Kodaikanal-A trip into the lap of nature

Here we are starting all over again. This time we have set our eyes on Kodaikanal. Before I go any further I must admit that the real challenge for this trip was in the part before the trip began. Getting a set of people who have a common interest and who are also interested in pursuing that interest of theirs (quiet an interesting comment!!).
Initially only four people were interested in going to Kodai (out of a list of 5 places). Then some serious behind the close door horse trading made it a group of seven. And at the end we had a confirmation from Sandy that he would be back from US in time to chip in with us for the trip and guess what he was not alone for he also had a friend of his with him. So at last we were a group of nine members who were ready to take on the beauty of Kodaikanal.

Initially there was quiet a lobbying for hiring a qualis or a mini bus and finally we all agreed upon a qualis thanks to Sandy for being so understanding (he himself agreed to sit with girls on one seat and would let the rest of the guys enjoy the comfort…sacrifice isn’t it?).

Since most of us are from the IT industry, its is quiet atypical for all of us to be together on a holiday and the three days holiday was a golden opportunity for us to do some quick planning and a quicker implementation of the plan. It was “TWELFTH NIGHT” I mean the night of 12th of August when we set the wheels of the qualis rolling towards our destination.

The weather was on our side as there was a cool breeze blowing across all through the journey. Our first stop was at the toll post when we had just entered into the state of Tamilnadu.

Since we were driving at night, it was decided that we are going to have breaks every 2 hours just to make sure that the driver is not very worn-out. We had almost 6 stops in between the journey and we all enjoyed the hot tea and coffee served in the dhabas on the highway. The taxi had an excellent music system to enrich our journey experience.

All through the journey there was a shuffle going between the people sitting on the front seat with the people sitting on the last seat because it is advisable that persons sitting right next to the driver must not sleep because it can cause somnolence to the driver which will eventually make every one have their final sleep (Ha Ha!).

So initially Pankaj and Prateek were sitting on the front seat, sandy with all the girls on the middle seat!! And monty, shailesh were sitting with me on the Last seat.

Initial round of shuffling saw Pankaj exchanging seats with Shailesh because he was eager to share the holy drink that we all were having on the last seat and obviously shailesh was quiet upset to move to the front seat as his tenure at the UN Security Council (the last seat) was over before it even started.

By the time we were half way everyone was getting sleepy and I must admit that Prateek and Monty did a wonderful job by staying awake for most of the journey otherwise we were all in great danger because “sleeping as dead could have easily become dead as sleeping” . I remember monty woke me up at a gas station when our vehicle had stopped for a break. It was 7 AM in the morning and all that I could see were plains and never ending plains and I was thinking that some body had told me that koidai is a hill station. The driver told us that in another 2 hours the uphill journey would start and that it’s a steep incline. By now it was high time that Prateek and monty should be rested for some hours and some one else should go to the front seat. Pankaj and shalaka went to the front seat ,monty and prateek came to the last seat. Sandy was still with the girls.

All I would say is “Better late then never” the first glimpse of the Nilgiris gave me a freash lease of energy and all the fatigue vanished in a second. I started dreaming about all the pictures of nature that I would be capturing using my digicam.

The journey uphill would have been much better had we had better roads as they left a lot to be desired (all said but seriously they were much better then our own Indian silicon valley…..I mean Bangalore if you still haven’t got it).

We reached kodaikanal at around 12 PM and started the quest for finding a suitable place for us to stay but to our shock the hotel people told us that the whole of the IT world from Bangalore is here and on top of that there was a conference of eye surgeons going on, so no rooms were available there. We had a problem on our hands and had little time to find a solution because by evening its gets really cold and we would be in serious trouble if we do not find a place by that time.

Shailesh said that some of his friends had told him that the locals also rent their bunglows for tourists which is actually a better option then hotels. Taking a cue from that we started our search for such bunglows. We got in touch with some locals who agreed to help us out for some commission. We had a look at some places but were disappointed to see the facilities. At last after we traveled for about 2 hours we got to a bunglow which was on the hilltop. We were really impressed with the facilities in the bunglow and the breath taking view that it had. But the adventure wasn’t over yet, the land lady was not very interested in giving the house to bachelors and that too a group of boys and girls from college(as we pretended) so I had to use all my convincing power to make sure that the lady allows us to stay there. Wisdom prevailed and the lady decided in our favor but on condition that there would be no smoking and alcohol consumption (for a while I was thinking that we have to manage it the 007 way…ah…more adventure coming our way).

We had two rooms equipped with beds for all of us to stay and I must admit that the whole arrangement turned out to be much more enjoyable than we initially thought.
We all took rest for around 2-3 hours and then we were all set to start with operation Kodai. I had checked the batteries of my Cam and it was looking like a perfect start.

We all went to the main market for lunch, pankaj asked for north Indian food which was like finding bugs in the code that I write (very difficult!!). But we somehow managed to zoom onto a restaurant which said that it served authentic Punjabi food (cooked in coconut oil). The food wasn’t all that good.
We decided to see the market for a while. We ate the locally made chocolates which all of us really liked specially Prateek.

