Tag: bikes

Munnar, at last

July 18, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Day 4 :

After our breakfast,  we checked out of Pine Borough, bid goodbye to Kodaikanal and started for Munnar, in the last leg of our vacation.

As soon as we were out of the Tamil Nadu border, the climate felt sunny and mild and I was happy we were not in cold, chilly climate.

N stopped at a random eatery for his breakfast, while Mr.Bee and I had a coffee and tea respectively. The stall had photo of Amma, Jayalalitha and somehow, that reminded me of Thalaivii movie of Kangana Ranaut! (Beats me! Why did they cast a pahadi North Indian to play a pukka South Amma! Incidentally,  I also loathe the Chandramukhi 2 of Kangana. What a royal waste of time!)

Anyway, on our way to Munnar, just as we entered the Kerala border, we stopped for lunch, we were famished. We halted at Safair, which serves the worst food ever. We could hardly eat a mouthful of food. It must be heaven for non-veg customers, because, they were lining up like bees, but it is absolute bekaar and tasteless eatery for vegetarians. We could hardly finish eating the two dishes we ordered, lemon rice and curd rice!

N was surprised we returned in less than half an hour. We ate the fruits we bought, before exiting Kodaikanal.

I also saw a restaurant which was Bethel Suji restaurant and I remembered the famous dialogue  of Phoebe, “Who names their child Bethel?” LOL. (I am FRIENDS fanatic!)

GBee began counting bikes, all those which he saw on the highway and his score reached 1757. ( He entertained himself this way, because KBee would sleep as soon as we were inside the car!)

Even though we knew there were not any good restaurants,  we stopped at Safair because we wanted to take a scenic route to Munnar and NOT the shortest route. We took the Gap road. It is the best! ( Always go for the scenic route, not the shortest route!)

Gap road – Munnar, the most scenic road with tea plantations!

We stopped at many viewpoints, took photos and had fun. Munnar is basically heaven and just looking at it is not enough, you should also be mindfully present to enjoy it! Here, cell is just a distraction.

We saw all the tea and coffee estates, most of them belonging to TATA group, who have them for a lease of 999 years! Trespassing is prohibited, so, no photos from inside the beautiful tea estates.

At one viewpoint, since we hardly had a good lunch, we stopped for sweet corn, which is easily available along with Maggi, along the road at all the viewpoints. All the 4 of us were happily chomping our sweet corn cobs when Mr.Bee saw a group of monkeys running towards us. I swear they were at the top of the hills when we started eating. As we started eating, they came down hill, waiting to cross the road to snatch our precious corn.

Mr.Bee wanted to buy us some time, so he threw his cob towards them. They got distracted for a bit. I asked the kiddos to eat their corn, fast. I chomped as much as I could before throwing mine too, at the hunger- striken monkeys. (Situation called for a sacrifice!)

We then rushed towards the car. N banned us from eating in car and monkeys won’t let us eat in peace!

We also had to throw away the kids corn cobs, before going ahead. The kiddos found the throwing away of half eaten corn cobs towards the direction of monkeys, very entertaining! (They were like, mom let me throw, let me give it to monkey.)

We took in as much beauty as we can, staring at our surroundings and all. Kerala government is strict about the cleanliness, which means we get to see wire bins in unique shapes at almost all important locations, for collecting plastic waste like bottles.

Plastic disposal bin

After spending most of our afternoon checking out the streets of Munnar, we checked into the White House hotel.

The kids were highly impressed with the White House hotel. KBee was so sweet as to believe we were staying there forever.  GBee was laid back and knew, we were only on a vacation.

After quick baths, changing into fresh nightwear, we reached the in – house restaurant,  ordered our dinner.

We also made plans for the next day, after discussing with our hotel manager.

We went to the kids play area, played for sometime (kids had fun) and returned to our room.

The room service brought our dinner, which was simple as ever, fried rice, watermelon juice for all.

