Kanyakumari – The Land of a Goddess

With large number of devotees, Kanyakumari or Kanniyakumari seems like a typical Indian temple town. November and December is said to be the best season to visit Kanyakumari owing to the pleasant climate. The climate worked out well for me but not the huge number of people there (being a typical crowd hater). We arrived at 9am on a Friday morning by bus. The bus dropped us close to our stay and we walked to our destination – TTDC hotel run by Tamilnadu Tourism Dept. Our checkin time was 10am and we were made to wait until our room got free and cleaned which dragged on till 11am owing to the irritating and foolish rule of the hotel of having both checkin and checkout time as 10am. Meanwhile, we had our breakfast at the TTDC restaurant. We finally got our room to find out that it was not to the standard of our expectations, not even close to it. We freshened up and decided to take up the matter with the front desk staff. We were luckily offered another room due to a cancellation and got a super-sized room at an adjacent building within their property also run by TTDC, the Heritage Cape Hotel. We happily decided to bear the extra cost for the room and our accommodation budget got extended to Rs. 2000/day! I later found out that due to some server issue I was allotted a room online that was not there and hence they had to give me a room (any room) since I had already booked it online. With the matter resolved to our satisfaction we set out to explore the town of a virgin Goddess. First stop was the Vivekananda rock memorial for which we had to take a boat. The queue for the boat was so long that it went beyond 3 streets! We decided to eat our lunch and then see if the crowd gets lesser. We found a pure veg restaurant nearby and had our lunch, I must say that it was unexpectedly costly!! We walked back to check out the crowd and saw to our dismay that the crowd/queue had only increased! We abandoned the plan and went to sit on the beach side and observe the crowd. The temple of Kanyakumari was scheduled to open its doors at 4pm and we stood in the queue at 3pm to avoid the rush. We did avoid the rush to a large extent by this move and finished our darshan satisfactorily. In a span of 2 meter walk from the temple entrance to the chappal stand we were jostled by the crowd, I cannot imagine our plight if we had not stood in the queue an hour early. We asked around a few tour operators there for a taxi for sightseeing the next day and booked one. We then roamed around the streets a bit and settled down around the view point area. This was relaxing but owing to a cloudy day we could not catch the sunset. We returned to our hotel once it got dark and I settled down with a book. We ordered dinner from room service and the service was good!

 

Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue

Next day brought us clear skies and slightly sunny weather. We checked out and started from our hotel at 10am with a list of places to see! First in the list was the Guganathaswamy Temple, which is about 2 mins from the beach. It’s a small temple and hardly takes 5 mins to visit and get back since there is no crowd here. We set out to the Suchindram town famous for the Thanumalayan temple. The distance is around 10 kms from beach but took us a long time to reach since we had to cross a bridge which allows one-way traffic at a time and there was much traffic. The temple is unique since its deity is a single form (linga) of 3 lords – Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. It even consists of a huge statue of Hanuman carved out of a single granite rock and a huge statue of Nandi. However, I could not enjoy this temple much due to the huge crowd. I however enjoyed looking at the temple’s kalyani! 

 

Temple entrance

 

Kalyani

 Next stop was the popular Nagercoil’s Nagaraja temple. It was surprisingly less crowded! We then set out to the padmanabhapuram palace in padmanabhpuram, former capital city of Travancore. Located at the foot of Veli hills which form a part of Western Ghats, this palace is an excellent example of Kerala architecture. Even though this palace is in Tamilnadu, it is under the jurisdiction of Kerala. It took us an hour to explore the palace! We were allowed to go into almost every room of the palace and it would take more time to properly explore the palace.  It held some beautiful artifacts and paintings!

 

The 300 year old clock which still keeps time

 

Kuthira Vilakku - horse lamp that remains horizontal and ensures no oil spill

 

Palace entrance

 

Side view

 

Artifact in the palace

 We then visited the Udayagiri fort nearby. This fort seemed to contain forest with not much to explore. There was a pond and some geese around it put there mainly for tourist and not much fun but since it was on the way and we could cover it in 20 mins, we went for a walk here. We had a late lunch and it was time for us to head back. On the way we visited the St.Xavier’s church which was quiet nice. 

 

Inside Udayagiri fort

 

St.Xavier's Church

We made it to our bus just in time and settles down to look at the countryside! I suggest that you watch out for the wind turbines around an hour after you leave Kanyakumari, the Muppandal wind farm. With more than 2000 wind turbines, they are a sight not to be missed!!!

