Far from the madding crowd - Red Hills Ooty

When Gods conspire against you there isn't much you can do. That was my feeling after my repeated attempts to undertake the Himalaya tour this summer failed. Lot of unavoidable factors came into play and by end April I gave up on the Himalayan tour. Instead I decided that I will undertake a small trip to Ooty. Not as a replacement for the Himalayas but more as an exploratory trip of this region. Turns out to be a lovely region and I enjoyed the trip thoroughly.

When I say Ooty, lot of experienced travellers must have felt, "What, Ooty and enjoyment? How can you enjoy in that crowd?" The secret was not to stay in Ooty but to stay far away. Around 28kms or so away. I had heard some good reports about this resort called Red Hills from my friend Andy and I looked it up in Outlook Traveller. I then called Vijaykumar, who owns this place, and made the necessary bookings. You can contact Vijaykumar at +91-9442254755. You can look up his web page at http://www.redhill-india.com/

I left home at around 6 am on the morning of 18th May and stopped at Kamat at Ramanagara on the way, as usual, for breakfast. Reached Ooty around 12:30. The roads were uniformly good except for a 10km stretch between Gundlupet and Bandipur. As usual, inside Bandipur we saw lot of spotted deer and black faced langurs. At Ooty I had some signal problems resulting in calling up Vijaykumar and getting the route. I finally got through to him and got the route from him. You need to get to a place called Emerald and after that the road is quite bad and there are two forest segments there. As usual Gayathri was not sure if we were on the right path. I too thought the same but told her we were going the correct way. Turned out I was right. We reached the Red Hills resort just after 2pm, in time for lunch.

The location of Red Hills resort is something to die for. It is an old fashioned British bungalow, sitting on a top of a hill, which overlooks the lovely Emerald Lake. We could understand why the lake was named Emerald when we climbed up towards Red Hills resort. The water has a green hue and the whole lake shines. One look at the lake and our tiredness vanished!! Surrounding the Red Hills resort are some tea plantations and a mountain, which we would climb the next day. The eye could see only greenery all around and the huge lake. Very soothing sight indeed. Our room was in the rear and we had the view of the mountain. We had our lunch, rested for some time and then went out for a small walk, taking a zillion photos on the way, according to Ranjani and Harini. ("Why do you keep shooting the same thing again and again", they continuously ask. It is difficult to explain the concept of bracketing to them. Especially when all the photos turn out bad!!!) It was cold in the evening, requiring sweaters to be worn. The dinner was great. Infact all meals were great. The Red Hills people have a fabulous cook.

The next day was our trek day.

All treks start the same way, with a lot of enthusiasm. All treks end the same way, "Are we ever going to reach our place?!!". The trek started with four of us and with our current 'neighbor's' family. Mrs.Palak came for the trek along with her two adorable daughters, Eesha and Rithika. The trek started with everyone being gung ho about it and that lasted for a whole of 10 mins or so till the steep climb started. The whole climb was accompanied by the expected exclamations. "I can't walk a step further", "We still have to climb some more?!!" "I think we have climbed enough. Let's get back" etc. I urged everyone saying that we had only 10 more mins of climb and kept repeating this at 10 mins interval. We came to a clearing and flat ground and took a rest. The guide showed the peak to all members and the exclamations started again. "No way can we climb that much", "You guys go and come down. We will wait here". The guide put a rest to the argument saying that we will not be coming down the same way and instead would be taking a route through the forest. I told everyone that it will be great walking through the forest though I had no clue how it would be!! Slowly and steadily we reached the summit and the view from there was definitely worth all the trouble. Perched on the summit, we could see hills surrounding us on all sides and way below two lovely lakes and two dams. The clouds were right in front of us and it was as if we were on the top of the world. The loneliness, the silence and the vast space spread out in front of us eased the physical pain. After taking in the scenery to our heart's content and resting for some time, we started our trek downwards. The downward trek is always more tricky than the upward one, especially when the soil is loose or if it had rained recently. The track in front of us met both the requirements!! As the guide had promised, we came into the forest and it was a nice feeling being there. It was dark, both due to the fact that the weather was cloudy and due to the tree cover. There were lots of insects which would bite us once in a while. Nothing serious but I could realise what the early guys who explored the Amazon must have gone through!! We would not have made it through the forest without a guide. The trail just vanishes or takes unexpected turns. Suddenly we would not see the people who went before us and we would shout. They would shout back and then we knew what route they had taken. Harini kept asking, "How much more?" and as you would have guessed, I kept saying, "10 more minutes." We landed at our resort after passing through some tea plantations. The trip had taken us more than 3hrs. The star of the trek was the 5 yr old Eesha, who climbed effortlessly.

