"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."
Confucius
"Certainly travel is more than the seeing of sights;"
Mary Ritter Beard
And I could not have agreed more to these sayings. During each of our travels, I have accumulated memories of places, people and things; memories that keep coming back again and again and leaves beautiful sensations in my mind. We keep planning our short trips with passion, eagerness and a lot of love. This time was no exception.
Our short and sweet trip to the Nilgiris was something I had been looking forward to after a whirlwind six weeks of engaging and hectic class schedules. In between those, we selected a few places around Bangalore. After a flurry of emails and telephone calls, we managed to zero in on this utterly gorgeous place near Ooty. And then came the waiting time. The interest kept building up in all those days of waiting for the D Day! The travel time as estimated went for a toss as we were not aware of the road widening that was happening on the Mysore Ooty highway. It took us more time than we had thought of. It was quite a hinderance to the otherwise smooth drive. But the fact of taking in the crisp mountain air very soon kept us going. We both have a love for mountains and forests, some strange inexplicable emotion connected to these. We drove through the forests of Bandipur and then Mudumalai. The road took us through the sound of the crickets and chirping of birds,through herd of deer and troop of monkeys. The occasional rains have been washing the leaves clean making them glisten in their coats of green. It was a beautiful sight. We have driven on this road many times before and each time has been enjoyable. On reaching Masinagudi, we decided to save time and take the shorter route to Ooty. This route has its own charm:-). It has 36 hairpin bends, a little tricky to negotiate but absolutely gorgeous view. So off we started our climb uphill passing by thick forests, deep gorges, pretty flowers dotting the mountains and several breathtaking view points! The wild mountains this time had a lot of colours on them; the reddish and greenish leaves looked like autumn leaves. All along my heart sang a happy song and my eyes danced to the play of clouds against the blue mountains. Tiny hamlets dotted the mountain trail. Colourful homes of the mountain people looked like a pretty postcard. I have always felt that we live in a beautiful country! The sentiments and emotions surge whenever we travel. There is so much variety. Incredible India, indeed!
Ooty town, of course, does not inspire or attract us! We find it extremely commercial and over the years it has become crowded. But the serenity of the mountains can be experienced the moment we leave the town behind us. By now, we could feel the crisp cool mountain breeze! The ferns springing up from the mountain side, the wisps of smoke from the pretty houses along the mountains,curling up into the sky, the pristine lakes dotting the landscape; what an absolutely charming picture this made! These were not mere sights to us; they made us philosophical and wonder at the marvels of nature............
The Destiny itself was a stunning place! Adorned with rolling green meadows, farmland, dainty cottages and a placid lake! Does it conjure up a delightful picture? :-D..... It was no less than a real picture, one from the pages of those glossies.... One from those travel magazines.....so gorgeously beautiful it was! I am certainly falling short of words to describe the place! One needs to be there to experience the beauty! The view from our room was too, too pretty for words! Something like my painting while I was in primary school! A lake in between the mountains, the trees so green, the tiny colourful flowers dotting the green grass, the birds flying all across the skies, the smoke curling up from the chimneys of the hillside hamlets; well, well....I am running out of words now! Our Moby Dick was a beautiful one, too! All I did there was read, take long walks, pamper myself in the in house spa and watch the lake and the rain:-)... C'est la vie......:-) what more did I need! I forgot to count calories as I gorged on those delicious dishes, the homemade chocolates and what not!
Overall, it was a beautiful holiday. It left me craving for more :-)... Greedy me! So now it is time to start planning for the next one; one more of those beauties up in line.
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| The mountain side was dotted with tiny pretty flowers; nameless to me but what a pretty picture they made with their simple unassuming beauty! And those ferns were so very pretty! |
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| And here is another peek at them! I had to stop on our way down to click a picture of them :-) |
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| The view from our deck was mesmerizing! |
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| Another one while it rained in the evening! The beds of cabbages soaked in as much as they could, glistening and shining! |
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| A favourite of mine :-)... What isn't there here! The blue and the white and the green and the purple..... |
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| Those rainy evenings............ |
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| Our room, Moby Dick :-) |
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| Another view...loved the warm colours and the earthy tones....... |
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| Half open, half closed but the most perfect view........ |
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| The tripod stood there, all of those days......probably enjoyed all those pretty captures! |
