Kodaikanal Trip

Kodaikanal or Kodai as its known was the venue for the surprise trip my wifey (Vidisha) had planned for my birthday on 2^nd April. Kodai is a small hill station in the hills of the Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu. Its name in the Tamil language means "The Gift of the Forest". As with most hill stations in India, this place was also developed by the British who wanted to escape from the sweltering heat of the sun in Chennai. Wikipedia tells me that the hill station was established in 1845. The town of Kodaikanal sits on a plateau above the southern slopes of the upper Palni Hills at 2,133 meters (6,998 ft), between the Parappar and Gundar Valleys.

Life had been very hectic for the both of us over the last couple of months with 12 hour weekdays and sometimes even weekends spent @ office. So this break was a welcome break for us, even though both of us knew we were probably too tired to enjoy the trip. The sad thing was my schedule had been too hectic and wifey had to ultimately open her secret plans about the trip a day earlier as she was apprehensive I might not come home early to catch the train. They say when there’s a will there’s a way. Things worked out fine with Onsite and I was granted a half a day which actually turned out to be 8 hours in office. But whatever …..I was in time to catch the train. We caught the Pandian Express train from Egmore Station at Chennai at 9:15 PM. The journey had officially begun for us. Wifey had packed dinner for the both of us and it consisted of Paneer Dopiaza and Dum Aaloo along with Chapatis. Post dinner we slept like babies on the train.

We reached Kodai Road Railway station around 5:30 AM in the morning. The cool and above all clean air was a welcome break. There was a private bus available for Kodaikanal just outside the railway station, but we decided to book a cab for the scenic 80 KM journey across the meandering roads up the valleys. The cab driver thankfully knew enough English to get us by and charged us 1000 bucks for the drive. Yes, it was a little bit expensive but we wanted to enjoy the ride up the mountains at our own leisure time. The initial 20 Kms was pretty uneventful with the cab racing through the plains, but soon we got to the mountains. The air got cooler as we drove up. It was such a wonderful feeling, one we had missed for the last one year since we packed bag and baggage for sweltering Chennai. We stopped the cab at a couple of places just to catch the breathtaking views of the valleys below and the mountains up above. Finally we reached Kodaikanal hill station after a 2 hour drive. The air was slightly chilly and felt good on our faces. We checked into the Hotel Valley View Inn near the bus stand road. Thankfully it was just far enough from the bus stand so there were no blaring horns. The view from the balcony was awesome, we could see the lower reaches of the valley covered in light clouds even at 9 AM in the morning.

The room service was good and prompt. After having a delicious cup of aromatic masala tea at the hotel room and finishing our ablutions we moved out to explore Kodai. Fist stop for us was the Coakers Walk.

Day 1

Caokers Walk:

One of the places one should never miss when in Kodaikanal is the Coaker’s Walk. It has been named after Lt. Coaker who had discovered the beautiful place way back in the year of 1872. BTW, Lt. Coaker was the cartographer who designed the first map of Kodaikanal. We had to purchase entry tickets for going inside. But is very cheap, it costs about 2 bucks per person and 5 bucks for a camera. Situated on the southern slopes of the hill station of Kodaikanal, Coaker’s Walk is a paradise for those who want to spend time in the midst of nature.The long winding paths were simply awesome. Its located very near to the Kodai Lake and is a paved pathway near the edge of a hill. It provides a wonderful view of the town below and lush forests all around. The Coakers walk boast of an even more splendid view of flickering lights of the town below during evening as per the locals there. Though to our disappointment we found that the place gets closed around 7 PM local time. A telescopic view house is there at Coaker's walk that will provide a panoramic view of the valley, plains and the nearby towns and should not be missed by the tourists visiting the place. The ideal time to visit this place is before 2:30 pm in the afternoon as mist will start to set in over the valleys by late afternoons.

