Coonoor Trip

Dear Friends,

Today I got time to continue where I left off about our family trip to Ooty and Coonoor trip some years back.

Needless to say this was also a wonderfully calm and beautiful place with greenery all round.

It was early morning when we had taken the taxi to reach Ooty. Coonoor comes first on the way. While going up those hills we could see students standing in the morning assembly and singing some prayers. Schools were visible from the roads. There are many residential schools this these two places.

Flowers on the roadside were so attractive that I had to control my urge to stop the car and pluck them all!

Jackfruit and other fruit bearing trees grew wild in the valleys and there were lots of monkeys and elephants feeding freely from nature's bounty.

We came to see Coonoor from our hotel in Ooty later.
We saw the Pastuer's Institute and spent time there. Then it was the Sim's Park across the road.

This park has a lot of rare and aging trees brought and planted by Sims centuries ago.

As usual we enjoyed walking in the garden. When we came out I wanted to buy some of those squashes and jams made by the cottage industry run by the government. The counter had items listed but there was not a single soul inside the cabin to sell! We kept waiting for someone to come. I remember the time was around 3pm and the counters close down beyond 4.30pm. We were told that the lady manning the counter had gone to get some kerosene oil and groceries for her officer (during office hours). Then she appeared huffing and puffing with some excuses about how they have to take care of their superiors' needs too. We bought some jams. While we were waiting for this counter to open I observed something very unusual happening near the ticket counter of Sims' Park. I think nobody even pays any attention to what goes on in such places.

Entrance tickets are sold at this counter which is normal practice.
The fellow at the entrance takes your ticket and lets you in which he does. He has to tear it in half before allowing visitors in. He dint do that. Neither did he return back the tickets to those going inside the park unless they insisted on it.

He collected many tickets in this fashion and would head off to the counter. There he would reach for a glass of water, take a few sips and put all the tickets collected from visitors in a very discreet manner inside the counter. A kerchief would always be there in his hand to hide this activity from prying eyes.
The man at the counter would pass on those tickets to new entrants wanting to purchase the tickets to visit the park inside. This just went on several times. Since we had to wait for the squash and jam counter to open we observed this activity keenly. Otherwise we would never have noticed such an event happening.
What a way to cheat the government. What a way to earn money by recycling sold tickets to gullible visitors.
The employees seemed to know all this and perhaps had a cut in all these deals for they looked away when all this took place at the counter.

I can never forget this event at all, as its deeply embedded in my memory as if it happened just yesterday.

Then we visited a cherry tree farm. Brought back a lot of cherries home and made a gooey jam out of it. The cherry was so naturally reddish pink in color and quite sour. Only sugar needed to be added and we had this wonderfully tasting jam of cherries.

The sight of nature so close makes us wish we had a place here to call our own. to grow vegetables in our backyard and to enjoy the fresh, cool air day in and day out. To let our eyes feast on those beautiful flowers seen everywhere due to the cool weather alround the year.

Enjoy your day.

Mahalakshmi