Unwinding in Ooty
This time last year, on the run from Bangalore’s summer heat (yes, it’s a thing now, courtesy of climate change?), I impulsively found myself in Ooty. It’s a short overnight bus ride. The upper seats have wide windows, perfect for watching the sleeping towns we pass by. I sleep sitting up, earbuds in, melodic orchestral versions of Above and Beyond and the full moon following me across the highway. We cross Conoor by sunrise, steadily climbing up the forested slopes of the Nilgiris.
Ooty is a tiny town, and the bus depot, train station and taxi stand are all together in a noisy mish-mash at the center. The hostel (one of several located within 5 kilometres of the town center), is tucked away into the hillside. A small suitcase and a backpack is all I have, so I walk. The air is pleasantly cool even though it’s the end of April, well into summer. Nestled higher up, the quaint hostel with blue eaves and white walls overlooks the town.
After tinkering around with code for a few hours (this is a workcation!), I set off on a walk to the lake. A tourist spot, it has a built out deck with sections for boating, fair rides, and a cute tea cafe.
- Admire the tree-lined streets on the way to the lake.
- Even better if you munch on chocolates on the way! (There are some shops along the way but the best one is KingStar chocolates in town)
- Bonus points if you share them with someone :) I took a break at an abandoned wall overlooking the water and met a mother picking up her 5 year old from school.
The lake is noisy, especially around sunset. Slightly desperate to escape the crowd, I find a quieter gate towards the left, and I’m awed because it’s home to literally the tallest, oldest and most sentient eucalyptus trees I’ve ever seen.
Wander: Roots, their giant feet straining against the ground. Trees growing on top of trees, conjoined or breaking apart. Trees, their barks, their scars. The dusting of moss, the flaking of their skin.
City trees, usually new or transplanted, to accommodate ‘development and progress’ seem far younger than their ancient, majestic Nilgiri counterparts. For scale, the image contains a bench for humans to sit on, we could comfortably sit on their roots instead. The eucalyptus plantation I’d grown up with across a boundary wall back home, pencil-thin barks that danced and swayed in the summer storms, were just children. I could sit for hours beside these, listening to their stories.
Fun fact: a contrast of scents, the Nilgiris species is crisp, overpowering and camphor-like while the Bangalore’s eucalyptus species carries a more earthy aroma.
Further down, the tiled path turns to a dusty trail which once went all the way around the lake. The pandemic reclaimed it, and it’s overgrown with shrubbery and vines. I leave it to the dusk and crickets.
Discover: Walk nearly 10 km in a day without reaching your destination
The next day, I wander into the town. Signboards of Charring Cross, rock gardens with faeries and trolls, the century old Higginbothams bookshop tucked away under stone walls and sloping roofs, it could almost take you back in time. Reality kicks in, and you notice the bookshop is actually below two fast food chains, while Charring Cross is not cobblestoned and is a mess of cars and people and no footpaths. Oh well. I did discover a thriving market runs parallel to the original Commercial Road, and any of the staircases branching off can take you into Upper Bazaar — try the famous Ooty carrots — they’re twice as delicious!
Step 1: Take a short cut that leads nowhere — My destination is the Botanical garden today, but I choose a short cut, based on intuition and not maps (yes, I’ll take a bow). It winds up a hill, past countless cottages and houses belonging to the last century, through a busy school, and across the grounds of a newly painted church (Sacred Heart cathedral), the quarters behind it fallen to disrepair. I reach the top of the trail, it’s a dead-end, but the air is clean and delicious up here, with a wonderful view of the pines on the opposite hill. I feel like Anne of Green Gables as I sit a moment too long, dreaming. By the time I’m on my way again, the weather’s gloomy so I skip the garden, hoping to reach the hostel before the rains.
