Travelogue - Bangalore to Nilambur

It's been quite a while since I went on a good road trip. A sudden unplanned trip to Nilambur came as a pleasant surprise, especially not having planned it helped take the decision to drive down. Had we taken an overnight bus or train, would have missed out the beautiful route. On the flipside, the unplanned nature of the trip also meant that we traveled without taking the camera with us.

Nilambur is a small town in Malappuram district of Kerala, and the shortest route from Bangalore is just 300 km via Mysore-Gundulpet-Gudalur. Though Bangalore-Mysore road is 4 lane, there is quite a lot of traffic. Between Chennapatna and Maddur, there are some good restaurants on the highway. We had breakfast at Kamat's - food was very good, and tasty.

Though Mysore has a ring road nearing completion, it is better to take the route through the city (which we did on the onward journey, and took the ring road on the return journey - adds 22km without saving much time. Also, if you are used to Bangalore/Chennai traffic, Mysore is a breeze).

The route gets interesting from a little beyond Gundulpet, when you enter the Bandipur National Park. There was thorough checking for plastic items (but surprisingly none on the return journey. Inside the park, you can spot a few animals including deer, peacock, wild boar, etc - there are signboards warning against wild elephants, and that you should not take any of the interior roads without permission. The place is spotlessly clean.

Though the park is one single continuous entity, the interstate border comes in between, so it is officially Mudumalai National Park on the Tamil Nadu side.

The drive through both National Parks is a very refreshing experience - clean air, no noise, very less traffic. Soon after leaving the parks, we reached Gudalur town in Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, a crowded town, from where we take the detour for Nilambur from the Ooty road. The portion of the ghat roads closer to the border between Tamil Nadu and Kerala was the best part of the ride - at 12:30 noon we encountered thick fog, so much that visibility was reduced to a few feet, and we drove with headlights & hazard lights on, not because we could see better, but in the hope that vehicles on the opposite side could at least see the lights and avoid collision. This fog, called as Koda Manju in Malayalam, was the first time for me not just for any roads in Kerala/TN but also not encountered during my trip to the Himalayas.

The roads then enters the Kerala plains very soon, but the scenery is still beautiful.

The next day we went on a short outing to a lesser known waterfalls, called Adyanpara. It is not very popular, and hence not at all crowded except for some 10 local tourists. The beauty of the place was more than worth the trouble of climbing up the narrow hilly roads.

I knew photographs could not capture the full feel of the place, so I shot a video on the mobile phone as well.

The key places we missed during this trip was going to the Teak Museum, Nilambur Kovilakam, and taking the train journey from Nilambur to Shoranur. That's for the next time.

Travelogue - Sri Lanka

Been on a rather unplanned trip to Sri Lanka and back - these are my observations: -

(warning: long post)

This was my first opportunity to use my rusty old passport. The emigration folks at Chennai airport put their seal on the 3rd or 4th page, very randomly covering more than one box, and the ink getting smudged. The Sri Lankan immigration authorities did a neat job sealing on the first blank box and doing it very neatly.

Traveling to Colombo from Chennai/Trivandrum is much cheaper than traveling to most other places in India, with the airfare being under 3000 rupees. Duration of flight is also under 90 minutes.

Looks wise, from the air, Sri Lanka looks very much like Kerala, my home state - in fact greener (this is a rare case of me accepting any other place as greener than Kerala). Climate wise, too it is theoretically very similar to Kerala, only that in recent times Kerala has been getting lesser and lesser rates.

When I landed in Colombo (airport being 35km away from the city) it was raining heavily, and the route to the city was flooded due to incessant rains. There were no options other than to take a bus to the city, which wikitravel had warned to be messy. (Since I didnt convert rupees to dollars, and since banks at the colombo airport refused to buy INR, my industry - ATMs - came to my rescue to get Sri Lankan rupees.) Communicating was tough, as very few in the bus spoke English.

The bus journey was not as uncomfortable as wikitravel made it sound like (maybe experience in MTC buses helped), though it took close to two hours to reach my hotel.

There were other interesting observations in Colombo city - though the city has a sizable number of vehicles, there were no traffic jams - unbelievably pleasant surprise was the fact that vehicles kept 3-4 feet distance from the vehicles in the front, stopped at pedestrian crossing, and no one honks irritably! Shops close early (most of them by 6-7pm) and they dont have any shutters - clear glass with lights inside to highlight their main products (I could never imagine such a situation in Kerala - it would have not have lasted 1 month, with either robber or hartal activists taking them down). Maybe the constant vigil of police/paramilitary on the roads help.

The beaches at Galle Face and along Galle Road are excellent. Food options are heavenly for non-vegetarians, and non veg fare starts right from the morning (very much like Kerala). For a keralite, food is pretty much the same - Appam (interesting Anglicized name - Hoppers), Idiyappam (String Hoppers), Paratha (similar to Kerala/Malabar Paratha, except, square in shape), Pittu (called Puttu in Kerala).

Also made a weekend trip to Kandy, but thats for another post.

Dakshina Chitra

This New Year I did something different - went with wife and a close friend to Dakshin Chitra, an art gallery on the East Coast Road, a few kilometres south of Chennai. I am not the usual 'arty' type, and had made the visit of the recommendation of the accompanying friend. Unfortunately we had gone to Mahabs first and dropped in at DC on our way back, reaching at around 4 pm.

There was a North Eastern dance festival going on, and the day featured a dance troupe from Manipur. A spring time dance by the young men with drums in their hands was a very amazing experience, even for me who doesn't have much sense for dance.

There is a lot to see at DC - they have showcased each of the four southern states' cultural heritage through real size exhibits - houses constructed in traditional style, including the interiors, for each region - for example, Chettinad, Trivandrum, Calicut, Ambur, etc.

The sections on Tamil Nadu and Kerala are complete, while the sections on Andhra and K'taka are being renovated.

We just had time to have a quick glance at TN and Kerala section before closing time. I have decided to make another visit, this time a full day trip, to this place, and I would recommend this to all my friends residing in or visiting Chennai.

Trichy Ramblings

I am right now in Trichy, with three more hours to kill before my train to Chennai. Dusty, hot and humid like most places in Tamil Nadu.

The train was supposed to reach at 5 am, and it was not a terminating train - so kept on waking every hour, to discover at 5 am that the train was late by at least an hour and a half. First sight of trichy was the Kaveri river(it is not a river any more - you can see most of the dry river bed, and the little spring like water remaining is only ankle deep - reminded me about Nila/Bharatapuzha in Kerala). Next came the shanties and slums, and the familiar sight of women queueing for their share of water at the hand pump.

I could find easy and affordable accomodation near the central bus stand, and food at Vasanta Bhavan was also tasty (and again cheap compared to Chennai).

Visited the Rock Fort Temple yesterday. Amazing experience - the 7th century temple, its architecture, the paintings, the carvings, and last but not least, the view of Trichy from the top. Initially I also had plans to visit the Srirangam temple, but somehow felt extremely lazy (nothing new).

My planned one hour at the internet cafe is almost over now. I shall upload the pictures taken from Rock Fort soon.