Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore: Yercaud - Madurai - Rameshwaram - Kanyakumari!

[mukeshus]

Well guys i am back with a new travelogue on an farewell to year 2011.

A trip was long pending and my hawk was waiting for a long trip.

And after the 70 point checkup camp of Mahindra, my Hawk was ready after a thorugh inspection.

The plan goes here, initial days thought to visit Hampi-Badami some of the places in Karnataka.

Then suddenly plan base shifted to Kerala, Guruvayur and many other places near Cochin.

But the Mullaperiyar dam issue made us to back off visit to Kerala, so it was postponed for the next month in Feb, during my visit to mangalore.

Then i started thinking which place again from scratch, then the day came came to know deadline is 4 days, then further i kept on planning and thought of Kanyakumari all along GQ, heard from many roads are good.

Then i usually plan to cover maximum places in short span.

So my previous plan goes as mentioned here :http://www.theautomotiveindia.com/f...estion-about-places-enroute-2.html#post122290

Thanks to Vishwas for suggestions , which helped me in prioritizing many places in 4 days.

Route Followed: Bangalore-Hosur-Salem-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari.

Total distance: 1832 kms in 4 days.

Day 1: Left the house at 5.30 am, as we wanted breakfast at Hosur (A2B).
As i was aware there are no good hotels on TN highways, hardly you will come across any hotels, after this place.
Within 7.15 we were at A2B , Hawk was stopped for drivers refuelling.

Then we reached Salem , took a deviation to Yercaud.

I felt the roads were similar to Nandi Hills, the roads were absolute breeze for my Hawk, the climate was cool.

The 23 kms of curvy roads from Salem took us mere 35 minutes.

This time Hawk behaved well no issues with the pull of car.

More to come.....

















Yercaud

 

[truecitylover]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Nice start for yet another super T'log from you Mukesh. Hope this trip was also full of a religious trip apart from Yercaud .
Eitherways, don't worry. The Automatic Machine Gun is not here.

Hooked up to this thread.

 

[hamster]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Nice Start Mukesh, Waiting to see my native through your lens and the joy it brings in !!
Keep it rolling !!

 

[Vishwas]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Keep the reviews and photos coming!

 

[pahujaamit]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Well guys i am back with a new travelogue on an farewell to year 2011.

A trip was long pending and my hawk was waiting for a long trip.

And after the 70 point checkup camp of Mahindra, my Hawk was ready after a thorugh inspection.

The plan goes here, initial days thought to visit Hampi-Badami some of the places in Karnataka.

Then suddenly plan base shifted to Kerala, Guruvayur and many other places near Cochin.

But the Mullaperiyar dam issue made us to back off visit to Kerala, so it was postponed for the next month in Feb, during my visit to mangalore.

Then i started thinking which place again from scratch, then the day came came to know deadline is 4 days, then further i kept on planning and thought of Kanyakumari all along GQ, heard from many roads are good.

Then i usually plan to cover maximum places in short span.

So my previous plan goes as mentioned here :http://www.theautomotiveindia.com/f...estion-about-places-enroute-2.html#post122290

Thanks to Vishwas for suggestions , which helped me in prioritizing many places in 4 days.

Route Followed: Bangalore-Hosur-Salem-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari.

Total distance: 1832 kms in 4 days.

Day 1: Left the house at 5.30 am, as we wanted breakfast at Hosur (A2B).
As i was aware there are no good hotels on TN highways, hardly you will come across any hotels, after this place.
Within 7.15 we were at A2B , Hawk was stopped for drivers refuelling.

Then we reached Salem , took a deviation to Yercaud.

I felt the roads were similar to Nandi Hills, the roads were absolute breeze for my Hawk, the climate was cool.

The 23 kms of curvy roads from Salem took us mere 35 minutes.

This time Hawk behaved well no issues with the pull of car.

More to come.....
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Yercaud
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Mukesh.. looks like you had another good trip. Keep it up buddy !! and share more pics. I also completed my long trip and writing the blog. Will post here soon ..

 

[mukeshus]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Part 1 contd.....

Yercaud was an absloute breeze to drive, the weather was cold and there were 2 temples on the way.



































More to come....

