The destiny farmstay, Ooty

In my last post , I wrote about my journey to Ooty, spiced up with certain constraints and situations. In this post, I will let you know my review of the Destiny Farmstay at Ooty. Read on ….

The Destiny Farmstay is about 25-30 kms away from Ooty main bus stand. The car parking in Destiny is about 2km away from the actual farmstay, and the road beyond that does not permit normal sedans or hatchbacks to get to the actual farmstay as its very slushy, extremely bumpy and risky in terms of damage to the vehicles. The directions provided by the resort is fairly accurate, but towards the end you may have to keep your ears and eyes open for signboards, turns, identification points and the likes.

An army truck belonging to the Little Earth group who run destiny farmstay, took us from the car parking into the resort. The ride can be very bumpy and little kids can feel rattled and extremely afraid as did my little one. So take care of this part. The reception at the resort was neat and kept well attended and the staff there were very courteous in welcoming the people to the stay. A welcome drink was also made available on arrival since it would mostly be beyond noon when people reach there. As other formalities were being completed, the lunch menu was also being taken for order from different guests so that lunch could be made available on time.

A point to note here about the lunch or dinner is that they are limited in timings and one has to be within the time frame of cafeteria being open to source the required dishes. Room service is available at a cost but not always. So its best you return to the cafeteria at specified times in order to avoid missing out on the food. And you guessed it right that there is nothing near the resort where you can otherwise go for food and so you are by yourself. Another thing I felt about the food was that it was quite expensive (even beyond bangalore standards) which is not a good thing. This is always a demand supply factor resorts capitilize on and I am okay with that if the resort were to be otherwise highly rated. Though TripAdvisor rates this resort high, one must understand the fact that there are actually very few new, other resorts, around this place. So naturally everyone who goes here would tend to recommend only this one. Additionally they do not add too much spice into the food, so its kind of kid friendly too which is a plus.

The rooms themselves are nestled neatly along a row overlooking a valley created by more than few mountain slopes. This is the valley where sloped farming is done. When we went to the resort rains were lashing ooty, and towards the evening the atmosphere was damp and the skies opened up a bit. The sunset was a surreal experience. The rooms were large with two single beds put back to back. So that meant some ample room for four of us (two kids). The toilets were large and neat, however not always did we get hot water. You can compare that to my review of the eagle eye holidays in chikmagalur where I did have hot water 24 hours of the day. So if they can do it, why not Destiny?

The room was supposedly a deluxe room, but the only deluxe part about it was the front verandah area overlooking the valley. Other than that the sofa inside the room was not well maintained and the springs had worn out. It was more uncomfortable to sit on it than anything the other way round. The rooms also had no tube lights or no fans and had a coffee maker in case you needed a quick one.

The farming itself consisted of many different type of flowers, cabbages, carrots and the likes being cultivated there. In addition to this they had a horse stable with atleast 3-4 horses who would take you for a ride at a specified time in the mornings with supervision on a high ground area. In addition to this were a large amount of cows, and some sheep. There were also rabbits and ducks which were near the pond down the valley. There were hundred odd steps that led to the valley below which is a good exercise if you take your kids down and back, assuming you are carrying them.

In addition to this, there is a disco room that’s operational at night, and there is a bonfire every night which in my opinion is absolutely necessary. Its advisable to carry a set of diapers, all essentials for kids, and atleast three pairs of footwear for kids. Some woolens and raincoats and atleast one or two umbrellas are a must.

Please be advised that there are NO medical facilities anywhere nearby atleast for a good 20+ kilometers, so you have to take all medical supplies that you might need. Remember that your car is parked a good 2-3 km away from the resort from where the nearest hospital is another 20km away, so this could be risky if you need urgent medical attention. From what I spoke with hotel staff, I am not sure that they are addressing this need.

Its also mostly likely that the cafeteria or reception would remain out of reach beyond some earthly hours. There is also a well stocked library to spend some time in. One of the major reasons I went to this place was that they had advertised some activities for the kids such as nature painting and so on, but the person conducting these was away on holiday himself, so one promise never met. Luckily since I carried a whole lot of sketch pens myself, I was able to get some paper and let my son try his artwork there.

