[jeevmenon]

This is a continuation from the route queries section wherein I had enquired about the north of Tirupati routes. So here we go with my TL about the one day trip on Aug 8, Sunday.

It was Saturday night and we were back from the dusty, crowded streets of Sowcarpet to get ourselves some Mumbai/Guju masala/dry-fruit stuff and most importantly "paav". The "paav" thats sold in other areas of Chennai is nothing but fat tall "buns" in comparison to the flatter, smaller, a lil more stretchable "paav"s. There is definitely a difference which is hard to explain to someone who has not lived in Mumbai. Anyways... back to Saturday night. I asked Wifey if the next day's plan to go to the waterfalls was still on? She said "yes". OK. Good. The alarm was set for 4 am on my cell phone. We had planned to carry breakfast and coffee and had planned to get off at 5:00 am. The idea was to be amongst the first to reach the falls to avoid the Sunday crowd. It was around 200 odd km. Wifey packed additional dry clothes, towels. And off we went off to sleep... zzz

4:00 AM: Alarm goes off. We wake up reluctantly. Oh! Will we get thru this initial sleepiness? We thought of taking paav-n-aalu-masala for our journey.


It was difficult for Neha to wake up at 4:30 am. She gets the 30 min additional sleeping luxury (if you may call so - poor lil one) being the youngest. I hate to wake her up for trips but feel somewhat ok when I tell her and wifey that she can sleep once in the car and wake up when the destination arrives.

Get up, Neha. Please Neha! With great difficulty I brush her teeth which ends up in her crying. Why do I have to do it to her??? But then its travel and the bug has bitten me since my existence. By successive escapades can the bug bite her? Only time will tell. She is 6.33 yrs old. I knew it would be difficult in the initial trips, but she will enjoy as we go along I always think. The past trips have shown that she is not averse to traveling and does pretty well with non-routine food/water/weather. The cryings stopped. Myself and Neha opted to bathe in the waterfall and so we could skip the morning shower in the bathroom. Hm! Another crying session avoided! So now we are all set to go. It was 5:15 when the Spark got ignited and off we go!!!

[sami316]

Hey Jeev,
Waiting for more pics.

[jeevmenon]

Onward Journey trip logs - thanks to wifey!

And here is the return journey trip logs.

This is the place where we stopped by for breakfast.

The backdrop has India's version of the Stonehenge

[SafeDrive]

Originally Posted by jeevmenon

Onward Journey trip logs - thanks to wifey!

While the log is very detailed, could you please let me know the route. My knowledge on the roads of Chennai is not very good so am not able to follow the log.

[jeevmenon]

SafeDrive: Here is a link from the route-query that I had posted before the trip. The loop map is available in that link.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...-tirupati.html

As far the city route to the 23 km pt for the right to Tirupati, its a very straight forward route. From Guindy railway station you get onto the Kathipara fly over. Keep straight on the fly-over and get down it towards Porur. Keep left all the way till you reach Poonamallee. Couple of km from the Poonamallee bus stand on the Bangalore bound NH one can see a green sign asking to take right for Tirupati and then you find the signal for the right. There is nothing to the left. Going straight on the NH4 would take you to Sriperumpudur. This is the Thirumazhisai turn.

[joshguy]

Hi jeevmenon do you need to pass tirupathy town to go to talakona? or can we take the bye pass which goes to bangalore

[jeevmenon]

Once you reach the junction of the KLM hospital, there will be a sign which says left to Bangalore and straight to Tirupati. Take left, dont go to Tirupati town.

[aargee]

Haha...Jeevmenon, what you should've ideally done is...
Velachery-Guindy-Porur-Chennai Bye-pass (take left)-NH4-Thirumazhisai. All of them are more than excellent roads & you could've reached Thirumazhisai in 30-45 minutes. No need for any troubles or watch out for anything.

Edit - Alternative way would be, Velachery-Guindy-Ashok Pillar-Vadapalani-Koyambedu-NH4-Thirumazhisai

[jeevmenon]

Snaps of the checkpost 9 km before the waterfall. So, we were all set for a great waterfall bath.




