After a long long wait of 6 years, I finally decided to
visit my friend in
Coimbatore. So on 25
th Jan, after 3 months of
confining myself to the walls of home & office, I was finally traveling
again. I flew from Bangalore to Coimbatore. The next morning, we headed towards
the spiritual and yoga centre-
Isha Yoga. Isha Yoga is an extremely spiritual
place, surrounded by silence and Villiangiri hills . This center is built on a huge piece of land and so you have to take a long walk to the the actual "
Dhyanalinga". You are not allowed to wear slippers, no anklets that make sound, no
phones and no cameras. And so unfortunately I could not take any photos of the
place. Once you go inside the huge dome you can meditate in front of a mega sized Shiv Ling for a
minimum of 15 minutes or you can extend your meditation for as long as you
wish. You can also take a dip in the water if you wish to. It is extremely
spiritual and you feel refreshed after meditating in pin drop silence.
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The Dhyanalinga at Isha Yoga. Pic Courtesy:Google |
After this holy encounter, we decided to go to Siruvani
water falls. But on the way to the falls, we found a resort-
Dvara and decided
to have lunch there.
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The 'Dvars' of the rooms of the resort are also majestic! |
The location of the resort is stunning!
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Dvara Resort! |
So much natural beauty is almost non-existent Bangalore
(where I am currently put up).
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The entrance of the resort. |
However
the food was mediocre and there were very less options. The only starter
available was Pepper Chicken Dry. So we were forced to order it. Along with it
we ordered Chicken Biryani and Pepper Chicken gravy. The taste of the starter
and gravy was similar (obviously, since both were Pepper Chicken) and the
biryani was below average.
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Pepper Chicken Dry. |
However the courteousness of the staff and the
ambience of the resort made up for the food.
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Inside the restaurant of the resot! |
So after this, it was a bit late
for us to go up to the falls and hence we had to cancel our plans
(Disappointed).
We headed back home made plans to go to
Kotagiri and
Ooty
the next day and retired for the day.
Next day we left home at 6:45 and caught a bus to
Mettupalyam. From there we had a friend pick us up by car. We headed towards
Ooty. The road leading to Ooty is beautiful. With tea plantations on both sides
of the road and vision blurred by the fog, the journey was a very artistic one.
We stopped at several places to click some good-looking pictures.
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Blurred Vission |
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Tea Plantation workers plucking tea leaves. |
Next we made our way to
Pykara Boat house. The lake is much cleaner
than Ooty Lake and since the weather was chill, the boating experience was
extraordinary.
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Pykara Boat House |
To have lunch, as Pykara has a scarcity of good restaurants
we had to go back to Ooty. We lunched at
Quality restaurant. The quality of the
the restaurant Quality was above average. We had, corn soup, naans and chicken
fried rice with Methi Chicken.
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Corn Soup. |
With a full stomach, we left ooty for
Gudalur,
where my friend’s uncle resides. Gudalur was our resting place for the night.
And so we bided goodbye to ooty.
The Bigger Concern
Now let me throw some light on the
bigger concern. I
remember when I was a little girl, I would visit Ooty quite often. Probably
once a year or so. I remember very clearly how heavenly this place was. And now,
when I visit again after 8 years, it is becoming a dump yard. Garbage thrown
everywhere on the streets, men shamelessly peeing on the roadsides, people
spitting on the road right in front of where you are walking or standing and the most famous Ooty lake has got poison foam floating on it. These
are some of the things that is not only common to Ooty but to majority cities
and towns in India. But I noticed it to a very large extent in Ooty. And one
more very peculiar observation made is that majority of the people who litter
and make the place untidy are the locals and not tourists. If locals themselves
do not care for the cleanliness of their city/town it becomes hard for tourists to fall in love with the
place. Many tourists will dread the thought of going back to the place a few
years later. And eventually the tourism in that place will be dead.
Even research says that Ooty lake is the dirtiest lake in Tamil Nadu(
Ooty Lake). I am afraid that if protective measures are not taken immediately, this lake has the potential to become India's dirtiest lake. For places
like Ooty where the major revenue is tourism I feel that the government and
municipal bodies have to make sure that the town of Ooty is kept clean. Last
year, there was a cleanliness drive (
Check out this article) but yet people have not learned from these drives.They banned plastics a long
time ago, they should probably ban throwing garbage, peeing and spitting on the
roads. This is a serious cleanliness and health issue. What Ooty was, and what
it has become is really sad. This ban against throwing garbage, peeing and
spitting should not be specific to Ooty but the whole of India. As it is ladies
and young girls are scared to visit India because of innumerable eve teasing,
molestation, rape and murder cases. Let’s not deteriorate our tourism revenue
further. If each one pledges to keep their own city clean, this country will be
a much better place. This 2017, let’s all pledge to keep our surroundings clean
wherever we go and continue this pledge for all the years to come. Travel is just not a leisure and luxury, it is a responsibility. I urge you to be responsible travellers. And teach your children and their children the same. Let’s
promote a greener and cleaner India. Let the tourist spots and all the cities and towns in the
country sustain for the generations to see their beauty.
PROMOTE SUSTAINABLETOURISM!
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