Our Travelogue

Our past experience of travel across India can be printed as a book, if someone is ready to sponsor. I’ll try to be brief (As I said, I’ll try) & tell an edited version of travels after our marriage. The first visit after marriage was chikmangalur which is nearly 250 kms from Bangalore.Yes, you’re correct, It’s definitely not a honey moon trip.Chikmangalur is a nice place covered with massive mountains. We stayed here for nearly 2 days & visited kemmangundi. It was very hot & road was not good. We tried to go for trekking, but it was deserted. Hence we left it. Later we thought of visiting Belur & Halebedu which is on the way to Bangalore. Belur is enroute and it’s just a 2km diversion from the Belur main junction n to the main Belur temple. This temple build by Vishnuvardhana of the Hoysala kingdom is famous for the sculptures. Very intricate and the main ones are of the different poses and moods of a dancing lady. Above the dancing platform inside the temple is a sculpture of Shantala Devi, queen of Vishnuvardhana, who was a blessed dancer herself. One will need the service of a trained guide to point you to the minute details brought out in those sculptures. On either sides of the main temple are the temples of Sridevi and Bhoodevi and a marriage hall. At Halebid, we decided not to take a guide's help and went around on ourselves. This is a Shiva temple. As expected there is a Nandi there. The Hoysala temples are built in star shape. Here there are 64 legs for the star where as the Belur temple had only 32 and more than the dancing ladies, you find sculptures of Gods and incidents from epics. The damage done to Halebid temple is much more than the damage at Belur. Another difference between the Belur and Halebid temples is the huge lawn that surrounds the Halebid temple. On the way back our cars AC stopped working. This gave us the opportunity to get toasted in the hot sun during April. Later during the year, one of my relatives’ marriages was fixed & I was invited. Who cares to attend his marriage, but the place “Coimbatore” is a hub for many tourist spots. Considering that I obliged to attend the marriage. We reached Coimbatore on the night before marriage & took nice rest. On the day of marriage, we attended the marriage, went to the bride’s home for a formal visit & thatz it, we “Vanished” from that place. Straight drive from Coimbatore to Kodaikanal.Think of Kodai in the month of December, You’re in heaven, thatz the same feeling which we had. Places we visited are Dolphin’s Nose-located about eight km from the lake, is a flat projecting rock from where one can have a breathtaking view of the yawning chasm below. The Perumal Peak- about 11 km from Kodaikanal, is a trekker’s delight. Climbers begin their ascent from the Neutral Saddle. Berijam Lake -supplies drinking water to Periyakulam town, and is 21 km from Kodaikanal (beyond the Pillar Rocks). It is a popular picnic spot with a beautiful view. Boating at the lake is a must. Green valley (which was referred as Suicide point) is in a safer side now with grills covering the edges.The area covering the golf club is an ideal place for film suitings, which happen regularly. When we visited the place there was a suiting for one Tamil movie. Vikranth was the hero who was loitering in the garden ;-) Kodai is a wonderful place. We stayed there for 2 days & on the way back to Coimbatore, I realized it’s better to take a turn to munnar from udumalpet.My car has sensors that re-cognize my thoughts, so it turned towards munnar. We passed through Chinnar Wildlife sanctuary. Unfortunately, we couldn’t spot any animals. We travelled through marayur & reached munnar by 8.45 pm in the night, which was fully covered by fog. With my car head lights turned on, I couldn’t see the next step. It was COLD to a freezing point. After reaching munnar, we started enquiring for available rooms & we didn’t hear the word “Available”. Thankful I booked a room in munnar when I was in kodai as a backup. We settled down there for the night. On the morning, we started our travel to visit Mattupetty: In this direction you have other places to visit. a) Photo Point : Good places to take snaps in the tea garden (4 km) b) Mattupetty Dam (11 km) c) Indo-Swiss Project : This place is a must visit (13 km) d) Shooting Point : Place where many south Indian movies have been shorted (14 km) e) Echo Point (17 km) f) Elephant Arrival Spot (20 km) g) Kundale Lake : Don’t miss the Boat ride here :) (25 km) i) Kundale Golf Course (28 km) j) Top Station (about 6300 ft above the sea level): This is in the border of Kerala and Tamil nadu; there is a way to Kodai from this place. We need to walk down for about a 1 km to reach this stop from the road, it is a terrific sight, and you can also see the world’s highest tea plant from this place. (32 km) After we completed Munnar in 2 days, we travelled down to Coimbatore. On the way near pollachi, I thought of a change in route to Topslip.Unfortunately, my friend couldn’t get the room booked for us. Hence it’s still a marked place to visit in the future. We reached Coimbatore, met the bride’s family as a formal visit after 3 days of marriage & started our travel to Bangalore. This time, I took the Ooty route to Bangalore. I have been to ooty for N number of times, but my wife hasn’t seen this place. Hence I re-visited the place. We stayed there for a day to cover all the places in ooty, specifically Botanical garden, Ooty Lake, centenary rose garden, doddabetta peak, pykara lake, & dolphins nose. On the way to Bangalore. I had a second thought – whether to take the cuddalore route or the masinagudi route.Atlast, I took the masinagudi ghat section. It was fabulous to drive on this route since you see signs which would say that you need to drive in second gear only since it’s a deep slope. It was adventurous to drive in the region & travel via mudumalai & bandipur to reach Bangalore. We have also travelled across Karnataka, Tamil nadu & Kerala covering all the major tourist spots. As I say, I can continue my travelogue in pages, but I would like to keep it simple. Hence a temporary pause here.