There is a popular saying that, one can rediscover oneself by
only a few ways! And one of those is to travel. Yes, Travel!
We all need change, once in a while, and change might not
necessarily mean new clothes, new friends and a new diet. Sometimes, one needs
to break free from all the shackles of work, thoughts etc. and just unwind. For
me, the best way to take a break is to travel to places I have never been to.
This year I have travelled quite a bit, compared to my usual years. I hope you
have read my posts about my travel to Himachal Pradesh, from earlier this year! If not, click here to give them a read!
Continuing with my travel posts, I am back with one more,
and this time it is about my travel to another Hill Station, Kodaikanal!
How to get there From Bangalore: Let me give you a quick
overview, of how to get there from Bangalore. Now you can reach Kodai Kanal from
Bangalore, by train or by bus or you can drive down there as well! There are
two trains, from Bangalore, that go to Kodaikanal road, NOT Kodaikanal and from
there, you can get a bus or book a car to shuttle you to Kodaikanal. It takes
around 3 hours from the station to reach Kodaikanal. Or you can directly reach there by bus.
The bus stand is in the heart of the city, and you won’t have
much of a problem getting to your hotel from there. You can also rent a car,
right from the bus stop. The rent depends on how many “places” you want to see, and the type of car you want to rent.
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| Kodai Lake |
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| At the church we found! |
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| View from Coaker's walk |
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| View from Coaker's walk |
They also have a rent option on a per person basis, so if
you are okay with sharing the car with other people, you’ll be able to go
around KodaiKanal for just 200-250INR per person!
So, we decided to explore as much as we could, on foot, on
our Day One. Day one was all about staying around Kodai Lake and covering
everything we could in the vicinity. So, we went to Coaker’s Walk, Bryant Park,
shopped a bit and went paddle boating on Kodai Lake.
Paddle Boating is open till 5:30pm and there is always quite
a long line for the tickets. I’d suggest you plan this beforehand so that you
don’t miss out on it. Coaker’s Walk is a beautiful, beautiful pathway, which
has an absolutely stunning view of the hills and the city, covered with clouds
and, a bit of the chilly air to add to the spectacular experience. Bryant park takes you right back to the
Bollywood movies from 70s and 80s. Dotted with beautiful flora of various
varieties and nicely landscaped garden, this place is quite nice to relax for a
while.
Near Bryant Park, there are a number of shops selling
spices, chocolates and a number of local handicrafts. Do check out the prices
at different shops before making a purchase, because the prices vary a lot. We
also discovered a small, quiet church with no tourists at all near Kodai Lake.
We spent a lot of time here.It's quite and serene , away from the hustle- bustle of tourists.
On Day Two, we went out in our rented car. We wanted to
visit Berijam Lake, but there are only 30 passes each day which are given to only 30
vehicles, and we couldn’t get one on time. Moir point is the place where you get
your pass from for the lake, but don’t spend a lot of time here. Nothing much to see and bit
too crowded. And it started raining
within a few hours of us being on the road.
Make sure you start a bit early, because there is only a
single, one way road which will let you go around to the spots to visit. Guna Caves is currently partially closed, but
this place has a creepy vibe which is something you’d like to experience. The
pine forest is a beautiful place to be, with giant pine trees touching the sky.
It’s a good place to click a lot of pictures and roam about for a while. It
also is very quiet inspite of being crowded. Next, we visited the Pillar Rocks.
When we reached there, it was about to rain and the clouds were looming on the
rocks, so we couldn’t see them clearly. It started pouring within a few minutes
and we had to halt for a while. The Green Valley was on our list, but since it
continued to pour heavily, all we could see was, nothing.
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| At pillar rocks, moments before the rains started |
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| Last day, again at the church |
The final destination on our list was Dolphin’s Nose, in
Vattakanal which is about a 3.5 km trek through some patches of hilly road.
Since it was raining constantly, we went halfway & then keeping safety in
mind: aborted the mission. This stretch is very serene & at the end of the
trek, there is a café called Altaf’s Café which is quite popular for their
Israeli delicacies. We were quite disappointed that we couldn’t make it, but
hey there is always the next time.
After this, we called it a day and decided to chill out a
bit.
Our bus was in the evening on the third day, so we again decided to explore
more on foot. The bear shola falls were nearby from our hotel, so we walked down
there and but found a dried up fall with a lot of vegetation around. Thankfully
we all had an umbrella each because it started to hail after some time! Yes! It
was quite a lot of fun to just stand in one place and experience that!
I shopped a bit, not clothes :P. Picked up a few fresh
fruits and more chocolate. We had our lunch and decided to end the trip on a
good note with some ice cream! But, the one thing I wanted to do was visit a cheese farm nearby, which wasn't possible because of the rains! But, you guys do visit and let me know how it is!
There are a lot of local eateries selling various food
items. Do try them out! Buy a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits, quite a lot
of them are not easily available to us otherwise!
Please send me a mail at priyanjanamns@gmail.com, if you have
any queries, or need the number of the hotel I stayed in, or the car I rented.
Hope you liked reading this blog! I will try clicking more
pictures from my next trip, couldn’t get a lot of pictures in this one, since
it was raining most of the time!
Loads of love,
Priyanjana
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