Chennai to Kodaikanal

Kodaikanal is about 550 KMs from Chennai and is one of the relatively famous hill stations in South India. I had a Monday off for Pongal, took the Saturday off and went to Kodai with friends.

We decided to go there by a taxi. The moment I sat in the taxi, I realized that we had made a mistake. Images of me trapped in a black box came alive. We should have taken the train and saved me from lot of agony and pain and suffering. Officially I am claustrophobic.

Our driver was an interesting guy. To start with he wasn’t wearing any footwear. I wasn’t surprised as I am used to seeing people bare feet now. He knew only two numbers. 15 and 105. He would either drive at 15 kmph or 105 kmph depending upon the traffic on road. Obviously he was trying to move at 105 if there were traffic on road and if the road was empty, he would take a stroll as if he was the BHAI out on streets of Mumbai.

We drove down the National Highway 47 towards Kodai. I need to find out where NH 47 leads. As always Wikipedia came to rescue. We stayed at Kodai International and I think we spent half our time there playing Table Tennis and sleeping.

Kodai is like any other hill station with one suicide point, one mall road and assorted collection of woodwork passed on as local specialty. However there were a few originals also. There is a huge lake right in the middle of the valley. For some strange reason every tourist in Kodai has to go around the lake on a bicycle. Just because everyone does it, we also did it. You can also take home homemade chocolates. I would love to see the "factory" where they make these homemade chocolates. These weren't any different from regular chocolates and in my humble opinion they tasted bad.

The best part about Kodai was Coaker's Walk. Some engineer called Coaker discovered this in 1872 and trust me this is one of the best places to get a view of the valley. This is very different from Himalayan Range. If you look down from a cliff in Himalayas, you can only see other mountains and view is limited by other heights. Here you can see the entire valley and beyond. It’s like one big wall at the end of a city.

We also went in for a jungle trek and yes it was scary with wild monkeys chasing us.

Kodai also has a solar observatory and I missed it too. I wanted to see the stars with my friends were not that keen on it. May be next time?

When coming back, our driver suddenly had a change on heart and he stopped at a shoe shop. Did I mention that he was barefoot till this time and decided he wants to buy a pair of shoes? He got down, haggled with the shopkeeper and bought a pair eventually. All this happened at 2 in night. For the first time in my life I had seen a shoe-shop open at 2 in the morning. And there were at least 10 such shops right there. I knew all the food joints and tea stalls are open 24 X 7 but round the clock service on footwear is something I hadn't even dreamt of.

May be this was some kind of religious ceremony where people abstain from wearing shoes and they can only buy shoes at 2 in night. People do funny things for religion in India.

There is more on Kodai but I am kinda low on time. Keep Reading/Watching !