Yercaud: A Suhana Safar – An excursion….

Yercaud: A Suhana Safar – An excursion….

Crew- Padmaraj, Nikhil, Chandra, Mrityunjay and Santosh

It reminds me of an old classic Hindi ong from film Madhumati, “Suhana Safar aur ye mausam hasi, hame darr hain ham kho na jaye kahin” And one surely gets lost in the beauty of Yercaud as we lost to its cool exotic weather, hot tea, the lush green plantations and mind blowing views of the shevaroy hills.

It was 15th August 2004. As planned me n Santosh got up early and were ready by 7am as per schedule. Nikki was to come to our room to pick us in his new found craze “ZEN”. He came late by 30 min. We loaded our bags, went to the Anjaneya temple besides our my room to get the blessings of lord Hanuman. And we were off towards Chandra’s house to pick him. He was waiting for us as his pandurang ashram apartments, malleshwaram gate. Once he was in journey began.

We planned to go to via KGF picking Muttu on our way. Though it would have extended the distance by 50 kms, we thought it was good idea to go this way covering couple of spots (krishnagiri dam n water falls) on our way. However we couldn’t go to these places for some reasons…

Clock ticked 10.30 am and we were in Muttu’s house in KGF. There we happened to meet Shivling, one of our IMER college friend. He was working with “Tatra BEML” in KGF. It took us while to recognize this fellow since we met him after a long time. He had put on loads of weight and had a matured look a typical uncle kind off. It was good to see him.

The fun kicked off from here, with a nasty comment from Shivling. He instinctively commented on Santosh’s get up, as he looked like a “Cowboy and he has done it all. This was enough for all of us to break into a long laughing session and start pulling Santosh. Till now he was better known as Fixer for his remarkable fixing techniques. But now he is a cow boy too. This made santosh very annoyed. But he could not help it except curse shivling for his comment. Nevertheless, the journey continued.

In the car, nikki was the experienced driver, muttu was guiding him the way from front with his fluency in Tamil. Me, Chandra n santosh were comfortable in the rear seat. Music, masti, jokes, pulling each others legs( reminds of Dil chahata hai ..title track) marked our way.. till we found a road side tea stall. We sipped hot tea with pakods just out of the kadai. It was Sankashti that day, so muttu was munching his trademark Bun with tea, while for santosh every thing was fair on the fasting day. And for rest of us it wasn’t an issue.

After the refreshing break, we started off. When we reached Dharmapuri it was about 2.30 pm. We had typical tamilian luch at a good restaurant. After the heavy lunch with piles of rice and loads of sambar we sgarted again.

As we were nearing Yercaud, the shevaroy hills of the eastern ghats welcomed us with its beautiful peaks n deadly curves.

We finally reached Yercaud about 4.30 pm or so. It was a pleasant evening, however was not pleasant enough finding a roof for stay. All hotels were booked till 17th. Somehow we came across an Auto driver Mustafa. He helped us finding a room. He delighted to to get Rs 25/- from us as his service charges without a bargain. That time I only wished we could have such sincere auto drivers in our garden city also.
Our room was in a central place. All the spots around us were in a circumference of 4-6 kms. Our driver was exhausted and wanted to rest, so we left nikki at the room and pushed off for a cup of tea. While sipping hot tea, and me with my coffee had good look at the lake where we planned to enjoy next day.

We went near the lake and sat there for a while chatting around till we saw a mind blowing scenery for the first time in our lives. We were sitting on the wall surrounding the lake facing towards it. What we saw was a dense fog rushing towards us…it almost covered everything. It looked as if its going to swallow all of us and appeared like a twister without twists. For a moment we were still. I closed my eyes and after a moment when I opened my eyes the lake disappeared amidst the fog. A sudden blackout kind of atmosphere. And suddenly everything got cleared in seconds. Fog got and it started drizzling. It was a BEAUTY!!!
By the time we went back to our room, our driver was freshened up and getting his brand new 25K Nikon camera ready to wear his photographer avatar. Photography is Nikki’s hobby and is best at it.. However he wanted the fuel to recharge. We call him tanker. A tea- tanker. We went back to the tea stall for a second round. It was raining and the tea was soothing. Then we drove towards Lady’s seat- A view point.

Lady’s seat is one of the best view points that Yercaud promises. We got a panoramic view of the ghats and all the distant vehicled dwindling their way in and out of the trees along the winding ghat road. It surely was a breath taking view.

The view was spectacular particularly in the night with the twinkling lights of Salem town in sight. There was telescope mounted at the lady’s seat for better view of distant ghats. However we could not do much at was pretty late. By that time it was stomach- calling time. All the rice and sambar we had in the noon was digested and we were looking forward for a north Indian food. We straight away went to Shevroys hotel and had very good food. When we came to room we thought of doing a campfire and dance around playing some good music. But could not do it due to rain. The place was pretty wet and could not find dry woods. However we had to go to bed with Nikki’s 2 in 1 player was trying hard to play Kishore kumar’s songs.

