Pondy Mahabalipuram Trip

One Friday morning, I got a surprise call from my husband. He said - "Start packing your bags. Guess what...We are going on a vacation to Pondy."
It was christmas time and everyone was in vacation mood in office. It was almost after 2 years we were going on a vacation, so we both were very excited. Fortunately I was at home that day, so I could manage packing the bags.

Route:
The initial plan was to go to Pondy but later we also visited Mahabalipuram.
Route to Pondy:
Bangalore -> Krishnagiri -> Vellore -> Cheyyar -> Vandavasi -> Tindivanam -> Pondicherry (ard 380 kms)
We left Blore at around 6 in the morning and reached Pondy at 1.00 PM. The road till Vellore is just awesome as it is the 6 lane Chennai express way.Further it is a single lane road and the route is quite confusing at times. On the way, we had breakfast at Krishnagiri.
From Pondy to Mahabalipuram, we took the East Coast road which runs parallel to the coastline. It is just 100 kms and should be around 2 hours drive.
Route back to Blore
Mahabalipuram -> Chengalpattu -> Kanchipuram -> Vellore -> Krishnagiri -> Bangalore (ard 350 kms)

Accomodation:
In Pondicherry, we stayed in Anandha Inn Resorts for 3 days
In Mahabalipuram, we stayed in Pallava Dynasty for 2 days

Day 1: In Pondicherry
We reached Pondy at around 1.00 PM. After having lunch, we took a short nap and then explored the resort. In the evening, we went to the Promenade beach. It is a rocky beach and hence one cannot enter the waters. This was a little disappointment for us. But the beach was really beautiful. We spent the whole evening on the beach side. Along the beach side, you can also see many Fench colonies. There is also this French War Memorial and a Gandhi statue. After having dinner, we returned back to our hotel.

Day 2: In Pondicherry
We got up early morning to visit the beach again, this time to see the sunrise. To our surprise, there was a huge crowd at the beach side. Most of the people had come for morning walk. And some were tourists like us, who had come to experience the divine sunrise. After capturing the sunrise in our eyes, we retuned back to our hotel. Breakfast was included complimentary in our package. After filling our tummies, we started with our next tourist spot - the well known Aurobindo Ashram. Kids are not allowed to enter this Ashram, Hence we had to go one by one. The Ashram is full of potted plants and you can see people in deep meditation around the samadhi. They also sell books on Aurobindo's works - the Mother. After this. we next headed towards Pondy museum. It showcases a wide diversity from astronomy to history. After the museum, we visited the Pondycherry Botanical Gardens. Finally we retuned back to our hotel. After lunch followed by a short nap, we continued our sight seeing again. We visited the Church of Sacred Jesus. It is very huge and has a Gothic architecture. Next we visted the Paradise beach, which is the only sandy beach in Pondy. By the time we reached there, it was very late evening and and the beach was very lonely and dark, so we decided to return back. On the way back, we had dinner in a Vietnamese Restuarent. You can find lot of Thai, Vietnamese, Italian and French restuarents here.

Day 3: In Pondicherry
After having breakfast in the hotel, we left towards the lake. It is around half an hour drive. The lake is very big and they also have boating facilities. We decided to go for motor boat as we had an infant daughter. The boat ride is for half an hour and it will take a complete round of the lake. You can spot some species of birds on a small island housed by the lake. After the mesmerising boat ride, we then went back to our hotel. We had lunch in our hotel and after a short nap started again towards the Paradise beach. My hubby was hoping to have a bath there. There were some handful of people this time on the beach. But the beach is quite deep and hence not suitable for taking a bath. So we just had a stroll along the beach dipping our legs in the water and playing with the water. On the way back, we again visited our favourite Promenade beach and had dinner in one of the restuarents there and returned back. On our way back, we also visited "Pothys". It is a huge shopping mart.

