady who occupied my window seat to sit elsewhere.  We started at 11:25 a.m. and were to arrive at Coonoor by 1:00 p.m.

Nilgiri-Railway – If this pic doesn’t fill up your heart, I don’t know what will!

We started for Coonoor. The train route showed us the beautiful mountains, the tea estates, waterfalls, tunnels. Mr.Bee also looked outside the window to search for our hotel. He spotted it at last and took a couple of pics too. He spent the entire ride taking photos and videos of the scenery surrounding us.

Spotting the Hotel from the train – Fans of La Montana!

The scenic railway stations on the way from Ooty to Coonoor looked like the ones from foreign movies. (Such beautiful spots exist in India, we can find them at some unlikely places!)

Picturesque and ‘clean’ Coonoor Railway Station!

We took a couple of cute family photos at Coonoor Railway Station, which I am not sharing. We exited the railway station by 1:40 p.m. People were waiting for cabs and cab drivers were eager to be hired! We reached the exit and hired a taxi, to show us around Coonoor. We had little time window, as we needed to catch similar meter gauge train at 4:00 p.m. to return to Ooty by 5:10 p.m.

First and foremost, we reached the restaurant to have our lunch, as the kids and I were famished. (The view was amazing from the window and I forgot the name of the restaurant.) We wanted to waste as little time as possible, but it was already 2:30 p.m. by the time we got out of the restaurant.

Even though, it was not a part of the itinerary, our cab driver took us to Tea and Chocolate Factory in Coonoor!(He wanted to earn his commission) It was already drizzling and it being a Sunday, was a holiday and so we had a private, unofficial tour of the Tea and Chocolate Factory. The old gentleman, who acted as our tour guide, showed us the Eucalyptus Oil Factory too, for good measure. (We didn’t hire a guide, it was hardly needed, but the gentleman offered his services and told us we could pay him as much as we pleased.)

We also tasted the Chocolate Tea, famous in Ooty and Coonoor, didn’t know what all the hype was about and got into the cab, after buying some chocolates and Eucalyptus oil. We took a few pics in a jiffy, trying not to get any more wet than needed! (It was drizzling.)

We reached the Sim’s Park, where there was a fruit festival in full swing. Fruits were arranged in various shapes of worm, pyramids, giant pineapple made with pineapples, fruit basket made with a variety of fruits and so on. We could hardly take any pictures, what with our kids running about, a prolonged drizzle of rain and also the sea of tourists demanding Mr.Bee and my attention, simultaneously!

Queen Bee posing for pic @ Sim’s Park

Finally I got a few pics taken at Sim’s Park, away from all the bustle, once the rain subsided a little.

There were old trees in the park, as old as 100 years. One tourist found himself a Rudraksh bead near a century old tree. I don’t recall the scientific name of the tree, but I went ahead and looked around, hoping find any stray Rudraksh. (The park keepers were so thorough in the cleaning and maintenance that I could hardly find a dry leaf, let alone a Rudraksh!)

With that, we rushed to the train station, with 10 minutes to spare. The Coonoor railway station is well maintained, in spite of the steady flow of tourists and vacationers. We took a couple of photos, hanging from the train, like in the Prabhas starrer, Radhe Shyam! (Our photos were a little less glamorous!)

We shared our compartment with a beautiful Bengali family. GBee tried talking to them, in the little English that he knew. Even KBee tried to start a conversation with them! Everyone in the compartment were older to him and KBee tried to baby talk his way into the conversation! (He is yet to learn talking coherently.)

Each compartment can fit 10 adults. There are two classes in the toy trains too, First Class and General!

On our return journey, we came across some mountain Bison and the train operator had to ‘toot‘ the horn for at least a dozen times for them to move away from the train tracks.

Bison, finally moving away from the tracks and going into the forest

Sorry for the bad quality of the photo. We had to zoom in to get a pic! 40 MP cam is of little consequence!

We reached Ooty on time, checked out the shop to buy return gifts, but everything was super pricey and we returned to the car empty handed. By the time we reached our hotel, it was already well past 6 p.m.

After a sumptuous dinner, we retired to bed, early than usual. Of course, I continued reading my e-book, finished reading it and loved it too.