Step 2: Lose your way again — I’m halfway back, the sky has cleared, and I’m feeling silly because I do have enough time but now I’m too far in the wrong direction. I’m actually right next to a YWCA, and a board for a chocolate museum. I mumble something about enquiring for a room and I’m enthusiastically directed to a steep road, up to the reception. A few steps inside and I’m spellbound, the short walk up the hill stretches to an hour, because I’m convinced I’ve stepped into a book. It’s full of cottages, stone walls with overgrown ivy, birdhouses and patches of wildflowers (my favourites — white with violet centers) in messy gardens, and bunches of dandelions at every corner. I’ve left the town behind and found myself in a Jane Austen scene (Pride & Prejudice ❤) ^.^
Step 3: Third time’s the charm — I have just enough time to reach the hostel’s vantage point for sunset, but I decide to take another shortcut, this time using maps (spoiler alert: maps was just as wrong as my intuition). I climb up towards Elk Hill, and the views are gorgeous until I reach the last house at the top of the hill and notice the blue roof of my hostel is on the opposite slope, with no way to get there. The only solace is that the town is indeed at the center and all paths downwards eventually take you back. I put in another couple of thousand steps, this time through the steep staircases cut into the hillside, an alternative to roads in these mountainous towns. The sun sets amidst stormy grey clouds, and I stick to maps uneventfully the rest of the way.
Over dinner, I’ve made friends with a girl who sings to plants, travels with her heart wide open and whispers to the future. So today I’ve given up on work, and we head up to Avalanche Lake together, weaving through hills and stories...of other mountains and adventures, and just like that, Spiti is added to my travel list, and the twin Tarsar-Marsar lakes of Kashmir to hers. We learn that Ooty grows more vegetables than tea, and I find my LinkedIn picture at a sunny view point ☀️. The lake is beyond a grove of trees, more mud than water in the summer, and is vast in terms of length if not volume. According to geology, the interesting dendritic shape of the Avalanche lake is due to it origin as a landslide lake in the 1800s (Lakes And Its Types — Geography Notes (prepp.in)). Other nearby lakes, such as the Emerald Lake/Dam also share the same shape. If you opt in for the jeep ride, you can walk up a trail to a vantage point, and see the forests of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu meet. Don’t miss the tiny waterfall on the way!
Explore: Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop. ~ Jo Walton
Ooty only gets more story-like when she introduces me to Willy’s Coffee Pub, a library and coffee shop. It’s stuck in time, even as the town grows grittier and busier around it. Schoolchildren fill up the cafe on weekends, but today only a couple of teenagers are catching up over a cup of a coffee and the occasional tourist wanders in; some linger, settling into the landscape, while others hurry off after a quick bite. Mrs Vijaya painstakingly organizes each shelf, straightening the spines, and tells me she loves seeing the books fly out to the reader when she arranges it just so. I find a section dedicated to a mysterious cat. Another to thrillers. I finally settle on a stack of childhood favourites, nostalgia brewing. The food and coffee is simple and delicious, right out of an Enid Blyton book. Clouds obscure the pines in the distance and the lampposts twinkle on as the town winds down beneath me, from my cosy spot in the chilly balcony. I walk back through misty streets, and around some corners I brush against threads of stories, waiting to be dreamt up.
Thank you for reading and happy adventures! I hope I’ll continue this 😄 because in the second half of the week I went on a hike through pine forests and old bridges with the best people to Lovedale station, made a friend at the local race who introduced me to the Ooty’s delicious tea-time snack Varki, and took too many pictures of my favourite book (if you have questions — yes I carried the hardcover along with me from home, no I don’t know why my brain is like this either) at a breakfast place on a hill surrounded by very climbable trees and a gorgeous old-fashioned homestay.
📍 Locations
List of spots — https://goo.gl/maps/3sF29bb6vWzYChVZ7
(Ooty Bus Depot, Zostel Ooty, Charring Cross, Higginbothams Bookshop, Ooty Lake, YWCA, Chocostory Chocolate Museum, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Botanical Garden, Avalanche Lake, Willy’s Coffee Pub, Smyrna Guesthouse, Yellow Door Cafe, Lovedale Station)
Around Ooty: A Route Map
(https://maps.app.goo.gl/ffbRuZ6sSNVvTojP6?g_st=iw)
Ooty to Lovedale (via the woods and Yellow Door Cafe): A Route Map
(https://maps.app.goo.gl/S8idqPqE6enKafny8?g_st=iw)
Read more
Nomadic Notes: A Slow Traveler’s Tale | by Srishti Mishra | May, 2023 | Medium
