Where NOT to dine

Everybody writes about what restaurants to visit in Bangalore, what to eat and what to do. Here is a post which tells you what NOT to do, and where NOT to dine. And the winner in my list of hopeless hotels is Anjeer.

It was my b'day, and four of us decided to go have dinner at this place called "Anjeer" at Vijaynagar. None of us had been there before so we thought we will give it a shot. It looks posh from outside, and has a veerappan-moustached guy who opens the door for you. When we went inside, we scanned the hall and we were the only ones in the hotel. We all pass each other glances, ans still proceed to the table. We opted for a corner table for 4. And ordered for food.

So settled down, and were generally discussing how my day had been so far. They served the soup first, with masala papad. Th masala papad had very little masala and lots of just raw onions! And the soup tasted like it was minimum of two days old.

We let that pass and talk about school and college stuff. Suddenly there is a power cut and the hotel doesnt have an electricity back up! So we were lurched to have dinner in the dark. Finally after they see our condition and bring a candle to our desk.

And we all sit startled for a second and feel a slight movement under our seats. We dismiss it, in case its just our imagination. Two seconds later, the movement gets stronger and now we hear squeaks!!! Yes, you guessed it right... there were rats under the seats!!!!

That pulled the last straw and we walked out of that place.

Parsons valley - Paradise on Earth

We had been planning for over two weeks for this trek. So obviously, all of us (Bharat, Satish, Madhu, Shreyas, Vibha, Ekta, Deepthi and myself) were very excited about it. We left Bangalore by 4AM Saturday and headed towards our destination. Danced like crazy in van! The route which we were supposed to take was Bangalore-Mysore-Bandipur-Kalati Ghats- Ooty-Parsons Valley. Its about 7hrs drive from Bangalore. The driver was drowsy and nodding off to sleep in between, Bharat, drove the vehicle for about 100kms!

While driving through Bandipur we saw some elephants, sambar deers, monkeys and some wild boars.



We reached Ooty and had to hunt the place for a bit, because its about 30kms from Ooty. We finally reached there by 3 in the afternoon. But the place was worth every single second we had waited, every single km we had travelled extra and definitely worth its weight in platinum!! I was amazed at the nature even during the drive- it was so pleasant to see so much of greenery, fresh air and NO pollution of any kind! But the place which we stayed in, Parsons valley, was breathtaking. The first glance makes you wonder if you are really in Ooty or are you walking in one of those paintings or postcards you would have received, which is just picture perfect. It was exactly like that. The best part about Parsons valley is that the vegetation present there is Australian and British. You will find common plants, but along with that, you will find a variety of flora which is present only in Australia. So its a beautiful sight.

We stayed at a place which was right in middle of the jungle, and it has small stream flow through it. The water was biting cold!!! :-) you put your feet into it, and your feet will start to turn white! haha.. and obviously, I had to slip and fall right into the water.. for one second i thought i am going to die of first bite or something!



After a sumptuous lunch, we set out for a short trek in the evening. I have to mention - it was the BEST veg food i have ever eaten!!! it was absolutely amazing!!! It was just about a half hour trek into the jungle, where we sat by one more stream.. waited for the sun set and headed back. we reached our rooms back by 7. a camp fire was lit and the booze was out! We danced till we could not feel out feet and we drank till we could feel our head! :-)

We were supposed to leave at 6 the next morning for our trek. But since our previous night was very eventful, we ended up leaving for the trek only by 10! We crossed the stream and headed towards the jungle. it was one of the most brilliant treks and most certainly a walk to remember. we trekked for about 9 kms totally- through pine trees, through valleys, through grasslands, uphill, across streams, through dry trees, crawled under them, hopped across them! We saw mushrooms which we would have seen in cartoons and never expected them to be real!

Our guide was a skinny old man, Dore Raju, who was very experienced and extremely patient as well. We were all wearing sports shoes and tracks and cap etc, all geared for the trek and still finding it difficult to keep pace with him, who was wearing a normal chappal!

We reached this place called Mukruti dam. The speciality of this dam is that it has waves even though its not an ocean or a sea!! And the view was fantastic.. you will NOT believe that you are in India and its just 7 hrs from bangalore!! It started to rain when we were on our way back; and no words can explain how beautiful the entire landscape looked!!


Now when i think of Parsons Valley, i can feel the breeze through my hair, dew in the air, and the moist under my feet on the grass... It was a journey which i never wanted to return from.

We finally left Parsons valley by 6 in the evening (not wanting to).. we headed to Ooty and shopped some Ooty chocolates and tea powder for home..