Ooty, Coonoor, Kotagiri itinerary for 5 days

Ooty or Udagamandalam (2240 metres) is a popular hill station in Nilgiri district in Tamil Nadu state of India. Around 20 kilometres south-east of Ooty is Coonoor(1850 metres). Kotagiri(1950 metres) is to the east of Ooty and to the north-east of Coonoor. Essentially, these three places form a triangle. You can visit this area completely while stationing yourself in Ooty, however, this itinerary will cover night stays at all these hill-stations.

The Nilgiri district is named after the Nilgiri mountain range that exists here. Most of these places are parts of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Nilgiris used to be a densely forested region inhabited by various tribes. The forest was razed and the tribal lifestyle was uprooted with the arrival of John Sullivan in 1819. He was the British collector posted in Coimbatore.

Sullivan established a very British way of life here. The forests were destroyed leading to the loss of indigenous flora and fauna. Tea, a foreign crop, was introduced in the region to satisfy the unsatiable British thirst of the beverage. The British way of life is still very much perceivable in the region—it is reflected in the old stone house with chimneys and the omnipresence of bakeries. The displaced tribes—Todas, Kotas, Irulas, Badagas, Kurumbas and many more still exist in small pockets, but they have integrated themselves with modern India.

Even during summer, the Nilgiris exhibit pleasant temperatures. The Nilgiri Mountain Railways (popularly known as the Toy Train) is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a very popular tourist trail and thronged by domestic vacationers who want to get some respite from the summer heat of tropical India.

Is this itinerary right for you?

This itinerary is right for you if you are looking for a relaxed pace of travel. It is focused on nature and food.

Is Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri safe?

Yes, it is largely safe to travel in Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri if you do not pick a fight and maintain general safety measures. Here, wildlife, particularly elephants, bison, leopards, and sloth-bears, roam in the tea thickets. They are also sometimes found on the open road particularly at dawn, dusk, and night. Be mindful of this when driving or walking at odd hours.

Bison rarely attack unless they are disturbed. Tread calmly and cautiously if an elephant is in your way. Leopards shy away from a group of people but if you are alone be careful of your surroundings. Sloth bears, the most dangerous of them all, attack when they are surprised. So, it is best to make noise and talk with your fellow travel partners when walking on lonely stretches to avert unpleasant surprises!

Sometimes, the region faces water crises, so some hotels may not provide 24×7 hot water supply. Small plastic water bottles are banned in the region (thank God), however, every hotel and restaurant provide either filtered water or boiled water for drinking purpose.

Mindless construction and haphazard ‘development’ nowadays cause frequent landslides in the Nilgiris during monsoon. Even though the distances between the towns are small, the roads sometimes get cut off. Keep this in mind when travelling during monsoon. Planning for buffer days is the best safety net if travelling during monsoon.

Ooty, Coonoor, Kotagiri itinerary for 5 days

Day 1: Arrival in Coimbatore. Coimbatore to Coonoor transfer. Sightseeing at Coonoor.

• Reach Coimbatore, have breakfast, then set off for Coonoor.
• Check-in at your accommodation, freshen up, have lunch, and then go for Coonoor sightseeing.
• Sim’s Park, Dolphin Nose(a view point), Lamb’s Rock(a view point), Tea factory are some of the places to visit in Coonoor. Some tea factories also let you taste chocolate tea. The whole road is hemmed by tea terraces and forests. The tea stretches are lush green and forested patches are deep and dark. Wild animals often roam on these forested areas. Ask your driver to stop at nice vista points. There is a bit of a walk at Lamb’s Rock. Reach back to Coonoor before sunset.
• Have dinner and retire for the day.
• Our Experience — There are many tea factories in Coonoor; we had visited the Benchmark Tea Factory. After the tea factory tour they also offered us 5 types of teas—green tea, white tea, masala tea, black tea and lemon tea. We had also visited a ‘strawberry farm’ and ‘eucalyptus oil producing unit’ but both were just gimmicks to draw in customers and sell them products from their respective shops. No-one will explain what is happening so it is just whatever you draw from the visuals.

Day 2: Leave Coonoor for Kotagiri. Sightseeing in Kotagiri.

