Blogs from Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India, Asia

Rameshwaram – Madurai – Kodaikanal : Nov-2022 Kodaikanal Kodaikanal is one of the best hill stations in South India. It is about 2 ½ hrs drive from Madurai. Other comparable places include: Munnar, Thekkady (both typically visited during Kerala tour), Ooty (nr. Bengaluru / Mysuru), Kunnur (nr. Ooty), Coorg (via Bengaluru), Chikamagalur (via Bengaluru / Mengaluru) etc. An advantage with all these places is that, they being in south (near equator), except Ooty (~8000 ft) none become too cold during winter. As all are surrounded by dense forests of Nilgiri mountains, they remain cool during summer. Except peak monsoon, any time is good time to visit them, including Kodaikanal. Immediately post-monsoon is perhaps best time to see numerous waterfalls. In November itself, most of the waterfalls near Kodaikanal had become almost dry. As the winter had ... read more

Our travel plans for the next week have forced some commitments on us. We are booked to fly from Madurai to Colombo, Sri Lanka, 28th December. We had hoped to spend Xmas in Colombo but Airfares were prohibitive over the Xmas break period, We only had one spot on our must see agenda, the Meenaski temple in Madurai so had to come up with a plan for the remaining 4 days. We spotted a hill station , Kodaikanal, in the Western Ghats that was only 4 hours by bus from Madurai so started planning a trip. Looking on Booking.com I spotted a Xmas deal being offered at the best hotel in town. It would work out costing us the savings we had just made on the airfares but after all its Xmas so decided to splash ... read more

The downside of sleeping in a tent – even one with a heater- becomes rapidly clear. It is very cold and the bathroom, lacking any heating, is positively freezing. We sleep exceedingly badly. In part, this is due to the altitude. It comes back to us how badly we used to sleep on the first night skiing in Colorado. In part, it is due to the chicken Chettinad we ate at dinner, which burns its way slowly through our guts. Both of us fear that after 2 weeks away, our luck has run out and we are about to get ill, but mercifully this turns out not to be the case. The animals don’t help either. All night dogs can be heard barking furiously, as if repelling invaders or lining up in pitched battle. When they ... read more

Kodaikanal a Heaven just 500 Km from Chennai I wanted to escape Chennai’s typical tropical climate so thought of spending weekend at kodaikanal. Kodaikanal is roughly 500 km from Chennai. Rail is always a better and faster alternative but thanks to Indian railway citizen Torture Corporation I couldn’t get tickets and Reached Madurai via bus which was very tiring. I wanted to make to kodaikanal but was very tired so decided to take a break at Madurai. Took a bus to kodaikanal sharp at 5:40 in morning everything was going as per plan when the bus broke down somewhere in between. We pushed the bus both in forward and backward direction but it was defying all logic. We did everything except tilting it by 30 degrees just like we used to start our Bajaj scoter. The ... read more

We wound our way slowly up into the hills. The trip was slow but interesting as we passed pilgrims dressed in bright orange or blue jogging and walking up the hills, drove through villages with bullocks pulling laden carts, women doing the washing and the ubiquitous stalls. As we got higher we noticed colourful houses cascading down the hillside. At an altitude of 2133 metres we reached Kodaikanal. First impressions were not favourable, it is dirty and smelly and we wondered why we were here. There were issues with the hotel ( they insist it is not paid for) but they finally let us in. We headed out to Dominos Pizza for lunch and ordered vegetarian. It was very nice. Maddy was feeling poorly and didn't have any pizza. The poor thing did not make it ... read more