A holiday that cured my travel sickness!

Travelling and me, well we don’t go together! And it took five long years to convince myself that I should to widen my horizons, before I could go on holiday finally. From being accident prone to getting sick with motion sickness, I’ve had them all and you can’t really blame me for not travelling, as who wants to be sick on holiday? So, I decided to get over my phobia, but it was only after every living soul pestered me to do so!

One weekend, my sister and I packed our bags and left for Coonoor, a hill station in Tamil Nadu. We boarded our bus after a lot of planning and decided to take the precautions of avoiding buying water, food and we carried lots of medication. Twenty minutes through the journey half the people on the bus were snoring away to glory and the other half chit - chatting. The most amusing were two men around 24 years of age, who were sitting behind our seats, bragging about their girlfriends. Thanks to them I had a good bed time story and a good nap!

We got ready to sleep in our not so comfortable seats. The bus we took was till Udhaamangalam which is popularly known as Ooty. Surprisingly the journey was smooth and we reached our destination early next morning. As I got off the bus it was a relief to a Bangalore eye, to see greenery and breathe fresh air. Bangalore has become so polluted it’s a relief to get out for a few days. The journey wasn’t over and I kept reminding myself that we had another 20km drive to reach Coonoor.

We had to take the local bus from Ooty. The roads on the Ghats section are curvy and precipitous. But the scenic beauty makes up for all the pot holes and rash bus drivers. There were tall trees and green grass on either side of the road. The dew drops on the grass looked like little drops of heaven, which glimmered at day break. It took us more than an hour to reach our hotel. We chose to stay in Hotel Gateway which is on the Church Road among the other hotels.

Coonoor is a small town, with few houses and commercial shopping area. Most of the people work in the tea estates and have tiny retail shops. It’s a great place if you are looking for a serene vacation. The place itself is so beautiful that you can just go for a walk and feel good. There’s hardly any traffic, other than public transport. Most of the local people travel by foot.

Apart from this, the weather is an added bonus. The wintry breeze makes you want to wrap up every inch of your body. As the sun comes out at dawn the thick fog fades away leaving a tinge of mist in the air. The crest of green mountains looks like it’s wrapped with a clean white blanket. In the night the warmth of the fire place makes you want to snuggle up and snooze peacefully.

There are not many places to see in Coonoor other than few parks and tea estates.

Sims Park is one of the popular tourist attractions in Coonoor. It’s a huge park which appears as though it’s in a valley. A lot of steps need to be ascended and descended in order to see the entire park. We could see tall trees covering the entire area and a children’s play area occupied the hub of the park. Even though this is a tourist attraction which a lot of people visit, nothing could compare with the natural scenic beauty of the place.

People travel from Coonoor to Ooty back and forth as it’s just one hour drive. And a better way to travel is by the toy train, which are scheduled at regular intervals. These trains cost hardly anything to enjoy – just a meagre ticket of Rs.3 and they pass through some of the most scenic places of the Nilgiris. These trains are not only taken by tourists but also the local people and school children.

Ooty is comparatively more developed than Coonoor. It’s a popular tourist place and is commercialised to a great extent. The Botanical gardens, Doddabetta, Rose garden, Fernhill Palace are some of the popular places to visit in Ooty. The Botanical gardens is a must see in Ooty. It’s a 12-hectare garden with colourful flower beds, lawns, rare trees and exotic plants of different countries are found here.

Doddabetta is another famous tourist place. It is the highest hill in the Nilgiri hills. It is surrounded by forest reserves and the view from the hill is stunning which makes it a pleasant experience.

Ooty is also famous for yummy home made chocolates which are found in most of the shops. You can everything from plain milk chocolate to fruit and nut or liquor chocolates. The choice is yours.

A vacation is all about relaxation, being lazy and not worrying about waking up on time or being late. You can laze around the whole day if the company you are with has the same ideas as you. Sadly for me, it was the not the case. My sister woke up at 6am everyday, over enthusiastic, wanting to explore the place. So I went along the plan for two day, then we decided we better stick to our own plans and do our own things before we bite each other’s heads off. So she took off early and I couldn’t convince myself to get out of the cosy bed till 11am.

I would wake up, get ready and sit in the garden outside my room reading a novel, taking pictures of the mountains and birds, sipping a hot cup of tea..

We extended our stay for two more days not wanting to return to our regular lives. But finally we did leave promising to return in three months.

On the journey home, we decided to have some fun and adventure before coming back to our confined lives. So we cancelled our Volvo bus reservations and took a local bus to Mysore. The bus was jam-packed, and we sat crushed in between people. We passed through Bandipur on the way back, and I must say this was the best decision we made, though my sister wasn’t very happy about it.

We saw deer, peacocks, elephants, wild boars and orang-utans which completely ignored the anxious spectators and were busy doing their own thing. The only sad part being that we couldn’t capture those moments because the battery of the camera had given up on us.

The people on the bus were friendly but were very inquisitive to know why two girls were travelling alone and where we were from.

We reached Mysore by 8pm, tired and exhausted and couldn’t wait to get back home. So we took the Volvo bus from Mysore to Bangalore, which seemed like heaven after the rough journey earlier from Ooty back.

It took us just three hours to reach Bangalore in comfort. And sadly with this that was the end of our vacation, but, now having had a taste of travel, I will see that I do so every once in a while!