Since the weather was not cold like Kodaikanal (Oh, how I hated wearing socks in the hotel room in Kodaikanal), we had fan running at full speed and AC on, we slept like logs!

P.S:

1. Gap road in Munnar is the best. I remembered all the movies I had loved, thanks only to the beautiful tea plantations and estates which were in the backdrop, demanding my attention!

Remember Chennai Express and Life of Pi?

2. India has huge potential,  but maintaining the cleanliness is the problem.  Let’s hope for the best!

Till the next post,  bubye!

Palani to Kodaikanal

May 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Day 2:

Mr.Bee and I woke up at 4:30 a.m on the advice of the hotel admin. He informed us that we selected a particularly important day to visit the temple and warned us that the temple crowd would be akin to mini-size Kumbh Mela. He was not wrong! It was Shashti thithi, which is auspicious as Vel Murugan a.k.a Karthikeya was said to be born on that thithi.

I looked out of the windows, (our room 2** had a balcony facing the hill) and saw the most beautiful view.

Mr.Bee and I, discussed among ourselves and decided to wake GBee up first.

GBee was confused about why there was no sunlight outside and thanks to his EVS lesson in grade 2, he knows what an eclipse is! I told him, we just woke up early to visit the Murugan temple.

During bath, I heard peacocks making wailing calls! If you hear a peacock wailing or crowing near by, it is generally assumed as a sign of presence of snakes. That too if you hear them in the premises of a very popular Murugan temple, whose deity Himself is a snake, then what more to add to that? My heart was filled with devotion and fervour.

After both Mr.Bee and KBee were ready, we rushed to the winch queue. We can either climb the 700 odd steps to the temple or go in a winch to the temple which is situated on top of a hill.

The winch and the scenic beauty!

We spent 2 hours in the winch queue and hardly moved 20m from our initial spot. If you are going to popular temples, you should mentally prepare yourself that you will be pushed, shoved, verbally abused, on top of it, physically tired too!

By the time it was 6:30 a.m. , an announcement had been made that devotees need to take a break and return after 6 hours! (That’s was how heavy the flow of devotees had been to Palani)

I felt upset and low, as it seemed we may not return to the temple. We didn’t want to harass our kids by waiting in the hot weather and climbing 700 steps with 2 kids below the age of 8, seemed preposterous! We resigned to our fate and accepted defeat.

We shopped for Velaayudham and I got myself a photo frame of Dhandayudhapani (Murugan). I remembered we had not visited the Vinayagar and Meenakshi Amman temples in the premises. We visited both and returned to the hotel. KBee only ate a couple of biscuits and GBee didn’t even have those.

At the Hotel, the admin saw our disappointment and advised us to visit the other Murugan temple 5 minutes away from our hotel. He informed us that this one was the original Dhandayudhapani Murugan temple, which was later relocated to the top of the hill. We visited the temple by walk and I remember a middle aged gentleman who entered the temple with us, stayed with us, asked me to go to the front and let me pray to Murugan in peace. He was no where to be seen after talking to me.  (It felt like divine intervention, an emotionally charged moment for me)

After our breakfast, which was below average, we packed the soveneirs, checked out from the hotel and started for our next stop, Kodaikanal. Woohoo!

In barely 2 hours, we reached Kodaikanal. The driver, N made a brief stop at the outskirts, for his breakfast. He had an omelette.  Mr.Bee and I ordered tea, which was ‘one-sorry- excuse-of-a-tea’ and I poured it down the drain! (When travelling,  one should adjust to eating mediocre food and drinks or not buy them at all!)

We checked into Pine Borough, Room ££, which was built such that it was half way into the hill and that made it extremely cold to live in! We had to rent a room heater from the hotel, to stay warm!

We ordered food by WhatsApping the reception desk, sat in the afternoon Sun, under the patio umbrellas. KBee and GBee were famished and so was I, it was 2 p.m.

