The second day of the South India tour and we couldn’t be more excited to explore Ooty with Jagre Family.
The day started off well; we feasted ourselves with the traditional breakfast of Idli and Sambhar before heading out for the day. The travel agency has told us to assemble at a pick up spot from where we were supposed to embark our Ooty tour.
It was a dingy bus as compared to the last one we had. My parents complained but soon got over it as we started chit-chatting and having fun!
The bus took us through some “wild” area where we saw a few deers. I had seen those deers before when I visited Ooty with my friends, so it was not a big deal for me, but I remember, my parents loving it and craving for more.
Here’s the picture of those deers that I captured with my then Android phone.
After gluing our eyes to this wonderful wildlife, it was time to explore the hilly areas of Ooty and that is where I witnessed such a beautiful view that you see below. It brought back so many wonderful when I visited this place a couple years ago.
The first spot that we stopped at was some garden where many Bollywood films were shot. I don’t remember the name of this place exactly, must be some famous place. You see my family in the picture below. I was glad to see the excitement on their faces, especially Shreya, who is clinging tightly to her Teddy Bear.
Also, you would see that it was a hot sunny day, which is not nice for your skin.
We clicked so many pictures at this spot, I had a hard time selecting which ones to upload here! Here you see my sister Minu Tai with my parents. I don’t remember why the background was significant enough that we clicked so many pictures here. Maybe, back then I didn’t see so much greenery. Maybe!
And here one more where you see all the serious faces (except the middle one).
After spending a couple of hours at the spot above, I think, I went to see if our bus arrived or not and that’s why I stepped out of the park to explore how the city actually looked like. To my surprise, the city was not at all crowded and had ample space to “hangout”. I also found that the city was kind-of in the middle and surrounded by tall mountains.
During this walk, I got to reflect upon the last few days that I had spent with the family and a few days that I am going to spend with them before heading to US (given that my visa gets approved). It was a nice lonely time to be grateful for the family that I have.
After that, we were on our way to the pick up spot for the next and last destination for the day. On our way, I found this statue of three boys peeing which (I think) is a replica of the peeing boy that you find at Brussels, Belgium. It was fun to look at water dropping from the statue and we had a good laugh about it.
And here comes the last destination for the day – Ooty Botanical Gardens.
There was a long wait at the entrance for the tickets. The last time I was here, I had to spend some time to score those tickets, but not this time, as the travel agency took care of those tickets for us, so it was such a big relief not to stand in line in such a hot and sunny weather. The first thing that we did was to pose before the giant map of India made out of different types of soil *possible* brought from those different parts of India.
After exploring almost entire garden or part of it, we were all tired and decided to take much needed rest and have some quality family time – talking to each other and rejuvenating the old memories. It was fun to see your parents and aunt and uncle opening up about their lives and struggles of raising 3-4 children. I think this was the first time my parents were treating me like an adult and sharing their life stories with us. It was cool to hear those and be a part of it.
You can see my parents chilling here.
And here are the two couples. My parents and my uncle and aunt.
One funny thing about our time here at the botanical gardens, as adults got busy talking and chatting, the kids were getting bored. That is when I thought of game that I watched online. It is shown below and named as Dizzy Izzy. Take a look yourself.
Let me tell you how much fun we had. Man, I didn’t know the idea of playing this game will be an instant hit and was glad to have thought of it.
The kids had fun, the adults had fun, and I was happy for everyone.
This way, the second day of the tour was almost over and I was looking forward to the dinner and the third and last day of the South India tour.
stochasticity 