APR 25, 13 .. MY SECOND TOUR OF UDHAGAMANDALAM .. aka OOTY ...

Yesterday .. in my Post titled .. A VISIT TO A TEA PLANTATION IN COONOOR .. I discussed my first 'tour' of Ooty and of its neighbor city .. Coonoor.

Today I took my second tour of Ooty and nearby areas.

As I sit here in Ooty .. it is past 7:30PM on Thursday evening.  After my second tour in two days .. especially after all-of-the-energy I expended yesterday .. I am pretty tired.  But tired as I feel .. I want to POST PHOTOS for you to enjoy.  So 'here-we-go' .. I have until 10PM when the Internet Cafe here in Ooty closes for the evening.

Today's tour began by visiting THE ROSE GARDEN here in Ooty.

Now walk under the above arch and below is your view.

Now we take a look-to-the-left.

And we take a look-to-the-right.

And I snapped the below photo AFTER I HAD BEEN 'CAUGHT'!

After snapping the first four photos above of the Entry Archway and three overviews of the Rose Garden .. I felt a 'tap-on-my-shoulder' followed by .. "Sir.  Have you your ticket Sir?"

I didn't have a ticket NOR did I have-a-clue I even needed a ticket.  Examine .. Study .. the sign below!

Not only did they want to charge me 30Rs ($0.60 US Dollars) to enter The Rose Garden but they also wanted to charge me 50Rs ($1.00 US Dollars) for my camera.

I was tired from yesterday and I had seen all-that-I-needed-to-see and I 'passed'.  I went back to my very pleasant NITIN Tour Bus ..

Who was just visiting-up-a-storm with all of his Tour-Bus-Buddies around him.

And I 'grabbed-a-couple-of-ZZZZs' while I was waiting on the others to return from The Rose Garden.

It was not the $1.60 US Dollars that bugged me .. this is typical of Indian Tours .. they charge you for the tour and then they 'nickle and dime' you practically-to-death with .. oh-by-the-way .. other charges.  I truly saw all I needed and all I wanted to see and I REALLY needed to rest and to save-myself for the rest of a full-day.  

WHAT?  We are changing buses?  From one NITIN Travel Agency bus to another NITIN Travel Agency bus.  Oh well!  IT TOO WAS SWELL!

Today we did quite a bit of road driving getting from one scenic venue to the next.  So I shot a few 'general road scenes' as the day passed.

Please get-with-me here.  We are in a heavily visited tourist-area of India.  Many .. I would say MOST .. of my 'tourist-peers' are from the enormous Indian cities ..  Chennai .. Bangalore .. Bombay.  Friends .. some of these kind folks .. dare I say .. MANY of these kind folks have never seen a forest.  So our 50 Km drive through a Pine Forest was a big deal to them!  Since I live within and am pretty well surrounded by a forest up in Alaska .. it was not-a-big-deal to me.  I enjoyed the cool and the fresh air BUT ..   Below are scenes from our drive in the Pine Forest near Ooty.

Then .. as they always seem to do in life .. the tables-were-turned!  Do you see what I see below? THEY were watching US!  I mean .. TOO FUNNY!

Many .. maybe MOST .. of my Indian compatriots have grown-up with and around Simians!  They were sort-of-bored by the above lads.  NOT ME.

Then we drove-past a dam (NO photos allowed) and its reservoir.  Sorry but .. 'ho-hum'!

  
We were PROMISED a visit to Nilgiris Niagra Water Falls. THEN we were told it was a total of four (4) kilometers (2-1/2 miles) to walk-in and to walk-out and that (see the low water line in the reservoir above) the 'falls' were pretty 'dry'.  All-on-the-van opted-out ME included!

India .. in my humble opinion .. is really trying! Me too .. sorry the below photo is so dark.

We also did 'drive-past' visits to a golf course .. an industrial park .. and to some sights that just simply 'escaped' me!

So there-you-have-it.  Tomorrow I plan to stop over at Dot Net and give you the 'real-low-down' on the two tours .. yesterday and today.

Tomorrow I am doing a toy-train trip from Ooty to Coonoor and return.  I set-it-up today before the above tour began.

Smiles .. Cap 

APR 15, 13 .. KODAIKANAL TOURIST ATTRACTIONS .. PART II ..

As I just wrote above in PART I .. Our Man 'Zilla has asked me several times about Tourist Attractions here in Kodaikanal.  