I stayed at Destiny Farmstay for only one night, but I feel its an experience where kids learn about farming, and look and feel domestic animals once in a way. To summarize Destiny is aiming to be unique in what it offers, but the expensive food and no medical help nearby might make it go out of your list for a holiday. If you still want to give it a try, the location is beautiful and would relax a tired soul.

The cost for a deluxe room towards end of March was 5,500 + and the three time meal cost came to almost 1,700 +, add a fuel of almost 3,000 + from bangalore upto the resort and we are looking at around 10,000 for a day’s worth of holiday.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The destiny farmstay, Ooty

In my last post , I wrote about my journey to Ooty, spiced up with certain constraints and situations. In this post, I will let you know my review of the Destiny Farmstay at Ooty. Read on ….

The Destiny Farmstay is about 25-30 kms away from Ooty main bus stand. The car parking in Destiny is about 2km away from the actual farmstay, and the road beyond that does not permit normal sedans or hatchbacks to get to the actual farmstay as its very slushy, extremely bumpy and risky in terms of damage to the vehicles. The directions provided by the resort is fairly accurate, but towards the end you may have to keep your ears and eyes open for signboards, turns, identification points and the likes.

An army truck belonging to the Little Earth group who run destiny farmstay, took us from the car parking into the resort. The ride can be very bumpy and little kids can feel rattled and extremely afraid as did my little one. So take care of this part. The reception at the resort was neat and kept well attended and the staff there were very courteous in welcoming the people to the stay. A welcome drink was also made available on arrival since it would mostly be beyond noon when people reach there. As other formalities were being completed, the lunch menu was also being taken for order from different guests so that lunch could be made available on time.

A point to note here about the lunch or dinner is that they are limited in timings and one has to be within the time frame of cafeteria being open to source the required dishes. Room service is available at a cost but not always. So its best you return to the cafeteria at specified times in order to avoid missing out on the food. And you guessed it right that there is nothing near the resort where you can otherwise go for food and so you are by yourself. Another thing I felt about the food was that it was quite expensive (even beyond bangalore standards) which is not a good thing. This is always a demand supply factor resorts capitilize on and I am okay with that if the resort were to be otherwise highly rated. Though TripAdvisor rates this resort high, one must understand the fact that there are actually very few new, other resorts, around this place. So naturally everyone who goes here would tend to recommend only this one. Additionally they do not add too much spice into the food, so its kind of kid friendly too which is a plus.

The rooms themselves are nestled neatly along a row overlooking a valley created by more than few mountain slopes. This is the valley where sloped farming is done. When we went to the resort rains were lashing ooty, and towards the evening the atmosphere was damp and the skies opened up a bit. The sunset was a surreal experience. The rooms were large with two single beds put back to back. So that meant some ample room for four of us (two kids). The toilets were large and neat, however not always did we get hot water. You can compare that to my review of the eagle eye holidays in chikmagalur where I did have hot water 24 hours of the day. So if they can do it, why not Destiny?

The room was supposedly a deluxe room, but the only deluxe part about it was the front verandah area overlooking the valley. Other than that the sofa inside the room was not well maintained and the springs had worn out. It was more uncomfortable to sit on it than anything the other way round. The rooms also had no tube lights or no fans and had a coffee maker in case you needed a quick one.

The farming itself consisted of many different type of flowers, cabbages, carrots and the likes being cultivated there. In addition to this they had a horse stable with atleast 3-4 horses who would take you for a ride at a specified time in the mornings with supervision on a high ground area. In addition to this were a large amount of cows, and some sheep. There were also rabbits and ducks which were near the pond down the valley. There were hundred odd steps that led to the valley below which is a good exercise if you take your kids down and back, assuming you are carrying them.

In addition to this, there is a disco room that’s operational at night, and there is a bonfire every night which in my opinion is absolutely necessary. Its advisable to carry a set of diapers, all essentials for kids, and atleast three pairs of footwear for kids. Some woolens and raincoats and atleast one or two umbrellas are a must.

Please be advised that there are NO medical facilities anywhere nearby atleast for a good 20+ kilometers, so you have to take all medical supplies that you might need. Remember that your car is parked a good 2-3 km away from the resort from where the nearest hospital is another 20km away, so this could be risky if you need urgent medical attention. From what I spoke with hotel staff, I am not sure that they are addressing this need.

