[swiftnfurious]

Some of those pictures of the rocks are fabulous! Feel like a screenshot from "Avatar"!

Between, did you want to play safe with the time taken (which also means the speed of your travel) for Blr - Pune trip?? 900 kms in 8 hours is way too different from 600 kms in 8 hours!

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by Wanderer78

Amazing photos buddy. I am going to Kodai tomorrow and your thread comes at a very apt time

Great, Have a nice time. It's a lovely place

Originally Posted by vnabhi

Avi, your first 3 photos of your post of the lake from a vantage point brings back very fond memories. That is exactly the place we'd spent 3 days on our honeymoon. The 3rd photo has the exact building , though it seems to be a wee bit bigger now. I think it was called Pondicherry House. We spent a lot of time boating on the lake. Didn't you?

Nice to know that Venu. We did boating twice in that freezing weather and it was fun. Once in a Shikara and once in a row boat

Originally Posted by MDe

1000+kms is indeed an epic drive. Always a first but never the last. Did you visit the Dolphin's nose? The picture of the clouds appear to be close. You need to hire a jeep to go down that route as I remember. The road to the Dolphin's nose was extremely bad. It needs quite a trek to reach the point but its worth it.

I dont beileve we visited the Dolphin's nose. Is that something worth while visiting?

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

Between, did you want to play safe with the time taken (which also means the speed of your travel) for Blr - Pune trip?? 900 kms in 8 hours is way too different from 600 kms in 8 hours!

Thanks. My bad, I was mistaken about the distance which was corrected in subsequent posts

One of the favorite past time in Kodaikanal was walking the circumference of the lake. Sometimes the entire circumference and many times part of it and it was one of the best feelings as we throughly enjoyed our daily walks. Apparently the entire circumference is 5kms and I learnt it the hard way.

One day, I hired a bicycle which is avalable in plenty and one of the most favorite past time of tourists. Single seat for Rs.20 and double seater for Rs.50 for an hour.I told wifey who was busy shopping that I am going for a short ride and decided to cycle out and since I was out of practice, I was huffing, puffing like someone who climbed Mt.Everest after completing the 5kms

But, I have become a fan of bicycling and now thinking of taking that up for regular exercise

Next day, wifey said lets go for a walk around the lake. I told her its too long and she will not like it. She coaxed me and then we started walking the never ending diameter of the lake and she agreed with me that its simply too long and we practically crawled our way back . We walked liesurely eating corn and enjoying the views and ogling at some amazing properties right by the lake with one of them (Pictures posted here is the most fantastic property and probably the best home in Kodai).

Further to above, since we did the round in two different ways, we decided to drive around the lake in the Cruze.

Basically 3 rounds in 3 different modes of transport. It was fun !!!

[mobike008]

A few shots that showcase my previous practice of DOF (Depth of Field).

I clicked just 4 pics and all 4 iam posting here, so what do you think? Is it decent enough DOF pics or something is glaringly missing?

[mobike008]

We enjoyed boating twice on that lovely lake. Once in the Shikara and another time in the rowing boat

Shikara Boat









Relaxing in the Shikara for an hour. Great feeling to just laze around in the boat



Guys selling ice-cream on the lake bank. We stopped our boat and picked up and ice-cream. It's great to enjoy an ice-cream in chilled weather

[ambivalent_98]

Originally Posted by F150

Fantastic pics of the clouds. Post some more pics of the weapon taken at scenic locations.
12Hrs is fantastic. Were you doing 120kmph + ?

I am wondering how long it would take to reach this place from Pune.

Pune to Bangalore is about 10 hrs and then onwards is about 6 hrs. If you are keen on driving you start early in the morning say by 4 you can hit Bangalore by maybe 2 in the afternoon , drive on and reach Kodai by nightfall. Should be a nice drive. Depends on your ride though

[DRIVE_ADDICT]

Oh your Travelogue gives me the itch to visit Kodai again.

The misty Kodai is my favorite, in-fact our family's favorite holiday destination. We went there a plenty of times.