 

[Chandranath]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Refreshing to see the photographs. Particularly liked the hotel hoardings on a hairpin. Conveys so much.

 

[rajscorpion]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Hi Mukesh, Nice start..Good to see the pictures. Yercaud reminds me the days I visited earlier. I used to visit atleast once in a year. Waiting for more updates :)

 

[mukeshus]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

The temples at Yercaud, there were 2 of them .

Temple 1:
One after reaching the top, there is a temple Lord Shevaroyan in the cave along with idol of goddess Kaveri.

Mind the rocky cave, you will have to proceed inside by bending your body.

The weather was simply amazing, inspite of Sun rays, the air was breezy cold.

Throughout the journey, only Yercaud was cooler.

The hottest was Kanyakumari.

A Manza was struggling on a gradient, which he stalled twice.

A Vento was trying his best to overtake him,
but he failed.

Hawk was waiting patiently to overtake both of them when the correct time came, it did.




Manza struggling at a gradient.












More to come....

 

[rajscorpion]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Mukesh, The photo looks good. Your mHawk is rocking...

 

[mukeshus]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Looks like enough of Yercaud, but know i came to know i have clicked more pics in Iphone, which i am sharing some more followed by detailed description of day 2 proceedings.

Temple 2 @ Yercaud:

This temple was called as Maha Meru Chakra temple.

It was just 4 kms, a narrow road leading through a small town, where a right U turn has to be taken.

It was very difficult seeing Jilebis on Sign board for directions , Only in few places the names have been written in English.

Then we visited deer park, we didn't want to go boating as it would kill time, so ate some Yummy American corn.



That's Hillarious correction.





Chakra Maha Meru Temple



















Yummy sweet corn.

 

[truecitylover]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Wow. Still we are in Yercaud? When will we go to Kanyakumari???

 

[mukeshus]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Wow. Still we are in Yercaud? When will we go to Kanyakumari???

Ha ha patience my friend, you will have to wait till we are done with Madurai & Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi ,the local behaviours.
After all these discussion you will proceed to Kanyakumari....

 

[anisghos]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Very nice pictures..

 

[mukeshus]

Re: Hawk on a Tour to Bangalore-Yercaud-Madurai-Rameshwaram-Kanyakumari!!

Contd....

So it was Yercaud on 1st half of the day.

As we started leaving Yercaud, our tummy wanted a break.

So we searched the hotel, and came to know that Not all Saravana Bhavan are real.
There were many fake ones.

So we went to Akshaya Hotel just besides Kalyan Jewels, opposite to Bustand In Salem.

We wanted Meal on Leaf's but the server in the name of Special meals served the food in Thali.

Food was OK.

But the decision i took in halting at Salem for lunch was an good idea, because once we left Salem, there were no Hotels on the highway, I guess this is the untapped market on TN Highways.

Then we proceeded further to Madurai.

So on day one distance covered was 530 kms(Including Yercaud).

Day 1(Evening): Reached madurai , was on Hunt for searching a good lodge.

So a guy from Maruthi dealership helped us in giving names of few places and we started searching for lodges.

The one we found was Madhura Residency, which was a km & half from the temple.
It was on East marret street , but that was Full.

So we tried KPS Residency, the rooms were good and we booked the room,
There was no Parking space at all.

So buses in TN get rage seeing KA regd vehicles and started honking madly.

So we unloaded the luggage into room, and left to the temple same day.

The roads are full of dust, i think the roads are not sweeped in Madurai, there was dust all over.

As construction work is going on Near temple, there was no Parking near temple, felt like visiting SJP road of Bangalore on my Scorpio.
There are N number of stalls, people walk on road, Drainage flows on road.

And hygiene the less you talk the better it goes.

So there was no parking and we were crawling for more than 20 minutes hoping to get a parking.

In the end couldn't find a parking and finally parked the vehicle much away from Parking area, on East Masi Street.

Then headed to temple for darshan, took the 15 rs ticket in the evening, that was of quick darshan.

We entered the temple from East street entrance on day 1.

Then headed back to room after a wonderful meal(dinner) at Sabarees, on Plantain Banana leaf.







More detailed updates of day 2 tomorrow(oops today).........