Day 4: In Mahabalipuram
After checking out from the resort, we started our journey to Mahabalipuram. The road to Mahabalipuram runs parallel to the East coastline, and hence it turned out to be a very pleasant drive. Once we reached Mahabalipuram, our first task was hotel hunt. We quickly managed to find a very good hotel in the centre of the city. After reaching there, we realised that it is a very small town. The owner told us that Indian Dance Festival had started there just 2 days back and we should not miss to see that. I guess thats the reason the place was flooded with foreigners. The same day in the evening we went to see the sea shore. The walk to the sea shore was difficult as the place was loaded with tourists and stalls. After that, we went to see the Dance festival. It was a good experience. Earlier we had decided to stay just one day here. But after visiting this place, we fell in love with it and decided to extend by one more day.

Day 5: In Mahabalipuram
Next day, early morning, we went to the beach to see the sun rise. The beach was not very clean but fine enough for a bath and my hubby did not miss this golden oppurtunity. On the other hand, I was having some fun time with my daughter. After the divine bath, we next went to the Varaha caves. The small trekking was really fun. Then we visited the Light House, from where you can get a good view of this town and also the beach. then we visited "Arjuna's Penance" There is also this Stone, which is known for its balancing technique. Then we visted some temples. By then, it was evening time, and we could not miss the Bharatnatyam dance at the Dance Festival. Late night, we explored the city and did some shopping. This city is known for stone sculptures. Here you can see lot of people carving amazing items from stone.

Day 6: In Mahabalipuram
It was the last day of our vacation. Early morning, we visited the Sea Shore Temple and then the Five Rathas. Both these monuments are listed as World Heritage sites and they are must see places in Mahabalipuram. Finally at around 12.00 PM, we left for Bangalore and reached home at around 7.00 PM.

We will always cherish and relive all those wonderful memories and the amazing time spent with family in this trip.

Trip to Wayanad

We had two consecutive holidays- one for Sankranti and one for Id in the month of January 2014, so we took a day off from office to get an extended 5 days vacation. The biggest question on our minds was where to spend the holidays - basically the confusion was between Wayanad (Kerala) and Yerkaud (Tamil Nadu). After some net surfing and talking to friends, finally we decided to go to Wayanad.

Route:
Google shows three routes to reach Wayanad from Bangalore.
The best one is Bangalore -> Mysore ->Nanjangud -> Gundlupet -> Bandipur -> Wayanad
The reason why we chose this route is that it passes through Bandipur and Muthunga wild life sanctuaries and if you are lucky, then you can spot some wild animals there. We left Bangalore early morning at around 5.00 AM and reached Wayanad at 12.00 PM. It should take around 5.5 hours to reach wayanad, but we took longer as we were travelling with our 1.5 year old daughter. On the way to Wayanad, we had our breakfast at Kamat Madhuban and on our return journey, we had our dinner at the same place. If you plan to visit this hotel, dont miss their jowar rotis. They prepare really amazing jowar rotis, the best i had so far.

Accomodation:
On the recommendation of one of our friends, we had booked "Rocky Nest" homestay which is located in kalpetta. After entering Wayanad, we have to cross Sulthan Bathery to reach Kalpetta. The owner of the home stay had come to recieve us at the bus stand and from there he guided us till the home stay.
The place was really good, well maintained and hygienic. It is build on the rock, hence the name Rocky Nest. The owner of this place, Abdul Salaam and his family is really helpful and they will try to help you out with every possible thing right from shopping to food to travel.

Day1: After having lunch in kalpetta, we took a short nap and then headed towards "Pookat Lake". The drive to this lake from Kalpetta was mesmerising with beautiful tea estates on both the sides. The lake was not very clean, hence we decided not to go for boating. But the area around the lake was nice and we took a short round around this lake. We also visited the aquarium here, which is really worth seeing. There was a small garden around the lake with some swings, etc which attracted my daughter. Finally we saw one eleplant and after that we decided to return back. To our surprise, monkeys were waiting on our car to welcome us. My husband tried to scare them away with the car alarm, but no gain. Atlast they left our car and we could proceed further. On the way back to the home stay, we experineced the same tea and coffee estates. After reaching the home stay, the food was ready for us. The food was simple yet very tasty, Aunty had prepared ghee rice with dal and papad and pickle. My daughter had a gala time playing with their kids and on the other side we all enjoyed the food. After a hectic day, we had a very good sleep.

