It was our first Anniversary and the idea was to ride out of the city. Was hard to convince my parents as we decided to ride (not drive :D) finally they agreed with a big speech. This was Chetu's first long ride so we decided to stay a day in Mysore so that she will not get strained out in the first day of the trip.
Route Plan: Bangalore - Mysore - Ooty
Day 1: Plan for the day was to leave early, visit
Srirangapatna and reach Mysore, in the evening visit the palace.
Could leave only by 7:30 AM and encountered traffic on Mysore road quite often. With one breakfast stop at Shivalli MTR reached
Srirangapatna. Headed towards
Ranganathaswamy temple, it was too crowded but still decided to go in. The temple is well maintained inside.
Some pics.
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| History of Ranganathaswamy Temple |
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| Temple Entrance Crowded |
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| Inside Temple |
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| Inside Temple |
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| Loooong Queue |
Right next to the temple Colonel Bailey's Dungeon, where Tipu held the British Prisoners. Few pics.
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| About Colonel Bailey's Dungeon |
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| Top View |
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| Where the prisoners were chained |
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| Like this :D |
We headed towards Gumbuz but we were lost and exited the town, we thought we will visit on our way back as it was too hot. Few pics on our way out of the town.
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| This is where Tipu was found dead | | | |
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| Way Out |
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We reached Mysore around 2 PM, had lunch and checked into the service apartment we had booked. Rested for a while watching TV and around 6:00 PM left to Palace, as it was Sunday, the Palace was lighted up. Reached Palace around 6:50 PM.
As soon as the lights were switched on there was a big roar from the crowd,indeed it looked beautiful.
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| Crowded Entrance |
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| Royal Pigeons staying in Palace :D |
Headed back to the apartment but got lost very soon :D After lot of rights and lefts reached the place where we had our lunch, had the dinner at the same place and headed towards the apartment which was very nearby.
Mysore is indeed as beautiful city, if opportunity arises will surely shift to Mysore :)
Day 2: We left around 7 AM and in no time we were out of Mysore and we headed towards Nanjangudu. We stopped there for 30 mins. Few pics.
We headed back to the Gundalpet route, with one stop in Gundalpet for breakfast we continued towards ooty.
We entered the Bandipur forest range and we saw few deers.
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| Beautiful roads |
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| Narrow lonely roads |
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| Deers spotted |
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| Spot the deer |
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Once we reach Bandipur Theppakadu junction, there are two routes to reach Ooty.
One via Masinagudi , which is shorter but with steep climb and
hairpin bends (36 of them) . The other is via Gudalur, the regular bus
route to Ooty, which is longer but scenic.
We
had decided we take the Shorter route while going, I was very excited
because of the 36 hair pin bends and obviously Chetu was a bit tensed
when we started but she started enjoying once we crossed the first 10
bends.
As we passed through the Madumalia forest we were lucky enough to see some elephants (from some distance ;-) ).
It was a awesome feeling to pass through the forest at slow speed, the breeze, silence was great.
And the 36 hair pin road starts..
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| Start |
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| Some where in between. Turn 16/36 |
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| Last turn :) |
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As we neared Ooty, the temperature had dropped and the weather was awesome.
It was around 12:15 when we reached the resort we had booked. (
Shrelock)
The property was very good, we finished our lunch and roam around in the Ooty city and came back before it was dark.
The next day on our First Anniversary, we visited the lake,
Went on toy train to Connor, the fare was very cheap.
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| Waiting for the train |
We met a couple on the train with there cute kid who were from Chennai, we visited most of the places with them in Connor
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| Sims park |
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| Cute Kid |
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| Sims Park |
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| Enroute to Dolphins Nose |
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| Dolphins Nose |
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New friends left after we visited Coonoor
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We took bus ride back to ooty from Coonoor, did some shopping in Ooty and were back by 7.
The hotels guys arranged for a candle night dinner for us which was very special.
We checked out the next morning after a heavy breakfast and headed toward Bangalore, we had few places in mind to visit.
Located 5 kms outside Ooty, a very nice property, best part is the food, even though a bit expensive but everything was so perfect. They had three cooks who prepared different cuisines. They were growing all the vegetables next to there property. I would recommend it. The hotel is managed by
Little Earth.
On our way back, we visited some places and we reached Bangalore by 6 PM. Over all it was a great trip,
