Long way around: Dec 2011

Photos here

It had been a long time since Indu and I took some time off; plus the arrival of our baby daughter had put all travel plans on hold. Finally, we decided to go for a short road trip; short being the operative word here. Distances look deceptively close by, when viewed on Google maps.

Valparai popped up as a destination. We could stop over at Coimbatore / Kovai, and the national highway to Coimbatore is supposed to be a good one. We could head to Valparai, and stay put there for a few days, and then head back home.

Atleast that was the initial plan.

We were also hoping that our daughter would comfortably settle into the baby-car-seat, and hopefully not get too cranky during the journey. As it turned out, she was not a bother at all right through our journey. But then, am getting ahead of myself.

Day 1: Coimbatore

Loaded up our car with luggage, and left around 7:30am in the morning. Peaceful drive. Stopped over at the Krishna Inn near Krishnagiri. The idli-vada-pongal-coffee combination was good, and we looked forward to the drive from thereon.

Made quick time, upto Salem, because the roads are really good, and relatively empty of traffic. The divider was lined with colorful flowering plants. The same held true till Coimbatore was 40km away. Then the Avinashi stretch of road happened. The road is in poor shape – the highway is still under construction – and this stretch took us a good part of one-and-half hours of motivation-sapping driving. We finally reached Kovai; freshened up at the place of stay; headed out to meet some close relatives there. It was an evening well spent.

The plan was to drive out to Valparai the next morning.

Days 2, and 3: Valparai

Slept well, and left for Valparai around 11am the next morning. The drive from Coimbatore to Pollachi, and some way out of Pollachi is not particularly good – there is way too much traffic on a narrow 2 lane not-so-smooth-road.

The fun part of the Valparai drive starts at the Aaliyar dam (check out this video shot from the dam). The views are beautiful, and the road is winding, with 40 plus hair-pin bends.

Valparai is a place of tea-estates; makes the place look picturesque, and neatly maintained. The actual town is a tiny one, with probably a zillion bakeries. I haven’t seen so many bakeries densely packed into a place.

Also, from a mobile phone connectivity perspective, only BSNL and Aircel are available there. Our Airtel phones remained dormant, and that was a welcome phase of sorts.

Stayed at a pleasant home stay, run by a retired medical doctor. She suggested we head to the Anamalai club house for lunch or dinner. The club house is in the middle of tea estates, and has a couple of rooms for boarding purposes. This is worth checking out.

We had dinner at the Martha’s Mess; dosa-roast, omlette, and kerala parota. Tasty meal, reasonably priced. The place is rather basic though – closer to a meals-ready restaurant type.

We decided to head out to Athirapilly on the fourth day of our vacation, and stay at the Rainforest resorts there.

Days 4, and 5: Athirapilly

We were informed that the road to Athirapilly is not in great condition, though it is motorable. We planned for the journey to last 3 to 4 hours, and expected to be at the resort by noon, considering we started sometime past 7am.

The road from Valparai to Athirapilly is best avoided – for the good part of the journey the road is pot-holed, and shorn of tarmac. We were in no hurry to get anywhere, and slowly worked our way through, spotted the giant squirrel, and loads of elephant-dung enroute.

Finally made it to the resort, and this place is breath-taking. The resort faces the Athirapilly water-falls. The view from our room had us floored. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

The food was rather decent, though pricey.

We managed to trek down to the falls, and it is worth a visit.

At this time, we had already covered 700km, and weren’t too keen on taking the ‘motorable’ road all the way back to Valparai. Instead we decided that we will head out via Chalakudy – considering the road is really a good one – and probably visit Cochin too.

This was with the intent to heading back from Cochin to Bangalore via Palakad-Salem. The logic being: it was too early to end our vacation, we will be using the national and state highways back, and that this route is atleast 100 kilometers shorter than the route back from Athirapilly via Valparai-Salem-Bangalore.

Days 6, 7, and 8: Cochin

The resort manager got us a room at the well maintained business hotel in Cochin – Avenue Regent. This property is part of the Avenue group that maintains the Rainforest resort too.

After a decent breakfast, we headed out to Cochin, and were at the hotel after a 3 hour journey. The last 45 minutes was spent in getting into Cochin, through some heavy city traffic.

M.G road, the one on which our place of stay is, is packed one-to-a-dozen with jewelery outlets; rather overwhelming.

Checked out the underwhelming marine-drive, nice and quaint Jew town and Kochi fort areas, and also managed to stay put at the hotel for a day.

The Mattancherry palace is worth a visit. It is also called the “Dutch” palace. We loved the style and details of the murals painted within the walls of the palace.

Among the eateries, close to the Avenue Regent hotel, the Dwaraka vegetarian restaurant is a decent option.

Cochin wasn’t worth the visit; the Jew town area visit was a welcome respite.

By this time, the road-trip was getting to us – we had traveled quite a distance, and still had a ways to go – and we decided to head back to Bangalore without stopping at Coimbatore, but probably with an overnight halt at Salem.

Day 8: Tirupur - night stopover

The roads from Cochin to Thrissur are in decent condition, but from there on to Palakkad is not a very pleasant drive. The road condition and significant amount of traffic makes the drive an energy sapping one.

We took a welcome lunch break at Palakkad – at the Indraprastha hotel’s restaurant. Lunch was a good vegetarian fare.

From there on the journey was comfortable, except for the fact that we were on a two lane road with oncoming traffic. I was fatigued by the time we reached Avinashi, with Salem still a two-plus hour drive away. Indu managed to spot an advertisement for Hotel Ginger in Tirupur, and as luck would have it, that was just 15km from where we  were at that point.

Checked into the rather clean and comfortable hotel Ginger, freshened up, had a quick dinner, and we slept well that night.

Day 9: Bangalore

The next day morning was the start of a 300 plus kilometer journey back to Bangalore. The highway is really good, and rather safe to drive. We made good time to Salem, stopped at the Saravana Bhavan there for a quick lunch, and it was onward to Bangalore from there. Rather uneventful but comfortable drive to Bangalore, and we were back home by 7pm that evening.

Finally,

We had covered quite a lot of distance by road, more than we had bargained for. It did create some amount of fatigue, but then the places we went to and things we experienced there were worth the effort.

Our daughter was safely and comfortably ensconced in the baby-car-seat, and happened to sleep for most of the journey. This made the entire vacation a pleasant one, and one which gave us a lot of memorable moments.

Photos here

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