To Holiday or Not

One of the shocks that new employees face at Valcon is that they have to take their annual vacations (5 weeks) or let it lapse! There are no carry over and no encashment. It was a shocker for me as well; having worked for companies where getting your vacation sanctioned was a probabilistic event worse than India winning test matches outside India.

I make sure that I plan my vacations well and enjoy them. Work is such a pressure and these breaks are a great way of unwinding and recharging for the next 4 /5 months.

The last holiday was at Coonoor. My rule for holiday is that it should not be a sight seeing frenzy, running from one place to the other, that leaves you tired at the end of the day. Our pick for the holiday was Oland estate (http://www.olandestate.com/Start.html), a delightful little tea/coffee estate off the beaten path in Coonoor. So much so that you begin to wonder where the hell are you going


Oland is run by a family and they are extremely warm. The estate consists of 3 buildings; Estate house pictured above, is where we stayed. Set in a tea estate, its green all around and you wake up to chirping of birds. The day we reached, we saw broken branches and were told that an elephant visited them the previous night; they are now pretty used to it. Unfortunately, during our stay it came near the watering hole, but we couldn't see it.

What we did get to see was a fully grown bison walking in front of the estate (5 feet away). The manager told us that they are harmless and was sure that in the next decade they will be domesticated. Those visiting in 10 years can then drink bison milk.

They have a herd of bisons (some 25 of them), a pair of elephants, number of sloth bear and a few pairs of hornbills living with in the estate. It was breeding season for the hornbills and they were nesting deep inside the estate. The bear are the most feared for they are prone to attack humans, guess what, out of fear! Being nocturnal, it is tough to see them.

As far as things to do; we spent 2 days at the estate just wandering in the forest, resting and playing cards. One day was at Ooty and one day at Coonoor. Most of my time was taking photographs and I can say that this trip, I took a better proportion of good photos. Some are attached here.

Bye







Comments

Anirban said…
Nice pics.. the place sounds very nice from the way you described. I put it on my travel list
10:20 PM
Meenal Manikantan said…
Nice photos and a nice description.
7:16 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rupin Pass Trek

Image
This is an extremely delayed post. I have been wanting to complete this, but never found the time (well that's an easy excuse). Recently, we read in the press that Rupin pass was voted the second best trek in India and then I decided that I must complete this blog. We went on this trek during the first week of October 2014. Our motley crew for the trek numbered 8. Vasu - the eternal youngster Nalini - Akka for all of us (not by age) Defacto Chief on the trek Papa Rao (NPR for short) Nirmal - the lucky one Anirban - Only non tamil speaker Sunita - (Mata Sunitanandamayi) Sats - Baby on the team Considering that only 3 had past trekking experience, I had to draw up a detailed list of things to buy and exercise routine to follow; Rupin pass is a tough trek for most. Luckily for the group, they all took my instructions to heart. Some of them raided Decathlon stores and were well kitted for the trek. We started on Vijayadasham...
Read more

Puliyogare at Zajibal Pass (The great lakes trek) - Part 2

Image
Day 3: Shekdur (3300m) to Vishansar Lake (3600m) We woke up to cloudy skies, but thankfully no rain. We had a huge debate with the guides today. The questions were should we carry packed lunch with us. Ideally, we liked to have hot lunch. The guides promised us that we would be reaching Vishansar no later than 3PM and hence the team preferred to have lunch at the camp. After a breakfast of bread and omlette, we started off towards Vishansar. Since it was cloudy and drizzling, today I chose to put away my DSLR and shoot with iphone. I also started using my Garmin forerunner for route tracking. We started the day with a climb through forests of birch and cedar. Luckily it wasn't very steep. The route to Nichnai was looking very beautiful and walking here wasn't too tough We came across our first snow bridge for crossing the river Once we crossed the snow bridge, we realized that we had a treacherous climb on the mountain side. The path was less than a foo...
Read more

Puliyogare at Zajibal Pass (The great lakes trek) - Part 1 (Title credit - Dr Sunita Ravi)

Image
One thing I have learned in life so far is that almost all of us are crazy to some extent. This craziness is seen in many forms; we spend our entire adult life doing things we hate (and grumbling about it), we call it our work. There are some who carry out the charade of enjoying companies of those they hate (spouses, relatives etc.). Then there are those who pray to idols for divine intervention(now you know about about my spiritual leanings). Crazier are still some of us. We get up at 4:30 AM to run 20Kms. Spend a crazy long time sitting in the cold lugging heavy cameras to photograph a tiny butterfly, an elusive bird or a tiger. Sit in extremely uncomfortable stadium in 35+ deg sun watching equally crazy idiots play with a small hard ball. Our team above shared the crazy joy(!) of climbing up rocks and mountains, living in uncomfortable tents and walking long distance in remote, cold mountains. This is a blog of our crazy adventure in the Kashmir Himalayas. Our team ...
Read more