Chennai: Visiting the Queen of Hills, after five years, during the first week of June turned out be a traffic nightmare for us. It dashed our hopes of enjoying ‘a not much crowded’ Ooty in June when summer holidays are over.
It all started when we reached Ooty. A large number of vehicles, entering and leaving the hill station, led to traffic jams on narrow stretches.
Long traffic snarls gave a torrid time to tourists. Vehicles had to move bumper-to-bumper and there were only a few policemen struggling to regulate the traffic.
Vehicles which wanted to go to Ooty Garden road were diverted and in the confusion, we reached Mel Kodappamund, quite far off from our destination. We had to go through another round of traffic congestion before we finally reached our place of stay.
Whenever we wanted to visit any tourist spot, it took quite some time for our vehicle to move out of the area as traffic snarls had become the order of the day. Traffic jams on arterial roads were a common sight.
Our trip to Doddabetta had to be called off after a long wait in a queue of vehicles clogging the 2.6 km stretch between the Doddabetta junction and the main peak. Also re-laying of some stretches of the road compounded the traffic problem.
Meanwhile, the rising pollution caused by umpteen tourist vehicles has affected the salubrious weather of the 200-year-old town with limited infrastructure.
Our 2-day stay in Ooty was marked by traffic snarls, diversions and lack of parking space reminding us of Namma Chennai, albeit in cooler climes.
