Life - A travelogue to death

Freedom, as what dictionary explains is “the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints”. Everyone wishes to attain it and when you get it right from your family, you gotta be damn lucky. But when they give you this freedom, they expect you not to exploit it. The company I work for gives me some limited freedom, which they call it as “Freedom with responsibility” and I guess I am inspired by that quote. My parents also have given me the freedom and always insisted to be responsible as well. What I understand is, it’s easy to be a parent, but it takes a lot to be a good parent. I would say I am quiet lucky to get such sweet, noble and caring ‘Amma’ and ‘Achan’ who would let me do anything and trust me in whatever I do. My parents are as travel freak people as me. Or I would make it this way; I got the travel loving DNA from them. Right from a kid I am used to a lot of travel. I had safari the darkest Forest in Africa and visited the great Victoria Falls (largest water falls on earth) with my parents. I remember visiting beaches and lakes often as a weekend trip covering more than 300km a day. I may not tell them in person, but I always wanted to say, “I love you guys more than anything else in this world”.

I called my father on his mobile. As he picked up he said “Hello, UJ Madras”. It‘s how he has saved my number I guess. After the first few casual question and answer conversation like “How are you?”, “How’s job??”, “How’s health?”, he handed over his mobile to Amma. She asked me if I was coming home this weekend. I told her that I and my friends from Bangalore are going for a weekend trip to ‘Yelagiri’. She conveyed the same to my father as well. Out of curiosity (may be because of the name) he asked me “Where is that place?” I started to dump all the info I got from wikipedia as “Yelagiri is a hill-station on the Vaniyambadi-Tirupattur Road, midway between Chennai and Bangalore. Located at an altitude of 1,050 metres (3,500 ft) and spread across 30 km2, the Yelagiri village (also spelt Elagiri at times) is surrounded by orchards, rose-gardens, and green valleys.” I also told him they are famous for Honey and will get some for them and hung up as they wished me and told to take care (Parents you seeJ).

Even though Yelagiri is mid way from Chennai to Bangalore, I went to Bangalore where my friends are so that we all can travel together. The routes if you plan to go are :

• Chennai-> Poonamallee -> Walajapet -> Vellore -> Ranipet -> Ambur -> Vaniyambadi -> Ponneri -> Elagiri Hills.
• Bangalore -> Hosur -> Sulagiri -> Krishnagiri -> Tirupattur -> Jolarpet -> Ponneri -> Elagiri Hills.

We gathered at Bangalore railway station and took tickets to Jolarpett. We reached there in not more than 4 hours. Our first destination was Vainu Bappu Solar Observatory. The observatory is home to the Vainu Bappu Telescope, the largest telescope in Asia. We had our lunch in the biggest hotel in Jolarpett, as suggested by a guy from that locality, which is unfortunately no bigger than a local saloon. We had food and got a bus towards Vaniyambadi and another bus to Kavalur, where the VBO is located. After a lot of twist and turns, our rickety bus reached VBO. We had to Sign the Visitor’s book and keep our belonging in the security room. One of the security officers led us in. There were another two groups who have also come to see the observatory. Out of one group there was a geek looking father and son with their big round spectacles. The father was explaining about the observatory and the latter was listening to it, less interested. We entered into the building which looked like a tomb-ish structure and went upstairs. The wall was cloven with pictures of galaxies and other extraterrestrials. We got more boosted in the hope that we could also see these now. One of the staff in VBO came to us and started explaining about VBO and the largest telescope in Asia. It was weird that the largest telescope was not large enough. He explained that it is not the size of the whole equipment makes it larges but the diameter of the large lens inside it does. He then asked one of the geeks sitting in front of a large computer to switch on something. As he did, the telescope started to move right, and then to left and then in all directions. They switched another button and the upper portion of the building’s crust started to open slowly. We awed it as like we are watching a James Bond movie, where the bad guys are launching the missiles to destroy the EarthJJ.

We were waiting to see the solar visual when the demonstrator told us that it’s cloudy that day and can only be viewed when the sky is clear!! Though disappointed the James Bond scenes kept our faces lit. We moved out of VBO collecting all our bags from the security office. We waited there for more than 3 hours to get a bus, since the bus to this place is very rare, and to our bad luck, the bus got broke down and took more time to reach our stop. We literally slept on the concrete block near VBO waiting for the bus.

We finally got into the bus and headed to Vaniyambadi. We had to stand in the crowded bus the whole journey and had to swing on our hands when the bus takes turns. We met an Engineering student who is doing his final year at a college near to Vaniyambadi, who described how famous the biriyani (South Indian dish made of rice) made there was, and insisted us to try it! We reached Vaniyambadi by about 6 from where we hired a taxi to Yelagiri after several bargaining.

