About My Home Town Ooty :: social issues

About My Home Town Ooty The name Ooty is derived from Ootacamund, also popularly known as â€Å"Udhagamandalam or Udhagai† in the regional language. India is a growing Tourist destination. The southern most part of India lies the State of Tamil Nadu, the cradle of the Dravidian Culture, founded over 5000 years ago. This state is the home to some of the most ancient architectural beauties, sculptures and the natural beauties of which Ooty is one among them. In 1821 a batch of British soldiers discovered Ooty. The gusty evenings, the cold nights, the grassy downs, the hills and dales gripped the imagination of the British. They surveyed and mapped the hills and started filling in what they felt as missing parts of the landscape. Thus spacious Victorian houses, country-style churches and spruced gardens came into being. They even brought the English vegetation like cabbages, cauliflower, strawberries, raspberries and flowers like buttercups and rhododendrons. They built the first railway line in this area and made Ooty the summer capital of the then Madras Presidency. Before the arrival of the British Ooty was inhabited by Todas the tribal people who still inhabit the area, but only around 3000 remain. The picturesque and green Ooty, is located in the Western Ghats at an altitude of 2240meters above the Mean Sea Level (MSL). Ooty is the headquarters of the Nilgiri District. The temperature varies from 25 °c to 10 °c during summer and between 21 °c and 0 °c during winter. The best time to visit Ooty is between April to June and September to November. This hill station can be reached by rail and road. The nearest air port is at Coimbatore which is about 100kms from Ooty. The main tourist attraction in Ooty is The Government Botanical Gardens. The Government Botanical Gardens laid out in 1847, is the most beautiful jewel on the crown of the "Queen of Hill Stations". Well over 650 species of plants are in the garden and the fossil of a tree trunk believed to be 20 million years old is preserved here. The garden spreads over 22 hectares has lush green lawns, six sections comprising varieties of tree species, variety of ferns, fashioned beds, an Italian formal garden, flowering plants, house ferns, orchids and nurseries. It is indeed a great pleasure for me to reside very close to the Botanical Gardens. Visiting the Botanical Gardens was always a great pleasure and refreshment.