Coonoor - Sights to See

The moment Coonoor is mentioned to any of the taxi drivers, it elicits the same response - 'Ah! Sims' Park' and a sage nod of the head. Like as if this entire town were built around just the one place of note that tourists can flock to. Tourists do flock to Sims' Park but there are plenty of other places to see in and around Coonoor.

Sims' Park on a sunny afternoon is like a slice of paradise tucked away in a forgotten corner. The sun tries vainly to break through the gloom of thousands of trees, some of them more than a century old, and light up the emerald lawns and sloping paths that make up about eight levels of this Victorian garden. Botanical specimens, duly labelled, from all corners of the Empire were brought in and laid out amidst this hollow around an ornamental lake, replete with pergolas, summerhouses and clipped hedges. We sat on the lawns and breathed in the fragrance of eucalyptus, pine and wintergreen while thousands of birds called and cooed far above us. A fruit show held here in May is the event of note and many tourists flock here to visit during that time.

Up ahead of Sims' Park, Lamb's Rock, Dolphin's Nose and Lady Canning's Seat are all noted view points and on a clear day, we can see a dizzying vista of smoky blue mountains, green valleys, winding roads right down to the sultry plains. Lady Catherine's Falls can also be seen cascading in milky white in the distance. The journey to these places (about 8-12 kms from Coonoor town) is just as enchanting - you pass through shola forests so thick that the sun cannot penetrate the thick cover of eucalyptus, oak and pine. Ferns and moss grow beside oozing rock that channel many a mountain stream that comes to sight unexpectedly round a bend. Birds like the red vented Himalayan bulbul or the canary flycatcher call and colorful flowers grow by the wayside. Manicured tea bushes grow on the slopes of the mountains as you keep climbing upward. The feeling of getting away from it all is very pronounced as each winding bend takes you to your destination.

I just wish the Government would pay a little more attention and make these places neater and easier to reach by repairing the roads more often.
At Dolphin's Nose, we bought tea grown in the nearby Singara and Adderley estates - rose tea, ginger tea, chocolate tea and broken Orange Pekoe. And eucalyptus oil, wintergreen oil, clove oil. Spices are found in abundance, thanks to the foresight of planters who often interspersed the tea bushes with spice trees, teak and pepper vines.

Needlecraft: On our way back from Dolphin's Nose, we stopped at Needlecraft, on the Singara Estate. Needlecraft is situated at a lovely vantage point at the truly beautiful Erin Villa- a tourist spot in itself. Erin Villa dates back to British times and is surrounded by a garden with a fountain and summerhouse. Quaint and so much a symbol of the Coonoor experience that you expect a roaring fire and chocolate cakes once you're inside the cool, dark interior. Exquisitely embroidered napkins, serviettes, bedsheets, bedspreads, pillowcovers, cushion covers and handkerchiefs in petit-point, cross-stitch, satin stitch and herring-bone are their forte. The prices are steep however , with a pair of pillowcases costing Rs 280/- , but for a good cause as the lady who owns the place tells us. The money goes towards supporting convents - so I guess that's fine.
Outside Sims' Park is the Pomological Station- where research on fruits is conducted along with growing of hybrids and Pasteur's Institute - only one of two in all of India, that manufactures anti-rabies vaccine. You can purchase nutmeg jelly, pear jam , strawberry jelly or loquat jelly - to name just a few, at the Pomological Station.

Coonoor - Misty Blue Mountains

Coonoor is a rather sleepy tea town - at least , that's what the usual description of this small town nestled in the Nilgiri mountains says. To me, it wasn't sleepy at all. As a child, there was always so much to do and discover. I traipsed around the place without let or hindrance, much to my mother's disapproval of my skinned knees and windblown hair. I climbed grassy hill sides, ate berries, plucked ferns, played with friendly calves or goats and went flower-picking with my friends. Coonoor was a safe place then and thirty years later, it doesn't seem to have changed in that respect. But lower Coonoor has gotten more crowded and jaded, the traffic has increased manifold and where once, a gentle quiet reigned, the raucous honking of cars fills the air.
Upper Coonoor hasn't changed very much, thank God! Both St. Joseph's Anglo-Indian Convent for Girls and Stanes High School are still the same. The familiar sights of the chapel and nuns' living quarters at the first and the logo of 'Nisi Dominus Frustra' at the other were welcome to my eyes. The principal's cottage where we once stole strawberries from, was shut but evoked many memories - rotund Mr. Wood and his beautiful daughter Anne, his fat Labrador, Simba, basking in the sun. Funny how childhood impressions are so strong!
The Ritz Hotel is now Velan Ritz and wears a tired look. Its signature stuffed bison is gone - I hope to a far gentler place than on earth. The Raja of Chettinad's summer dwelling is still shrouded in royal mystery behind forbidding gates. The green expanse of the Golf Links glitters in the afternoon sunshine just as it did thirty years ago. Wellington's Defence College is still a stern off-limits place. How can a town stand still in time and yet change so much in other respects? It was undiluted pleasure for me and my family to see that the ghat roads still gave on the most incredible views. The roads were bad in parts but motorable. The road repair gangs fight an eternal battle against the incessant rain that turns many roads into slush and gravel. But once you grit your teeth through that ordeal, journey's end can be a heart-lifting panorama of valleys and blue peaks shrouded in the shola forests with microscopic roads winding through them.
And the names! Exotic, decadently Victorian names. Hill View, Orange Grove, Clovelly, Llanelly, Pleasant View, Glendale, Wallwood Garden, Hampton Court, Quail Hill, Figure-of-Eight Road. If it wasn't for the steady hum of Tamil and Malayalam all around you, you would think that you were back in the Raj and even now, a sola-topee clad English officer will ride out from the hidden bend in the road. I know that as a patriotic Indian I shouldn't say this - but I have to give those long-forgotten, intrepid Englishmen their due. They persevered in a strange land far from home and laid roads, railways, gardens and churches that even today give Coonoor its unique flavour. God bless their memory!
Next post - Places to See!

Summer trip to the Hills

I'm just back (very reluctantly, I may add!) from a short vacation in the Nilgiris. I was brought up there as a child and haven't visited since my father's passing away. So, in many ways, this was a trip down memory lane. I love the mountains and their sense of isolation- with each hairpin bend that you cross, you can feel the human trappings peel away - layer by layer. All the dust, the noise, the frenetic pace seems to fall behind in the face of those stone massifs, which stare back at you impassively as they seem to mock our mere human existence. The birds and monkeys , the abundant and verdant foliage - it's like a different world. Mountain streams are a-plenty, a wondrous sight to watch as they cascade over weathered rock like silver.
Well, we stayed at Coonoor because from experience, I knew that Ooty would be more crowded with tourists. Tourists are a big no-no for my family - all of us love solitude and a leisurely, laid-back holiday away from the swarming hordes.
The place we stayed in, Hillworth Resorts, was a big surprise - a brand-new offering from the MGM family with about 10 suites done up in the decor of the bygone days of the British Raj. A four poster bed that needed steps to climb up on to it was a delight - as were the spotless furniture and bathrooms. Vintage newspaper cuttings encased in glass added a quaint touch to the walls.
The view was to die for - just a vista of trees and blue, misty hills over which a golden sun would come creeping up to catch us in its rays. We had breakfasts in the brilliantly sun-lit restaurant with bulbuls and magpies serenading us in fluting song, while a small brook rushed on madly below us downhill, burbling and splashing. A very attentive and helpful staff made it a very memorable stay.
We had an Indica with a driver engaged for the entire stay and that made things very simple. Any time the urge to sight-see came on, we just hopped in and went.
More on Coonoor later!