There were about 8- 10 hair pins to reach Yelagiri and it was drizzling. We asked him to take us to some known hotels there for our accommodation. After checking out few of the hotels we arrived at deciding to Stay at hotel “Ashoka” which was a mid size hotel with minimum facilities and a TV. We rested for some time and cleaned ourselves up to get dinner and to roam around the place. It was still drizzling but lesser. We asked the hotel manager to suggest places to go and the best time to visit. He told us that the musical fountain in one of the parks at Yelagiri is about to start so we should move now. We went inside the park taking ticket for musical fountain and went inside. Latest Tamil music numbers were being played and the water was jetting out in sync with it. Some enthusiastic flocks started dancing near the fountain when the beats got faster. I wanted to dance along but the aristocrat inside me restricted me from doing it. After few songs it got boring and we decided to leave. We went to our room with the multi-booze pack we purchased and the food from a roadside shop. Boozed all night and slept in between (can’t specify the time.J )

Jinu woke up early morning by around 5 and started to wake all of us. But every one was making an excuse that let the other take bath and until that time I will rest. We all got ready by 7 and went to the bus stop which is just outside to our hotel. The hotel manager told us that buses are not frequent so if we miss one then we have to wait for long time. We hopped in as soon as the bus came and got down at the stop from where we could trek to Swami Malay (Swami Hills). From the stop we walked between some huts, tracked through a farm to reach the trek spot. This was a 4-5 hours trek and most of it was steps made of black granite stones. The most interesting part is that on the way there were many fruit bearing trees like mango and anar and jackfruit. We plucked as much as we could hold and ate it all the way up. Few farmers were also selling jackfruit which they have cleanly taken it out of the shell. We bought 2 plates for 20 Rupees, which they served in plates made of big round leaves. It was very sweet and we wished to have more, but thinking about the trek and the condition we would be once we reach the height it was decided to go negative.

The pace with which we were walking got decreased with time. The lazy guys Swaroop and Mirshad almost lied down and suggested that they have seen enough from this height and asked us to move further. Scorning them I, Jinu and Arun walked further in the hope that the lazy freaks will follow. The more distance we covered the more we got exhausted. At one point we were in despair trying to move our leg further, when we saw a guy walking swiftly besides us carrying a huge luggage on his shoulder. We asked him how long we have to walk. He replied us “a half an hour more”, which gave us the boost to walk as if 5 bottle glucose was injected in our body. We walk for another 1.5 hours in contradictory to what the stranger said. But then we understood that he used to trek daily which made him cover the whole distance for just 2 hour.

Swami Malai got its name because there is a small temple at the top which is between two big rocks. And the stranger we saw was the priest who came there for the regular pooja. We reached the top and the poojari (priest) instructed us to remove the shoes and come inside for a darshan. We did accordingly and went inside. The poojari offered us some water as he has seen us getting exhausted while climbing up hill. He started his chants and gave us thilak. He then explained that this temple is a very old one. Long back there was only a small idol kept inside the gap between the rocks. He told us that there is a rock behind the temple and there are metal ladder clung on it. He asked us to climb up and ensure that the scenery from there is worth. We climbed up the ladder; cool wind was blowing hard on us even though it was a bit sunny. We took few snaps of the scenery around us. There was a trisul (spear with three sharp pointed heads) kept on top of that rock. We supposed that there might be some ritual happening based on it.

I was really tired by that time and I couldn’t resist myself to lie down on the rock floor. The sky seemed to be near us and the sunlight was forcing me to close my eyes as if it wanted me to rest. Others joined me and we all had a 2min nap there. There wasn’t much to see there, so we thought to leave. We walked downhill and reached at the bottom in half the time it took to go up. We reached the bus stop and had some soft drinks. When we enquired the shopkeeper we got to know that the next bus is only after 3 hours. We waited for a few more minutes and then decided to walk. This place is some 10km from our room. We bought some potato chips and started walking. The sun was at its best as it crossed 11:30 am. To our luck an auto rickshaw came past us offering a ride which we accepted without even asking the fare. We went back to our room and had food from a near by restaurant.

Since yelagiri was famous for honey we went for shopping few bottles for my home. There were many shops in Yelagiri and all had different varieties of honey with different color and taste. We went in a shop where we saw young guy shop keeping. We asked about the price and quality of honey to which he answered us as “there are 3 varieties of honey available in yelagiri – Petty-thein, Malam-thein and Combu-thein”. Thein – pronounced as ‘th-a-n’ in Tamil/Malayalam means honey. Petty-thein or boxed honey is produced artificially by caging honey bees. Malam-thein is a type of honey which is naturally made by wild bees in forest which is not much pure. Then Combu-thein is a type of hones which is also natural and made by very tiny honey bees. Combu thein is the best quality one which is also higher in price. They say, giving a teaspoon of this honey a day to kids is good for their health.

We bought some honey from there and moved to the artificial lake and roamed around for few minutes in the nature park. We took a lot of snaps inside the park. There was an artificial waterfalls setup inside the park and there were many tourists bathing in it. This seemed to be like a caustic remark to the fact that the natural waterfalls had not seen water for 6 years. We vacated the room by 4:00 in the evening and waited for the bus to vaniyambadi. The bus took us to vaniyambadi by 6:00 and from there we got another bus to Jolarpettai. Jolarpettai is the station were we would get trains to both Chennai and Bangalore.

Take care:

• Carry a lot of water while trekking coz its too sweat taking especially those with weight
• ATMs are hard to find so carry enough money with you
• Keep in mind that there are not much restaurants apart from few resorts
• If possible by booze before reaching yelagiri coz you wont get the whatever you wish to haveJ
• If you are planning to buy honey check the price in all the shops or else you may get fooled
• Keep in mind – Don’t expect much cold climate and much scenary. It’s all a place to keep your weekend engaged and away from the busy world.