Club Mahindra Danish Villa Ooty

after Munnar, our next satisfactory visit to club mahindra resort was ooty. since many people had given me bad feedback about ooty that the place has got very much commercialized etc, so I wasn't expecting much. Since it is near to bangalore, anyway, it was no pain to go once. However, we had a far better experience and I should say it was so primarily because of club mahindra resort.

we reached very early in the morning and since it was a weekend and check in time is in the noon, I thought we may have to wait for getting the room. but luckily, we got the room immediately. the resort is a small one but good enough location and very well maintained. it doesn't boast of a lot of amenities though. till now we had got used to club mahindra service and this resort was also second to none. every interaction with the staff there was pleasant. the food was again very good and i realised it must have required some effort on their part to maintain food quality in all locations once we had a lunch outside the resort in what seemed to be a fairly good restaurant. ruchi also tried donkey riding like a horse.:-)

there was a bonfire organized by the resort activity staff and I must say they are pretty good at it. the games were very original and the enthusiasm of the anchor was infectious. I still remember the way he danced, not a perfect one but just the spirit of it.

we hired a taxi for the sightseeing around ooty and luckily again, we had a driver cum guide who not only took around all the places but also helped us take snaps on strategic locales. many of the places r popular because some film was shot there. in ooty, at many places people keep a tiger look alike with which you can take a photo for a nominal fee. the first time when we suddenly saw it, our legs just freezed thinking it is real tiger.

there was a very good waterfall, pykara. it's not very high but broad enough and the time we went (in feb) there was lot of water. we hired a guide who took us downstream to a beautiful spot where we tried to take a snap titanic style.

again we had good luck because one other visitor in the resort told us that they had returned from the fall just after seeing from the top. there is a botanical garden in ooty where many plant shapes were formed. also there is a tree which is very commonly found there having lamp shade type leaves. also tried gokarting and while trying to scare ruchi, I failed to control on a turn and got scared myself.:-(

many people had told us conoor is better than ooty, probably because of tea gardens. but since we had visited munnar already we didn't find conoor that good. went via nilgiri toy train. had an interesting incident. at the ticket counter, first class tickets were double the price of general class. we thought to try first class since this is anyway first and last time we r going by this train. still we asked the guy at counter what is special in first class. he said very enthusiastically, "u must see it urself." his tone set our expectations eventually to be disappointed since the only difference was that first class seats were like normal sleeper births while general class seats were like general seats. in conoor, we went till the highest point in nilgiri and on the way, ruchi got a snap plucking tea leaves in a labour get up.

after tasting the food outside once, we didn't want to try it again so had lunch only in the resort. had got late and there was noone else so waiters arranged the whole buffet on our table only. and we did try to finish that justifying their attention given to us and not caring the burden our stomach will carry afterwards.

since our bus was in the evening, the lady at the reception was kind enough to give a room for sometime to refresh. and then back to bangalore..