Its also mostly likely that the cafeteria or reception would remain out of reach beyond some earthly hours. There is also a well stocked library to spend some time in. One of the major reasons I went to this place was that they had advertised some activities for the kids such as nature painting and so on, but the person conducting these was away on holiday himself, so one promise never met. Luckily since I carried a whole lot of sketch pens myself, I was able to get some paper and let my son try his artwork there.

I stayed at Destiny Farmstay for only one night, but I feel its an experience where kids learn about farming, and look and feel domestic animals once in a way. To summarize Destiny is aiming to be unique in what it offers, but the expensive food and no medical help nearby might make it go out of your list for a holiday. If you still want to give it a try, the location is beautiful and would relax a tired soul.

The cost for a deluxe room towards end of March was 5,500 + and the three time meal cost came to almost 1,700 +, add a fuel of almost 3,000 + from bangalore upto the resort and we are looking at around 10,000 for a day’s worth of holiday.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In search of my Destiny

 

 

 

When everything is in your control, your life seems great. You can do what you need to, when you need to with predictable outcomes. If you are taken out of that organized lifestyle and put on an unknown path with a time limit to reach your destination, and your quest is spiced up with very less food, bad weather, poor visibility, and no end in sight then that becomes another situation altogether. You then have to resign to only one thing – your DESTINY!

 

This was the essence of a trip that I undertook during the last two days covering hundreds of kilometers with my family to a non descript location a few tens of miles of a fairly populated hill station – all from a concrete jungle infested with information technology professionals much like locusts eating up all the produce in a field and leaving it empty. The upcoming festival weekend only meant a long holiday and a certainity of unavailability of any room in any resort anywhere in Karnataka thanks to the smartness of the above mentioned locusts of the city.

 

So this time, my ploy was different – but a rather tried and tested one – with accurate results – that of using up the weekend days to make this trip possible when the locusts were busy elsewhere working away. In a situation where you have a couple of young kids, planning is of utmost importance for their comfort. My analogy of the kids being able to cover about a 150 odd km range in three hours or so as a maximum threshold at any given point of time proved to be right beyond which enjoyment turns into hunger, sleep and frustration. A brief halt at Mysore for the night proved to be useful to bring the kids back to a calm state of mind.

The next morning was fresh and the journey continued towards Nanjangudu, Gundelpet and Bandipur. For those harried souls of the information technology kingdom, whose only source of inspiration is a wallpaper on their laptop showing a never ending road with the mountains far beyond and only yourself to drive through – the above said highway would be the actual representation of such a wallpaper! This stretch of highway is a treat to the eyes and to the mind. For those who travel extensively one would not debate on the fact that distance and time are inseperable. You have to keep your eyes on the clock, and keep the vechile at a certain designated speed in order to reach a certain place in a certain defined timeframe! For these kinds of people the Nanjangud-Bandipur highway is a place to step on the gas!

 

When you enter the Bandipur forest area with the sole intention of ripping through forest land like a vagabond, the government has ensured that you give respect to the rightful owners of the land there – the animal kingdom of bandipur. India is a country where when people are said of certain things to follow – they do exactly the contrary. So there is only but one option left – keep crippling your enthusiasm until you start behaving properly and predictably. I was referring to the innumerable road humps in the Bandipur-Masinagudi highway which kill your enthusiasm just when you go past the 80kph mark to throttle upto 100 and beyond, much like if you receive a phone call in the middle of an intercourse 🙂

 

You really know when Karnataka ends and Tamil Nadu begins. Much like a climate change would let you know the difference, here the road conditions change for the worse as soon as you enter Tamil Nadu. Without much to do along this stretch, as the number of kilometeres on the boards begin to decrease towards a certain hill station originally inhabited by the (yea you know who) britishers, the adrenalin begins to increase. It is then that you are welcomed by a huge mountain in front of you, with a head spinning 36 hair pin bend road that leads you straight to the top – if you are lucky enough.

