Ooty – “Queen of Hill Stations” ?
Ooty ( short for Ooctamund) and now given an unpronouncable and completely ignored Tamil name , is marketed as the “Queen of Hill Stations”. The setting 7,000 ft in the beautiful Nilgiri Hills is amazing and it boasts some very leafy prosperous looking areas. However any historic charm has long since disappeared The District Collector has maintained his impressive colonial office buildings in a style to which his British predecessors would have approved , and there a couple of interesting old churches. The town centre however is dominated by an ugly shopping complex , the usual chaotic traffic and is frankly dirty and scruffy. A particularly naff and garish Victorian fountain is the only historic structure in the centre of town. Ooty does possess a beautiful lake , unfortunately you cannot walk around it and has a predictably but nevertheless depressingly awful amusement park next to it.
I decided to spend 2 of my 3 days here on local sightseeing tours around the local countryside. Being bounced around the alarmingly steep and twisiting roads on a badly built “Swaraj Mazda” bus was an interesting experience. At one point we came across an overturned pick-up truck which we helped to right , thankfully the driver was only slightly injured - if it had tipped the other way he would have been several hundred feet down a ravine. The countryside was amazing , and the trips proved very good value at 200 Rs