Day2: Every one was fast asleepwhen I got up at 6.30am. went out in the terrace to see the sun rise. But it was already a day. And the climate was so beautiful that I thought of taking a long walk in the woods. I checked with nikki if he would join me and the answer was a big NO. However I wanted to go and got ready. The was to step out of the room Nikki got up and changed his mind to join me. Muttu got up and joined us. We three were going out and Chandra n cowboy got up and joined us. It was a full house. We started walking towards Shevroy temple. On the way there were lush green coffee estates.



On our way there was a RajaRajeshwari temple and a church. Further we came across a Botanical garden that we wished to visit. Alas ! it was closed. However we continued cherishing the beuty of nature. Nikki was busy with his most loved camera experimenting on small flowers, bees n some times we jokers… we stopped at a tea joint. All of us had a good sip of special hot ginger TEA.

We got to know that from there the temple was about 3.5 Km and there was a straight plain road leading towards the temple. We could see buses, private vehicles driving towards the temple. However we took exception to this route and started to trk off the road into the thick woods. We were climbing up the hill without any clue. We never new where we would ultimately landup. Further we could see a rough path created by water flow which we started following. We had hardly covered any distance climbing, Nikki was exhausted. I cant remember when Nikki had walked last time. We keep telling him to exercise … but he gives N number of reasons from abstaining from morning walk. We took a lil break n started again. Nikk was all fine by then and was capturing every scenic beauty into his camera. We only hoped all these pics come good!! And they did at last.
It was a wonderful experience climbing towards the top finding our GOAL.

We had almost reached on top of the hill, where we thought of taking a break for a while. And what a beauty it was to view from top of the hill. We saw greenery every where. The town of salem looked so tiny from up there. And towards our left there was a mind blowing scenic beauty. Series of hill tops..and thick white clouds floating between them. As if in TV serials or cinemas we see the picturisation of Kailash parwatas…it was too Good and needless to mention that Nikki had it all in his camera.
After a bit of climbing we finally reached the top of the hill and there we could see the temple…it was an experience similar to what Archimidis would have felt when he shouted Eureka! Eureka!! However we all of us had cloths on our body.
We never thought we would directly reach the temple.. Idol of God Shevroys was located in a small cave and was very beautiful. We had to bend n walk thru to have a glimpse of the idol.
Out side there was a tea stall. Every one was hungry after the exhaustive trekking. We had tea with Parle G biscuits..it reminded me of my childhood where tea in combination of parle biscuit was my favorite snack.

On our way back..muttu was a gone case…and insisted on no more walking…so while we were waiting for a bus..we found a tipper… driver was a humble man and allowed us to get in…but we chose to get on instead of getting in..we all stood on top of the tipper and doing hungama..everyone on the roadside couldn’t stop seeing us on the tipper….this experience is one which we will never forget.
We just missed to take a pic of this.

We came back to room. After freshening up our next target was the Water falls…before that we had one very important thing to do…Having a good heavy breakfast!! We stopped a typical roadside restaurant besides the lake and jumped over the food. We had Idlis, dosas N vadas…all…chatni n sambaar were too good. Howmuch did we eat don’t ask…owner of the hotel was more than happy to serve us hot dosas off the pan.. Muttu had a bit of chicken gravy over it. “Mouth watering”..yumm..i must say it was more like a lunch rather than a break fast… once our tummy was full, we were charged to go to the falls. It was about 3 km from there. “killiyur falls, it is called and this 300 ft high water falls is situated amidst picturesque surrounding. The water comes via a stream all the way from the big lake.

The road that leads to the falls is so narrow that it was very difficult to drive. If a 4 wheeler comes from opposite direction, we had to try max to get to the side of the road so that the other vandy can pass through. As we were driving ahead we saw people sitting in a Santro have halted there and told us we cant drive further as the road was blocked.. we thought of parking the vehicle there and walk. But nikki was told by his friends a bitter experience of parking the vehicle in that area. Some miscreants had broke open the window glass looking to steal the stereo system. So me and Chandra walked through to check what the problem was. We walked a bit further and saw no obstacle. Hence we came back and drove he vehicle…on our way while trying to get to road side we had hit a big stone..a big sound..and was a big dent…we could see how bad nikk was feeling..Except for this incident there was not a single scratch on the car. We moved on.. we reached a parking place. Fees was Rs.10/-