• Have breakfast in Coonoor and set off for Kotagiri.
• Check-in at your accommodation, have lunch and then go for Kotagiri sightseeing.
• The first point should be Kodanad view point. The road to Kodanad View Point is dotted with forests where wildlife is very active. The tea gardens here are a class apart and probably the best maintained tea gardens in the Nilgiris. They used to be owned by the late J. Jayalalitha, the much-adored former chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
• The next viewpoint should be Catherine waterfalls. It can be reached by walking through a tea garden. The waterfall is at right angle to the view point and is quite far.
• Longwood Shola is a small patch of forest, remnants of the original Shola forest that had once thrived in the Nilgiris (before it was destroyed by the British). The forest is extremely dense, dark, and very thrilling. You should ideally go here only with a guide. This is ground zero of wild animals.
• Return to Kotagiri, have dinner, sleep tight.
• Our experience – Our vehicle driver was a local here, he stopped at a very scenic Toda village sprawled on velvety grassland and showed us a Toda Dairy Temple. Kodanad viewpoint barely had any tourists and hence we loved it. Catherine waterfall was wafer-thin but we had visited in mid-April, a dry season, so this was expected. At Longwood Shola forest, I was so terrified of being attacked by wild animals that I returned just after walking 200 metres. While getting out our driver, who was with us, showed us footsteps of sloth-bears in the tea terraces.

Day 3: Perched in a tea estate of Kotagiri, relax, and do nothing.

• Book a nice accommodation in a refurbished British bungalow within a tea estate in Kotagiri, just sit back and relax. Laze in a hammock, read a book, enjoy the sounds of nature. Draw in endless vistas of tea gardens and if you are lucky, you may even see a bison munching on tea leaves. This is largely what we did.

Day 4: Kotagiri to Ooty transfer. Walk around the hill-station of Ooty.

• Go for a nature walk in a tea garden with a naturalist in the morning. Return, freshen-up, have breakfast and then leave for Ooty.
• Check-in and have lunch at Ooty.
• Go for a stroll at the beautiful campus of YWCA Ooty. Check out Shalom, a non-profit that sells G.I tagged Toda embroidery in the form of shawls, sarees, bags, cushion covers, coasters and even keychains!
• While in YWCA, also check out the chocolate museum.
• Go to the main market for shopping and buy some home-made chocolates and Ooty Varkey(a flaky biscuit that just got a GI tag). Have dinner and retire for the day.
• Our Experience – Unfortunately on this day early morning, I got bitten by a leech in the tea garden. The rest of the day I tried to do as less activity as possible. We visited Shalom but skipped the chocolate museum.

Day 5: Ooty sightseeing.

• Have breakfast and set off for Ooty local sightseeing. The first point is Dodabetta Peak (2637 metres), it is the highest point of Tamil Nadu and is extremely crowded. Coonoor, Kodanad and many other places are visible from this point. There is also an observatory here with a telescope.
• The Ooty Botanical Gardens is the next stop. It is an extremely beautiful garden with labelled trees. From grass slopes, shrubs, to tall pine forests, the Ooty Botanical Gardens is a joy to plant lovers. Beyond the topmost gates of the Botanical Gardens there is a Toda Village with a Toda Dairy Temple. If you plan to climb to it then exploring the Botanical Gardens would take around 1.5 hours.
• Have lunch and leave for the tea and chocolate factories. There are many tea and chocolate factories situated side by side in Ooty. The tea factories give a guided tour of the factory. You see the machineries used, processes involved, and a little bit of tea-history. It always ends with tea tasting. The chocolate factories are mostly just a couple of machines whizzing in a small room and a shop.
• Next, head to the Ooty Lake or Boat House. The lake is situated in front of a forested hill. Row boats and paddle boats ply when there is no rain. There is also a shopping complex and food plaza here. Bang opposite the entrance of the lake is a Thread Museum, it is a repository of flowers made by threads.
• Next visit the Ooty Rose Garden, which covers a large expanse of a hill-slope and houses thousands of varieties of roses. May is the best time to see them bloom.
• Have dinner and retreat for the day.
• Our Experience – The highlight of this trip for me was visiting the Toda Dairy Temple and the village. The grassy meadows and the view of Ooty from the village is spellbinding to say the least. We visited the Dodabetta Tea Factory and Tea Museum and their chocolate factory outlet. The latter was hardly anything more than a shop. During our visit to Ooty Lake it was pouring heavily so boating was off the table. Unlike Coonoor and Kotagiri, most of the tourist places in Ooty were very crowded.

Day 6: Ooty to Coimbatore transfer via Nilgiri Mountain Railway, also known as the ‘Toy Train’.

• Have breakfast and board the Nilgiri Mountain Railway from Ooty railway station. One train per day runs between Ooty and Mettupalayam for which Coonoor is a pit stop situated in the middle of this route. Other trains run till Coonoor only. You can get down at Coonoor and hire a cab/auto from Coonoor to Coimbatore. The Coonoor bus stand is walking distance from Coonoor railway station so you can also get on a bus. However, the buses originate from Ooty so keep in mind you may not get a seat. Sometimes shuttles ply on this route as well. They give comfort, an ensured seat, and are very easy on the pockets.

Alternatively, you can get down at Mettupalayam railway station and go to Coimbatore by bus/car/auto.