There was a suggestion earlier that we trek down to the lake later in the day. It is supposed to be a 30 min trek. After the morning trek, everyone dreaded the word trek and the idea was vetoed. Instead we decided to drive to Parson Valley and Pothemedu. Both these places have huge lakes and there is a dam on each of these lakes. More than the lakes, it was the possibility of seeing some wildlife that excited me. Palak and his family came with us and it was a joy having them along. We got an excellent guide called Rajendran, an elderly and experienced person. The route initially is not very great but after some time the roads become better and we enter into the forest area. This area is adjacent to the Mukurthi National Park. The National Park itself is closed to visitors since the road inside has been washed away. Rajendran pointed out to a mountain and told us that we had climbed that summit, which was way way up. There was a collective gasp. The enormity of what was achieved stuck everyone only now!! After we had gone a few kms, Rajendran asked me not to honk as we were getting into the area which had wildlife. We reached the parson valley dam without seeing any wildlife except for a mangoose which ran across and which only Rajendran and I saw. At the dam, we saw a wild rabbit, a huge fellow, run into the forest. Everyone was exited seeing the rabbit. The dam is a nice one and the lake is huge. From this dam we started to the Pothemedu lake and dam. As we were cruising along, Rajendran asked me to stop and pointed into the trees and said, "Sambhar Deer." None of us could make out where they were. It slowly dawned on us that Rajendran was pointing to the next hill via the trees and there they were. Two Sambar deer which were grazing, stopped the activity and were looking in our direction. Though they were quite far away they could hear us and they watched us with interest. Slowly they left that place and we started towards the lake. It was a lovely lake and Rajendran said that had it not been for the clouds, the lake at sunset would be even better. I could imagine that.

After spending some time at the lake, we started back without realising that we were going to have a big wildlife encounter soon. As we drove all of us were looking for some animal or the other. As I turned a corner, right in front of the car was a herd of more than 30 bisons. They were on the road. They came in all sizes. Huge fellows and small fellows and lot in between. They had huge curved horns. The horns had great potential of hurting you. They were all standing in the middle and staring at the car. I stopped the car. Gayathri quickly brought up the window on her side. We started taking photos. Then I switched the camera to video mode and gave it to Rajendran to shoot. Gayathri was worried. "How do we get across?" Rajendran was an experienced guide and asked us not to worry. He told me to slowly move the car to the right, giving ample space on the left for the bison to move. I shifted my car to the right. The bisons slowly started moving to the left of the car. You can see they were also scared as the ran fast in order to cross the car. A few of the them ran, crossed the car in a hurry and were behind us now. Suddenly one bison decided that it was probably not safe to cross the car and after having come in line with the windows, turned sharply and went back to join the herd. After this maneuvour, the other bisons decided not to risk it and stood their ground and stared at us. Now we had reached an impasse in our peace talks!! I asked Rajendran what we should do. He asked me to honk and start moving slowly. I started the car and slowly crawled, honking once in a while. The bisons slowly started moving to my right and passing the car. Rajendran pointed to one huge fellow who was starting at us and didn't seem scared at all and said, "That is the leader. It is a male bison and is generally not afraid." His posture was such that he was looking at us as if we were some inferior beings. We passed without any more issues and later Rajendran told us how strong these bisons were and how they had killed a couple of people who happened to get down from their car. In our group I don't think anyone had that idea. One look at the horns was enough to deter any just adventurous ideas. On the way we saw another rabbit and Rajendran, who can pluck wildlife out of thin area, kept pointing to far away hills and showing us Sambhar Deer. There was no way that we could have seen any of the Sambhar Deer that day had it not been for Rajendran. The only sambhar we would have seen that night is the variety you mix with your rice!!