Once we went for a 5 day long family vacation with a group of 15 members in 4 cars, We stayed at the Kodaikkanal club, which is right next to the Kodai lake.

We spend the whole duration of our stay at Kodai club and at Kodai lake.
We didn't went out anywhere for any sight seeing, except for Coaker's walk one evening.

Our daily routine was like, Waking up leisurely, have late breakfast at kodai club and enjoy family time.
Lunch at Hiltop INN (tasty and reasonably priced Non veg, which is bang opposite to Kodai International school)
Plus Ice creams at Baskin Robbins right next to Hiltop INN.
Then Play at Kodai club the entire noon,

Walk down to Lake at evening, either rent a bicycle and do rounds around lake, or take a Pedal boat, pedal to the middle of the lake, stop there and kill time. ofcourse with Hot chilly bhajjis and Hot tea.

By night we walk to eat at Tawa (a very tiny restaurant but provides awesome lip smacking north indian veg).
If anyone visiting Kodai, don't miss to eat out at this place. Its a heavenly combination, Misty night + Chill wind + hot lip-smacking north indian dishes.

Once we (only the lads) tried to walk down the entire stretch of lake at night, but its pitch dark at some section, so we returned back half way down. But we do walk down the entire section many times during our visits at day light, of course we take our own sweet time to do that.

The list of Dos for me at Kodai.
#1. Prefer Off-season (Nov or Jan end.)

#2. At the lake, take a pedal boat and pedal it to the middle, stop there and kill time. an iPod will do wonders. If the lake is thickly crowd a big NO for this.

#3. A late night dinner at Tawa restaurant (anything over 8.30 pm can be considered as late nite at Kodai)

#4. Coaker's walk (Preferably early morning)

Somehow Kodai never felt enough for me even after multiple visits.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by DRIVE_ADDICT

Oh your Travelogue gives me the itch to visit Kodai again. The misty Kodai is my favorite, in-fact our family's favorite holiday destination. We went there a plenty of times.

Lunch at Hiltop INN (tasty and reasonably priced Non veg, which is bang opposite to Kodai International school) Plus Ice creams at Baskin Robbins right next to Hiltop INN. Walk down to Lake at evening, either rent a bicycle and do rounds around lake, or take a Pedal boat, pedal to the middle of the lake, stop there and kill time. ofcourse with Hot chilly bhajjis and Hot tea.

Agree with you on all of these and we too have done it. We had lunch twice at Hilltop Inn and I think its the best place for great food. Other places werent that impressive. Also, mirchi bajji at roadside vendor has an "Orange" color. That put us off and we were scared to try it

We didnt take the pedal boat but, Shikara and Row boat and spent more time than the stipulated by tipping the oarsman

My Top 5 things to do at Kodai would be the following :-

1. Walk/Cycle around the circumference of the lake

2. Spend time sitting on benches outside the lake and watch people. Its my favorite past time. watching different people

3. Coakers Walk

4. Play indoor games at hotel. We spent considerable time playing table tennis and carroms

5. Bryant Park is a lovely place to spend long time amongst greenery and flowers. We spent almost half a day here


Your truly though not being physically fit still did one-5km round almost each day of my stay in Kodai



Catching my breath after a brisk round of the lake



This was the toughest part. Riding with your better half...LOL

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by F150

Fantastic pics of the clouds. Post some more pics of the weapon taken at scenic locations

Alright with the pictures almost coming to an end, I need to pay a small tribute to White Annihilator which made this beautiful trip possible in this penultimate post. It performed flawlessly and returned an overall mileage of almost 14kmpl

A few pictures where it posed for camera at our scenic hotel in Kodai

At the cost of sounding pompous or even boasting. A fact remains that till date I havent come across any car that overtook the WA on a highway ....Makes me wonder that majority of people drive very sedately....

Enjoy the pics !!!

[calypsoGT]

Beautiful pics and the White Annihilator looks beautiful. If you have other photo blogs, please do upload them as well with a few description like where you stayed and general costing of the trip. Appreciate your sharing.

