Elagiri from Chennai - What to expect
One thing is for sure, the IT crowd are sleazed up for a weekend getaway. Be it a bike ride or a cab ride, they are game for it. What is has lead to is a spring leap in the prices in the hill stations and sprouts of new resorts all over. I am documenting my laidback trip to elagiri.
Elagiri, has clean air for starters. It has two lakes. One with a park annex and the other with a boating annex. There are numerous resorts here, but I guess many operate at capacity during the weekends with reservations in place. It is better to make a reservation since value added services may be much needed in a place like elagiri which has little to offer.
We started from Chennai early (around 7). We were able to make it to Velore easily by 9:30. Not to forget the music,boarding and the poor policemen who were patrolling the highway in lines of the chief minister's felicitation (Anna Virudhu). We had our breakfast at Hotel Saravana Bhavan, darn the cost is real steep for a restaurant at Velore. The rates are same as in Chennai, if not more. Not to forget the quality of the roads throught, worldclass. I was wondering how many people were roped in to compelete such a humongous task. We took a torn narrow road to the foothills of Elagiri. Our SUMO was crying and required some skilful thrust to take our heavy ass over the hills.
Once there, we skipped one hotel to another and finally ended up with no place to take us in. Lunch time and everyone was too tired to complain about anything. We finally ended up in a starter hotel which didn't host a restaurant. We were glad that atleast we were able to find some place, TV with regional content and western toilets = no complaints. In fact it was a bit cozy enough. We were starving and went to a nearby restaurant called Rhythms. Boy o Boy, we
were left to gape at the food pictures they've put up around. The turnaround time was more than 45 minutes. The loud voices grew dull, and the laughs sunk into snickers. The quality of the food was great though and an unexpected change in climate. Pleasant surprise : Rain through the window, and a soup bowl to quench a nasty hunger. WOW. We had a quick rounds of photos and headed to the nearby lake. The rain was sporadic, no real rain and it ceased early as well.
We thought of heading into the lake and suddenly it got heavy. Heavy enough for us to experiment and try the other lake in the other corner of the village. We went in and checked that it is not really a lake but a tank collecting water from the draining rain water. We headed back to the bigger lake near the restaurant and barged in. The lake is and by far the only place to visit in Elagiri, so spotted many tourists. The boating is comparable to that of Kodaikanal or of wayanad. Heard the lake is more than 40 feet deep or so. And Again lots of photo shoot and time for coffee. We spent more than a hour or two here. Early to the hub, we settled to play badminton. Its been the latest rage in the team and flavors of sport and strongheadedness appeared here and there. Mr tick tock decided its time by bringing down the sun to rest. It also initiated the IND vs PAK match (which India lost, thanks). Spirits were high and snacks were flowing. No big debates and no dirty hussle - everybody settled in their groove. I uploaded all my pictured into my laptop and was clearly happy in a few good clicks. The night dragged and we ordered food from RHYTHMS to close in the meal chapter for the day. We then roamed in the streets and then in the terrace - tried to put up conversations which didn't really start. To the rooms again and we ended up in our bed gazing at our television screen for the remaining part of the match.
The bowling was unimaginative and the batting totally unplanned. No wonder we lost the match, if it was not for the individual brilliance of Raina or Gambir- there would have been a backlash in the airports when the team arrives home.
Next day, though people woke up by 7:30. It took more than 9:30 for us to head to an eatery before we could head to the temple which is 4 kms trek over the mountains. We had some reheated Poori and some bananas to go with it. Next stop, trekking spot. The champions that we are and in the profession we took, you should have guessed that we would quit half way through. We then headed to the next tourist spot which is the falls positioned in the near by village. We had to travel downhill in a jumpy ride and drive through some narrow suburb roads and reach this falls. We sort of had a predetermined idea that we are not gonna lunge into the waters and we stuck to it by just having some clicks near the falls. We crossed a sugarcane distillery en route and had jugs of juices each costing 5 Rs.
There you go and thats it regarding the tour plan. Now heading back home. As decided we pitstopped at Aambur and had our biryani at 4. Good heavans they had some - else we would have bought some old bread/chips/biscuits and chewed our way home. I was taking in music requests and streaming it as a FM broadcast to the car radio. Not to forget our superstar driver who never closes his mouth. He reminded me of the comedian in "Nadodigal", I thought one day - may be - he is gonna get beaten so badly for his antics and end up as the quoted character. I have to close this with a wry smile on how I got back home. On the highway we cut at 45 degrees to the city's entry point and headed to the southern most corner of the city and headed back home to northern most corner - with that sort of fatigue it was just the few good moments that I had, carried me home with Josh.