From parking place we had to walk through the muddy steep road which lead us to the falls. Oh heavens..what a beauty it was…it was so natural and best part of it is its not commercialized.. so you enjoy it the way it is..we all jumped in to the water and enjoyed thoroughly. We were in no mood to come out of th water. It was all fun. Happened to meet an Italian tourist who was on a holiday in India..
We came back room and freshened a bit before leaving to The Shevroys Hotel for lunch. We all were dying to attack the food. But I guess the waiter there had swore that he will keep us waiting. After a long wait and repeated call to waiter finally he arrived at our table. He was looking like a confused man..while we were placing the order this guy vanished and went to another table whom he had left halfway through…like he has done to us…however after lot of patience we successfully placed the order..till then we had drunk plenty of water, so we asked Mr. confused waiter to get us some water. Guess what?? Instead of water he gets us the bill…we were surprised …bill?? Bill was actually of the next table which this gentlemen mistakenly gave us..he was Horrible!! After a while food was served and thankfully..it was GOOD. Nikki decided not to pay any tips..when the bill came he said to a waitress who brought the bill that we will not give any tips and “your service is not good” As she was leaving the table…suddenly the “ever silent” Chandra bent towards her and said “something”…”that something” is still a mystery… it sounded like “sorry” to muttu, nikki n santosh. Nikki was surprised and asked Chandra why was he sorry..i thought as we didn’t give any tips, the sentimental Chandra must have tried to sympathize the waitress. But Chandra clarified that he didn’t tell sorry instead he had said the service was HORRIBLE. And that’s it! For muttu n Santosh it heard like Horribly sorry!! And a new jargon to laugh at, rest of our lives was derived…HORRIBLY SORRY..even today we don’t stop pulling Chandra for this word.

After the food it was Pagoda Point’s turn to welcome us. PAGODA POINT is another view point worth a visit. Nothing much happens at this place but from here one can view beautiful hill ranges. After a shortwhile we left pagoda point and came back at the lake. Initially we thought of boating as the weather was cool and we could enjoy this in the midst of the lake. But we thought watching sunset is a better idea. To on top of a view point and relish the beauty of sunset. It was 5.30pm and we rushed to a view point called Gents seat. Besides this there was a view point called Child seat. These 2 are located near the lady’s seat that we saw last evening.

First we went to child seat..not that good…so we went to gents seat. It was superb. One gets to view the range of thick woods, series of lush green hill..we were waiting for the sunset..Alas!! sun got completely covered under dark clouds and it became cloudy weather. We waited for the clouds to clear and get a glimpse of the sunset..after a long wait we could view the “Diamond ring” kind of a scene when a cloud slightly dispersed allowing a view of bright ring made by dispersed sunrays. It was a bit disappointing that we could not enjoy sunset. Nevertheless our cowboy Santosh had a lot of fun in his basket to offer that evening..
He was the man in focus..was hilarious at his best..and his target was gidd muttu and horrible Chandra. Both were taken for a long ride..we had such a fun…we just couldn’t handle the comedy by Santosh..I guess many of us laughted their heart out after a long time.. tahnks to the cowboy n Gidda..As were having fun, what we saw was just amazing…we saw the dense fog rushing from the opposite hillrange towards us..as if its gonna swallow everything..even us.. Oh!! Was magical..First of its kind for all of us..

We came back to the lake and rested for a while watching the beautiful water fountain dancing in the middle of the lake.. It was time for Dinner. After the “horrible” lunch in the noon we thought of tryingout Hotel Tamilnadu..It was good.
As we came back to room straight away we went to bed..After a tired day we fell asleep in no time..But for poor Chandra…one should blame Muttu for his jhankaar beats which he plays when asleep.. we had faced his music many times in our room, when ever he comes to Bangalore.

Day 3: The final day—it was drizzling out when we got up. Ordered for some hot bed tea..it was refreshing in the cool weather..no morning walk they said..for me it was quite some time that I had enjoyed the rains! That too in such a cool place I wanted to drench in rains..so went out alone n after a quick walk returned to see everyone was getting ready for breakfast. After a good breakfast we went for boating in the lake, the plan we postphoned last evening. We hired 2 boats and enjoyed the boating..

After that we just walked through a park adjoining the lake on our way back to room. In the park, we went back to our childhood days..to play those lil things there. There were rabbits, peacock etc were in the park.
Came back to room, packed our luggage and were on our way back to Namma Bangaluru. As we were passing down the ghats, we stoped at couple of curves to have some last glimpses of this beautiful place. Trust me none of us were in a mood to return..but we had our own world back here.
The return journey was marked with a bit of silence..every one was cherishing the moments of past 2 days in their own way.. We stopped at a Dhaba midway to have lunch..that was a typical Dhaba experience. Luch was served on khatiyas..
When we reached home it was about 8.30pm. And a great journey had come to an end…but will remain in our memory for ever…
To sum it up all it was truly an AIRTEL experience..”Living every moment”…

I thank you guys for having gone through these pages of our journey..hope you enjoyed reading this and could visualize what we felt, what we experienced..Hope you also had a Suhana safar reading this…If otherwise…I am Horribly sorry!!!!