P.S:

  1. My sincere advice to anyone who wish to visit the Tea factory and Chocolate Factory is that, instead of visiting them in Ooty, you can do that in Coonoor as well. The Ooty factories have heavy rush and the Coonoor ones have lesser number of visitors. It is especially useful if you have toddlers!
  2. The temperature in Coonoor is higher than in Ooty. We won’t even require sweaters or warm clothing to stay here. I think even from the traffic and tourist stand point Coonoor is preferable, if you have already visited Ooty, that is!
  3. It is always better not to bring your car to the railway station, if you don’t have kids below the ages of 5 years.  It is better to catch a cab. We almost missed our train, waiting for free parking spaces.
  4. One round trip from Ooty to Coonoor reminded me of three movies and their scenes. But did you know the song Chaiyya Chaiyya from Dil Se was picturized on one such meter gauge train near Ooty? By the way, we were also given goody bags with chocolates, Maaza, Bourbon biscuits and a keychain. The kids ate the biscuits on the return journey.
  5. I have been to Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh, but it pales in comparison to Coonoor, as far as I can remember.

Thanks to GBee’s home works (they call them Home Fun in his school!) and my own interest in watching Gossip Girl, I have been late in posting here. Cheerio, till the next post.

Ooty : Of Birthday, Boat House and Botanical Garden!

Day 4:

Mr.Bee and I started our day early at 12:00 a.m., to kiss our GBee a happy birthday, who was oblivious to our wishes and continued sleeping peacefully. (The kiddos look cute in their sleep and when they wake up, I end up looking like a devil, thanks to their hyper activity!) After a couple of minutes of reminiscing our first born, Mr.Bee and I dozed off to sleep.

At 7 a.m., hot water baths later, we had our breakfast at the hotel, spent fifteen minutes in the play room and returned to our room.

I wanted to have a photo shoot of both my little heroes, who wore matching t-shirts and pants. But thanks to GBee, who always avoids looking at the camera and KBee who always runs towards the camera, we could hardly take one good picture to capture the moment! (I don’t understand how people have Instagram worthy pics with kids, beats me!) Nothing, absolutely nothing can tempt them to stand still for a photo together, until and unless its a selfie, where they can look at themselves in the phone!

As per our travel itinerary, we got ready for the boat house, with raincoats, umbrellas, sweaters and caps. (Ooty weather is similar to that of London, which is said to be unpredictable!)

We wasted a good 15 minutes, trying to park our Vento, waited in line for entry tickets and once again had to wait in the queue for boat rides. By now, we got used to the heavy rush throughout Ooty. Luckily, we met two families from Telangana at the Boat House, so together, we bought the 16 member boat ride tickets. The 8 member and 4 member boat rides had bigger queues.

Boating in Ooty – Pic source – Google!

The boat ride itself was fun, with both GBee and KBee howling like a pack of wolves, which they learned from watching the Wolfe videos in Youtube! (Throughout our vacation, they made me and Mr.Bee, howl along with them, like a pack of wolves.) The others in the boat ride were surprised by us howling, but that didn’t deter us any!

During our boat ride, we also saw a toy train, in the woods. We weren’t ready to stand in the toy train queue, so ignored the ride. (There is another reason for avoiding the toy train, which you will know in the next post!)

After the boat ride, we were craving for some snacks. Water sports cause food cravings! We bought fried spiral potato and masala sweet corn. That was when we checked the time, it was time for lunch!

Spiral potato or Tornado Potato – Pic Source: Google

We exited the boat house and it started drizzling, as we ran towards our car in the parking lot. GBee and I giggled as we ran. Mr.Bee ran carrying KBee in his arms which made KBee laugh out loud in excitement and merry!

We had our lunch at the Angaara, which turned out to be the go-to place for us in Ooty. I don’t remember what we had for lunch, but Mr.Bee wanted to surprise GBee, so he requested for a cake for our first born.

The staff didn’t disappoint us. They attached two brownies together, decorated it with a ‘Happy Birthday’ cake topper, colourful sprinkles were sprayed judiciously and a few red cherries on top, caught our attention. (GBee hates cherries, so he made us remove them!)

Impromptu Birthday Celebration with a brownie cake – Pic Source : Mr.Bee

The birthday boy blew the candle, as soon as we lit it and began to sing the usual, Happy Birthday! (He wanted to get back to his game in the cell, which  Mr.Bee had given him earlier, as a birthday treat!) The birthday brownie was yummy. Both the kiddos filled up their stomachs with the brownie and left the lunch for us, the parents to complete!