The next day I wanted to drive to the Upper Bhavani reservoir. I asked Rajendran to accompany us on the trip and he agreed. The initial part of the drive is through tea plantations and vegetable fields. You can see people growing cabbage, carrots and potatoes. After some time we come to a huge tea plantations. The hills surrounding you are full of tea plants. After crossing this plantation, we entered the forest area. Suddenly Rajendran pointed through the trees and said, "Sambhar". For the life of me, I could not see any deer. He again pointed and said, "It is drinking water". I could then see it. Rajendran had spotted the sambhar deer just back seeing its backside!! This guy was amazing. I got out of the car and saw into the trees. The deer turned and looked at me. He was a big fellow with big horns. Ranjani also got down and the deer was still staring at us. Before Gayathri could get down, it ran away but Gayathri and Harini could see it as it ran. After this forest stretch was another tea estate and after the tea estate was the last stretch of the forest before reaching the Upper Bhavani reservoir. As we were going through this forest area, we met some forest officials. They said that we should be careful as Elephants were sighted in this area. The reaction of Gayathri was predictable. "Lets turn around." We didn't and continued further. The forest in this area is not like that in Bandipur or Mudumalai. Those forests are neat, there are view lines and the forest is a bit away from the road. Here, the forest hugs you. It encloses you from all sides and you have the feeling of really being inside the stomach of the forest. Added to it the weather was cloudy and the feeling of this being a very personal forest increased. We reached Upper Bhavani reservoir without any more sightings of wild life.

At the reservoir, they wouldn't let is in because we did not have the required permits. They asked to come back and check after some time since some senior engineers were coming now. A forest guard suggested that we drive down the road and go see a smaller dam. It was drizzling lightly and we decided to take the advice. As we went down, the loneliness increased. Trees had fallen down and they have been cleared. No sign of any humans anywhere nearby, dark clouds, the thin drizzle, the forest around us and the potential of encountering an elephant or two!! It was turning scary for Gayathri and the kids. We reached the small lake on which there was a dam. Down below we could see a skeleton of a Sambhar deer. Rajendran said that the wild dogs must have attacked it and eaten it. We had our packed lunch there and started back to Upper Bhavani. On the way I spotted a Sambhar deer on my right. It was staring at us, then it jumped down and crossed the road and disappeard into the trees on my left. Everyone was thrilled seeing this.

When we reached Upper Bhavani reservoir again, they again said it was not possible for us to go to the dam. We need to walk down to the dam. So we asked permission to look at the lake and the dam from above. When we went in we couldn't see anything. Passing clouds had engulfed the whole area and all we could see was white all around. It was quite chill there. We waited for some time and then gave up. Rajendran was not happy saying that we had come all the way and not seen the dam. I asked him not to worry for the whole trip was about the drive and not the dam. As we were about to leave, it miraculously cleared. The clouds were blown away by the wind revealing outstanding scenery in front of us. First the lake became visible, then the dam and then a building in the other hill and then more hills all around. "Picturesque" said Gayathri and it was indeed a picturesque place. We imbibed the scenery to our heart's content and slowly the clouds started erasing the scenery and very quickly the whole scenery disappeared!! It was almost like a magic show with the magician briefly revealing the unexpected.

The drive back was lovely because we spotted a lot of wildlife. I mean, Rajendran spotted a lot of wildlife. We saw quite a few sambhar deers, we saw black monkeys. These are not black faced monkeys that you see in Mudumalai and Bandipur. These are black all over except for the beard and head which are white. At one point we saw a lot of them. We also sighted some wild hens and a rabbit in a tea garden. Not to mention a huge variety of birds. No bisons though. It looked to us that all bisons were in the Pothamedu area yesterday!!! The eventual day ended with us reaching the resort at around 6pm and having a nice dinner. We left for Bangalore the next day.

Red Hills is a lovely resort. The hosts, Vijaykumars, are very friendly and very professional. The cook is amazing. He has magic in his hands. Added to it, for children there is a very friendly dog, a German Shepard, named Moby. The favorite pass time of the dog is to fetch something. It generally gets a big stone in his mouth and deposits in front of you. Once you throw the stone away, it fetches it back. The children love it and the dog is absolutely friendly and also accompanies people on their trek up the mountain!!! There are also a couple of cats and a kitten which come to the dining hall in the night. The white one is very friendly and used to sit on Ranjani's lap most of the time and would lick your hand. The children had a ball with these pets. I would definitely recommend a trip to this place if you want a bit of solitude for a few days.