 

This stretch of road is the best to test a car that you own or want to own. Forget all the useless test drives and the customary question Sir, so how was the test drive – just take the car to this road. The last time I took a Ford Figo it stopped on hair pin bend 26/36. In first gear. Just like that. It gave up. It wouldnt go forward even when Maruti 800s, altos didnt give up. Agreed this was a diesel but still the manners were ridiculous. And Ford says it is celebrating the sales of lakhs of units of a car that just gives up on the owner. Dear Ford, its perhaps time to take your vehicles up this curve and see for yourself what you are selling.

 

This was my second go on this road, this time with the Nissan Sunny Diesel and at 26/36 I was naturally a worried person. The feeling was one of frustration but thankfully the vehicle drove past all the way upto 36/36. It was not an impressive climb, but nevertheless it was completed. There was a feeling of euphoria of having reached Ooty or Ootacamund or Udhagai or Udhagamandalam and having neared the destination – only to understand that my destiny was something else. A thunderstorm with hardly 100m of visibility with rain lashing on the car from all sides. Just few tens of miles before it was as hot as hell and now this!? Google had advised me the route to the destination as just less than a mile ahead only for me to understand that it went horribly wrong for once. My destiny was 30 more km ahead. Google has this habit of saying take slight right and then turn left and this led me to a small road off the actual highway. Only later that I understood that this is just googles way of saying stay put on the same damn highway until there is actually a reasonably visible large right turn.

 

You must remember that in Ooty its best to ask people locally or rely on your own intuition than to choose Google maps as there are some really narrow roads that may or may not lead anywhere as your destiny is defined. After about 25kms of drive towards a place called avalanche (or avalaanchi) and further inside emerald town, I hit upon two bridges as advertised on the resort route map – one without water on both sides, and one with water on both sides – the latter being the emerald dam. Then I had to pass the White house (unfortunately obama was out and i couldnt meet him) towards two sign boards that brought me to my destiny – The Destiny Farm Stay!

 

In my next post I will share with you my view of the resort or holiday destination as offered by the Little Earth Group – Destiny.

In search of my Destiny

 

 

Destiny

 

When everything is in your control, your life seems great. You can do what you need to, when you need to with predictable outcomes. If you are taken out of that organized lifestyle and put on an unknown path with a time limit to reach your destination, and your quest is spiced up with very less food, bad weather, poor visibility, and no end in sight then that becomes another situation altogether. You then have to resign to only one thing – your DESTINY!

 

This was the essence of a trip that I undertook during the last two days covering hundreds of kilometers with my family to a non descript location a few tens of miles of a fairly populated hill station – all from a concrete jungle infested with information technology professionals much like locusts eating up all the produce in a field and leaving it empty. The upcoming festival weekend only meant a long holiday and a certainity of unavailability of any room in any resort anywhere in Karnataka thanks to the smartness of the above mentioned locusts of the city.

 

So this time, my ploy was different – but a rather tried and tested one – with accurate results – that of using up the weekend days to make this trip possible when the locusts were busy elsewhere working away. In a situation where you have a couple of young kids, planning is of utmost importance for their comfort. My analogy of the kids being able to cover about a 150 odd km range in three hours or so as a maximum threshold at any given point of time proved to be right beyond which enjoyment turns into hunger, sleep and frustration. A brief halt at Mysore for the night proved to be useful to bring the kids back to a calm state of mind.

The next morning was fresh and the journey continued towards Nanjangudu, Gundelpet and Bandipur. For those harried souls of the information technology kingdom, whose only source of inspiration is a wallpaper on their laptop showing a never ending road with the mountains far beyond and only yourself to drive through – the above said highway would be the actual representation of such a wallpaper! This stretch of highway is a treat to the eyes and to the mind. For those who travel extensively one would not debate on the fact that distance and time are inseperable. You have to keep your eyes on the clock, and keep the vechile at a certain designated speed in order to reach a certain place in a certain defined timeframe! For these kinds of people the Nanjangud-Bandipur highway is a place to step on the gas!

