A Weekend Getaway to Yercaud

Saturday—3:50 AM—Bangalore—Whitefield

I got up from my bed and headed to the kitchen to have some water.I didn't catch much sleep and I was wondering why.Suddenly I realized maybe because of some gas problem it may have been occurring. I quickly grabbed a bottle of soda from the fridge and gulped down a good amount into my stomach.And there it went.All of the gas just went out by burping.I went back to my bedroom and I saw my wife sleeping very peacefully.I got very envious of her seeing her sleep like that.It was time to wake her up.We had a bike trip planned to Yercaud in Tamil Nadu. A hill station to relax on the course of the weekend at a distance of 200 km.

It was always my dream to go on a bike trip to some place with my girl and this time I had convinced my wife somehow to go.We hit the road at around 5 30 am early morning.It was still dark and the cold breeze was at play.We were covering the road besides the Varthur Lake and were heading towards catching up the National Highway.Bangalore has a large extended area even outside of Whitefield. There are good state highway roads which connect to the main highway.The beauty of these roads is the countryside you see along the roads. Bangaloreans are tired of seeing concrete jungles in the city and when you get to see this, it is always a delight.There are trees all along these roads.Farms, fields with new crops come up on the way.Seeing this kind of vegetation, especially if you have lived your childhood days in those areas, always evokes some sense of nostalgia.

After driving nearly an hour, we got onto the national highway.Now it was time to hop into the 5th gear and accelerate to 80-90 km/hr.This was a pretty straightforward road from Bangalore to Salem on this highway.The highway was awesome.Clean, neat and bit of a beauty of structural engineering.We stopped in between to take a break and straighten our backs as sitting and carrying luggage on a bike could lead to back pain.I was acquainted with riding bike for long hours but my wife was not and I knew I would be getting a lot flak from her by the end of the trip.

After driving for another hour, we decided to stop somewhere to have breakfast and coffee and were looking on the left of the highway to see some good restaurant and finally saw the famous A2B restaurant.I slowed down and parked the bike.

We had covered around 70-80 km and had crossed the border of Karnataka-Tamil Nadu and were in Tamil Nadu. A2B is a popular food chain across Karnataka and people love to dine out here to feast on south Indian breakfast and other delicacies.We got a place to sit down and ordered the famous Pongal and two plate idlis for breakfast.The pongal is a rice dish, bathed heavily in ghee to provide the taste buds a rich experience.The pongal was served with three things, the coconut chutney, tomato chutney and sambhar. The idlis were made from rice flour, giving a distinct taste to the mouth. My wife enjoyed the pongal the most and she also started seeing methods on the internet how to prepare it.After consuming a healthy and delicious breakfast, we ordered coffee. The coffee came out the best on the table, strong and sugary enough to give a caffeine rush to our bodies.There was a large gathering of people on the table, as people were traveling to hill stations and other places to spend a nice weekend.After we were done with the breakfast, we decided to get back on the road and head to our destination.

After resuming half hour onto the journey, the GPS showed another shorter route to yercaud which was without going to Salem. The distance it showed was 25 kms less than Salem, hence assuming it would take less time I decided to go that route drifting away from the main highway.The road was good, it was a state highway and it was criss crossing all the villages.There were lesser people on the road and the air was very clean.You could see small huts along the roads.Farms were also more visible and it was like a joyride on the countryside.Merry roads going well with the journey and the picturesque view.The distance to yercaud was also getting less and it was under 30 kms when we could spot people and vegetation.

The sound of my Royal Enfield ThunderBird 350 X engine was reverberating as we continued on the country side road.From some distance, my wife saw a left direction pointing towards yercaud showing 25 kms. But I failed to notice it and went ahead a bit.I stopped the vehicle and took a u turn on the road wondering where the left pointing road was.Then when we came back to the same place, an old man was signalling to go that way and I asked whether it lead to Yercaud. He said yes.I switched my gear to one and hopped onto the uphill road.

Now few of the questions I had in my mind while taking the countryside route got answered.I had seen fewer people on the road and wondered if this was a shorter route why people had not taken it.When we continued on the road, the number of people and vehicles shrunk to almost zero.At 10 am in the day time, we both were the only people traversing this route.The route was mountainous, with mountain trees all around.The road was not that good.It was a 50-50 good-bad road and we had no option other than continuing on it.

When you are riding on a mountain or ghat road, you expect lot of bends and curves along the way as it is a total zig zag road on the hill.One of the names of this bend is called a hairpin bend which is a total u turn bend on the road.Also, there will be barricades on the corner turns to prevent any untoward incident.But on this route there were none.No barricades or wall on the bends. I had to be extremely careful and cautious while riding on the edges.Not just that only the barricades were missing, there were no other vehicles much visible on the road and I was fearing if any wild animal will also come to welcome us. Keeping a calm mind, I continued on the road also praying my bike doesn’t betray me on this critical juncture.

