Yercaud -The Poor Man's Ooty

So!!! This time around we decided to go to the poor man's Ooty ..Yercaud.It is almost 230 km from Bangalore at about 1550 mt above MSL.

We decided to start early in the morning , to cut short our traveling time and spend more time exploring the place.The next day alarm went off at 4.00 am in the morning , I was struggling to open my eyelids ...as a matter of fact I was already traveling (in my dreams ) and was wondering why did the alarm go off if I am traveling Dang!!! I am still lying on my bed dude!!!
Oppsss!!!!

Another alarm went off , this time in Badri's room(My room mate).Damn!!!! So I WILL have to get up early is it ?

We pulled ourselves from the bed and some how got ready to go.This time my trip was with both of myroommate Badri and Vasant (Yes ! yes!!! he agreed to come for a change ;-) )
So we walked to The Forum Mall and caught a bus to Hosur.( First city in Karnataka-tamilnadu border).We needed to go to Salim(in TamilNadu ).

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The Bus we caught to ply to Hosur at 5.00 am.

We reached Hosur at 6.00 am and I had the best TEA of the day at one small Kisosk Vasanat suggested we go in a Volvo Salim ...but we were in CC mode (Cost Cutting ) We decided to take a pvt non A/C bus to Salem.

It was a very interesting journey to Salem.Interesting becoz of couple of reasons
1) the scenery
2) the movie that was being played in the bus


THE JOURNEY

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Scenery
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It was simply amazing.Firstly the bus was quiet empty... to we could SPREAD ourselves on the seats and also being daybreak time the sun and cool air was too tempting for me to stand at the footboard and enjoy the warm sunrays kiss the hills and trees glowing in the gloden shower (if i may say so)










Hosur is famous for granites and the road passed thru many hillocks on either sides.

THE MOVIE
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It was a real cracker .They were initially playing some Tamil video songs(of some Old movies)

In one crazy song our heroine all of sudden starts singing in English ... catching my attention....
the lyrics were as follows

"....hey hey Do you want to kiss me ? " ;-() "Do you want to kiss me ?" this she was singing ..
OK! let me rephrase it ,she was asking to a group of people in some party...
and the group replied "YEESSSS! BHE BANT TO " Now one strange thing
The groups of people had both men and women .... I can understand why men wanted to reply in affirmative ... but how come even some women folks wanted to kiss her .......stranger considering the era of the movie (it was i think 80's movie )

OK! About the song.....

The heroins sings "AALRITE , but u should kiss me with out touching me " ;-() .Damnnnn!!!! W.T.H man !!!
All the men folks and no to forget Women folks respond "OOOO!!!!" and were crest fallen
But But But .........
Enter the Hero One and ONLY Rajinikant.
He shoots back at the heroine "I'll Kiss u with out touching u " ....Vow!!!!How is he going to do that i wondered and was guled to the TV set that was playing the song.

.... any ideas folks how he might have done it....
common try to think ........
imagine ur self in his position ....(Alright !!i know u wouldn't want to be ;-) )
Any guesses ... ?

guess for one last time ....

read below to know how u can
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In the next scene Heroine is standing and the hero walks towards her SHADOW and kisses it ;-()

Seeing this I thought "WHAT AN IDEA SAARJI ;-) "

I tried to shrug off the shock that had descended on me after that scene ....
the view of multi layers hills helped me keep my focus on the scenery.....









Then they played another weird Kamal hassan movie (Tamil )
the scene opens with a boxing match ...Hold On its not at all a ROCKY Balboa type movie.
kamal hassan fights with a bad guy.It looked like a kabbaddi match to me though!!! After defeating the bad guys they give him a GOLD medal (so he's a sports guy ... i think to my self )Some how the heroine also happens to be in the same match and is cheering for him.
Then next scene is in a jail ;-() with gold medal round his neck ....heroine asks the inspector about our hero and comes to know that he HATES rich people .....
OK OK i know its getting weird....anyways the movie was very very confusing .....apart form being in Tamil(which i anyways couldn't understand) our hero has 2 heroines,who happen to be sisters and he is accused of having one kid with one of the heroines ...which our hero is sure has not contributed to while the second heroine is ABSOLUTLY sure about it......Our hero is also an expert break dancer (head break i think) and has a fightscene with villan while dancing !!...
some how it turns out that our hero is a good guy who is framed by some bad guys who are also after the property of the second heroine and is not the father of that kid and the heroin (second one )goes on a shooting spree killing a police officer , her unknown husband and herelf in the end ;-() , Damn!!!!

Also there was one funny dialog, our villan goes to police stgation and meets the police commisioner.He says "hello KAmmisnarr "
The commissioner relies "Thank u ! "!!!!!!

Thanks u for what dude ?? ......

Anywyas the journey was fun though.We reached krishnagiri by9.30.










The movie and weirdness continued ...Also although the roads were clear but our bus was moving at a max speed of 40 km/hr and was adding to our anxiety of spending the whole day in the bus.( I heard that Tamil nadu buses have speed controller chip installed in them and it would not allow the speed to cross 40 km\hr .)Gr8!!!
we are in fact going to waste most of our time in the bus then ...we concluded









We reached Salem at around 11.00 am ,we rushed to get a bus to Yerchaud.Now another strange incident happened

The Incident -Strange Competition
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There was this bus standing there ready to go to yercaud.But it was full and was supposed to leave by 10.50 am but for some strange reason wasn't ready to go...






