Tag: dosa

Palani to Kodaikanal

May 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Day 2:

Mr.Bee and I woke up at 4:30 a.m on the advice of the hotel admin. He informed us that we selected a particularly important day to visit the temple and warned us that the temple crowd would be akin to mini-size Kumbh Mela. He was not wrong! It was Shashti thithi, which is auspicious as Vel Murugan a.k.a Karthikeya was said to be born on that thithi.

I looked out of the windows, (our room 2** had a balcony facing the hill) and saw the most beautiful view.

Mr.Bee and I, discussed among ourselves and decided to wake GBee up first.

GBee was confused about why there was no sunlight outside and thanks to his EVS lesson in grade 2, he knows what an eclipse is! I told him, we just woke up early to visit the Murugan temple.

During bath, I heard peacocks making wailing calls! If you hear a peacock wailing or crowing near by, it is generally assumed as a sign of presence of snakes. That too if you hear them in the premises of a very popular Murugan temple, whose deity Himself is a snake, then what more to add to that? My heart was filled with devotion and fervour.

After both Mr.Bee and KBee were ready, we rushed to the winch queue. We can either climb the 700 odd steps to the temple or go in a winch to the temple which is situated on top of a hill.

The winch and the scenic beauty!

We spent 2 hours in the winch queue and hardly moved 20m from our initial spot. If you are going to popular temples, you should mentally prepare yourself that you will be pushed, shoved, verbally abused, on top of it, physically tired too!

By the time it was 6:30 a.m. , an announcement had been made that devotees need to take a break and return after 6 hours! (That’s was how heavy the flow of devotees had been to Palani)

I felt upset and low, as it seemed we may not return to the temple. We didn’t want to harass our kids by waiting in the hot weather and climbing 700 steps with 2 kids below the age of 8, seemed preposterous! We resigned to our fate and accepted defeat.

We shopped for Velaayudham and I got myself a photo frame of Dhandayudhapani (Murugan). I remembered we had not visited the Vinayagar and Meenakshi Amman temples in the premises. We visited both and returned to the hotel. KBee only ate a couple of biscuits and GBee didn’t even have those.

At the Hotel, the admin saw our disappointment and advised us to visit the other Murugan temple 5 minutes away from our hotel. He informed us that this one was the original Dhandayudhapani Murugan temple, which was later relocated to the top of the hill. We visited the temple by walk and I remember a middle aged gentleman who entered the temple with us, stayed with us, asked me to go to the front and let me pray to Murugan in peace. He was no where to be seen after talking to me.  (It felt like divine intervention, an emotionally charged moment for me)

After our breakfast, which was below average, we packed the soveneirs, checked out from the hotel and started for our next stop, Kodaikanal. Woohoo!

In barely 2 hours, we reached Kodaikanal. The driver, N made a brief stop at the outskirts, for his breakfast. He had an omelette.  Mr.Bee and I ordered tea, which was ‘one-sorry- excuse-of-a-tea’ and I poured it down the drain! (When travelling,  one should adjust to eating mediocre food and drinks or not buy them at all!)

We checked into Pine Borough, Room ££, which was built such that it was half way into the hill and that made it extremely cold to live in! We had to rent a room heater from the hotel, to stay warm!

We ordered food by WhatsApping the reception desk, sat in the afternoon Sun, under the patio umbrellas. KBee and GBee were famished and so was I, it was 2 p.m.

Mr.Bee and GBee engaged in the cell, while KBee and I chatted away.

Even though KBee was hungry and it was well past his lunch time, he suggested that the bugs were hungry and not him!

We had our lunch in the room, rested a little while and then spent a good hour in the garden outside.

As the weather became colder and since we started hearing strange sounds ( like that of a rattle), we returned to our room. The kids played with their dozen Hot Wheel cars, whereas Mr.Bee and I watched Baahubali, dubbed in Hindi!

After having Dadu’s snacks and a late dinner, we called it a day!

P.S:

1. At the entrance to Kodaikanal, one lady officer, bent down inside our car and nabbed our plastic bottles. Plastic is banned in Kodaikanal,  just like in Ooty and Tirumala!

2. I had a wild guess that the rattling sound must mean a rattle snake, since we were staying on a hill resort. God knows if I am correct or not.

3. GBee,  still in the mood to count the windmills, began counting bikes (since there are no windmills in Kodai) and his total reached to 172!

4. Interestingly,  one of the admins at the Kodai resort was named Palani!

5. The recent war atmosphere in India had an effect on me, so I could hardly write. That is the reason for my late post. #IndianArmy, #OperationSindoor.

Till the next post, cheerio!

Kochi to Palani

May 4, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Mr.Bee and I were celebrating 10 years of married life this April and we craved for a vacation.  We had many destinations in our list from heavyweight like Paris to desi islands of Andaman and Nicobar, but chose Kerala because our youngest just turned four and we wanted him to have a safe travel experience along with food for his extremely selective palate. Kerala it is!