Bryant Park:

Next stop for us was the Bryant Park which is bang opposite the Coakers Walk and to the eastern banks of the Kodai Lake. The Bryant Park is a wonderfully well maintained botanical park spread over 20 acres of land. The park was planned and built in 1908 by a forest officer from Madurai, H.D.Bryant, and named after him. Ornamental plants are cultivated in a nursery for sale. The park organizes horticultural exhibits and flower shows every summer, to coincide with the peak season. Unfortunately we had visited just at the beginning of the peak tourist season so not all flowers were yet in bloom. But nevertheless the flowers there did take our breath away. The collection of rose flowers there is fabulous. The park also boasts of a glasshouse containing wide varieties of flowers, ferns and other ornamental plants.

Bryant Park also has an entrance fee of 5 bucks per person and another 10 bucks for a camera.

Kodai Lake:

Kodai Lake…Oohh so beautiful!!! I fell in love with the lake at the first site. It is an artificial, roughly star-shaped lake created in 1863. Sir Vere Hentry Levinge, the then Collector of Madurai, was instrumental in creating the lake in 1863. He was the person who brought the first boat to the Kodaikanal Lake and started boating club here.

There’s the option of hiring row boats as well as pedal boats and do boating there. We hired a 2 seated pedal boat for about 50 bucks for 30 minutes. If you are going in Winter, do the boating in the evening, as it’s an amazing experience to boat through fogs settling on the lake.

Lunch:

Food is a major problem at Kodaikanal. The place has relatively few places for eating and most of the places are a vegetarian fare while I am a hardcore non-veggie. Finally after talking with the locals we came to know of a place called Tibetian Brothers. The owner who doubles up as a waiter is very courteous - and very passionate about his country. So the restaurant walls are plastered with photos of Lhasa, Potola palace and the Dalai and Panchen lamas. We ordered Chicken Egg noodles, Pork Momo’s and Chilli Chicken. The food was good but the ambience left for a lot to be desired.

We returned post lunch to our hotel room to catch the historic India vs Sri Lanka cricket world cup cricket match. What a match it turned out to be. There was an anticlimax of sorts happening in the match. Zaheer Khan who had been the best bowler for India all through the tournament including the first half of the match was clobbered for over six runs an over towards the end. Virendra Sehwag who had not been dismissed for a duck in over 4 years got out to a duck. Both I and Vidisha were so scared we stopped watching the match for 5 -6 overs and started watching some movie on Zee Café. But our curiosity took over us and we found ourselves switching channels.
Finally, Captain Courageous Dhoni hit the winning six and India won the cup after 28 long years. Vidisha and I both cried along with Sachin, Yuvi, Mahi, Bhajji and others of the victorious Indian Cricket team when the match was won.

Time to get some shut eye, as we had to wake up to continue with our sightseeing the next morning.

Day 2

We woke up early as we had to check out of the hotel by 9:00 AM, even though the hotel staff was courteous enough to allow us to stay till 12:00 PM. We decided not to abuse their hospitality and checked out by 9:30 AM after depositing one backpack at the hotel cloak room. We had decided, we would book a cab today and cover as many places as we can because we were scheduled to return by train the same night. The mice inside our stomach had other idea and they started complaining regarding the lack of food inside our stomach for them to feed on. We paid heed to the mice/rat/dogs/cats inside our stomach and decided to have a hearty breakfast, especially since we had skipped dinner yesterday watching the cricket world cup final. We chanced upon a restaurant named Astoria. I wasn’t impressed as it was a Veg restaurant and on top of that a South Indian one at that. But wifey went in and I had to tag behind her too. Astoria proved to be a success. The food was finger licking good. I had a Masala Dosa and I can swear it was much better than any dosa I have had in Chennai over the last year. Wifey ordered Pongal and it was superb too as per her (PS. I am not a huge fan of Pongal and normally avoid it when I can) We had some great filter coffee at Astoria and then left on our sojourn for the day.

