Trip to Kodaikanal & Munnar

After exactly one year from Gagana chukki - Bhara chukki trip, once again we, Volcanoes [ thats what we call ourselves ] planned for a trip to Kodaikinal & Munnar. And below is the consolidated list of the places that we had been to:

* Kodaikanal

* Munnar

* Cochin

* Cherai Beach

I’ll not eat out much of your time this time by explaining the whole journey, as these are famous places and almost everyone is aware of them. But still, I would like to share some unique experiences here, please bare with me.

We had scheduled ourselves to leave at 10:30pm or so on Friday night but boys will be boys, no time sense.. [including me.. ]. Somehow we managed to leave before 12 midnight. And this delay did cost us later a lot, can’t help it buddy.

The journey was too long, so we thought of playing some games, all of them were normal but “dumb-shall-act” was abnormal as almost all of us were new to this game and didn’t know how to act to bring out the film names and this lead to the unstoppable laughter.

We headed to Kodaikanal first. And following are the two places on the way.

This is the first one where you can see a falls from a long distance, called as “Thalaiyar Falls” if i got it right from my memory.

Beautiful landscape, from the same view point.

The second one we saw is called “Silver Cascade” where the kodaikanal lake gets emptied into.

One more closer look.

Its been given a bit of artificial touch with the help of some electric lamps and that is the only thing that I didn’t like about this place. Apart from that, its a good place to spare some time.

At last, after a long journey, we reached the Kodaikanal around 3pm, aha! really a mesmerizing place. Its a beautiful place in the forest area. In fact, the name itself means “Gift of Forest” it seems.

There are lots of places in and around the Kodaikanal, but we visited very few of them as were bound by the time limit. And the first of them was “Coaker’s Walk“, named after St. Coaker of the Royal Engineers who constructed this path, which offers a fantastic view of the hills around. Its around one km in length. Have a look at some of them.

The next one is “Pillar Rocks“. Lovely view with mist covering a part of it. I just love this view.

Close look..

Still closer..

Look at the hill view around. Mind blowing scenery. Isn’t it??

After this pillar, we went to two more view points of which first one is called “Suicide Point” (Hope I got it right) but don’t remember the second one’s name.

End of day One. We were fully exhausted and had a sound sleep in some junk lodge. Don’t ask me the place or lodge name, i am really very week at remembering the things.

Second day we started off to Munnar. The place Munnar is not so special but the journey is too good. You’ll definitely agree to “Sometimes the journey turns out to be more Beautiful than the destiny itself!”

Tea estates! No need of any explanation about this beauty as it could be seen in the pics below. Too good, just the way we see in movies.

After this estate, we encountered with one more falls. Its also too good to enjoy but we couldn’t as its been fenced, that stupid fence was there in between we and the falls, otherwise we could have had a nice bath over there. Shit! missing it now.

Here is that stupid fence!

Hope most of you know about the special thing in north karnataka. i.e., Rotti!
There are different kinds of rottis but we had carried one kind of them, Sajji rotti which is not meant for soft people like Bangalorians or any other south karnataka people for that matter. Anyways, we had a really nice time there, having our treditional food, enjoying the nature’s beauty. Aah! Heaven.

Then continuing our journey towards Munnar, we came across so many wonderful sceneries. Have a look at some of them.

Below is my favorite click in this trip. Amazing photography from me.
And this place is within the Munnar city.

One more pic from the city.

We thought of staying here but we had a plan of spending lots of time in a beach. So, soon after reaching Munnar, we spent very little time there and started towards Cochin.

By the time we reach Cochin, it was nearly 10:30pm. And we were searching for a lodge to settle down. After so much of traveling, we got some average kind of lodge but at that point of time, we were tired like anything, and were just waiting for a good nap. So, said good night to Cochin city.

Early in the morning, after having breakfast, we headed to Cochin Harbor.
Well, this was the first time that we had been to a Harbor and we were fascinated by the big big ships and some boats belonging to Indian defense. We hired a small boat along with a guide. And there we go!

This one belongs to Indian defense.

The machine which helps for shipping the goods.

Well, it was a nice experience to explore the Cochin harbor. But ahead was a beach waiting for us.

Yes, last but not the least, Cherai beach. After the harbor, we started off towards the Beach so that we have lots of time to spend over there. So thats what we did! Man, it was real fun to be there and the old memories of Goa (with the same group) just flashed by our minds.

Here is the beach. Can you see a person kiting there?

Fortunately, there was a Musical orchestra there on that day. And all this decoration was because of that only. Unfortunately, we couldn’t enjoy that as it was scheduled to start late in night.

Few pics of Sunset.

And that brings to the end of our journey, to my writing as well. Oh my god! How could I write such a long, creepy and boring story? No no, its not that bad! Anyway, I am done with my pen. If you think I can help you with some more information, feel free to drop a comment.

For more pics of this trip, click here. http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/gangadhar.karalatti/Trip2TNKeralaVolcanoesGroup

Suggestion: Don’t delay the departure time as it’ll affect the whole of your journey. Start your journey as early as possible and have enough time to spend in each place. I suggest you to spend at least one full day in both Kodaikanal and Munnar as there are lot many places to see other than whatever I have mentioned here. You can just google for the places to see and plan your journey accordingly.