MEALS & MILES: Dreamed, Planned, Traveled: “Princess of Hill stations”

Dreamed, Planned, Traveled: “Princess of Hill stations”

September’10

“Chal yaar kahin ka trip banao”, these were the words from my mouth while munching kalmi kabab at our super favorite Vaishali Restaurant @Tumkur. “Kodai chal lo”, Kanhaiya replied. That was the moment we started planning our most memorable tour of college life (perhaps the best to date).

The biggest deal while you are a student is always to check the budget of anything that is planned. We have to explain it to our parents to get those extra bucks. We got a rough estimate from the travel agent.

Now, the question was who all are in. As, there was some local festival of Karnataka, we were having few days off including Sunday. I was the initiator so have to count myself in. Anup (forever ready), Kaushal aka Obama (hum bhi chalenge bhai were his words), Ashutosh Ji (Always ready for tours and hanging out), Priyanshu (You just have to say word tour to him, that will be it), Alok (needed some convincing), Rakesh (ready due to economical budget :P), Kanhaiya (Due to his alma mater). Rohit was the last time addition, he was literally dragged by us from his room to Tavera.

Tavera was booked by Rohit’s Landlord. Pricing was around Rs8/KM (remember, it was way back in 2010). Being the most matured and sensible person of the lot, Ashutosh Ji was given the responsibility of the accounts. I was made the cashier. All set, we were ready to roll.

Route taken was:

Tumkurà Bangaloreà Salemà Maduraià Kodaikanal

Ashutosh Ji and I occupied the front seats alongside with the Driver. One of us has to stay awake the whole night to keep an eye on the driver (You all must know why!!). We all were pulling legs of each other as we normally do. After battling with traffic jams, we were out of the hustle and bustle of Bangalore and were on the National Highway No. 7. A small stop over at toll booth on the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Few hours later, everyone lost their battle with sleep. Ashutosh Ji and I were the lone rangers. Discussion on various topics of cricket, politics etc. etc. was going on between us. And finally I was down too. Suddenly I woke up and saw the beautiful Sun rising in front of me. And one of the milestones read “Kodaikanal 90 KMs”. We just crossed Dindigul and the beauty of hills could be easily seen from there on.

90 KMs is not that much distance if you are travelling on a plain terrain. But when you have to travel through the sharp turns and inclined roads to reach the top of the hill, it has to take a bit long.

I have to admit, the best part while travelling to any hill station is the view you get when you are driving through the hills. Pure and Serene. It was about 7 o clock in the morning when everyone woke up one by one. A couple of Loo breaks later we saw a board announcing “Welcome to Kodaikanal: Princess of Hill Stations”. Spot on, I must say. Truly a Princess.

I have been to various hill stations before, but there is something special about Kodaikanal.

After few minutes, we saw one water fall on the right hand side of the road. We all shouted to stop the car. That was our first tourist spot of Kodaikanal. Few clicks and not to forget “Mera single photu lo bhai”, by Obama.

First Click of Kodaikanal. PK clicked it. I can't recall the name of this fall (It's been 5 years so please bear with me!!)

Group Pic. Pk was our camera man through out the tour, so he will be missing out in most of the pics. "Selfie" was an unknown entity back then.

We then headed towards the main city where we had to book a hotel. Since, the stay was of 2 days and 2 nights, we wanted to book an economical hotel (We were students, rememberJ). Kanhaiya’s local knowledge of Kodaikanal came to our rescue and we booked a room at the hotel. The room was quite big, even for 8 people. We were tired as hell, thanks to 9 hours of road journey. Few of us went to freshen up and few stretched their legs. About an hour or so we were up and ready to explore what Kodaikanal has got.

Our Hotel. No names again for the same reason. That's our white Tavera (almost forgot to mention that)!!!

Suddenly, our whole enthusiasm was turned down by the Rain. We somehow managed to get back to the hotel and waited rain to stop. We were lucky that it stopped quite early otherwise our whole day would have been wasted in the hotel room.

Nevertheless, we started again and went to the market down there and had our lunch. We kept roaming here and there that day. We went to “Coakers Walk” that evening and had a good time there. The view was impeccable. We walked through for some time and due to some “UNAVOIDABLE CIRCUMSTANCES” Anup and Alok had to rush back to the hotel (I am not going to explain whyJ). They joined us after sometime and we kept roaming around the main market.

We came across one Chinese food joint opposite to the petrol pump, it was the savior for us because the price of food is on a higher side on other joints. As higher as RS 200 per plate of plain rice (trust me, I am not making this up). There is one bakery too which is run by a very polite lady. We bought some cookies from there. The bakery and the Chinese food joint is a must visit.