We saw the "Jungle Huts" on the left after about 6 km. There were a couple of folks sitting on the edge of the road and they advised that we could visit it after the waterfalls. We proceeded further 2 km and we see a temple. We parked there, paid Rs 20 for the car-parking, but after receiving the receipt he said that we could take the car further 1 km in just before the ascent to the falls. Rs. 20 gone. We drove to the gate before the 1 km drive starts, made an entry, paid Rs 50 for the car, Rs 10 for the camera. the gate opened and we drove. Believe me - its quite a walk if you thought 1 km was nothing, in that sweltering heat Rs 50/- is worth.

We carried the plastic bag with the clothes and started the climb. There were a few monkeys on the way and wifey was scared the most. Reminded us of our Sholinghur temple trip. I liked the pathway / upward climb to the fall. Very neatly done and there was'nt much crowd on our way up at 10:00 AM. We were thinking that we would be the first to the falls and could have a nice bath before the Sunday crowd came in.

[jeevmenon]

Argee: Its just 8.0 km from Porur / Metro-Water-Lake if you take my route. Takes 12 min. If you take what you say it is 14 km and takes 20 min. This is 5:15 am.

[laluks]

Was waiting for this log. I saw your query in the route section and kind of got interested. It is also near to bangalore for a day drive. What I'm interested is to know about Pulikat Lake. I saw that you took a route nearby. As the story progresses would you also tell about it?

[joshguy]

Originally Posted by aargee

Haha...Jeevmenon, what you should've ideally done is...
Velachery-Guindy-Porur-Chennai Bye-pass (take left)-NH4-Thirumazhisai. All of them are more than excellent roads & you could've reached Thirumazhisai in 30-45 minutes. No need for any troubles or watch out for anything.

Edit - Alternative way would be, Velachery-Guindy-Ashok Pillar-Vadapalani-Koyambedu-NH4-Thirumazhisai

Aargee i think he has taken the right route ,the route you quoted is long

Originally Posted by jeevmenon

Once you reach the junction of the KLM hospital, there will be a sign which says left to Bangalore and straight to Tirupati. Take left, dont go to Tirupati town.

So this KLM hospital is on the road which bye passes renigunta and tirupathy and runs towards Blore right?

[jeevmenon]

laluks: Oh! Pulicat. I know its very enticing when you look at it in Google maps. I had done it with wifey and Neha -0.33 yrs on our now 10 yr old Splendor. Yes :-) Brave us! But it was the second trimester and was ok on a bike. The weekend before our bike trip there was a beautiful blue mast of the sail on the Pulicat with pelicans around in The Hindu newspaper. The photo was so luring. Next weekend it had to be Pulicat! It was Christmas 2003 and nice weather. We set out through the dusty Broadway area with bread-omelette/bread-potato packed for our picnic at the lighthouse. The route turned scenic just before reaching Pulicat. Rice fields. However, the finale was drub, fishing hamlet and stink. We crossed on to an island on a fishing boat. This island had the lighthouse, but you know as in most Indian places - not allowed to reach the top of it. There was s**t all around the lighthouse. With great difficulty we managed to get a place to sit (wifey says "sitttoooo" - no way - we were standing and eating it seems) and eat our breakfast.

Things could have changed though, but our experience was not that great. Maybe other approaches to Pulicat (from the northern end) could be better. Dunno! One more thing I remember, shampooing my stiff hair that night and the dirt that was washed away.

However,

[jeevmenon]

joshguy: Actually from Vadamala you can take a left to reach the Sindhu residency at Mangapuram. Please check google maps. I missed the Vadamala left cut because of a heated debate in the cabin

[sami316]

Hey Jeev,
Good to see a Chey Spark in the TL section. Me too having one Spark LS since last August. But use it only for city commute, I prefer my Scorpio for lost distance travel. Wanted to know more about the Fuel efficiency you got with the car.