Kodaikanal - The Princess of Hill Stations

We reached at 10am on a Monday morning, mildly irritated with the long journey of 12 hours. Who would have thought that Kodaikanal is so far from Bangalore! We had always heard that people drive to Kodia and had the impression that it would be an easy distance, like say 7 hours, 12 was so much more!! And with the last 3 hours spent climbing up the Palani hill range!
As soon as we stepped down the bus, we felt THE Kodai weather, chilly and sunny! We later learnt that it was a perfect weather day at Kodai!
We reached our hotel Altius Nest in 5 mins by taxi for which we paid 100 rupees!! This seems to be a minimum fare to travel from anywhere to anywhere in Kodai n the duration of the ride is almost always 5 mins! Hundred is too much money for 5 mins but since tourism is a major economy driver there, we just had to grin and bear it!
Our room was a honeymoon suite booked more for the great discount I got on goibibo and the reviews I had read rather than the rate of the suite! It was clean and decent, wooden sloping roof, wooden floor, a TV, an electric water kettle, a black tiled bathroom and a picture window overlooking the green hills. No disappointments here! Hunger led us to the cafe downstairs which had a beautiful view. We ate pongal and eggs as this was the only available breakfast available, pongal came with big bowls of red and green chutneys along with sambar, all of which were great! 

 

Hotel Altius Nest

We freshened up and decided to explore Kodai city on foot. Meanwhile we inquired for our next day’s itinerary of visiting the pine forest and the dolphin's nose at our hotel; they helped us book a taxi for it. Taking directions from the supervisor at Altius, we set out! First and the most anticipated stop was the Kodai lake, the beautiful misty Kodai Lake. We bought some peanuts mixed with grated cabbage and carrot and set out in a row boat for a round around the lake. The boatman to our luck was a wonderful photographer and was taking over my camera at the drop of a hat! But he took some great shots so I have no regrets there! We actually went into the mists on the lake and it was quite n heady feeling! The boatman cued into our excitement and offered to extend our ride for 100 rupees ( no surprises with the charge huh?) We quickly agreed but later realized that he hardly extended our round; he just made another stop for photos which was not so bad either! The boat ride in total cost us 220 rupees. We next went looking for cycles n found horses!! Majestic and beautiful horses! We rode them for 1 km, and very soon had to part with them! 1 horse ride per km costed, no doubt, 100 rupees!!! Our next stop was the Coaker’s walk which was about 15 mins walk from the lake. We had some corn on the cob and hiked to our destination. Kodai roads are in inclines and declines and rarely will one find a levelled road! The only levelled road seemed to be around the Lake. It was fun walking the streets, so different from Bangalore!

 

Kodaikanal Lake

 

The misty side of the lake

Coaker’s walk offered us wonderful view points which were mostly obscured with fog which was also a great sight to see.
We walked back towards the lake where there was a tea room serving Italian! The Credis tea room had a great outdoor ambience and good food! We finished our food to find that the time was 4:30 and decided to walk back to our hotel. Since the hotel did not offer any entertainment in the evening, we decided to get facials done at the Prana spa. We initially saw the pamphlets in our room and thought that it was a part of our hotel but later found that it is part of another inn which was a few minutes away. The spa person picked us and dropped us back to the hotel after a relaxing facial. We relaxed in out room with a bottle of non-alcoholic wine, some plum cake and slept soundly by a heater and an extra quilt, for which we had to request in the hotel.

 

Boiled peanuts bhel

The next day started with a bright sun. We basked for a while in the sunshine and set out in a taxi for our day’s adventure. We started from our hotel at 10 am in the morning on a promising day of sunshine, but soon the weather turned foggy as we ascended into the forest area. The plan was to start with the valley tour to continue to the dolphin nose tour. We saw a 500 year old jamun tree which is said to bear fruit even to this day! Unfortunately it was fenced since people started carving their names into its trunk :-( We continued to pine tree forest, the pine trees here as so close to each other that the trees completely fill the sky! Muted sunlight is allowed between the branches! Pine trees due to their proximity to each other produce oxygen during the day and the combined carbon dioxide produced during the night can render a person/animal unconscious, this is also the reason that there are no other plants or even grass amidst the trees.

 

We then stopped at many view points such as, upper lake view, moier point, pillar rocks and guna caves. 

 

Upper lake view

 

Moier point

 

on the way to Guna cave

 

Fairy falls

By now the weather had gone foggy rendering a mystic screen to the forests. We stopped for just a minute in fairy falls and quickly continued to Pambar falls. Pambar falls was lovely! We followed the course of the water downstream to reach the lion cave. The path was slippery and we experienced many slips, but it was manageable since we had our guide with us. Many people who came without a guide were often confused and appeared a little apprehensive. We got back after a 20 min trek (to and fro) to visit the much anticipated dolphin nose. Unfortunately, by the time we got to dolphin nose, the weather had turned extremely foggy, visibility was bad and we had to forgo this trek. We visited a beautiful church La Saleth and came to the city area around the lake. We had lunch at Astoria which I totally recommend. We ended our adventure with a walk in Bryant park. We bought some dry flowers to take back home and returned to the hotel.

 

Pambar falls

 

La Saleth from the side

 

La Saleth entrance

Kodaikanal is one of the few places where one can comfortably walk and explore. However, before buying anything, enquire the price in 3 different shops to be sure of the correct prices. Kodai is a place for you to go for the wonderful weather and if you like exploring a place on foot!

 

The beautiful misty Lake