The Masinagudi Travelogue
The climb towards Ooty from Metupalayam was absolutely picturesque. Out destination was Masinagudi, a forest on the foothills of Ooty. Just that we had to climb to Coonoor, Ooty and then climb down to reach Masinagudi.
There were some quaint little houses on the way. But as we neared Ooty, we realised the extent of commercialization and how the place is getting raped.
Vegetation and farming on the hill side offered some excellent views
When we landed at the jungle resort, we were welcomed with garlands and fruit baskets. Ofcourse, they charged separately for all this! 🙂
The resort dog was friendly. It had a peculiar name. “Soda”. Why? Because, it’s mother was called “Whisky”. We wondered if Soda’s kid would be called “Pickle”. That would complement the family pedigree! 🙂
We went on a night time Jeep safari. There are jeep operators who take out visitors to places where the elephants come out at night. The task is made very easy for the jeep drivers as the elephants usually come out to the road sides. They don’t have to venture into the forest. All they need to do is drive along certain roads and watch them at the road sides. We went in many jeeps and we split ourselves in various directions. My team was unlucky and didn’t spot the elephants. We did however catch wild boars, a la , Obliex. The other teams were lucky to spot many herds.
The night ended with booze and singing around the bonfire.
The next day morning we headed out on a trek to climb to the peak of this hill.
It wasn’t very difficult. The place was more shruby than with dense trees.
We spotted many places where the elephants usually would frequent. You can take a wild guess as to when the last time elephant was there by the dryness of their dung.
This Kurumba tribal heard our voices and came rushing thru the foliage to find out. He warned us that the wild elephants can be pretty ferocious when disturbed and warned us that it can get pretty dangerous. Just a few months earlier, in two separate incidents, an old man and a foreign lady were maulded to death. The lady, apparently, was trampled and shredded to pieces. He offered us to walk with us until we reached the resort.
On the way, he took us to a place where he saw a king cobra swollowing a bird. When we reached the spot, the reptile had nearly swallowed half the bird. But when it sensed us coming, it left out the bird and slithered away.
Here’s the half swallowed bird. You can still see the saliva of the snake glisten on the bird.
On the way back from Masinagudi to Ooty, one of our vans had a snag. While the driver was fixing it, a few of us decided to trek towards Ooty. It was an awesome experience.
We saw some fantastic colonial houses. There weren’t too many of them but those that existed were magnificient.
Mercifully, some of these monstrous trees had been spared. These trees must be close to century old.
We ended the journey after buying lots of homemade chocolates. Personally, I totally loved the taste on the homemade chocs. Anytime better than the factory made cadburys.