Day 2: The next day the owwner agreed to accompnay us on our sightseeing. We had lovely breakfast of rice pooris and potato sabji along with some pancakes and left for our journey. First we visited the view point "Lakkidi". From here , you can get the view of the whole valley and the mountain ranges. The morning sight of this place is really amazing!! Next halt - Banasura Dam. On the way, we saw the famous Chain Tree. The story behind the tree is that as the tree grows, the chain expands. After reaching the entry point for banasura dam, we had to wait for half an hour for our jeep. There is a jeep which takes you to banasura Dam or if you like you can also walk till the dam. It should be around 1.5 kms. The dam is really huge and we can see the beautiful mountain ranges adjoining the dam. This is Asia's second largest earth dam and India's largest earth dam. Dont miss the speed boat ride here. It is just amazing. After a memorable speed boat experience, we decided to proceed to our next halt - Kuruwa Island. There is a garden surrounding this lake, which we skipped as it was noon time and quite hot. After taking the same jeep for return journey, we headed towards Kuruwa islands.

Our owner (cum guide now) had ordered some authentic homely Kerala food for us on the way to Kuruwa island. We really enjoyed every bite of the food that we ate here. There were around 20 palyas served with rice along with Kheer and red colored water (water boiled with some roots).
After overfilling our tummies, we headed towards Kuruwa Island. This is a small island with dence forests and we can reach this place by sailing on the bamboo boats which can accomodate around 60 people. Unfortunately, the island was captured by wild elephants, hence the entry to the island was blocked and we had to return back. Our next halt was Thirunelli temple which is around 3000 years old. It is said that Luva nd Kush studied in this temple . One amazing thing i noticed about this temple is that, there were no lights inside and the whole temple was lightened with lamps. Hence it looked more beautiful. This was our last halt and we decided to return back home as it was quite late in the evening and we were 60 kms from kalpetta. It took us around 2 hours to recah home thrugh the dence forests. On the way we spotted some deers.
Back home, aunty had prepared delicious vegetable Biryani along with omlette. All of us were really hungry and we gobbled all the food in front of us and had a very tight sleep after that.

Day 3: This was our last day in wayanad and we decided to see the Sochipura waterfalls and then return Bangalore. We had our breakfast and after a sad farewell to uncle and aunty and the home stay, we headed towards the waterfalls. The route to the waterfall is really scenic with tea estates on all four sides and cool breeze. We pre ordered food in one of the restuarent near the waterfall and then started towards the waterfall. It was written that we have to walk around 1 km. But this so called walk turned out to be the most adventurous walk for us especially with our little daughter. As i was not keeping very well, my husband had to carry her always.
In the beginning, it was a normal route, then we had to go down some steps and finally some rocky steps. To reach the bottom of the waterfall, we had to do some rock climbing with the rope and this was the most difficult part but somehow my husband managed to bring my naughty daughter safely to the waterfall area with the help of my brother in law. The waterfall is really deep and it is worth seeing. After spending some time there, we returned back and back jouney was much more tiring especially for my husband as he carried our daughter the full way. Really proud of my husband as he did gracefully without showing any signs of tiredness.

Finally we had some good lunch and then continued our journey back home. There on our way, we were unaware that some wild elephants were waiting for us. Once we crossed the Muthunga forests and entered the Bandipur forests, we spotted some deers, some elephants, a bison and some peacococks. After some time, we spotted one wild elephant on the road. We stopped for it to cross the road. But some truck drivers refused to stop and proceeded fast. The elephant got irritaed and started moving back and forth of the road. We quickly took a reverse turn and waited in a postion to flee in the back direction. After waiting for a very long time, finally the elephant crossed the road and we could proceed further. By then there was a huge traffic jam on both sides of the road. This was one of the first experience we had with the wild elephants and it was really a spine chilling experience.
Finally we reached Mysore at 9.00 PM and had our dinner and then reached home at around 1.00 AM.

Overall it was a wonderful trip loaded with lots of fun and adventure!!