Mr.Bee asked me where I wanted to go next and what I wanted to do. I wanted the kids to go to the Botanical Garden and enjoy it, just like I did, many years ago. Mr.Bee was apprehensive, but then, we ended up going to the Botanical Garden. (I promised Mr.Bee that we would not be staying in the Garden for more than an hour. We wanted to retire early to our room.) Travelling with two kids is no mean feat!

The grand old trees of the Botanical Garden! – Pic Source : Google

As soon as we entered the Garden, we knew for sure that, spending more than an hour would be very difficult, what with the huge crowds. We let the kids run helter skelter. Both of them had no worries in the world, when they ran far away from us, breathing in the fresh mountain air, as far as their tiny legs took them, without tiring them out.

The beautiful, undulating grass terrain was the perfect setting the kiddos needed to play.

Bunch of college going kids started rolling downhill on the gentle slopes. GBee soon caught on and had the time of his life, rolling down the garden landscape, along with them. KBee didn’t want to be left behind. He started rolling on the grass turf in circles! It was fun watching both of them enjoy. I had my eyes set on KBee and Mr.Bee had to follow GBee around, trying not to let them out of our line of sight.

Rolling down the hill – Pic source : Google

We let them play for as long as they wanted to play. Thankfully, there was an in-house photographer there, waiting to click pictures, we got our photos taken and returned to the exit, with the laminated photos in our hands.

At the exit we saw a Bharatanatyam recital by a group of 4 girls. I felt happy. I loved the idea of watching a classical dance recital in the Botanical Garden!

Bharatanatyam Dancer Dolls – Rose Show – Pic Source: Google

We returned to the room, after battling the perennial traffic. We had originally planned on ordering a birthday cake at the hotel, near the campfire, but then, we decided to have the cake at lunch, with just the four of us!

I had a piping hot chai, while I got back to reading the murder mystery e-book! GBee and KBee entertained themselves with the stickers again, too tired to run about. We had an early dinner and called it a day.

I was ready to sleep, eager for the next day to start already! Bring it on, day 5!

P.S:

  1. It is always a plus, if you have the right kind of book to read!
  2. GBee and KBee tired themselves silly, running in the Botanical Garden, they had hardly any energy left to fight.
  3. Since the weather in Ooty is generally low, there are no ACs and fans in the hotel room.
  4. If you are an amateur ornithology enthusiast, you can find Hornbill birds in Ooty. I saw most of them at the boat house and a few at the gardens and on scenic roads.
  5. If you thought the hotel may provide you with hair dryer, just like I did, you are mistaken. If you need a hair dryer anywhere, you need to take it with you in India! (Hotels in USA provide dryers, but not in India. I found it the hard way!)
  6. Most people speak Hindi or English in Ooty. Language barrier is not an issue, at least for us.
  7. All the photos in this post except the one with the brownie cake have been freely used from various sources. Mr.Bee and I had to run about everywhere and taking beautiful pics for the blog was least of our concerns!

Till the next post, cheerio, folks!

Ooty : Of Gardens and Factories!

Day 3:

We started our day early, waking up to the huge French windows overlooking the private balcony. The windows were completely filled with the condensed water on the outside and I had to wipe the windows a little to see if the Sun had risen! (Cold climates can do that to your windows)

Ooty, the beauty

A perfect holiday for me always includes a good murder mystery, so there I was wide awake early in the morning, on the sunny balcony reading an e-book, which was perfect for the occasion, called The Murder at the Mayfair Hotel, by C.J.Archer. (Will review it down the line.)

Once GBee woke up at 7 a.m., he and I wore our sweaters and caps, ran towards the playground on the bottom level of the hotel. We played together on the adjacent swings like best friends do! He also played on the slide for his hearts content. That’s when KBee and Mr.Bee came down and all the four of us played on the see-saws.

Slides, see-saw and swings – Zoom in for the playground at the bottom level!

By the time we had our baths, we were late for our breakfast. Everyone had theirs before 8:30 a.m. We went by 9, had our breakfast, played for a little while in the kids playroom which had carrom board, Ludo, chess board and Table Tennis. We spent 5 minutes at each table and returned to our room, to plan our day.

