Pondy, the trip

Have been to pondy in the past a couple of times I guess, but my latest trip by the end of Mar 2018, that is last week,  had shown me the pondy that I had not known till then, the pondy that I should have known.

Travelled with colleagues on my car. We started at around 8 am after i reached home at 7.10 AM from office, yes full nightout that scared our gang if I would make it to the trip.

We had simple breakfast on the highway, reached our mediocre hotel, visited a private beach, had our great lunch at the delicious Kamatchi restaurant, full non-veg. Dinner and the next day break fast was at a self service restaurant near the hotel  and that was too good too. 2nd day lunch as well was at Kamatchi, it had that chicken and fish omelettes which I haven't heard of before and were delicious too.

I confess,  I did have breezer which technically is a fruit juice according to the boozers. Booze I understand is 50% cheaper as you would all know.

Pondy does have beaches and we visited the paradise beach through a ferry ride as well. I think this paradise beach is well suited for family. Ferry ride costed Rs. 300 per head. There is also the paid fresh water shower with music in the open which our gang enjoyed as well with dance. Having a real stage singer in the gang was a plus for us throughout the trip, especially the evenings.

Drive around the city with full pitch music is an unbeatable pleasure. 

We of course did not visit the temples and ashrams.

The best thing for me was the night we spent at the main beach near the Gandhi statue. The walk with gulfi enjoying the cool sea breeze and seeing around all the beauties....

Conclusion is that,  I should have travelled to pondy frequently before 2012, yeah when I was a real bachelor

Mahabaleshwar again

Made it again yesterday (16th Nov 2013, Sat) with a colleague's family. My wife wasnt along this time. It was more of a better understanding. Did fulfill certain regrets of last trip, like buying radish , visiting Arthur's point, Mahadev and panchganga temples...etc. But this time we missed the shri ram vada pav and also the panchgani point.
Driver this time was good as well but wasnt aware of the points to visit, so took a guide. I realised this trip that there are primarily only 4 locations to visit inside mahabaleshwar and one in panchgani. was actually confused until now by the many different names as points which are actually all grouped to 2 or 3 locations.
So below is the list of places actually to visit in Mahabaleshwar according to my understanding.

1. Needle hole point - Which includes 3 other points like Kate's point, balakwadi dam, elephant head...etc
2. Arthur's seat point  - includes 5 other points in the same location like Malcolm Point, Tiger spring, 3 monkey...etc
3. Mahadev temple - As told by the guide, the Lingam is Swayambu, made of rudraksha and is 5000 years old and the temple structure is 1500 years old. Also the panchganga temple for the 5 rivers (Krishna, sawitri, gayathri, koyna, venna) is near by
4. Venna Lake - boating and horse riding. Paid Rs. 300 for the row boat ride that includes the helper who did the rowing.

The guide took Rs.500 from us after negotiations but thats more than worth it for he actually showed only 3 points as we did visit the lake ourselves. May be 300 would have been right

There is a point at panchgani that we missed this trip becoz of time.

But we made it to other things like the chocolate factory visit (guess this is wat is mapro garden) along with fresh juice shop and restaurant, free strawberry farm visit, tried strawberry with cream, dashing car , go-kart ...etc
The cost of dashing car and go-karting was lesser this trip though was little smaller.
Dashing car : Rs. 90 for double, Rs. 60 for single, Go-kart: Rs 230 for 5 rounds.

We had our lunch at Alishah near venna lake, it was delicious and awesome lunch at 4 pm with lots of chicken.

weather was great with consistent breeze and sun. Though ppl claim the season is between March and May, i found this the right season with right weather.

It seems there is also the Mahabaleshwar market that we dint make it.

Am sure my next trip to Mahabaleshwar will be very better ;-)