It was 11.30 and another bus to yercaud came.

As is common every one old , young , man ,women latched on it .Making our way thru the human blockades at the enterence of bus(some had become to climb the bus even before the passengers were getting down ) we found seats for our selves.




Then the bus driver started shouting "NOOOOOO!!! don't enter this bus until the other bus leaves !!!" what!!! "The other bus is our competitor and I wont leave before that bus" I couldn't figure out the relation between the competition and NOT moving before that bus.
He made everyone get down and wait UNTIL THE OTHER BUS HAD LEFT !!!!









Atlas after the other bus had left we rushed back to our seats and the driver started the bus ..... I still couldn't figure out the COMPETITIVENESS with the other buss..










The journey was cool with 20 hair pin bends.As our bus rose steeper we could feel the warmness easing and the ride becomeing enjoyable again ...


















we reached Yerchaud at around 1.00 pm ,had a quick lunch.Then took auto towards the SERVAROYAN temple .

THE SERVAROYAN TEMPLE
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This temple is considered to perch on the highest point in Yerchaud.The view from this place is simply very grand.











Its a small temple.The idols of the lords are inside a cave( just 10 mt from the entrance of the cave).It is believed that this cave leads to karnataka (till talakaveri in coorg ie North karnataka).It is also said that tipu sultant had hide in this cave for some time to escape an attack.
I couldn't verify this as people are not allowed to enter the cave ... so i cant confirm if the above is true or just a gossip ;-)










The hill top is bald with a real open view of all the hills around. It presents another angle of the distant town.










Also the hills in Yercaud are know to be rich in Bauxite Ore.One could see lots of mining work going on in these areas.infact , people say that the minners are bringing down one huge hill just for the ORE.













Seeing the scars from the blasts from the miners on these hills I am not sure how long will these ranges survive.my guess ,if the mining continues at the present rate then in next 10 years there wont be any thing left The adjacent hill is gradually chopped (mined) off daily as it is a very rich source of Bauxite.

Anyways I can only hope that the people and the miners become more responsible else its going to be there own loss.
Also this particular top has splended views of the hill ranges.What caught my eyes was the hills rose like layesrs of waves across the horizons.





















There is also a police wireless control towers near this temple, although there was no one present there.









I hate the presence of people in such wonderful places because people cannot keep any place neat and tidy .there were hugh pile of garbage and broken wisky bottles on the paths.










But apart form that I found atleast 2-3 treck paths thru the hills around.we were pressed for time hence did int follow those routes.Just a quick jump here and there.The views were just amazing.

We headed back to another landmark the Yercaud lake.This is at the center of the city and most of the landmarks except servaroyan temple are at a distance of 3-4 kms form this place.
there is nothing much to do there except boating.We were not interested in boating so decided to visit the "Ladies- Seat view point " also considered suicide point

The Ladies Seat View Point
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This view overlooks the winding ghat road and provides a breathtaking view. But i didn't find it appealing ....there was fencing and mad rush of school children and couples
..and where there are people there is garbage.and grabage attract our ancestors ...well!! atleast a type of ;-)...MONKEYS....




This place is infested by them....its almost like coming here to see the monkeys ;-)









The time was now 4.00 pm and we decided to go back to lake and try boating( there are a lot many places to visit but we were tired of walking around a lot in the sun )


The Yercaud Lake
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Well it was an OK type of lake .... the only event here is boating (coast rang from Rs 75 tp Rs 150 ).One has to buy ticket for the 30 min boat ride.






We went to the counter only to find that we would have to wait for another 30 min....
So we decided to go to a near by park.







This park is known as Anna Park and here again one has to buy entry ticket....










As about the park ... a normal park in bangalore is better maintained than this park
Nothing much to see except for kids and couples ...


It was 5.00 pm and most of the places like deer park,the lake gets closed by 5.30.So we decide to head back to Salem.
We walked another 4 km to the Yercaud bus-stop and got into the a crowed bus.
Well ! the journey down hill was very dangerous and i was standing right in the front.The driver and conductor were squeezing more people into the bus and to accommodate more
people they squeezed in 3-4 ladies next to the driver(may be to motivate him to be care ful)

Any ways we reached Salim at around 7.00 pm had our dinner there.We got into a bus leaving for Bangalore at around 7.45pm.It was going to be a long journey back (6hrs ).Lucky we got confortable seats and got one next to window.

With all of us tired and the bus moving at a pretty fair speed making the cool air hit my tired and sleepy face ,with "Aunnana Kadanna ..."Song form Leader(telugu) playing in my ears i wondered at the magnificence of nature and the sustenance nature provides to man both spiritually and materialistically .... if only everyone of us could understand this .

It was great fun returning back.We reached Bangalore by 1.00 am in night and soon crashed into our beds ... to have a deep, enjoyable sleep.

Looking back again on the trip i guess we should some how cutt time on travelling.Probably next time round we could go by train and go for trekking at the sevaroyan temple probably looking for more caves ;-)

For more pics and videos click the below pic

Yerchaud