A beautifully scenic journey back down the mountain to the baking city. The bus has such gently bouncy suspension it rocked me into snoozeland for an hour before hitting the crazy Madurai bus terminal again.
Showing posts with label kodaikanal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kodaikanal. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Kodaikanal
Expecting a quiet hill station the bus roars into a typical Indian town 2km above sea level. You can see why the English retreated from the scorching southern cities to here in colonial times, it's lovely and fresh, and even cold at night. I ended up with quite a plush (compared to my Madurai prison) room for a nice price, overlooking the mountains, with thick blankets containing odd patterns and cheesy pictures of bears. Not much to say about the place itself. It's geared up for relaxing. Hired a bike and cycled around the lake, had a walk up to the observatory and around the back of the town, visited the small temple, had a look in the many chocolate and spice shops then sat about in the sunshine by the lake, watching the Indian tourists playing chess and trying to operate paddle boats that looked and sounded like they hadn't been maintained since the 80's.
The restaurants were very disappointing. All "multi-cuisine" but masters of none. I've had better curries on brick lane, seriously. I don't get the Indian love of Chinese food. It's everywhere, and is really quite bad.
You can see all of my Kodaikanal pictures here
The restaurants were very disappointing. All "multi-cuisine" but masters of none. I've had better curries on brick lane, seriously. I don't get the Indian love of Chinese food. It's everywhere, and is really quite bad.
You can see all of my Kodaikanal pictures here
Madurai to Kodaikanal
Sorry for the glut of posts today - this is the first time i've been able to spend any time on wi-fi in ages. There is NO wi-fi!! I've been writing all these posts offline then uploading to blogger when i have a chance. I'm finding myself splurging words out at the moment, which is the complete opposite of what i thought would happen!
The guards clanked their batons along the prison cell bars at 7am. I had a suprisingly good nights sleep. I have 5 new mosquito bites although I couldn't see any of the beasts in my standard pre-bed check. There's either one very fat mosquito hiding or an army invaded and left. I discharge myself for good behaviour and head for the bus station via a delicious street coffee-man. I needed to find the bus to Kodaikanal. If people knew they all sent me different directions, and they wanted money just for telling me. If they didn't know they sent me somewhere, wanting to be helpful, and asked for money. Not willing to give out cash and now fed up of asking people I speak to a policeman, who tells me to go to Arapalayam bus station about 5km down the road. I thank him gratefully and grab a tuk-tuk agreeing on 50 rupees with the driver before we leave. He agrees and we head out. Once there i hand over 50 and step out. "70 rupees" he says. "50 we agreed!" i said. "60 rupees" he said with his best smile. I just walked off, agitated already and it's not even 9am.
In Arapalayam bus station a million busses are coming and going, people eveywhere. I weave between the buses asking the drivers "Hello! Kokaikanal?". Eventually i find out where and when the bus leaves. I expect to see some westerners waiting as Kodaikanal is 100% on the tourist trail. I guess they're all going by private bus or taxi. This crate costs me 91p, for a 125km, 2.5 hour journey! I get on the bus and store my bag as the rest of the world gets on after me.
A seven year old boy called Karthick sits next to me, and front/behind sit his sister, 2 cousins, mother, father, uncle and aunt. They're on a family trip to their favourite temple in the mountains. Their English is amazing, i can't speak a word of Tamil! It's impossible to learn even the simplest words in India With 1500 languages those words are bound to be different when you get around the corner. The family are incredibly curious of me and i recieve the Spanish inquisition. They don't come across many westerners. The daughters are shocked that i'm not married. They take my photo and I sign various bits of paper for everyone. I get their signatures also, and wish my camera wasn't in my bag behind a forest of legs. I hand out stickers and fail at trying to explain skiing. Karthick draws me a picture of his made-up super hero (Gilob.G).
We reach the temple and they head off "BYE BYE BYE BYE BYE BYE..." until out of sight. Such lovely people. New people get on the bus for the remaining hour up the mountains. The man in front has such a cough i'm sure he's going to die before we get there.
The guards clanked their batons along the prison cell bars at 7am. I had a suprisingly good nights sleep. I have 5 new mosquito bites although I couldn't see any of the beasts in my standard pre-bed check. There's either one very fat mosquito hiding or an army invaded and left. I discharge myself for good behaviour and head for the bus station via a delicious street coffee-man. I needed to find the bus to Kodaikanal. If people knew they all sent me different directions, and they wanted money just for telling me. If they didn't know they sent me somewhere, wanting to be helpful, and asked for money. Not willing to give out cash and now fed up of asking people I speak to a policeman, who tells me to go to Arapalayam bus station about 5km down the road. I thank him gratefully and grab a tuk-tuk agreeing on 50 rupees with the driver before we leave. He agrees and we head out. Once there i hand over 50 and step out. "70 rupees" he says. "50 we agreed!" i said. "60 rupees" he said with his best smile. I just walked off, agitated already and it's not even 9am.
In Arapalayam bus station a million busses are coming and going, people eveywhere. I weave between the buses asking the drivers "Hello! Kokaikanal?". Eventually i find out where and when the bus leaves. I expect to see some westerners waiting as Kodaikanal is 100% on the tourist trail. I guess they're all going by private bus or taxi. This crate costs me 91p, for a 125km, 2.5 hour journey! I get on the bus and store my bag as the rest of the world gets on after me.
A seven year old boy called Karthick sits next to me, and front/behind sit his sister, 2 cousins, mother, father, uncle and aunt. They're on a family trip to their favourite temple in the mountains. Their English is amazing, i can't speak a word of Tamil! It's impossible to learn even the simplest words in India With 1500 languages those words are bound to be different when you get around the corner. The family are incredibly curious of me and i recieve the Spanish inquisition. They don't come across many westerners. The daughters are shocked that i'm not married. They take my photo and I sign various bits of paper for everyone. I get their signatures also, and wish my camera wasn't in my bag behind a forest of legs. I hand out stickers and fail at trying to explain skiing. Karthick draws me a picture of his made-up super hero (Gilob.G).
We reach the temple and they head off "BYE BYE BYE BYE BYE BYE..." until out of sight. Such lovely people. New people get on the bus for the remaining hour up the mountains. The man in front has such a cough i'm sure he's going to die before we get there.
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