re: Kodaikanal, December 2013: A Trip to see the Clouds at arm's length As we had a distance of 1065kms to cover which seemed a bit daunting as i have never driven so many kms in one-shot. But, i was looking forward to it as I always beileve in doing things for the first time and we planned to head out by 4:00am which as we all know is good to plan but, in reality it hardly ever happens. We finally headed out at 5:00am
We drove through the dark and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise enroute and stopped on wayside for breakfast at about 8:30am and then drove on till we reached outskirts of Bangalore (Devenahalli) at about 10:00am and bypassed it towards Hosur and get back on to NH7 that takes us closer towards Kodai.
During the only bad phase of this entire drive, D-Bhpian, Ampere was of immense help and he was continously in touch with me through calls/texts to guide me till I actually reached Kodai. These kind of gestures further establishes the brotherhood of this fantastic forum, dont you agree??
After crossing Krishnagiri Toll (which had a 1km line of cars which gave us an impression that entire Bangalore is heading out on vacation), we drove through one of the most amazing highway in our country with beautiful curvy roads lined with moutainous terrain and really broad roads that made the entire drive a pleasure to say the least.
We stopped at Salem at 3:00pm to have our lunch which similar to breakfast was home-cooked and after this 45 minutes of much-needed break, we headed towards Dindigul which was 160kms away from Salem and finally reached around 5pm and searched for the exit towards Kodai which was further up after crossing theni then 50+kms of ghat section which is a really narrow stretch of road ( uneven at many places) with oncoming traffic and was bit of a nightmare to cover this distance at night with plenty of oncoming traffic barring down on us and sometimes these huge buses made us cower in the corner due to lack of space.
We finally reached the top at 7:00pm after a short 5-mins break to calm my tingling left leg which i think was suffering from "Long Haul Clutch Syndrome"
Adding to this misery, we spent a further 45 agonizing minutes trying to locate our hotel as the staff their couldnt speak any other language but, Tamil. I can understand the language a bit but, far from communicating back in same language. Finally, located the hotel, some 6kms away from the main town & lake. It was almost like a feeling of "Eureka"
Some figures of this epic drive ( epic for me as I have never done a single drive this far). Highest drive in a day in Cruze was Jaisalmer to Delhi which is wee bit higher than 900kms but, had company for driving Route Taken : Hyderabad-Bangalore (Devenahalli Bypass)-Sarjapur-Belandur-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Salem-Dindigul-Batlagundu-Kodaikanal (1065 Kms)
Due to the glorious roads, we are able to reach Kodaikanal from Hyderabad in a span of 14 hours after taking sufficient breaks and rest.
Here are some pictures from the road taken with my P&S with some wrong settings that images have come out small with lesser pixel density.
Last edited by mobike008 : 6th January 2014 at 20:39.
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