Ripples on the brain

My wife and I went on a weekend trip to Yelagiri in the first week of June. It was a very enjoyable trip for most part. The best thing about Yelagiri is its laid back nature. There are not a lot of “tourist spots”, so you can just go around the place, do your kind of activity - reading, drawing/painting or just walking around/trekking in serene surroundings.

Since we were there during the summer vacations, we had to make some advanced reservations. We followed this travelogue of Ram for all the planning. Our experience turned out be very similar to that of Ram except for the unpleasant stay at the Le Auroville “resort”.

The drive was very comfortable. The roads are amazing, but the traffic discipline, especially as you near the towns like Vellore/Katpadi, Ambur and Vaniyambadi leaves a lot to be desired. Especially at a bridge stretch as you approach Vellore, you can expect a sudden onslaught of slow moving vehicles, two wheelers coming the wrong way. Other than that, from time to time, you need to negotiate the cabs that flout all lane rules and through caution to the winds as they embark on overtaking other vehicles. Those are the only blemishes in the otherwise wonderful journey in the plains.

The ghat roads are pretty good and following some of the basic rules like not following a heavy vehicle closely when driving uphill and giving way to the oncoming traffic when driving down the hill should make that part of the drive incident free. The 14 hairpin bends make the drive really interesting.

A 5:30 am start would be ideal from Chennai. That way Poonamallee can be crossed by sun rise and the highway should be good at that time. A breakfast stop at Vellore would be ideal and it shouldn’t take more than 4.5 hours to reach Yelagiri including the stopover.

We visited a few places like a garden and the lake that are usual tourist places. But what we enjoyed most was the visit to the offbeat places like the farms / gardens on the way to the Swamimalai trek. The one we had gone to had red chillies, beans, different varities of rose, beans, brinjal, tomato and root vegetable plants. The Swamimalai trek was also pretty good. We wanted to do some other stuff like strawberry picking, night safari in the jungle and parasailing, which were promised by our resort guy but not fulfilled. There is one State Horticultural farm close to where the Swamimalai trek begins. Unfortunately, the farm is closed on Sundays which is when the place hosts a lot of tourists.

We found Jackfruit to be very popular here. We ate a lot of them when we were there and also bought loads of it for home. They are a lot cheaper in Yelagiri. We had all our food at our resort and so didn’t have a chance to try any restaurants in the hills. The food provided by our resort was good enough.

Overall we found Yelagiri to be good place for a weekend sojourn.