• Check-in at your hotel, freshen up and have lunch at Coimbatore. Rest for the afternoon.
• In the evening, put a jasmine flower garland in your hair and go visit the nearby temples. The architecture of the stone temples in Tamil Nadu are very different from those in Northern, Eastern, or even Western India. Observe the devotees performing rituals.
• Have dinner and retire for the day
• Our Experience – We deboarded the train at Coonoor. Luckily, we got a shuttle car (a Tempo Traveller van) at INR 100 per head from Coonoor bus stand to Coimbatore. The sudden temperature change was too much to handle for our bodies hence we just rested in the afternoon. Since we rarely get the opportunity to visit south India, we used our super short stay in Coimbatore to sample food— Venu Dindigul Biryani, Madurai Jigarthanda and Ghee Roast (a dosai that is served like a conical hat) from the nearest Sree Annapurna Shree Gowrishankar branch.

Day 7: Catch a morning flight/train to home.

How to book the Nilgiri Mountain Railways or the Ooty Toy Train

Tickets of this train are available on the IRCTC portal. Tickets open four months in advance. On IRCTC, the tiny train has two kinds of coaches—Second Sitting and First Class. There is not much difference between the two except that First Class seats are the front coaches of the train (towards the direction of the train). The First Class seats are arranged such that 5 people will sit in every row facing each other.

The tickets are also available offline. They need to be booked on the same day of travel. Travel should commence within 3 hours of the purchase of the offline tickets. They cost less in the offline counters.

Our experience – We planned our trip last minute. So by the time we decided we are surely going on this trip, these tickets were exhausted online. After reaching Ooty we asked a local if he can get us the tickets to which he agreed. His task was to wake up early and stand in the queue and get the tickets for us. He asked for INR 100 per ticket for the service and we felt it is fair. We would have preferred the Second Sitting but said it is okay to get us First Class if Second Sitting is unavailable. He got us First Class.

You can ask your hotel or transport person to arrange tickets if you are planning on getting tickets offline. They can arrange tickets at an added price for their service.

Accommodation

We discover accommodations using Booking.com. We select the ones that fit our budget, ‘check-in’ timings, and has good reviews. Then we cross-check the reviews on Google. Finally we do the bookings and as a rule of thumb we always call up the properties to ascertain if they have received our bookings and if all is good. Only then we pay the advance. This has protected us from ugly surprises.

For example, once we had used a hotel aggregator platform to book an accommodation in Havelock Island. Later, on calling the accommodation, we discovered that the aggregator has listed the hotel on their platform against the hotel’s wish. So bookings coming from the concerned platform are not respected by the hotel. The hotel asked us to cancel the booking from the platform and pay them directly. This worked fine for us.

Coonoor

Property name – H.S Cottages (INR 2340 per night a room, double occupancy, booked through Booking.com)

This property is a 90-year-old refurbished British cottage with chimneys. It is in Upper Coonoor. It overlooks the city and provides a fantastic vista. Sunsets are spectacular from here. The cottage has a lawn and is decked with flowers.

There are 3 rooms in the cottage. One is a giant room that can fit in a big family, this room has a view. Our room was probably the smallest with no view. There is one more room that may or may not have a view. The washrooms are large, very clean, with 24×7 hot water supply. Our room was furnished with a giant bed, a single bed, side table, centre table, dressing table, wardrobe, and a chair.

There is a living room at the centre of the house with sofa, TV and dining table. Two caretakers look after guests and cook for them. The owner is very friendly and hangs around the premises during day time. The cottage basically feels just like home and during our stay we ended up chatting with the guests in the other rooms as well. Everyone sat in the lawn, balcony, and there was Cookie, the very playful kitten who made us guests bond with each other!

The owner can speak Hindi but the caretakers speak only Tamil, though they understand English. The food was homely but spicy.

Kotagiri Day 1

Property name – Apple Breeze Resort(INR 2000 per night a room, double occupancy, booked through Booking.com).

This hotel is newly constructed and overlooks tea terraces and a church. The room was huge and clean with a windowed balcony and 24×7 hot water supply. The room was furnished with a giant bed, two side tables, a centre table, two chairs, TV and a wardrobe. There is a restaurant downstairs. The owner/manager is friendly and can speak Hindi. The person at the reception can only speak Tamil. Everyone at the restaurant were speaking Hindi. The restaurant was strange in that they are supposed to serve South Indian food but they just had puri-bhaji for breakfast but no South Indian fare during our visit.

Kotagiri Day 2

Property name – Teanest Nightingale by Nature (INR 3968 per night a room, double occupancy, breakfast included, booked through Booking.com)

This is a 140-year-old refurbished British bungalow right in the middle of a tea slope. The bungalow has a lawn, a beautiful garden, and a porch. Inside, there are four rooms and a dining area. Each room has an attached modern balcony and a giant, luxurious washroom. Our room did not have a proper view though.

