The Kodaikanal Trip

Trip : Kodaikanal
Places Visited : Kodaikanal
Dates : 13-Oct-2001, 14-Oct-2001
Vehicle : Swaraj Mazda
Participants : Anumod, Daiju(Koilu), Dinkar(Dinkan), Jayaram(Kotharam), Manesh, Sanal(Gowda), Sangeeth(Aliyan), Sanjeev(Khoj), Shibili, Sonu, Sreepad(Pad), Sunil, Suresh(Warri), Sushen

Report:
This was certainly not a trek. This was more like a pleasure trip.

Some guys in our gang weren't so used to the idea of roughing it out. When we related our experiences on top of Kumaraparvatha, to them, they balked at the very idea. To satisfy them we had to plan a slightly less adventurous trip. The obvious choice was Kodaikanal.

This was the grandest trip in a way, considering the number of participants. There were 15 in all. Anumod and company had landed from Bombay a couple of months back. All of them on a permanent transfer. This meant that we cannot go by our usual Tempo Traveller. So we had to hunt for a slightly bigger vehicle. We settled for a Swaraj Mazda from Jet Tours and Travels.

We were supposed to have started at 8:00 pm from Bangalore. The van came almost 3 hours late. We had to swallow a cock and bull story about a tyre puncture. Nevertheless we started the trip in high spirits.

As usual we spent some time in a dhaba for our dinner and proceeded. Soon we were in a bad traffic jam on the Hosur Road. The driver started sleeping immediately. We woke him up and asked him to take a shorter but slightly damaged road. He did that and as soon as we re-entered the main road, he stopped the vehicle and started sleeping again. By the time we reached Kodaikanal it was 5:00 pm Saturday. We had lost one whole day.

We took a dormitory with 15 beds for the night stay. That was a wonderful experience. It was like college days. Guys started playing cricket inside the dorm. Gowda even managed to break a window.

The next day we visited Cocker's Walk, Suicide Point etc. Really boring places. Very crowded too. Koilu and Dinkan liked it though. This was their idea of a trip.

After a very uneventful trip we started back on Sunday evening.