We reached the famous Botanical Garden of Ooty, the heavy rush at the entrance reminded us of Kumbh Melas, of which we only heard through News channels! (We didn’t buy the entrance ticket, but returned to the parking area, to visit some other place.) I bought a beautiful grey,black and red poncho at the Tibetan market, bought seeds of beautiful flowering plants suitable for Hyderabad and got into the car.

We had our lunch at the Angara. Their Cream of Mushroom soup was the best (though, I am not a fan of mushroom). Since the weather in Ooty is low, at 14 C, even the water served for drinking is lukewarm. There is also a ban on plastic in Ooty which is a welcome move by the Tamil Nadu Government. (Even in Tirumala, near Tirupathi, plastic is banned. These environment friendly gestures are highly appreciated.)

It started drizzling by the time we came out of the restaurant.  We decided to go to the Rose Garden. We had already bought rain proof jackets for both the kiddos at the Tibetan market earlier, so rain was not an issue for us.

The Government Rose Garden too looked like a sea of humans was going about in it! The garden itself had less number of roses in bloom! We spent most of the time in the garden running, me behind GBee and Mr.Bee behind KBee! I found myself wondering, why won’t they stop running and let my eyes enjoy the scenery? But then, they hardly sit quietly at home, expecting them to sit in a huge multi-level park with greenery seemed preposterous.

Me running after GBee, KBee following me and Mr.Bee capturing the moment, forever!

We took a couple of photos with the in-house photographer and exited the rose garden, before taking the photo of the below butterfly. (4 of us were tired from running around!)

The Butterfly in the Rose Garden!

After a brief snack break, we decided to test our luck at the Tea and Chocolate Factory! Wherever we went, there was a heavy rush of people, mostly from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, who came to enjoy the weekend at Ooty. (I am telling this by the license plates I saw everywhere!)

Anyway, we reached the Chocolate Factory and GBee was so excited to see so many chocolates, he kept ‘wow’ing. (I hope that’s a word!) KBee is too small to know what a chocolate really is, but he was excited too, to run away!

We breezed through the Tea making and Chocolate making, rushed towards the shops. We bought Masala Tea, Ginger Tea and Green Tea, some chocolates like dark almond, dark rice crackle, dark hazelnut etc. I also bought some Eucalyptus Oil and pain oil too. We also bought Kashmiri woven shawl for gifting. With this we returned to the car.

Tea & Chocolate Factory – Pic courtesy Search Engine

We reached La Montana, had our evening cuppa Tea in the room, read some 50 pages of my e-book, waiting for time to pass!

At 7 p.m., the campfire was lit. GBee wanted to play on the swing, so Mr.Bee was on his toes. I and KBee enjoyed the campfire. We met fellow tourists, a huge family of Gujaratis, a newly married couple and an extremely silent family of 4!

I also tried the swing, with KBee on my lap, but both of us ended up falling on the ground! I hurt my hand, when it grazed the metal chain, thankfully KBee was unhurt. He found it funny that both of us fell forward, me landing on my knees, holding KBee in both my arms. He laughed for a while! I too laughed it off, (in embarrassment, actually!)

At 8 p.m., we returned to the room, since the Gujarati family had started dancing and we were famished. We had a simple dinner of veg fried rice and curd rice and called it a day. As usual, we slept like logs.

P.S:

  1. It is advisable to buy your jackets, sweaters and shawls in Ooty. They have some very good pieces on display too and none are made locally, but imported from other states.
  2. The curd rice in Ooty was awesome. I had it every night of our stay there. Yummy! Never knew a simple curd rice can fill both your heart and stomach!
  3. Traffic and parking are the main issues one would face in Ooty. If you are travelling in your own vehicle, God save you!
  4. Chocolate Tea is famous in Ooty, but I didn’t know what the fuss was about! Sorry! I loved the masala chai that was given for sampling at the Tea factory.
  5. Every night, the kids entertained themselves in the room with the stickers I packed for them. They would stick, the variety of stickers, on the walls, suitcases, bed and on each other!
  6. If you are travelling with picky eaters like my boys, I advise you pack some homemade eatables for them, to fill them up. I made them a powder, which they add to their rice, idlis, dosa or eat directly without any accompaniment.

Till the next post, bubye!

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