My Travel Blogs

This blog is about a Kodaikanal trip with my friends.
Kodaikanal, A famous hill station in Dindigul district, Tamilnadu, India. The name which means “The gift of forest” was established around 160yrs ago. The temperature here is much cooler than other cities because of its altitude.

After a chaotic, flustering, and hectic year of 12th grade schedule, my friends (Avinash, Rakshith, Sunil, Sharath, Shubith) and I wanted to chill out somewhere far in a cool place, and Kodaikanal was the destination we decided. Not much planning was done before, but we’d booked accommodation and travel tickets (train) well in advance.
It was 4th august 2010, 8:30 PM when my friends and I gathered in the railway station to get into our train, though the train was delayed a bit, we reached the destination on-time. The journey in train was so much fun though it was an overnight travel. By the time we woke up early in the morning we could see the splendid beauty of the hills around us which made everyone of us delighted. Soon after getting down from train at Kodai Road, we had breakfast, and started to enquire about how to get to the hills. Actually it was an uphill drive of about 85 KMs. Since there was no regular public transport from this place to uphill, we were supposed to go to a place called “Othallagundu” as said by the local people, and at that moment none of us were able to pronounce the name of that place, even now we remember this and laugh at each other. Thinking that it’s not a good idea to change buses in between, we hired a taxi. And the taxi driver (aged around 55yrs) totally freaked all of us out!!! I didn’t see him using the brakes throughout the drive. The trail zigzagged upward from the foot of the mountain, winding through aspen trees whose leaves were the deep orange-gold of autumn. Light breezes produced cascades of rustling surround-sound as we walked upward in the fresh, clear air. The scenic beauty of the uphill drive was awesome!! Unforgettable!! On the way we stopped at Silver cascade falls, it seemed like a silk cloth spread on a stone, we took some pics and continued further. Finally we reached our hotel (Hotel Bala international). Mr.Radhakrishanan, the manager there, was very kind towards us; the tariff here was also economic. We all freshened up quickly and walked towards the “Kodai lake” which is what Kodaikanal is famous for, and I truly have to say I have no words to describe how we felt at that moment: All six of us sitting on the banks of the lake, ginger tea in one hand and masala bhajji in the other. None of us wanted to move from there and this moment was THE BEST part of the whole trip. With great difficulty walking back we found the coaker’s walk. We could see the whole city surrounding the hills because 4 - 6 PM is the best time of the day to visit this place. Finally our day-1 came to an end with a dinner in a small north Indian hotel.
Though it was pretty hard to wake up early because of the low temperature, we made it. We had a small walk around to enjoy the glorious view of the hills, came back and each one of us was excited to go out for sightseeing. We hired a chauffer driver vehicle (Innova) from our hotel, who also served as our guide. The first thing we visited was “The observatory” which is kind of a small museum, maintained by The Indian institute of science. Moving on, our next thing was Bear shola falls, the volume of water was perfect so that we could walk through it and also walk till the end of the falls. This also enabled us to see the lions cave, where lions used to stay many years ago. Quickly coming back from there, we visited “the dolphins’ nose” and “the echo point” because it’s a trekking kind of place (around 1.5KMs). Though the view was ravishing, people who have Vertigo or Batophobia (fear of heights) won’t be happy with these places. But the echo point is a nice place, the mountains, green stuff all around, the mosses and the echo of voices makes it much more pleasant. We should have carried sufficient snacks and water to this place, which we hadn’t, so this trek made us considerably tired. On the way back to our hotel, we saw the “500 year old Tree” which is the oldest one there. We had lunch in an Andhra hotel, rested, and again in the evening all of us went back to our favourite place “THE KODAI LAKE”. We had a snazzy and quick dinner at the ‘Red apples’ and as we spent some time in hotel itself the Day-2 came to an end.
Without any plans in mind for Day-3, we began our day with a breakfast at the Andhra style hotel, and came to the centre point. Through speaking with a taxi driver about the places yet to be visited in our itinerary, we found out that we could hire a Jeep to see the remaining places. The first place was the “Upper lake view” from where a magnificent view of lake can be seen. Proceeding further we could see the “Pine forest” and our next place was the “Devils cave” (Guna cave), though it was almost mid day, we all felt like it was very early morning because we were surrounded completely by clouds and fog. The scenic beauty, the trees, the mosses, and the mountains here were gorgeous!!! We then visited the “Pillar rocks” which is a 200ft long rock placed in a slant, the view for public is made from around 75ft away, unfortunately the view of rocks was curtailed by a blanket of fog around it. And the gardens here were quite comely. On the way to the “Green valley view” we could see the golf court, my god!! It was a breath taking view; the air was clear, so clear that even twenty miles away, we could see fog-clad peaks sloping sharply down to clusters of trees. Arriving at the Green valley view, nothing much to praise about this place but as usual the temperature was very cool again due to the fog and clouds. Since we were supposed to leave Kodaikanal by max 3 PM, we rushed back to our room and checked out from our room, had a small meal, and did some shopping; Homemade chocolates (were like 200rs per kg), hand crafts, tea n coffee powders (was around 50rs per kg home made). Finally it was the time to leave; though none of us were willing to come back, we took a public bus to the Dindigul railway station, I personally suggest not to use the Kodai road railway station to get into Kodaikanal coz even if it’s a bit closer when compared to Madurai or Dindigul (-20/30 KMs) the hill station can’t be accessed easily because of the non punctual public transport system. We had dinner at Dindigul and got into our train. Though our return train was not as much fun as previous one; we reached our home town safely.
In conclusion I would like to say that each and every part of Kodaikanal is laudable for its exquisite, enticing, and classy beauty of its nature, valleys, landscapes, rocks, and waterfalls. If one really wants to enjoy the whole of Kodai with an economic budget, then I would suggest visiting this place during the off season (i.e., Aug-sept). And what is also commendable about this hill station is there is a total ban of plastics here, so no one uses it and its outcome is that the whole city is very clean. The Kodai International School which is a world wide recognized school is present right at the exit from Kodaikanal.