It was way past 8 PM and we decided to head back towards our hotel. That night was one of the memorable night in my life. There are some moments of that night which made me smile even today. Lines like “Hats off to you Sir!!!” and the “Kaand” by Rohit and Alok will remain imprinted in my mind for a lifetime.

Day-2 began with a high, everyone were at their best. Jokes about last night kept going on and on. We ordered coffee and masala dosa for breakfast. Now, it was up to our local guide Kanhaiya to lead us towards tourist spots.

We headed towards Pillar Rock and Pine Forest. Pillar rock provides a great view of Kodaikanal. Pine forest will surely make your day. It will look quite familiar to you if you are X-Men movie fan. We had a whole lot of photo session there. We kept going deep into the forest and reached at the end of the valley. As expected the area was not explored by most of the people. It was an awesome experience feeling the clouds passing by. “Nature at its best”.

That's Pillar Rock for you!!

Almost everyone had guava (amrud) there. The timing of this click was awesome. Kudos 'PK'.

At Pine forest. Giving X-Men, who? Finally Pk comes in a pic :).

Yeah, you guessed it right. There is no more land left. One slip and you will experience a ride of 2200 meters that too downwards. Any one up for it??

At camp rock we came to know about a place called “Devil’s Kitchen”. Locals around there told us that some famous movie was shot at this point. Interesting place I must say. Smoke was coming out from deep and dark caves. That explains the reason for naming it “Devil’s Kitchen”. Then we headed towards “Liril Fall” (I was wondering what was with this place and whacky names). The fall was named “Liril Fall” because famous Liril soap advertisement was shot there. People of all ages were enjoying the shower. We didn’t take even a minute to jump into the water. Water was dead cold but who the hell cares. We were enjoying a lot but sudden a call from our empty stomachs pulled us out of fall and then we went searching something to eat. We had few bondas (local snacks made of smashed potatoes).

Liril Fall

Sorry to disappoint you all. No Priety Zinta here in Liril Fall.

What is the fun of a group trip if we didn’t have any twist in the tale? So, suddenly our group of four people got split into 2 groups of 4 people each. Anup, Ashustosh Ji, Alok, Obama & I were at the parking and PK (Priyanshu), Kanhaiya, Rakesh & Rohit went roaming around and searching a spot called “Dolphin’s nose” (told you!! Whacky names and here goes another). Eventually they did found that and looked like a great place. We four guys missed that out. But, we had to make it evenJ. So, we went for a small fall behind our hotel. “Bear Shola” fall (we neither had any damn idea about the significance of naming it nor we tried to get anyJ). It was a small fall but worth visiting.

That's PK for you!! Dolphin's nose.

Now we were left with few hours in Kodaikanal. We decided to go to the Kodai Lake that evening. Not much of gas were left in us but we tried and at least covered one small woolen market there. That eventually was the last tourist spot we visited there.

Back in the hotell room, everyone was looking tired and we had all reasons for it. Then Anup & Ashutosh Ji asked us that if we were interested in going to Madurai and visit the famous Meenakshi Temple. The detour was costing us around 140KMs extra. After some heated discussion, we all agreed.

We left Kodaikanal early in the morning. Again those mesmerizing views took our breath away. We headed towards Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. A lot of hustle and bustle was there. We didn’t have any such good memories to cherish from Madurai. The temperature was on the higher side, too much crowd, above all the question that was going in our mind was that we have to travel 400+KMs from there.

We bought some DVDs from the local shop to entertain ourselves. But we were a bit tired, and as a result one by one we all fell to sleep. We had few halts in between for lunch and snacks. Not to forget that crazy biker “Prem Bhaii”. That dude overtook our Tavera at a speed of more than 100KMph. That was some crazy stuff. Our driver got excited too and then the shit went real. Then we calmed our driver down by telling him “jaane do anna!!!”

Our last stop was at our beloved pyaari dhaba. Seeing North-Indian food after such a long time, everyone went berserk. Paranthas, Lassi, Kheer you name it. We were all over the place. After loading ourselves with tasty stuff, it was time to go back to our college. The cab driver dropped us at our college gate and we went to our hostel rooms with lots of memories, cookies and chocolatesJ.

We missed Paresh, Kaushal (Sherni), Kunal and Abhishek (Raju Anna) a lot. They missed out due to some unforeseen circumstances.

To be very frank, I was lucky to live these moments with you all. Hoping for an awesome get together somewhere down the line.

CHEERS!!!!