Mr.Bee and GBee engaged in the cell, while KBee and I chatted away.

Even though KBee was hungry and it was well past his lunch time, he suggested that the bugs were hungry and not him!

We had our lunch in the room, rested a little while and then spent a good hour in the garden outside.

As the weather became colder and since we started hearing strange sounds ( like that of a rattle), we returned to our room. The kids played with their dozen Hot Wheel cars, whereas Mr.Bee and I watched Baahubali, dubbed in Hindi!

After having Dadu’s snacks and a late dinner, we called it a day!

P.S:

1. At the entrance to Kodaikanal, one lady officer, bent down inside our car and nabbed our plastic bottles. Plastic is banned in Kodaikanal,  just like in Ooty and Tirumala!

2. I had a wild guess that the rattling sound must mean a rattle snake, since we were staying on a hill resort. God knows if I am correct or not.

3. GBee,  still in the mood to count the windmills, began counting bikes (since there are no windmills in Kodai) and his total reached to 172!

4. Interestingly,  one of the admins at the Kodai resort was named Palani!

5. The recent war atmosphere in India had an effect on me, so I could hardly write. That is the reason for my late post. #IndianArmy, #OperationSindoor.

Till the next post, cheerio!

Returning home!

November 11, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Day 12:

Since it was a Sunday, the resort was full of people, coming in with their families, young and old. Every room was filled.

Today was the day of us travelling back to Bangalore from Mangalore. We had our baths and came down for our breakfast at 9 A.M. The breakfast was being served outdoors, thanks to the increased number of guests. (Eating outdoors reminded me of my village!)

I ate idli, the kids ate vada and Mr.Bee was more adventurous, so he ate the upma from the breakfast buffet! The summer staple fruit watermelon was available too. The kids had a serving each of watermelon. The serving bowl was the size of a chutney bowl at Chutneys, Hyderabad! I had a piping hot cuppa masala chai too. 

Chutney bowls to serve diced watermelon

We returned to our room, after asking our caretaker to help us move our luggage to the car. We started off from Hyderabad with three suitcases full of clothes.  Depending on the place, we would take out one suitcase at every part of our vacation, Here too, we had one suitcase and a bag of clothes along with our beach tools etc. It is no mean feat, bringing down the kids to the car (KBee is prone to running head on into the road and the traffic!) so we needed help of the caretaker guy. He got a well deserved tip too.

KBee, GBee and I got into the car and Mr.Bee packed the luggage into the dickie or trunk and we started our long drive. Google Maps showed us that we may reach destination in approximately 7 and half hours.

It was an uneventful drive, thankfully and we stopped at Ossoor at Sakleshpur. The restaurant is in a coffee estate and most of the points go to the beautiful ambience. The food could have been better. We ordered tandoori roti with broccoli curry and paneer sabzi. We were not sure which curry the kids would like, so we ordered two. Turns out, they liked neither! Kids had watermelon juice and I ordered mosambi. (By now I was sick of watermelon!) I had to drink it as soon as it came to the table, because mosambi turns bitter within 5 min. Mr.Bee had a piping hot coffee with his lunch. He had long drive ahead of him, so caffeine is helpful for his system.

We shopped a little at the gift and toy store in the estate, both for our kids and Mr.Bee’s cousin’s kids. While Mr.Bee was busy ‘Gpay’ing, KBee and GBee had fun running around the estate and I took my time looking at the surroundings! The best thing I liked was,seeing some couple  bikers who had come to have their lunch there. (It is our dream to drive a bike in Leh, Ladakh!)

Can you spot the puppy?

Anyway, we were on the highway, after spending a leisurely hour at Ossoor. We made another stop later to buy farm fresh jack fruit and baby cucumbers. I was salivating at the fresh produce.

Once inside Bangalore, we made a pit stop for snacking near Bangalore outskirts. I saw groups of bikers again, here. I forgot the name of the eatery, but it is a popular hangout, if the people and the parked vehicles are anything to go by.

