While shuffling through photos I had taken during my various trips over the years, I bumped upon some old images from the first trip I did soon after I moved to Bangalore.

Though these photos are nothing great if we talk about ‘quality’ but photos, according to me, are more about ‘taking us back to the moment‘ when they were taken and less about the ‘quality’ or anything else?

Aren’t they?

Best Places To See In Ooty And Around

Let me share some of my memories I have with this trip. Memories of leaving for a long ride for the first time on my newly purchased motor-cycle, memories of riding through the narrow roads of the Bandipur and then the Mudumalai national parks, memories of taking on the hairpin bends of the Nilgiris one at a time and thinking, what if there was an elephant or a tiger across one of the ‘hairpins’!!

This being my first-ever trip which I did on my own, will always be special. I say ‘on my own’ because unlike all the previous trips I had been on, this trip to the small hill-station of Ooty was all planned and executed by me and with no help from anyone else (however insignificant it seems now but for a first-timer back then it was quite big a thing).

When I left home for Ooty, there was no ‘plan’ as such apart from wanting to ‘see’ Ooty and some places around it. As it turned out, I ended up seeing and enjoying way more than I had expected.

Staying in Ooty was not a smart decision which I soon realized when I headed towards its smaller but more beautiful and cleaner cousin, Conoor.

Visit to the Kodanad region with its green tea-plantations spread to as far as the eyes could see was nothing less than magical. The beauty of narrow winding roads gradually ascending up the hills, descending and then ascending again, with beautiful tea-plantations on both sides was something to soak in.

Being someone who was born and brought-up in tea-gardens, I have always been in love with the beauty and the feel of being in a tea-garden. You can just sit by a slope and soak-in the beautiful greenery for hours and hours.

Before heading to the beautifully green Kodanad, I also paid a customary visit to the Doddabetta peak which is a very crowded and touristy place, more so, the ‘telescope house’ which houses a telescope and people bother to join a Que just to look at the town below through the scratched glasses of the telescope. In the entire trip, this was one place I think I should not have visited. Totally not worth it.

The ride to the peak was beautiful though.

The ‘view’ from Dodabetta was fine as well.

Does this trip of mine bring back memories of that first trip you took? Why not share it with everybody, it would be great to hear about good old memories and experience.