A little piece of heaven on Earth

I returned from office on Friday evening. We had to travel to Coimbatore this night as my hubby’s friend house ceremony was there on Sunday. I was like quite fed up with traveling to places for attending functions. But …. This time it was quite interesting, because my hubby told me that we are going for a small trip to Ooty. As Ooty was a place where I have already visited, even though I think it was a good break from work, Bangalore traffic and horrible summer. Soo I was very excited.
We reached Coimbatore in the early morning got fresh and booked a car to ooty. As we had already visited ooty, my hubby’s friend told us to visit Kotagiri. As expected it was a quite moderate climate in ooty. We just visited few places in ooty and later extended our journey to Kotagiri.
Kotagiri is a little village which is about 29km from ooty. Kotagiri is the oldest one of the three hill stations in the Nilgiris. It is not as popular as the other two, Ooty and Coonoor, yet I heard that it probably has the most pleasant weather among the three of them.

It was a beautiful woody path, freshly rain kissed with the smell of pine wafting through. A couple of wild monkeys pranced around. Click click clicky click I went with my camera. Drive from Ooty to Kotagiri, a tonic for eyes, scenic ride. It was drizzling, so we stopped our car to take pictures of the breathtaking beauty. As we dint expect rain in ooty we dint carried any raincoats or umbrella. It was fun getting wet in the fresh, cold rain. I rain danced and my hubby pulled me way back to the car. :0) It was raining soo heavily that even the driver was not able to view the roads. By the time we reached our guest house it was around 7:30pm. I just got out from the car and I guess it was below 15degrees. There was a nip in the air and clean, fresh, oxygen going through my lungs. What bliss that we miss in our crowded and polluted dirty cities. I already felt my skin glow, mind alert and senses at their best! ;-).

We entered the guest house and they invited us with a hot green tea. I sipped the tea, it was aromatic and soothing and I couldn’t help imagine that it must have been freshly plucked and dried from the vast nilgiri gardens outside. Highfield Estate is where we stayed, in the midst of tea gardens, inter-spaced with graceful silver oak trees. After a home cooked hearty lunch made and served lovingly by our guesthouse cook.
I heard some bird sounds, opened my eyes and went to the window to slide the screens. Wow this is amazing, blue mountains and full of tea estate surrounding us. Got fresh and got ready to take a walk in the tea estate. The tea plantation had tea as far as the eye could see!!! There were hills and hills of tea. If we would walk to the top of one hill, we would look out and see more hills of tea. It was one of the most beautiful views. It is surely an experience to behold!

Resort which we stayed in kotagiri. Website: http://www.grimmsvillaresorts.com/

Gufaa Restaurant @ Jayanagar

Planning for a nice dinner in a not so common ambience??? Then, welcome to Gufaa. Placed in a nicely lit building at Jayanagar. But be ready to give out a shriek, the moment you plan to get out of the lift. There are special people ready to welcome you, a caveman holding a lantern & a snake hanging from the roof top. :-P All the lights you saw so far are gone, all that is in front of you is a cave like structure!!! Scared!!!??? You will also see some roots of trees.

Think of having dinner amidst hanging snakes, spiders, webs, creaking birds... Belive me, its going to be an interesting experience & worry not, all this setup is artificial :-)

The moment you enter this cave, you find waiters in the uniform of forest officials dressed like 'Shikari Shambu' (people who read Tinkle know him) and the means they follow to move around this cave brings out lots of childhood memories, yes they use fireworks :o) The menu has a good variety of North Indian cuisine & they are quite good too. Though its at the higher end when it comes to price, I was surprised to see the hotel always housefull. You need to plan atleast a day before and get the booking confirmation.

Another interesting thing to watch here are the kids, I had thought, kids might get frightened, but they were very happy looking at the spiders, small artificial falls & other stuff... A Bangalore bred kid really misses the real ones. They were happily running around the entire cave & a few hotel crew happily joined the kids

The major let down for me was, there is no distinction beween the smoking/non-smoking regions or the drinking & non-drinking regions. So you need to be a bit tolerant to ignore what your next table guy is doing & enjoy the evening.

Be sure to take the chooze (if you are a non vegeterian), stuffed full mushrroms, some stuffed pomgranate starter and the dry fruit rotis. Be sure to savour the evening slowly & peacefully. Don't worry, the curries won't loose their heat, as they put little burners on your table to keep the curries hot till you finish. :o)

The location is Jayanagar 3rd Block, near the ICICI Bank.