Kodaikanal, bus stand road is filled with taxi’s who have printed pamphlets with 4-5 touring options mentioned. Starting from the full day 18 places sightseeing tour to more normal 8 location sightseeing tours lasting 3 hours costing anywhere from 1200 bucks to 500 bucks. You can bargain hard and get some discount too. We chose a trip that was going to cost us 550 bucks and acquaint us with 6 places in and around Kodaikanal. Our guide confessed that, he was the nephew of the local DSP of police and so he had all the connections. Well I don’t know of his connections, but he did have a penchant for breaking traffic rules like driving on the wrong side of a one way traffic road. Anyways, everyone seem to know him, so he seemed to be getting away with breaking the traffic rules.

BTW, all hotels in Kodai have tie ups with tour operators with mini busses who charge you about 250 bucks per head and show all around Kodai. But they leave early in the morning, and wifey and me did not want to get up early on a holiday especially since both of us wake up early everyday for office. I mean what’s the point of going on a holiday and not sleeping ;-)

La Saleth Church:

This is a historic 150 year old church dedicated to Our Lady of La Salette. It’s a small but beautiful church and is a must visit if you like churches and the serenity within them.

La Salette is a small mountaintop village somewhere France. It is most noted for an apparition of the Virgin Mary that was reported in 1846 by two shepherd children, followed by numerous accounts of miraculous healings. The Catholic Church investigated the claims and found them to be basically credible and was approved under the name of Our Lady of La Salette.There are two shrines dedicated to our lady of La salette in the whole world, one in France and the other in Kodaikanal

Pillar Rock:

Pillar rocks consist of three towering huge granite boulders about 400 feet high. The chamber between the two pillars is called Devil's kitchen. There is a small garden in the shadows of the rocks which can be accessed after paying 2 bucks per head. This garden also has a small waterfall in it, if you call it a waterfall. This place is managed by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and they seem to be doing a decent thing with it. Pillar rock is a place where a lot of picnicking happens so we found many contingents of school kids there.

Golf Course:

Now I am not a golfer and was in no mood to see grass in a golf course. I mean the whole of Kodaikanal had much better flowering plants, who cares about green grass, yeah maybe the cows…..but am not a cow. So I cancelled this and asked our guide to move ahead.

Green Valley View/ Suicide Point:

Next on our itinerary was the Green Valley aka Suicide Point. History has it that many HomoSapiens took the name of the place quiet literally and ended up committing suicide from the cliff as a result the cliffs height became less with the number of broken bones piling up at the bottom. Local government decided upon an innovative idea….an idea doing the rounds throughout India, rename the and pray to God that if solves all problems, be it civic or administrative or in this case emotional problems of human beings. But that did not help too much, and the administration had to erect huge fences at the cliff edge to prevent further suicides. Oh!! By the way, they renamed it as Green Valley View (Not too bad a name)

It provides a picturesque and panoramic view of the plains, valleys, hills and the Vaigai dam. The deep, dense and dangerous valley below this point is more than 5000 feet drop and to get a good view from this point. There are a huge number of small shops nearby selling everything cheap and Made in China over here. But yes, there are some good shops selling aromatic spices and oils too.

Shanti Valley:

Shanti Valley is an accurate name for the place. It really gives you SHANTI. It’s a forest of tall pine trees and looks very pretty. Almost gives you the feeling of Dharmendra and Hema Malini prancing around the trees. Vidisha and I wanted to sing and prance around the trees, but for the want of time had to cut short this one. Yes, and if you are the lazy sort, you can hire ponies and ride around the forest too.