My blog of First Mahabaleshwar trip is here

Mahabaleshwar in a day

The plan was in progress for some weeks already. Made it yesterday (13thApr2013) with my wife and other tamil colleague friends. Since maharashtra govt doesnt permit more than 6 passengers on even a SUV, we did find it difficult to get one but got it at the end.
Though the driver(Mr Pappu) delayed an hour to pick us all, but he made it very comfortable by working  like a semi-guide. No one in our team knew any marathi literally, me and another person can try Hindi some extent and thats it. He took us to the very famous vada pav centre, Shri ram vada-pav at shirwal on the way for break fast. Couple of us in the gang had the vada-pav for the first time, butter milk after that actually made it a real good break fast. Pappu also made me try another gravy like dish to be taken with the pav that i cudnt remember the name.
when we were nearing the foot of the hills there were fig farms on the way and we stopped to buy fig on the road side. Pappu bargained with that old vendor to get a kg for Rs.50. i paid him Rs.10 more and the old man had such a genuine smile as a thank you that did give a great start for the day.
The first stop was for the view of Mastani lake from one of the top points on the way. This lake was built for a then Rani named Mastani for her bath it seems. The next point (dont remem the name) gave us the start of the real fun. The point actually had a view of a big  valley(oh yeah thats what its all there) and since its not the right season, it was full of sun and no breeze or green around. But we took lots of instant photos jumping, standing on the border rock..etc. Price for the photos : Rs. 100 for 3 photos, Rs.50 a single. extra copies 30 each. The specialty was the click timing of the photographer who did capture amazing jumping shots without any retake. And fun continued with Camel ride. it was the first camel ride for all of us except one, so naturally was interesting. We did take videos too.
Then to a go karting center, where it had a few more fun options along with the go-karting like bungee-jumping, dashing-car, jumping-bull, ...etc. we all took dashing-car that was more enjoyable dashing on each other heavily. I dont remember if i had taken it earlier but this time with wife did give more entertainment. one bold friend did take the catapult-bungee-jumping. it was his long time wish to do that and was so satisfied on me doing a full video of it. Though i initially hesitated to spending time at go-kart especially at a hill station, i must agree i did enjoy. Thankfully none interested in spending  Rs. 500 for the actual go-kart ride.
Next we continued to many points, while finishing our lunch at a small restaurant on the way. Food wasnt that great but i had the best of them all with chicken, popplet fry (a fish fry), garlic roti, fried rice...Infact me and pappu had to finish off all those that others couldnt. Then to other points, more than the site view, we enjoyed the fresh strawberries, kola (ice with sweetened color), corn, cut mango, butter milk....etc...etc. yes it was all different tastes that gave us fun.
We did not fail to take photos. Some spots that  we visited i did only later identified their name by searching the images that we viewed. Needle point, Balakwadi Dam at Kate's point and one more that i dont know the name that was the bigger point and we ended the visit of points. All were tired of so much of walking in the sun.
We decided to end the trip with boating. It was nicely crowded at Venna lake for the boating. We took two paddle boats for an hr. since we reached after 4.00, half an hr rent wasnt given. Rowing boat was there as well, but we did enjoy paddling. Pappu accompanied the one that i took. we even tried racing, photoing...etc and got tired and ended the trip in 30 mins. Pappu was worried about us wasting the other 30 mins but we couldnt help :) :(
Heavily exhausted, all took the ginger tea at the tea stalls opp the lake. It was good and 3 of us took a second tea as well. There were this fresh strawberry, mulberry , carrot , corn and also a violet radish like fruit getting sold so colorfully all over. We did miss it to buy there near lake but later on the road side, all took atleast a box of strawberry each. Near the lake as well there were horse rides available though we dint try.
We started back home. No one wanted a dinner at all!
 Its not that we covered everything of mahabaleshwar, like waterfall or the temple...and probably not the right season too.....etc But still it was indeed an amazing day with fun for myself. I had my moments of struggle to avoid my bachelor inside ;). I did feel my transition.
I hope my wife did enjoy and others as well.

Update on Nov-17: Visited again in Nov 2013, the blog is here

Beautiful Village Named 'Ammapalayam'

Jan 17th,
This trip had most of our close relatives. Ammapalayam (AP), is around 30kms from vellore, a village very near to Kannamangalam. its my mom's native. she had told me a few abt this place, her school, her life snippets ....there.

my uncles are maintaining their traditional old family house for long. 100% typical village house. They scheduled it in their calendar to come there every year with most of the relatives, enjoy for a day or two and return.Dont you agree that its so beautiful thing to do?
hence my uncle asked me too to take off for 2 days, but i thought i would come back to office on friday. :D
you can smell the beauty as soon as u take the left turn from main road which takes you to AP after kannamangalam bus stop. thanks to rains again and again, the lake wasnt dry and the river which flows in amirdhi continues here too.
as soon as i reached the house, started to mount my personal interest in them to take me to a Well to have a great bath and swimming experience after a long time. the water in the river actually is not deep/good enough for swimming
My uncle promised to take me after lunch. So we played cricket without rules, near the garden in back of the house.
we went to the temples of Kali, Mariamman and a Siva's. All small temples but with their own beauties and stories.
My eldest aunty told me that the kali there came floating of the rock in the river and placed herself near it Years before, where they have started worshipping her. A beautiful and gigantic banyan tree something similar to ones shown in the village oriented films was present there too.


