Kodaikanal is a hill station located in Dindigul district of Tamilnadu. It is at three-and-a-half hour journey from Madurai and twelve hour journey from Chennai by road. Nearest railway station is Kodaikanal Road, around 80kms from Kodaikanal. We reached Kodaikanal from Madurai at around 11:00 am in the morning. Half of this journey is on mountains and you realize sudden drop in temperature as the journey proceeds. As you go further up, clouds start surrounding you. Kodaikanal bus stand is near the famous Kodaikanal Lake and entire town is centered on this lake. Due to commercialization, many hotels and lodges are available for accommodation. After some efforts we found a good hotel and had a very good lunch in the market. Entire first day we spent in roaming around in the market and getting used to the environmental changes. There is a definite freshness in the air which relaxes your mind. Market has many shops selling home-made chocolates and spices. After doing some purchase, we booked our site-seeing and forest trek for the next day. Clouds start surrounding you by 5:00pm and the temperature drops. By 9:00pm, it becomes so foggy that it is hard to see anything beyond 5 feet.
P.1 View from Coaker's walk
On second day, we first went to Coaker’s walk. It is a nice photogenic valley view point. From here our forest trip started. There is a check-post at the forest entrance and prior permission is required to enter the forest. There is a road connecting Kodaikanal to Munnar(Kerala) through this forest and our journey was on the same road. On our way, we saw Silent valley, where Britishers used to come for meditation. Finally we reached Berijam Lake which was the destination of our journey. It has a picturesque view and soothing environment with nice green surroundings. After spending sometime at Berijam Lake, we returned to Kodaikanal city for another trek. This second trek was along with different waterfalls, and we crossed many in our short jungle trek. Here we saw the waterfall where the famous Liril soap was shot. The water was very cold but soaking legs in that took away all the tiredness we had that day. Then we went on to see the Dolphin Nose point which was another 40 minute downward trek but couldn’t really see anything because of sudden appearance of fog and drizzling. We were scheduled to depart for Chennai on third day afternoon. So we decided to roam around the streets of Kodaikanal in the morning. We did boating in the beautiful Kodaikanal Lake and it was indeed a fun. Next we hired a tandem cycle for an hour and saw different roads and streets around the Lake area. Synchronizing your leg movements as with your partner and also keeping balance is an art and we thoroughly enjoyed that. Soon it was noon and we finished our lunch and waited for our bus to arrive. Finally the time came when we bid farewell to Kodaikanal but memories of this one of the most beautiful south Indian hill station will always have a special place in our heart.
P.2 Berijam Lake
P.3 Liril Falls