Also, if you are a biker, Karnataka is the place for you. The tea and coffee estates, the ghat roads and hair pin bends make for a beautiful drive. I think we stopped for tea at 6 or something. By the time we reached the cousin’s place, it was already 9 P.M.

All we did was, take a quick bath and have dinner and hit the bed. The kids, though they met for the first time, bonded well, that too within the first 10 minutes.

Day 13:

We woke up, got ready and were on the road by 9 a.m. We hoped to visit the Dodda Ganapathi temple, but thanks to the traffic which started from the apartment itself, we had little hope!

We went directly to Mr.Bee’s office at Bangalore, chatted happily with his colleagues P and N, while KBee and GBee ran around in the plush lawns. GBee fell into a foot deep pit, where the controls for lawn watering equipment were present! (The tiny pit was hardly knee deep for a 6 year old, thank God.)

We later had Team lunch with Mr.Bee’s Bangalore team at The Big Baadshah. Everything, the food, the buffet menu, the ambiance, the mocktails were fabulous, impressive.

Baadshah ..oh Baadshah!

We later went to play box cricket,  where GBee had fun running around, getting in the way of everyone, while Mr.Bee played cricket with his teammates. I couldn’t join the fun, because KBee had a nap on my shoulder! (Generally, he only sleeps on his dad’s shoulder, but since his daddy was busy, he adjusted on mine!)

Once again we returned to the cousin’s home at 9 P.M, thank you, famed Bangalore traffic!

GBee, KBee and V had most fun that night, jumping on the beds, running around playing football and what not! At night KBee cried too, waking up from his slumber to complain of pain in his legs. Hectic day. Phew!

Day 14:

Returning to Hyderabad.

We woke at 5, got ready and were on road by 6 A.M. There was no traffic at all, since it was a weekday, the highway and the roads were practically empty. After admiring the beautiful hills and the windmills at the Karnataka – Andhra border, I was once again reminded of the Grandfather Mountain, which has similar topography and climate. The drive from Bangalore to Anantapur is a memorable one.

We reached Seoul Store, Penukonda by 9 A.M. Thanks to the KIA manufacturing unit nearby at Anantapur, there are Korean stores and restaurants near by. I bought myself some Korean products and toffees.

We had our breakfast near Anantapur, where the piping hot tea I was carrying to my table, fell on my index finger and burned it badly! (It was self serve eatery and I drink chai when travelling!) My long skirt got in the way when I was walking, so my skirt is the culprit!

Anyway, we had our lunch at a drive-in at Mahabub Nagar. The food was good. Even pets were allowed inside and I saw one old couple with their Pomeranian in their lap, eating some non-veg dishes and feeding the animal.

We reached home by 4 P.M. our first ever looongggg vacation came to an end at last!

P.S:

  1. Mr.Bee wanted to visit the Fort at Sakleshpur, but we missed it! We had to take a right somewhere but we forgot completely about it, until we passed it and went ahead for 5 min! It is difficult to take U-turns on highways, because we have to first search for an opening in the heavy vehicle traffic.
  2. On the highway, I came across many name boards of different homestays and estates. In between all that, I also saw FulJar Soda boards everywhere. Mr.Bee and I were skeptic about trying it, but later, on reaching Hyderabad, we were told that we made a grave mistake by not tasting the FulJar soda. It is a summer drink to refresh the parched souls! Don’t forget to try it, if you are in the vicinity of Ooty and Karnataka.
  3. I was happy looking at the leather jackets and helmets of the bikers and their beautiful bikes. It reminded me of the 2007 comedy movie, Wild Hogs, starring John Travolta. It is a favourite of Mr.Bee and me.
  4. GBee still remembers his cousin now and then, whom he considers his best friend too and asks us to take him there. He thinks we can go to Bangalore in an hour or two!

Till the next post, cheerio!

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