Ofcourse, I did swing in it as it reminded me the banyan tree in senganatham, where I used to swing with friends during my school and college days. that one is much smaller when compared to this



The above is a must in any temple festival, especially in villages.
Aunty explaining her grand daughter abt the rock which came floating with the Goddess Kali.

Pongals!!!!

Siva temple

i would also say that the people there are actually living in a different world though a very little distance away from me. Wait, this am not sure though, just the look at them and their worshpping customs....etc gave me that feeling, atleast their practices and customs are really different.
after lunch, i reminded my uncle again, he dint have another choice,
we went on a walk crossing the river to the otherside, into the beautiful coconut trees and the ground nut field to the very special swimming pool of the village.
the Big Well was totally algaed!!! though the water wasnt bad, we could no way think to swim. A failure of the Project "Swimming" had to be accepted. we returned with nothing more than beautiful pics. we chose the different return path. yes, this time not into the trees, just came walking over the river.

Front entrance of my grand pa's House, who is no more.

Back of the House, garden side where we played cricket.

Thats the well we were supposed to swim. it was really big but use less for us :(

Return over the river.

An auction of flower garlands used in a temple. it started around Rs. 2 and ended around Rs.12

Exploring Amirdhi!

12th Jan, A very special day for me....:)

To speak about this Amirdhi, Its a place every Vellorian must have visited atleast once for the sake of outsiders atleast, who would ask about it for sure at some point. and yes i was asked by my friend once and i promised him that i wil take him soon.

(are u there dinesh? :D)

So it was my personal interest too as i dint visit it in the 20 long years(my vellore life) which is just abt 30 kms from my home. have been told it has a few animals. nothing more i remember. also the other thing i had was the ride for 30kms and that was actually enough for me even if this amirdhi wouldnt show me anything.
so we all started almost on time as surprisingly our peter too was ready on time, a pleasant shock indeed.

it wasnt much work for the sun. the climate took care of us. after some 10 kms, it was the single road which took us for long. i actually calculated a lesser duration with just the count of kms but the road made me wrong. Peter and sara had some clue already about the route, we managed to get help from strangers to reach the place amidst the beauty all the way to the left and right of the single road.

almost when we were near amirdhi, the road was split by a small river and we had to walk our 2 wheelers with us. that actually gave us a clue which none of us picked!!! :)

ofcourse i started capturing images long back.

into almost a dense forest, we bought snacks but no tea shop :(, the gate was there.
we paid for the tickets and were instructed to return by 4.30. it was already 3.30 after the one hr interesting ride.
getting inside we again could get some view of the same river but nothing else disturbed my eyes and saravanan inquired me abt the falls there. i had no idea on that. Peter took us inside a gate where we cud find a small zoo, no way we could feel any maintenance. peter dint stop. asked us too to walk fast as it would take long to reach the falls. oh! there is a falls and even direction board was there which i recognized only now.
after a ten minutes of walk with the dense forest to your left and right, a valley view too, hearing the chill sound of the falls in the way, we did reach the falls.
Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i dint imagine such a shocking surprise waiting for me. none of us had a second thought in getting into to the water though we dint have any gadgets, not even a towel.
water wasnt threatening and not even deep enough for a perfect swim but it was all fun fun and fun after that for an hr. we started from there finishing with a final jump from the rocks by me and Lak.
hey pls note i can swim :)

Back to the zoo, we checked all the animals,birds.... like porcupine, wolf, crocodile, pea cock, vulture, eagle, python, monkeys, deer, wild cat, rabbit, ofcourse parrot ;) .... there. we were suddenly rounded of by a gang of monkeys for the snacks in our hands. peter/lak did save us with a cane.believe me they are anytime treacherous when seen as a gang with same eatable in your hand
when we throwed the eatlable to a peacock there, was stunned to see a monkey taking it from soil and 'wiping'it perfectlybetter than any human would do before eating :)
its all over at amirdhi. and then i saw the board mentioned abt the plan of the"Amirdhi Mini Zoo" now i know its actually a mini zoo with a falls.

ask me now, am ready to take anyone there :)

Note: Zoo pics below Courtesy : Saravanan