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Monday, February 25, 2008

The bike trip to Yercaud

Having been used to it for two consecutive years now, a Jan-Feb period for me, now seems empty without a long bike trip. Two years back, it was Mysore, and last year, it was Kemmannugundi. When this year's February just seemed to be slipping out, this two day trip to Yercaud, kept the tradition alive for me.

Kamal and MaaNi had vowed their allegiance to any biking plan I made. Kamal then hit upon Yercaud two weeks back, and after some reasearch, we knew that it was an ideal location for a two day bike trip from Bangalore - in terms of distance, places to visit and the quality of the road, to and fro.



The trip was initially planned for the weekend after Valentine's day, but we soon discovered that every known lodge and resort in Yercaud had been booked for that weekend, owing to a function in a popular residential school located there. The trip was thence, postponed to the next week - 23rd and 24th February. The size of the group interested grew, and Ashish, his wife Rashmi, SP, Suresha, and my frens Shirish and Madhukeshwar battas joined in. Some tireless work by Kamal, saw three cottages being booked for our stay in Grange resorts, Yercaud through Yatra.com by Tuesday.
Unfortunately for us, in the evening before we were supposed to leave, Ashish and Rashmi had to pull out owing to some personal problems Praveen joined the gang in their place.

Day 1: 23 February 2008, Saturday



The eight of us - Me, Kamal, Suresha, SP, Praveen, MaaNi, Shireesh and Madhukeshwar batta started out after meeting at the BTM signal at 5 am, and hit Hosur Road. The dawn was pretty cold and prompted us to take the first tea break after 25 km. The initial plan was to have breakfast at A1 Plaza at the Reliance Petrol bunk beyond Hosur. But we reached that spot at 6 30, and all voted to keep going on. Krishnagiri was the next preferred stop for breakfast, but the weather was so pleasant and conducive for riding, that we rode past it, with just one stretch-cum-photo break in between.



At 8 15 am and 102 km from the start, we reached Kaveripattnam, and were determined not to go further without getting the tummy to stop growling. Hence, despite passing through the town without finding a good hotel, initially, we doubled back and settled for the last small hotel in the town by the highway - Hotel Selvam. After a satisfying round of dosas, idlis, bread omlet and tea in a small Thela a little further, we hit the road again. With a couple of more breaks in Dharmapuri and another non-descript place, we reached Salem another hundred km later, at 11:30 am.


From here, Yercaud is 32 km up a winding and picturesque ghat road. The road has 20 hair pin bend curves which needed extra care while maneuvering. We took several stops to admire the resplendent views that were on offer and to give the cameras some great moments to capture.




We entered the hill town at about 12 30 pm, to a welcoming view of the big lake right in the middle of the town. After some searching about, we found our way to the Grange resort, four km from the town square, where three pretty cottages awaited us.

After freshening up, we headed back to the town and to Hotel Tamil Nadu, for our lunch. This is the hotel run by the TTDC (Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation), directly overseeing the big lake. The restaurant attached to the hotel was smaller than I'd expected, and was full, when we reached there. We ordered for veg buffets and a few plates of veg and non-veg starters from the very limited menu available. While the non-veg starters did come in time, the veggies had to wait for a woefully long time to get their plate of gobi manchurian. And when it did come, it looked like a dish we'd not seen before, and tasted bad too. In short, the lunch experience there was pretty unimpressive, and we walked out vowing to find another place for dinner.

The first place we visited after lunch, was Kiliyur Falls. After riding a couple of km on a road next to the lake, we had to trek down a steep path for just over half a km, to reach the foot of the falls. Although short, the steepness of the trek made it quite arduous - the way down was slippery, and the way up, very taxing. The falls were a namesake, at this part of the year, but would surely be very beautiful, during and after the monsoons. We spent some time there and came back. SP and Praveen were worn out a lot by the time we reached the top.



Back in the city, we refreshed ourselves with tender coconuts and then went to the Big Lake for boating. But since it was evening time, the place was very crowded and we retreated, planning to cover it the next morning. From here, we went to the Pagoda Point which was a diversion and three km away from the road to the resort we were put up in. Pagoda Point lies on the eastern and South-eastern part of Yercaud hill, and provides a great view of the hills around, and the Salem city. The place has a small temple and several small 'pagoda' shaped structures, made by stacking stones, which give it the name.



Next, we came back to the town square, and took another road to the West, to the Lady's seat point. This is another cliff edege, which provides a great view of the Yercaud ghat, a part of Salem city and the sunset. The heavy fog fizzled the splendid beauty of the sunset towards the end, but other wise, it was a beautiful spot. There is a telescope house at this point, which helps you get a telescopic view of the landscape below, but unfortunately for us, it was closed :-( There are a couple of other spots - the Gent's seat and the Children's seat somewhere around there, but we did not visit them.



It was 7 pm then, and we decided to go to a good place for dinner. I remembered the multi cuisine restaurant - 'Sky Roca' - the first place you see enroute Yercaud, after the ghats, and we decided to go there. This restaurant also enjoys a very beautiful location on the hill edge and is very plush. We were told that the restaurant wasn't open, owing to a corporate party it was hosting, but would probably have turned back anyways, looking at the prices on the menu card! :) Thanks to the kindness of a good natured restaurant attendant, we got a chance to go out on the balcony of the restaurant. The aisle which connects the hotel reception to the balcony had a glass floor which made it a miniature version of the the famous Grand Canyon Sky Walk near Phoenix in Arizona, USA. Although pretty small, it came to us as a surprise and was enough to give us the momentary thrills, before we decided to push out, lest we be kicked for trespassing!!