Gradually as we rode, the weather started to change.It became cloudy and the typical cold wind of a hill station started to blow. It was also becoming a bit dark. Long oak trees were coming up along the road, and all types of greenery was visible.There were small houses in between which we could see.Finally, we could see a big building, a school on the left. It was a government school and Yercaud was inscribed on it in English.We were so relived to see it and breathed a sigh of relief that we went on the right path.After few more kilometers, we arrived at the main junction of Yercaud. It was a four way junction, with yercaud lake and a botanical garden opposite to each other.We navigated to our resort from there and headed to do the checking.

The resort was a delightful surprise to both of us. We had checked out the photos and reviews on the internet while booking but didn’t anticipate it this way. It appeared that one summer palace of some king had been converted into a resort. It was located on the top of a hill and had a breathtaking view from the balcony.You could see the mountains and misty foggy clouds passing over it.One could look down and down and still wouldn't find the end.It was vast and looked shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

The rooms were also of great size. It was a king size bedroom with floor and the ceiling both covered in wood.They also had integrated old style antique mirrors and wardrobes into the room.It was a remarkable piece of art giving the customer a high on the quality of the room.We freshened up after some time and both of us were very hungry.We went to the hit the restaurant of the resort.

Cinnamon Restaurant.The name read on the entrance of the restaurant.As we entered the restaurant, other than us we could not see anybody else. The restaurant staff were very warm and courteous.Greeting us with “Vadakam” they politely asked what we wanted to order. We browsed through the menu.The first word which came out of my wife’s mouth was Cream of tomato soup.It made great sense to have a soup considering the cold weather. We ordered a veg biriyani and a veg pulao. The soup served was extremely creamy and thick.It was a heartwarming kind of a thing and it upped our cold bodies.The main course was usual as stuff.

After riding 200 kms and then having a good lunch instantly pushes a person to the zone of sleepiness.Both of us lied down on the comfy mattress. My wife was browsing her phone.I was looking outside in the mountains through the balcony.Gradually my eyes started to close down and I fell into deep sleep.

When my eyes opened up, a bit of darkness had slipped into the surroundings.We both decided to fresh up and explore the local surroundings a bit. We were back to the same junction where we had reached in the morning. I parked my bike near the botanical garden and we started roaming on the streets.As I earlier told it was a four way junction, it was filled with food street delicacies, vegetarian and non vegetarian. One side of the road was totally occupied with Bajji, a fried vegetable with the vegetables ranging from chilli bajji, potato bajji, onion bajji, simla mirch bajji and egg bonda. All these mouth watering snacks were wrapped in besan and deep fried in oil and were served with hot tea to everyone. The taste was accentuated more because of the cold weather and everyone was seeing having a fun and frolic time with it. We gorged upon two plates of shimla and banana bajji with tea and were enjoying it totally.Another part of the road was serving up non vegetarian dishes like fish fry, fish chilli and also pork, beef chilli and beef soup. The aroma of all these food items being prepared on the street had infused the air at the junction.

We returned back to our room.With tummy full with the fried items, we just decided to have a light dinner with roti and daal tadka.Post dinner, we just hit the sack and dozed off to sleep quickly. The next morning was pretty generic.We got up at around 8 am and at 9 30 headed to have breakfast.The breakfast was magical. Idli, Dosa, Vada, Pongal, boiled egg, Kesari bhath, puri sabzi occupied our plate.A great start to the day.As usual for any hill station in India, the view points, gardens, boating all were pretty much the same.We went to all the places, clicked photos and had choco bar ice creams at the end of our boating.We returned back to the resort and then did the final checkout.

Around 1 pm, we started our way off back to Bangalore and this time time took the known, proper route through salem to Bangalore.The route had a different kind of vegetation and pretty well maintained by local authorities.Hills, mountains, view points.You could see all of these throughout the 26 km hill road.People were stopping, taking photos, having some soda, eating corn.We continued our way and reached Salem.It was a bit humid and hot out there.Then it was again a total straight highway with reserve forests trees coming by the side of the highway.It was a beautiful road and it evoked some terrific imagery.We stopped in between for our lunch at Saravana Bhavan and then later for coffee.Around 7 30 am in the evening, we reached Bangalore and were on the same previous day morning countryside road of Sarjapura leading to Varthur. We took up few things required for the Ganesh Chaturthi puja for the next day and reached home.A trip to be remembered for its beautiful picturesque imagery and visuals. The famous line comes to my mind, “The fun is in the journey, not in the destination”.

                     Copyright ©  2019 Shivashish Panda All Rights Reserved