[mclaren1885]

For some reason I was getting adventurous. I was as tired as hell. Driving for a good part of two days now, extended walking visits to temples etc. It had been a long time since I had such a work out walking wise. But I never felt tired nonetheless. Specially when I am behind the wheel. Decided to do a hill climb. Place was none other than Yercaud.

I should consider myself lucky for having made this choice. 28kms of ghat section is a bliss to drive. One of my favourite ghats so to speak. 20 hair pin bends made for some spirited driving and presence of thick forest like look coupled with a few private coffee plantations meant scenic photographs.

There is a beautiful looking lake, has boating too. Equally good restaurants. Infact, there were so many that I had to call akroy and ask him for a recommendation to the hotel. I badly needed good food and I was not ready to make a compromise. We went till the Telescope Office, once the cloud cover cleared we got a good view of a few locations through the telescope. The sight from there is breathtaking. Vast areas of forests with a tiny road somewhere. Barren and dug up mine sites. Some really nice looking hotels. Abhi asked us to go to this place called Shevaroys, but as we were not just hungry yet we decided to have lunch at Salem .

Picked up pure honey from the society store, headed to this falls called Killiyur Falls. Found a nice place for yet another round of photoshoot. So here goes.


















Let dad have some fun driving downhill, reached Salem, had lunch and off we were to good old Bangalore. Reached home by 10pm.

Figures:

Tanked up at Shell, Lavelle Road.

At Erode - 252 kms done, car drank 17.97ltrs of petrol. Considering the fact that throughout the GQ I was doing 140-160 with 5 people on board, some luggage. Road from after the Chennai turn off was filled with lots of traffic till Mettur Dam turn off. From there on roads were ultra smooth and hardly any traffic. Speeds around 100-140kmph. 14kmpl given the condition is awesome I must say.

Filled up again at Salem after returning from Yercaud. 332kms done, a good 55kms in ghats, pathetic traffic from Salem to Yercaud and back. 27.71ltrs of fuel went in. 11.98kmpl was good once again given the fact.

Did 200kms after filling up at Salem. Will be going to Shell today to tank up, will put up the FE figures. I am expecting some good figures here. Drove normally all along the GQ with speeds ranging about 100 or therabouts. Luckily didn't get stuck up at Hosur check post. Though did at Silk Board Junction flyover. For over 30mins to move 1km.

Total distance covered was 784kms give and take. And I enjoyed every bit of it. Drove for about 700kms alone. With about 5hrs of sleep in two days. Yet, here I am writing a report as if I were sleeping at home all the while. What is it that makes one do this? Is it madness? Or LOVE?

Next week it will be Rameshwaram, Madurai & Kodaikanal. Hopefully will carry a better cam. Till then..........

[bill1182]

DSLR is a nice to have when you are outing. It expands your power to capture the moods in any picture. They are not that costly as they use to be. You can buy Nikon D40 body only with 18-135 Nikkor lens which should cost you around 35K. Dont go for 18-55 lense which comes as a bundled offer.

Do keep one thing in mind when buying a SLR. Once you buy Nikon then you have to stick to Nikon lense family and same with Canon. You cannot interchange their lenses.

[low_bass_makker]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Total distance covered was 784kms give and take. And I enjoyed every bit of it. Drove for about 700kms alone. With about 5hrs of sleep in two days. Yet, here I am writing a report as if I were sleeping at home all the while. What is it that makes one do this? Is it madness? Or LOVE?

No it is

TEAM-BHP

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen

Nice trip report Rahul. But didn't the idea of missing a DSLR. Any digicam would do here, no?

All your influence Saaar. Now nothing seems more worth it than a Dslr and our beloved old man's finesse with it. Next time can I kidnap you instead? Will be posting soon on the What camera thread. Need your services Rudro. Will be settling for a good digicam.

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

have you fixed the aircon or did you do all this without the aircon ?

All a part of weight reduction John. No air con for a long time to come .

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Tell me one thing, do you take the Trichengode road to reach Kodumudi from Erode? And I presume that for the Musiri road, you turn off at Namakkal and go via Thottiyam - how is the road, been on it 20 years ago!

Well, I presume I took the same route. Given the fact that I am pathetic with directions. The road is good, except for one bridge. The entire right hand side was dug up to lay a fresh layer. Pathetically built I must say given the fact that the expansion joints were atleast 5-6 inches apart. There was this one instance when a truck guy wouldn't get down to his side but expected me to. I switched the car off and went to sleep for a few minutes. When he started honking, took the wheel spanner got out of the car and told him "You get down if you want, I wont". He did listen to me as I said . The bridge was about 600mtrs long and everytime a vehicle came in front I was scared to death since they were inches away from my car. Hence decided to go off road myself instead. Roads are good I must add. I hardly found an issue to cry about with my stiffened suspension and 50 profile tires except for those speedbrakers. Here is a pic.

Originally Posted by mobike 008

Which cam you used?

I used my Nokia 6233 cell phone. Its a 2 megapixel cam.

Originally Posted by hellcat

the Merc is really well maintained.

Sanjeev, here is another pic.




Guys, thanks a ton for taking time and reading my blabber.

[akroy]

Hey Nice report again Rahul...So finally u had lunch in Salem....I hope u had it in Saravana Bhavan which is very famous in Salem...

Abhi

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by akroy

Hey Nice report again Rahul...So finally u had lunch in Salem....I hope u had it in Saravana Bhavan which is very famous in Salem...

Abhi

Abhi, we already had lunch at Saravana Bhavan at Hosur, besides two days is a long time to go without eating non-veg . Had lunch at this place called Maruti, food was quite good. No complaints. Infact when I called you I thought it would take a lot longer at Yercaud. We had lunch at almost 4:30 I guess. Couldn't have waited at Yercaud until we all fell hungry again.

[rkg]

Very good travalogue.
You should have visited the siva temple at sri rangam. It is just ½ km from ranganatha swamy temple. It is an architectural marvel along with ranganathaswamy temple.
The outer compound of Sri Ranganatha Swamy temples is 3 Km long. It is the world’s largest functioning Hindu temple complex. It has seven compound walls. In olden days it is used as fort like thing with human habitation inside the walls. Sri Ramanuja samadhi is also inside.
In fact it is stated that Sri Ramanuja ordained that srirangam will be famous tirupati will be rich. During the muslim raids from delhi ( mailk kafur time) the main deity of sri rangam was taken to tirupati to preserve
Tanajavur is just 48KM form there. The brihadeswara temple is world famous and featured in discovery program. In 10th century AD they transported 80 ton shikara( single stone) of the temple to that height. For that purpose a six km long ramp was made for elephants to transport that shikara

[rjstyles69]

Jees what do I call this now ? Reverence to God !!

The car lover has become pious now .

Rahul wonderful pics dude. Nice write up too and heck I know how it feels to do this occassional pilgrimage with family.

My 2 cents : Start off with a digicam and then graduate to a DSLR .

[mclaren1885]

Totally forgot to add that I bumped into heavy foot near Electronic City. He recognized my car and stopped by to say hi. We should be seeing more of him at the meets.