This is PART II of Kodaikanal Tourist Attractions which is a 're-run' from 9 February 2012 when I was ON A TOUR for tourists of  Kodaikanal Attractions.

I apologize for the 'tiny print' below but I simply can NOT re-type the entire Post from last year.

What's that Gullible?  I could do 'select' and CTRL something and instantly make all of the below 'tiny print' large?


So much of life boils down to the people in your life.  How true that is. For instance you have met a wide range of people on my train rides .. ranging from challenging to very rewarding.  On the all-day-tour I took Thursday the 9th of February 2012 here in KODAIKANAL .. I had several very fun people-interactions .. see what you think ..

One of my most special people is my web mistress here at Blogspot .. Gullible.  Below you are going to see eight (8) photographs of horses.  Thanks to Gullible posting two (2,000) thousand photographs of Penguins while she was in Antarctica she 'empowered me' to post eight (8) horse photos!  She has also 'empowered me' to begin to make longer-more-complex Posts!

BRYANT PARK.  
One of the real high-lights of our tour was Bryant Park. We spent several hours in the park and I got-to-know some of my tour companions during this time.


The couple below are from Bombay (Mumbai) .. early on the tour .. he was photographing her .. and I mean he was doing-the-deal .. positioning her in nice poses .. checking and re-checking the background etc .. so after seeing this .. I stepped up to him and asked IF he would like me to photograph them together .. well THEY WERE OVERJOYED .. so for the rest-of-day he continued to do his thing and then I would photograph him with her in the pose and using the background he composed .. making sure I had them properly centered etc .. I did not get their personal information BUT they acted like NEWLY WEDS ON THEIR HONEYMOON .. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL COUPLE .. don't you agree .. and oh-so-VERY nice .. off the scale as human-beings !

When I boarded the tour bus .. there were NO 'Westerners' .. then later (I was on the phone with Patti who I chatted with during the morning of the tour) a Western Man boarded and I said to Patti .. "Well there is another Westerner here with me" .. he went to the back of the bus .. later he joined me .. Babu bless him .. Babu had reserved for me the front seat opposite the driver .. talk about having someone on my side ! .. so look Richard-from-England over and I will tell you about him ..

Richard is 58-years-young .. and he told me he was 'cycling' around South India .. NOTHING new here .. I have known many who do this .. Clement in France 73160 as one .. then Richard told me he had one challenging day coming to KODAIKANAL and he only managed 30 Kilometers because of the mountains .. and THEN it dawned on me.. 'cycling' as in BI-cycling ! .. Richard is bicycling around and WOW .. in England he is a member of a long-distance-cycling club and routinely bicycles 500 to 600 Kilometers a week ! .. so we two really did a lot of visiting about his bicycling adventures .. 


Below are two of the family of three on the bus with us .. I ended up taking a lot of photos of them as well as of the above couple from Bombay .. super nice people also .. what a fun tour ..

Silly question but here goes .. "Do you all see that they are riding horses ?"

Now for some 2013 up-to-date .. here-in-the-now .. photographs!  Below are photos of horses that I have taken in the past few weeks.  NOW you all KNOW where the below horses are going!  They are going out to Bryant Park to be ridden by TOURISTS!

What's that 'Zilla?  I have been holding-out on you all!

"Well" .. he says smiling to himself .. "I got all the horse photos posted after all!"

No 'Zilla it is NOT the same horse photographed eight times!

And these lovely ladies were NOT on the tour BUT they sure contributed to some joy on my part just looking at their wares ..

Here below is a close-up of their lovely flower arrangements .. just STUNNING ..all tenderly fashioned with SUCH LOVE you could feel ..

Here below are a pair of 'people' that are supposedly only a very few 'genes' away from us.. will you just look at the pleasure in her eyes !

 THANKS TO RICHARD I saw them .. HE was photographing 'something' I knew-not-what until I stopped and checked him out .. then I really worked my way around back-and-up-close to them THEN snapped in the telephoto for the above close-up ..


Do you all remember the below Taj Mahal 'people' ..they too were priceless ..

There was one very young 'monkey child' who would not let go of me .. he would get so close to me that I KNEW he was going to jump onto me .. then he would just look up at me and .. wide-eyed .. stare at me .. when I would point at him to photograph him .. OFF HE WOULD SCAMPER .. then return when I went back to photographing the adults ..

OK 'Zilla .. there-you-have-it .. some Tourist Attractions here in Kodaikanal.

Smiles .. Cap

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