 

When you enter the Bandipur forest area with the sole intention of ripping through forest land like a vagabond, the government has ensured that you give respect to the rightful owners of the land there – the animal kingdom of bandipur. India is a country where when people are said of certain things to follow – they do exactly the contrary. So there is only but one option left – keep crippling your enthusiasm until you start behaving properly and predictably. I was referring to the innumerable road humps in the Bandipur-Masinagudi highway which kill your enthusiasm just when you go past the 80kph mark to throttle upto 100 and beyond, much like if you receive a phone call in the middle of an intercourse 🙂

 

You really know when Karnataka ends and Tamil Nadu begins. Much like a climate change would let you know the difference, here the road conditions change for the worse as soon as you enter Tamil Nadu. Without much to do along this stretch, as the number of kilometeres on the boards begin to decrease towards a certain hill station originally inhabited by the (yea you know who) britishers, the adrenalin begins to increase. It is then that you are welcomed by a huge mountain in front of you, with a head spinning 36 hair pin bend road that leads you straight to the top – if you are lucky enough.

 

This stretch of road is the best to test a car that you own or want to own. Forget all the useless test drives and the customary question Sir, so how was the test drive – just take the car to this road. The last time I took a Ford Figo it stopped on hair pin bend 26/36. In first gear. Just like that. It gave up. It wouldnt go forward even when Maruti 800s, altos didnt give up. Agreed this was a diesel but still the manners were ridiculous. And Ford says it is celebrating the sales of lakhs of units of a car that just gives up on the owner. Dear Ford, its perhaps time to take your vehicles up this curve and see for yourself what you are selling.

 

This was my second go on this road, this time with the Nissan Sunny Diesel and at 26/36 I was naturally a worried person. The feeling was one of frustration but thankfully the vehicle drove past all the way upto 36/36. It was not an impressive climb, but nevertheless it was completed. There was a feeling of euphoria of having reached Ooty or Ootacamund or Udhagai or Udhagamandalam and having neared the destination – only to understand that my destiny was something else. A thunderstorm with hardly 100m of visibility with rain lashing on the car from all sides. Just few tens of miles before it was as hot as hell and now this!? Google had advised me the route to the destination as just less than a mile ahead only for me to understand that it went horribly wrong for once. My destiny was 30 more km ahead. Google has this habit of saying take slight right and then turn left and this led me to a small road off the actual highway. Only later that I understood that this is just googles way of saying stay put on the same damn highway until there is actually a reasonably visible large right turn.

 

You must remember that in Ooty its best to ask people locally or rely on your own intuition than to choose Google maps as there are some really narrow roads that may or may not lead anywhere as your destiny is defined. After about 25kms of drive towards a place called avalanche (or avalaanchi) and further inside emerald town, I hit upon two bridges as advertised on the resort route map – one without water on both sides, and one with water on both sides – the latter being the emerald dam. Then I had to pass the White house (unfortunately obama was out and i couldnt meet him) towards two sign boards that brought me to my destiny – The Destiny Farm Stay!

 

In my next post I will share with you my view of the resort or holiday destination as offered by the Little Earth Group – Destiny.

Hakrappa KJP-gey vote haakro, hakroppo ….

(source wikipedia)

On one fine evening in 2008, a certain reasonably old man with white hair and moustache was crying on the TV screen, when a little girl who phoned in told him that Karnataka has finally elected a leader who will work towards its development and who will rid the state of its corrupt practices. He assertively declared that he will wage a war against corruption and uphold the victory that the state had provided to his party.

Five years down the line, the same gentleman was still crying on the TV screen, accusing his bosses and detractors of robbing his role and respect for all the hard work he did while wearing a khaki trouser and learning to stand in the hot sun to build up the party he so fondly cared for. After he took over the party to power way back, his growing deeds of giving away large amount of money to temples of his choice, giving away prime lands in Bangalore city to his sons, and his supposed illegal involvement of being a beneficiary in the mining scan and iron ore scam earned him nothing but a boot out of the party.

After so many misdeeds and his political incompetence within the BJP on how to handle his peer pressure from Sadananda Gowda, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar and others, the man knew two things. One that his only way to escape this mess is to get out of the party before people decimated him. And two, that BJP had no chance in the upcoming ULB and assembly elections. The second turned out to be the trump card hiding close to his chest which he used to bail himself out to form the KJP.

The ULB election results are a direct pointer to what awaits the state in 2013 assembly elections and it has already given the BJP both a smack on the head and a slap on the face pretty deftly. The huge swing in votes towards the Congress means only one thing: People dont know who else to vote for – whether for KJP which is yet to test its waters with the same candidate who screwed the state, or for the JDS which is yet to be clear on how it intends to be a good state level player with credibility and track record.