The room was furnished with a large bed, a wardrobe, side tables, dressing area, chest of drawers and TV with Netflix subscription! However, I felt there was very less natural light.

The resort runs a complimentary guided nature walk on the tea slopes in the morning for guests. It is 1.5 kilometres stretch downhill and then uphill walk. Here guests are made aware of the history of tea in the Nilgiris, how tea is farmed and the current challenges that the tea industry and workers are facing. The food at the resort was extremely good.

Ooty

Property name – AI Woodlands (INR 1800 per night for standard, double occupancy, booked by directly contacting the hotel)

This hotel is a stone’s throw away from the Ooty Rose Garden. It faces the town and at night the twinkling city lights make for a very nice view. Our room did not have a city view though. The room was small but very clean and well lit. It was furnished with a bed, two side tables, a coat hanger, loft, mirror, stool and two chairs. The washroom was also clean, had a soap and shampoo dispenser, and 24×7 hot water.

There is no restaurant here but there is a restaurant just opposite to AI Woodland hotel where we used to go for breakfast and dinner.

Coimbatore

Property name – Hotel Aiba Regency (INR 1800 per night, double occupancy, breakfast included, booked through Booking.com)

This hotel is barely 2 minutes walking distance from the railway station, our primary reason for booking it. The room was big and air conditioned with a giant bed, side tables, a centre table, chairs, wardrobe, TV and a dressing table. The washroom was clean.

The breakfast of idli, uttapam, upma, sambhar, coconut chutney and coffee were good.

Food

Homemade chocolates, various types of Nilgiri tea and a crispy flaky biscuit called Varkey are the typical food items that you should not miss in Coonoor, Kotagiri and Ooty belt. Baked goodies and cakes are the go-to snack here and there are bakeries at every corner. The starting price for a box of assorted homemade chocolates could hover from INR 100 – INR 250. Cost of 250 grams of Varkey was around INR 50in Kotagiri. A pack of 500 grams of Benchmark Chocolate tea cost us INR 250.

Nilgiris has traditionally been a place for honey hunters. If you have sources in the Nilgiris who can point you to the purest honey and if you have a conveyance of your own, please buy some. We were travelling by trains and buses hence we did not risk buying (and spilling) honey.

Apart from this, you will get typical South Indian breakfast fare in all these places. North Indian food is also available for lunch and dinner in all these places but it is very widely available in Ooty.

We are not from South India but we love South Indian breakfast. Dosai is probably the one item that almost everyone loves irrespective of where they are from. We have lived in Kolkata and Bombay and we often eat (store bought) dosai as lunch or dinner. However, after visiting Nilgiris, we realized dosai is strictly a breakfast item here.

Transport

State bus services are good at connecting the cities of Coimbatore – Coonoor – Kotagiri – Ooty. Since we are two fit and fine backpackers, we made all city transfers via state buses. Since most of the sightseeing were just half-day long, we did most of the intra-city sightseeing by hiring random autos from street corners. Just in Ooty we booked a car through the hotel as we wanted a bit more comfort on that day.

• Coonoor half-day sightseeing by auto – INR 800 (around 22 kilometres)
• Kotagiri half day sightseeing by auto – INR 1500 (around 47 kilometres)
• Ooty sightseeing by car – INR 1500 (non AC)

Language

Tamil is the mother tongue in the state of Tamil Nadu, however, most of the people in this circuit understand English and most can speak at least broken English. Ooty being the most touristy place in the circuit, here many shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant staff can even speak Hindi. In Coonoor, English was the go-to language for us. In Kotagiri, very few people can speak and understand English. However, navigating the language barrier was fun. We took help of Google translate and sometimes used sign language.

Please be respectful of the local language and do not impose your language (ahem, Hindi) expectations on them.

Climate / Time of travel

You can travel to Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri all round the year. The weather is very pleasant in the spring months of March-May. It is also the time when maximum flowers bloom. The evening/night time temperature in Ooty and Kotagiri can get chilly in the winter months. Monsoon unleashes a different kind of beauty in the region with cloudy, dramatic skies and frequent spells of rain. However, monsoon is also the time when landslides occur cutting off road connectivity between towns/villages/cities here. If you are travelling in the monsoon, it is good to have buffer days and avoid risky roads. Also, I imagine the experience of walking in the tea terraces would be out-of-bounds during monsoon.

Final Note

Happy responsible travel!

Have you been to Ooty, Kotagiri and Coonoor? Did I miss anything? Comment below to add to the knowledge and start a conversation!

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