Singapore

Hai to all my readers,

I had been in and out of hospital in June and had to take some time for myself. So, naturally, the blog took back seat. Now that I am up and about, I am getting my blog game-face on and back here.

Now for the actual post…..

What with lots happening in our lives, Mr.Bee, who has the most cortisol in our family, since he is the central pillar post, decided we need a long overdue vacation in September. (Both the kids have schools and all, but we decided to take a chance at going on vacation!)

Since Mr.Bee has always been a fan of Coorg like almost all software engineers, we charted our plans, made itinerary, jotted down the list and finalized our tour plan.

Day 1 :

We had Mr.Bee’s cousins visiting us and our house was buzzing with activity. We made some last minute additions to our luggage, went to my parents house to bid them farewell before our 11 day vacation.

Initially, the bus we were travelling was supposed to start at 9:30 p.m. at Kukatpally, Hyderabad. But, they called us at 7:30 p.m. to inform us to reach the stop at 8:30 p.m., as the departure has been pre-poned! (The sudden change in time meant we had little time for dinner!)

We got ready, made it on time and occupied our seats. Mr. Bee and KBee, I and GBee divided into teams of two. Thanks to the bus driver constantly reminding us of the existence of the break pedal, I felt nauseous! Mr.Bee bought me some mango candy and Kurkure at the first stop after boarding, to help me beat nausea, but it didn’t help me at all.

The only idea I came up with is to sleep and that subsided my nausea. (Since it was MIL’s birthday, we had biryani for dinner and that caused me nausea. Word of advice, eat atleast an hour before travelling and eat light!)

Before sleeping, KBee , GBee and I had played ATLAS game, which was like Antyakshari, except here we tell any nouns starting with last letter of a word. So if we start the game with ‘S’ as in (A-T-L-A-‘S’), a word like Singapore, the other player needs to think of a word with E (last letter of the word, Singapore), like an Elephant and so on.

Later, GBee and I chatted and played “country flag” game, where we guessed the flags of different countries.

We called it a night at 10 p.m. and slept.

Day 2 :

The next morning, at around 6 a.m. we reached the outskirts of Bangalore and GBee and I enjoyed looking out of the windows at the windmills, hills and the tiny towns, which were in the midst of nature. (The townsfolk don’t even know that some people like me are envious of them!)

By the time we reached our stop, at the Silk Board, it was already past 10:30 a.m.!

We reached R’s house, who is a close friend and colleague of Mr.Bee. He wondered why we had booked a bus service, which had been recently involved in a major fire accident! The bus driver was going slow for a reason, their service was under scrutiny, thanks to the fire accident and Mr.Bee had booked us in the same service, without any idea!

I should say I was actually worried about fire accidents in buses, but I refrained from sharing my concerns with Mr.Bee. Interestingly, I didn’t recall that the fire accident had been in the same bus service we were travelling in. If I had known, I wouldn’t have slept the whole night, like a scaredy cat!

Anyway, we had a hearty breakfast of idli sambar, had our baths, because it was nearly 11 a.m. and eating breakfast after bath seemed stupid.

We bade goodbye to R’s family, got into the taxi we had hired for the whole trip and started for Mysore.

P.S :

1. I admire the outskirts of Bangalore, with a tiny town, hills in the background and wind mills doing their job! It looked so beautiful that, it reinforced my desire to visit Mount Fuji, Japan. Once I visit Mt.Fuji, I can check it off my bucket list. (I checked off Australian Kangaroo in 2016, which had been in my list since my 10th grade.)

2. Although I admire the scenic beauty, I wonder how it would be to live in a scenic town.

3. I pity the Generation Alpha. Even when the scenery outside our bus window was exquisite, GBee wanted nothing to do with it. He kept demanding for the Samsung Tab, to play his Minecraft! (He got good many scoldings, so early in the morning)

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:

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!
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!
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.
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.
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.

Tag: Singapore

Start of a September vacation!

Ooty to Coonoor and back!

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