From there we moved to the Kodai lake. It was an awesome place. It offered us all that we were looking for. We did cycling (of course off the lake), boating , horse riding , air gun shooting(guess it was a new found childhood for all of us). The boating was really exciting as we had a nice boat race there. I was not among the front runners as ours was the only boat carrying 3 persons namely Prabudh (That’s me), Sandy and Anisha, and the fact that it was an old boat did not help us either. I still do not understand how could we all be so interested in cycling, pankaj and shalaka were the first ones to take the bicycles and then me, monty, neha and shailesh followed suit. All my notions that the lake was actually a small one were proved wrong by the cycle ride I had around the lake. Man! It was really a big lake. I thought that the two ends would never meet but to the relief of all of us we came back safe and sound. There was a funny incident which happened while we were taking the cycle ride, Monty and Shailesh were on the double bicycle and Monty got off the cycle when he thought that we have reached the end but actually we could only reach half way by that time. That place was really crowded and without the street lights and then it happened (nothing of that that sort yaar!!) we lost Monty. We were totally clueless about searching for monty as the place was new to us and the language problem made it all the more difficult for us. Then I decided that the only option available with us is to scream out loud his name. We did that and quiet contrary to my experience it turned out to be a successful strategy. So for a brief period we were reduced to 8 and then back to 9.

We spent the whole of the evening there. We stated looking for a restaurant where we could have dinner(and certainly not the Punjabi food in coconut oil). We had a change of plan as all of us were really drained out of energy. We decided to get the dinner packed for us. When we reached the bunglow we started viewing the pics that we took during the trip. Most us were really exhausted and were ready to go to sleep as Sandy was crying aloud that everyone should be awake by 6 AM in the morning. The girls did listen to him and were quick to go to bed, but Sandy knew the boys very well he knew that we are going to take our own sweet time. The best part of the night was that due to space constraints Sandy had to share the bed with ……??? (stop thinking like that , will you ?) with PRATEEK.

That night I, Monty, Pankaj and Shailesh had different plans. We had a game of cards till 1 AM in the morning. Monty and Shailesh did not know the game initially but some how using the common sense they were winning, slowly they learnt the game and started losing. I and Pankaj won the game at the end. We all went to sleep at 1:30 AM in the night and the next thing I remember is Shailesh brushing his teeth right in front of me (at 9 AM). I was as usual the last member to have woken up and had just 30 mins to be ready for another day of adventure in nature’s lap.

We also decided to check-out of the place. We thanked the land lady that she helped us when we needed it the most. We also clicked some snaps with her and promised that all those snaps would me Emailed to her. I guess Anisha has kept that promise. We started the day with a long list of places to be visited in 12 hours as we needed to leave for Bangalore by 10 PM max. The first place that we plan to visit was “Pillar Rocks”. Getting to this place was not easy as roads are not very good. By this we had not realized that with so many people in kodaikanal it would be virtually impossible for us to reach all the far flung places of interest. It took us almost 4 hours to reach the Pillar Rocks and we decided there that we will skip the rest of the destinations as we thought that going to all those destinations would make us all spend time in the traffic and that all the effort would go waste. We decided to return back to the Lake and enjoy there for the rest of the duration while we are in kodaikanal.

We reached the lake and I asked Prateek and Monty to book the boats right away as there was a mad rush at the boat club. Meanwhile the rest of us went to the market and bought some snack. We started boating which actually turned out to be an intelligence bureau boat ride (for more info on the boat ride see the videos the we had shot). We took extra time for the boat ride. The two persons who undoubtedly enjoyed the boat ride the most are Sandy and Prateek (don’t ask me why cos my lips are sealed).

From the lake we moved to a Tibetan restaurant for our final meal in Kodai. That restaurant was fabulous. The interior was nicely done to give us the Tibetan feel. The hostess was dressed in Tibetan attire. We quickly ordered for some dishes from the menu and eagerly waited them to be served for us to savor them. Prateek had a nice time with the hostess making her understand the orders and the further instruction that he is very particular about. Well initially the hostess was really patient with us but looking at the way we were chatting and shouting there I guess it was too much for her to bear and then on top of all of this the orders of Prateek which were for obvious reasons hard to decipher for her, Bard would have loved to see the modern version of “Comedy Of Errors” happening there at the restaurant. That was time when we bid good bye to Kodai. We started our journey back to Bangalore at 10 PM and we had the similar seating arrangement in the taxi as we had when we were coming to Kodai.

Then journey started smoothly but later on the undulating roads took their toll on Shalaka. She started feeling queasiness and we had to stop on the way. We stopped for 15 minutes and she felt better so we moved on. Every one was so dead beat by that time that the brave soldiers of Kodai started falling one by one. The next thing I remember in the morning is the well known electronic city on the Hosur road.

The journey was coming to the end. It was 15th of August and we wished each other “Happy Independence Day”.

We all headed towards our homes with a vow to regroup and head for Pondicherry next time.

The 3-day trip can be summarized into “a fun filled trip with its share of excitement, adventure, team spirit and above all CONFUSION”

Ciao you all till we meet again in Pondicherry !!!



-PRABUDH