Cheers

[Ddrive]

Originally Posted by mobike008

At the cost of sounding pompous or even boasting. A fact remains that till date I havent come across any car that overtook the WA on a highway ....

Wow,
Thats a real awesome news

[vasudeva]

OH, your photos remind me of my trip to Kodaikanal in June 2013.

My experience: better than Ooty (2005) but the regular tourist places are just there for the heck of it.

Overall a much cleaner and better place than the usual hill stations in the North (except for Kashmir).

Not much in the way of excellent hotels. Stayed at Carlton which was good and expensive but nothing great for the money they charge. Buffet food was worse than mediocre but that was compensated by a large number of items on offer. Reminded me of their Madh Island place which also serves bad food in at least 20 varieties.

Found Nahar and Cloud Street to be the best eating places. Tripadvisor got it wrong on some other joints.

Definitely the second best place hill station/region that I have visited (first remains Kashmir).

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

My experience: better than Ooty (2005) but the regular tourist places are just there for the heck of it.

Totally agree with you on the cleanliness part. But, for me it wont be the most favorite hill station as iam partial to the northern ones

Originally Posted by calypsoGT

Beautiful pics and the White Annihilator looks beautiful. If you have other photo blogs, please do upload them as well with a few description like where you stayed and general costing of the trip. Appreciate your sharing.

Over the time, I have written quite a few travelogues on the forum. One of the most epic one related to White Annihilator has to be my 5500kms trip up north. Here is the Travelogue details

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...let-cruze.html

You can find a few travelogues on Goa, Mahabaleshwar, UK etc...

This is the final post of my travelogue and thanks to all for reading and sharing your comments. I hope you enjoyed the pics as much as I loved sharing them

Tribute to the travellers and equipment that clicked some of these beautiful pictures

This pic of the travellers was shot by local lensman there with a kodak camera and gave us a printed copy and this image is taken with my cellphone...Too many transitions eh?




Weapon used to click these pictures. Shot this picture with my mobile phone

[RSUDARSANAN]

Originally Posted by mobike008

We enjoyed boating twice on that lovely lake. Once in the Shikara and another time in the rowing boat

In the late '60s, used to visit Kodai often, during school holidays. Rowing was a favourite pastime and have even participated in a regatta once, then an annual summer fixture.

Those days it was only row boats, single and tandem. Today, rue the sight of the ugly ducklings of paddle boats and the incongruous shikara (IMO, best on Dal lake) ; just as it is heart breaking to see 'Silver Cascade' ruined by concrete embellishments. Yeah, have seen it in its pristine and primodial grandeur, Sigh !

Originally Posted by mobike008

At the cost of sounding pompous or even boasting. A fact remains that till date I havent come across any car that overtook the WA on a highway ....Makes me wonder that majority of people drive very sedately....

Just a thought, do you let any car overtake ?

P.S. Hill Top Inn is owned my college mate

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by RSUDARSANAN

In the late '60s, used to visit Kodai often, during school holidays. Rowing was a favourite pastime and have even participated in a regatta once, then an annual summer fixture

Wow, Thats nice to know. Even during my college days I was into Kayaking and Boat Pulling. Even won a gold medal in boat-pulling. Did it for 3 years

Agree with you on the loud colors and shapes of the Shikara and surprisingly only two boats were there and people were fighting to take possession for a ride. Well, there also i got in front of the line

Originally Posted by RSUDARSANAN

Just a thought, do you let any car overtake ? P.S. Hill Top Inn is owned my college mate

LOL.....Seriously, I find majority of people chugging along on highway. It's rare to find a spirited driver on the highway thats when WA comes into its being and gives company and in all cases overtakes it too

[maverickgenius]

Hi mobike008,

I plan to travel Chennai - Kodaikanal in a Laura 2.0 DSG Automatic.

This is my first time driving in the ghats. Please let me know how difficult is the ghats section to drive?

Also, is it easy to find the places of interest easily? Are they available on Google Maps? How accessible are they by car? Any difficulty reaching them?