We then had dinner at a restaurant called 'Star Holidays'. This was much better than the lunch both in terms of quality, quantity and prices. We came back to our cottages, freshened up, and again went to the Pagoda Point at 9 pm to enjoy the cool evening. The view of Salem city from there, at that time of the night was simply breath-taking!! It was like a sea of lights down there, and words cannot describe the exhilarating feeling of enjoying it.



The lone car, which arrived there after us, but did not spew out any living being, inspired Madhukeshwar Batta and Suresha to let their creative minds imagine spooky stories of 'gay' ghosts!!

We returned back to the cottages at 10 30 pm, and crashed on our beds, immensely satisfied with the great day we had!

Day 2: 24 Feb 2008, Sunday

I was lucky to force myself to wake up at 5 45 am the next day morning, to go watch the sunset. It took quite some effort to cajole the rest of them to get out of their beds and make it in time. Yet again, it was Pagoda Point - which eventually turned out to be our favorite spot in Yercaud. We were pleasantly surprised to see a clear horizon, sans the heavy fog we'd expected, and hence were able to enjoy a grand sunrise. It also made up for the disappointing sunset, the previous evening. Once again, we were the only people there to enjoy the sunrise, and the serenity added to the tranquil morning experience.



As we headed back, we saw another group come there, when the sun, the good way up in the sky.

Since it was just 7 30, and the complimentary breakfast was due not before 8 45, we went around exploring the town on the bikes. The weather was very pleasant and ideal for biking and during out detour, we saw the the famous Montford School, Holy Angels School and the Holy Trinity Church.



After the pleasing ride, we came back to our cottage. Madhu, Sireesh and Maani were lucky to get some hot water from the solar water heater in their cottage, and had a bath, while the rest of us were forced to skip it.

The complimentary breakfast that was provided in the resort restaurant was one of the few nice things about our stay there, and although the service was sluggish (Praveen pointed out that they might have been using just a single burner stove to prepare the breakfast) the food was good, and we ate dosas and bread omlet to our heart's content, till we tea arrived an hour after asking for it!



We reached the Big Lake at 10 am for boating, and as predicted, had the entire lake almost only to ourselves. We took two 4-seater pedal boats and enjoyed boating for half an hour. The
huge mass of water weeds in the lake told the story that the lake was dirty and not very well maintained.



The last spot we visited was the Shevaroyan temple named after the hills that Yercaud is situated on. It was 6 km from the town square on the north east side and is apparently the highest motor able point in Yercaud. The temple was in a very small cave around which a small concrete structure is built, which gives it the look - more of a small shed or shop, than a temple! We wanted to visit the Bear Cave which is inside a private estate adjoining the Shevaroyan temple area, but the parking staff told us that it is no longer open for the public.

On the way back, Kamal's great idea of a photograph was cut short by a bee that stung him on his forehead, as he was readying for the shot. We were then forced to make our way back quickly to the town, where Kamal got temporary respite by using curd and lemon. We got back to our cottage, packed up, checked out and started out. On the way, we visited a clinic where Kamal got two shots of antidote and tetanus booster for his bee sting.

Yercaud is a small town, roughly stretching 6 km at max in all directions, and with bikes, we had easily covered all the good spots, from noon - noon on the two days. After 24 hours of great fun there, we said goodbye to the place and headed on our way back at 1 pm.

The ride down the ghat was fun again, since we only needed to put the bikes in neutral gear and direct it, without needing to switch on the engines for 30 km.



We reached Salem at 2 pm, and found a vegetarian restaurant - Annapoorna - for lunch. We finished lunch by 3 30 pm, and started the 200 km journey from Salem to Bangalore. It was extremely hot uncomfortable for another hour of ride, but then got better after that.

On our way back, just before entering Dharmapuri, we took a deviation that would take us from the outskirts of the town. We had thought that this road would join the NH7 some where before Krishnagiri. But the road took a totally different course, and took us directly to Hosur, through Palacode and Rayakottai. That way, we missed the chance to ride easily on the four-laned highway for about 100 km. We reached Hosur by 7 pm, and the Karantaka border at around 7 30 pm. After saying our final good-byes at Bommasandra, we reached home at 8 pm after a very memorable two day bike trip



Acknowledgements:
Mapmyindia.com - for providing us directions.
Wikipedia - for giving us all details we needed about Yercaud.

Photos:



Fact file:
  • Distance from Bangalore: 234 km
  • Best time to visit: Feb - May, June
  • Means of transport - Better take your own car / bike, would be useful to roam around in the town too, and you can enjoy the good drive/ride to and fro.
  • Apporximate cost of accommodation: Rs 500 - 2000 per head, per day in the private resorts (Except for Hotel Tamilnadu - the TTDC lodge, which is much cheaper - about Rs 200 - 500 per head per day)

4 comments:

Suresha said...

Subhash, Please publish your version of history of "Pagoda" Point. Its an interesting made up story.

Subhash said...

Well, just so that the others don't start imagining.. :-) My version was that, rather than the stone mounds, it was the numerous pagoda shaped hills seen from that point, that gave the place the name 'Pagoda point'

Well.. not really as spicy as Suresha was trying to make it look like! :-P

Unknown said...

looks like u had fun ....
and i liked the pic of the moon... steady hands !! :)

Subhash said...

thanks buddy! we did have a ton of fun, you bet!! as for the moon... i just rued i dint have a tripod.. it would have been still better! :-)