Travel: FAMILY TRIP DOWN SOUTH INDIA

Inside the Indigo flight - Vinny, Viggy & Venkat

It’s been years since the four of us in the family got to go on a long trip. As all of us are working, it took us a lot of planning to ensure that we could get away for a full week together. Venkat had been keen to go to Ooty for a while and that’s where we decided to go.

Yours truly

Vinitha booked us on Indigo to and from Coimbatore International Airport, well in advance. She even pre-booked our meals. The plan was to leave Mumbai on June 13, 2015 and return on June 20, 2015.

Landed @ Coimbatore International Airport. Managed to click this pic before one of the attendants shooed us off

Once the tickets were booked, we checked out the hotels and sightseeing options in Ooty. That’s when we realised that there wasn’t much to do in the place unless one is ready to rush from one point to another. It was definitely not our cup of tea. 6D/7N in Ooty would have been too much.

I was lucky with this random click when we stopped on the way to Wayanad

Luckily for us, a few of Vinny’s friends visited our home. When they heard that we were planning a trip down south, Nitin suggested that we should go to Meenmutty Resorts / Meenmutty Heights (both are names of the same place), a resort owned by his uncle.

Scenic Route from Coimbatore to Wayanad via Ooty

We checked their website, the distance needed to be travelled, etc and decided to go ahead. Meenmutty Heights is in Wayanad, Kerala. Though that’s a different state altogether, the property is actually very close to Tamil Nadu-Kerala border. We needed to travel only half an hour into Kerala before we reached Meenmutty Heights.

Tea Plantations - a close-up

Coimbatore Airport to Ooty is 3 hours by road. Meenmutty Heights is another 3-4 hours further. It made sense to visit Wayanad first as longer hours of travel before a return flight from Coimbatore to Mumbai at 2.15 pm made no sense. That’s how we ended up planning to go to Wayanad first.

Luckily, there wasn't much rain despite the grey skies. Doesn't that look awesome?

We booked two rooms at Meenmutty Heights paying a token amount in advance. This was for Bed & Breakfast from June 13-16, 2015. The plan was to leave Wayanad and travel to Ooty and stay there till June 20.

This is the view from behind Hotel Lakeview, Ooty

After checking out TripAdvisor and the respective websites, we zeroed in on three hotels in Ooty. Finally, it was Hotel Lakeview that we liked. We called the hotel and had two cottages booked, paying an advance there too.

The garden @ Hotel Lakeview, Ooty. The building houses the reception and restaurant

Yeah, Hotel Lakeview has only cottages – beautiful and comfortable. Since we booked three months ahead, we got two of the best cottages that were quite close to the reception and restaurant in the 8-acre property.

The tree with white flowers outside our cottages @ Hotel Lakeview, Ooty

It was a week of fun, frolic, rest and rejuvenation with family. I must say that it was one of the loveliest trips that I have ever had.