Guna Caves:

Okies, so I have mentioned Guna Caves, but please be aware that the actual Guna Caves are out of bounds from the general public. What we have now is 1 % of the Guna caves which are accessible. In fact none of the actual caves are accessible now to the public. The Guna Caves actually a part of the Pillar Rock and were actually known as the Devils Kitchen. But the Kamal Hassan starrer SUPERHIT (our guide emphasized super hit) GUNA movie which was shot here immortalized this place and the place has since then been dubbed as Guna Caves. The caves, I am told are bat infested and have innumerable crevices some of which are over 400 feet deep. Many people have died here as one misstep and you are bound to end up somewhere deep down in one of these crevices. Some of the crevices can be seen today and are not out of bounds. However the local administration has taken precautions and placed iron grill over them, so that one does not fall into them.

The place around it is full of tall pine and Eucalyptus trees that houses hundreds of naughty monkeys. Since the place gets a lot of rain, there is huge soil erosion which creates an interesting phenomenon. The trees are all tall, but their roots are all exposed to the elements, making it a dangerous walk. You have to watch each step of yours; otherwise you might end up falling on your face.

Day 2 Lunch:

Our sightseeing trip had to be cut short now as we were running out of time. Our guide cum cab driver dropped us near a hotel he promised served good non-veggie food. A place called “HillTop”. The place was way too crowded but eventually we managed to grab seats for ourselves. The food though was simply awful. We had ordered a fish and hoped it would be fresh fish from the mountain streams nearby. The fish turned out to be horrible and smelly. I am pretty sure, it was stale and in no way a fish from the mountain streams. The hotel at least had the courtesy of refunding the money for the fish. The chicken we ordered was ok, nothing great to write home about.

So after our rather disappointing lunch, we decided to head out to the lake and do something which my wifey loves. Can’t disappoint the wifey, especially since she had planned such a great trip for me. The good thing about Kodai is that everything is nearby and you can walk around. So we walked to the lake and the cool breeze and the warms sun was a welcome sight. We sat on the pavement near the lake and had ice creams there for our dessert. We hired a two seated tandem bicycle and decided to cycle around the lake. We had loads of fun riding around the lake (approximately 5 KM), but it left me exhausted. Hmm!!! U must have guessed what wifey had to say…..”Get into shape” J

We had another round of masala tea and purchased some homemade chocolates for office colleagues near the lake and then started walking back to the hotel as we had booked a cab with the help of the hotel travel desk. As we were walking, I saw a man selling something interesting on a roadside pushcart. My eyes lit up……All my friends who know me, might have guessed right…..must be something related to food….. :) :) Yes, they are right….the man was selling deep fried Teetar birds. Teetar is known by many names like, Katee or Grey Francolin, or Grey Partridge. Though I was a little skeptical, as I had just recovered from a stomach infection which had led to my getting hospitalized for 1 week, I could not let the opportunity to taste something exotic pass. Wifey had to grant me the pleasure of savoring the Teetar cause after all it was my birthday J

The Teetar was a little too deep fried for my taste, but nevertheless it was good and surprisingly light. I am guessing the bird must have weighed hardly 200 gms. Some of you reading this might be cross with me for eating a bird that might be getting extinct, but I guess, the Teetar’s are farm bred and not jungle catch. Anyways, it was getting late, so I had only one bird and then we had to catch the cab back to Kodai Road railway station.

Return Journey

The return journey over the hills was non eventful except the cab we were in was involved in two near accidents. The damn driver seemed to be in some hurry and since he did not seem to understand our words, we were left praying in the back seat. The guy did understand that we were hungry and needed to pack dinner for ourselves. He stopped by a hotel called Dindigul Thallapakati and we packed Biriyani for ourselves. Biriyani on a train journey does sound a strange combo, but what the hell, it was my birthday :) The train was on time and we got into the train at 9:10 PM to head back to Chennai.

The next day we reached Chennai at around 7:00 AM and wifey and I immediately started missing Kodaikanal. The ever present cool breeze, the fresh air, the flowers, the cycles…….Gosh!!! But life beckoned and more importantly office beckoned…….we reluctantly booked a cab to our home from the station but decided then and there that we would definitely return to Kodaikanal sometime soon.

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