Mr.Bee booked our flight tickets to Kochi for the last week of April. Driving a car in Kerala would have been a cheaper, better and scenic option but GBee is not a patient traveller.  He warned us early on that he hated travelling more than 2 hours in a car! He likes to reach destinations sooner and get into holiday mood, faster! (After our Maharastra tour fiasco, we were apprehensive about travelling in a car)

As our flights were booked and hotels reserved, Mr.Bee and I planned our travel itinerary, we had a rough idea of what we wanted to see and what not to miss at any costs.

DAY 1:

On the morning of Good Friday,  we boarded our flight to Kochi after filling up on the airport Pizza from Jamie Oliver’s Pizzeria, which was superlative, to say the least. We originally planned on checking-in to the executive lounge, but the serpentine line outside it scared us. We bought some snacks too at the Dadu’s counter as a last minute snack option for later in the evening at Kochi.

We said our hellos to the airhostesses and sat in our seats, me on the aisle seat with KBee occupying the window seat and GBee in the middle. Mr.Bee had the aisle seat across us.

I felt very cold in the flight and covered myself up with my scarf, while the kids were happily enjoying the view out of the windows.

Out of India or Outer Space!

For a moment our kids thought we were going out of India. I said no, then they decided we were just travelling to outer space for our vacation! Seriously though, vacation in outer space, who are we, Sunitha Williams and family?

As we were near our destination we had a little bit of turbulence and GBee decided we are going to crash! He was not scared, just excited that we are crashing, whatever that means! Thanks to the turbulence I changed the seats and let Mr.Bee sit with the kids and I had a quick nap.

Meanwhile Mr.Bee ordered Maggi noodles for the kids who were suddenly hungry and once their stomachs filled up, they became more excited, if that was possible! (noodles were too spicy for them, but have you ever heard of kids rejecting junk food?)

We landed at Kochi and KBee was worried that our 2 suitcases were not to be seen and that we only had one hand luggage! At the baggage claim, he found it interesting to get our luggage back on the conveyor belt.

After calling our cab driver, whom we booked for a week, we exited Kochi and were on the way to Palani, going from Kerala to Tamil Nadu.

Mr.Bee and the driver N were the only ones awake. I had a quick nap and the kids slept soundly in the back seat of the white Ertigo. Both had their heads in my lap and I was fresh as a daisy after my nap. Since it was Good Friday, the roads in Kerala were filled up with more than 500 Christians on road. While a few were enacting Jesus’s crucification others were singing songs and praying as they continued their procession, without any traffic interruptions.

We stopped at a snack point, where we had hot chai, which was mediocre and had some freshly made bajji. The mirch bajji was sweet and the plantain bajji was oily but eatable. Since both the kiddos had their heads on my lap, only Mr.Bee could get out of the car. I also asked him to buy us some banana chips and jack fruit chips, which turned out to be the best decision that day.

Jack fruits for sale at ‘Mollywood’ – the snack stop on highway

Our driver drove smoothly and even at high speed the car felt like it was fully under his control. We travelled in small village roads, short cut to Palani, that’s what N said as he took the route. The beautiful Kerala, the clean roads and the village atmosphere caught us off guard and Mr.Bee and I continued praising Kerala and it’s beauty. We already fell in love with Kerala 2 years ago, when we travelled to Wayanad.

After almost 4 hours of our drive, I decided to wake the kids up or they wouldn’t sleep at night! GBee was already complaining as soon as he woke up that we were still in the car and it was dark outside. I fed the kiddos the fresh chips and that shut them up. They began to enjoy the drive even though it was dark outside.

As soon as we entered Tamil Nadu, we found many windmills and counted them. That was the most fun we had that night. Soon, near Pollachi – Palani road, we saw thunder, lightning and rain. Inspite of all that, we kept counting windmills and at one point KBee shouted “I found a wind bill!” and all of us laughed.  Then little-little kiddo KBee reprimanded us for laughing at his mistake and shut us all up, effectively!

Just 3.9Km away from our destination Palani, we waited near the railway crossing for the train to pass. As I was looking around, to remember the moment as much as I can, I saw a huge ant hill, enough to hold a family of snakes!

We reached the temple town of Palani at 9:40 p.m, had difficulty finding our hotel Subham. After a good 15 min of confusion,  we finally reached the hotel. Kids had plain dosa and I had podi dosa for dinner and managed to drag our feet into bed.

Our day1 of vacation 2025, had come to an end!

P.S:

1. As soon as we reached Shamshabad Airport,  Hyderabad,  I saw PVP, son of late PM of India, who was travelling with his family.

Even GBee met one of his friends from school at the airport.  The said friend was flying to bangalore,  while we had earlier flight to Kochi.

2. As the car reached Pollachi – Palani road, GBee observed that the car was just gliding on the road, thanks to the rain. He said there was no need to drive the vehicle in rain! These little conversations bring me immense satisfaction and I try to understand a little about their psychology.

3. In Kerala, I found that people placed 1 foot high brass lights in the middle of the main doorway, probably to scare away any wild animals or reptiles, which are very common in villages.

Lights in Kerala village homes

4. The kids loved windmills and we enjoyed the drive from Kochi to Palani and the kids didn’t even ask me, “Are we there yet?”

 

Days of Leisure

October 12, 2023 / / 0 Comments

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!

Ooty to Coonoor and back!

July 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

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 Gardens and Factories!

June 26, 2023 / / 2 Comments

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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