Due to the obvious reasons, Congress wins by default, but the real acid test now is the expected bickering in the congress between Kharge, Siddu, DKS, and a few other stalwarts who will form a team similar to that in BJP and might either be advisories or ruin the show. While at a national level congress is stressing on youth participation and young blood and all that, we are yet to see a visionary congress leader after SM Krishna during whose time Bangalore’s transformation was unbelieveable.

Given we have a gazillion flyovers, and toll roads now, given we also have the metro, given we have billion people from all the states settled down here, given the increased crime rate, given the absolute lack of governance, given the beating Kannada as a language has got, given an already overgrown city without similar growth in infrastructure, given crazy land prices all over, and in general given the mammoth metamorphisis of Bangalore into a lazy-concrete-traffic-jammed-mall-cultured-rude-screwed garden city, what exactly would be the congress manifesto to bring back some sanity to Bangalore?

What is there to vote for? What hope as a city do we have left that things would be any better anymore? – The answer is NOTHING. The last time I could vote for congress, jds and bjp. This time i can also vote for another one – the KJP. I am surely wanting to hear yeddy cry again in joy on TV for some reason that never matters. Its the iconism that matters doesnt it ? 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hakrappa KJP-gey vote haakro, hakroppo ….

(source wikipedia)

On one fine evening in 2008, a certain reasonably old man with white hair and moustache was crying on the TV screen, when a little girl who phoned in told him that Karnataka has finally elected a leader who will work towards its development and who will rid the state of its corrupt practices. He assertively declared that he will wage a war against corruption and uphold the victory that the state had provided to his party.

Five years down the line, the same gentleman was still crying on the TV screen, accusing his bosses and detractors of robbing his role and respect for all the hard work he did while wearing a khaki trouser and learning to stand in the hot sun to build up the party he so fondly cared for. After he took over the party to power way back, his growing deeds of giving away large amount of money to temples of his choice, giving away prime lands in Bangalore city to his sons, and his supposed illegal involvement of being a beneficiary in the mining scan and iron ore scam earned him nothing but a boot out of the party.

After so many misdeeds and his political incompetence within the BJP on how to handle his peer pressure from Sadananda Gowda, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar and others, the man knew two things. One that his only way to escape this mess is to get out of the party before people decimated him. And two, that BJP had no chance in the upcoming ULB and assembly elections. The second turned out to be the trump card hiding close to his chest which he used to bail himself out to form the KJP.

The ULB election results are a direct pointer to what awaits the state in 2013 assembly elections and it has already given the BJP both a smack on the head and a slap on the face pretty deftly. The huge swing in votes towards the Congress means only one thing: People dont know who else to vote for – whether for KJP which is yet to test its waters with the same candidate who screwed the state, or for the JDS which is yet to be clear on how it intends to be a good state level player with credibility and track record.

Due to the obvious reasons, Congress wins by default, but the real acid test now is the expected bickering in the congress between Kharge, Siddu, DKS, and a few other stalwarts who will form a team similar to that in BJP and might either be advisories or ruin the show. While at a national level congress is stressing on youth participation and young blood and all that, we are yet to see a visionary congress leader after SM Krishna during whose time Bangalore’s transformation was unbelieveable.

Given we have a gazillion flyovers, and toll roads now, given we also have the metro, given we have billion people from all the states settled down here, given the increased crime rate, given the absolute lack of governance, given the beating Kannada as a language has got, given an already overgrown city without similar growth in infrastructure, given crazy land prices all over, and in general given the mammoth metamorphisis of Bangalore into a lazy-concrete-traffic-jammed-mall-cultured-rude-screwed garden city, what exactly would be the congress manifesto to bring back some sanity to Bangalore?

What is there to vote for? What hope as a city do we have left that things would be any better anymore? – The answer is NOTHING. The last time I could vote for congress, jds and bjp. This time i can also vote for another one – the KJP. I am surely wanting to hear yeddy cry again in joy on TV for some reason that never matters. Its the iconism that matters doesnt it ? 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,