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HILL STATIONS. (Source: Outlook TRAVELLER-February 2007) Attractions Cleanliness Facilities Value for money Overall 1. OOTY 22.2%  25.6% 37.8% 26.1% 27.2% 2.DARJEELING 31.0%  15.5% 9.0% 24.2% 25.2% 3.COORG(Madikeri) 13.8%  24.6% 9.7% 19.9% 16.9% 4. GULMARG   20.3% 15.9% 13.0% 14.6% 16.2% 5. CHAIL 9.5% 14.4% 8.2% 11.8% 10.9% ‘Snooty Ooty’ unbent to join the rat race and managed to pip last year’s winner,Darjeeling, to the post.The margin was slight, through-27.2% to Darjeeling’s 25.2%. While Darjeeling was still strongly tops for Attractions (31%) Ooty swept the votes in the Cleanliness, Facilities and Value-for Money criteria (25.6%, 37.8% and 26.1% respectively). Coorg (Madikeri) was the runner-up for Cleanlines,scoring barely less than ooty with 24.6% of the total votes. It also landed itself third position (16.9%).,havingScord consistently if not spectacularly on most criteria. Gulmarg follows Coorg (Madikeri) closely into, indicating overall,with 16.2% of the total share of votes, indicating perhaps return to touristic favour for its beleaguered state. Chail, with a little over 10% of the total votes, continues to remain low on the radar of summer holidayers-which is possibly a god thing for the 10% who do value its charms. Reasonably enough, it scored particularly low on the Facilities and Attractions parameters but fairly well for Cleanliness. POLL PUNDIT ANJOLIE ELA MENON I was in Ooty as achild, at Lovedale, and I’m happy to say a lot of the early charm still remains. Some of it is the people. They haven’t changed: extremely simple and kind and a good mix of Badagas, Tamilians and Malayalis, Sadly, the Todas are diminishing rapidly. Ooty’s landscape is so different from the Himalayan – rolling downs with copes of early Shola forest, the later monoculture of the blue and the red eucalyptus. The beauty of Ooty really hit me on a tour of the Australian Blue Mountains, which are just 3,000 ft high with very sparse plantations. They just can’t compare. Ooty has astounding vegetation. Lovedale also has historic buildings, apparently built by Chinese labour 150 years ago. There are relics of the Raj: the Savoy, the Ooty Club with its venerable waiters, brandy snaps, dress codes,and antiquities. The downs, the races, the golf. Best of all, sitting in our house, loking across the Ketti Valley, and seeing the old toy train puffing up the hill. Artist Anjolie Ela Menon lives in Delhi.