Kodaikanal: Climbing the Wall!

The second part of the three hill odyssey as we go cycling to Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu from Munnar in Kerala.

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“It’s all green only. Don’t you get bored of just seeing greenery all the time?”

A friend had asked me and as we pedalled away from Munnar his question popped in my head. In every direction we looked the rolling hills were covered with tea gardens. Green, green and more green. Is it monotonous? Maybe for people who live there, but for us city cretin who worm our way out of grey concrete hell holes, the greenery is a blessing. Nature’s resplendent beauty is a balm to the soul, like how Nike’s Air Max is a cushion to your sole.

Cycling to Kodaikanal

Leaving a sleepy Munnar at 8 was quite a surprise, as the hustle-bustle was yet to begin. We pedalled through to be treated to the best feast a cyclist could want. Hills covered with perfectly manicured tea gardens, pristine blue skies with cotton candy clouds and asphalt smoother than a newborn’s tush. While Kochi-Munnar was under construction, this section of the Munnar-Dhanushkodi highway was butter.

Gastronomic Murder in Devikulam!

A few kilometres of butter later we stopped at the first hamlet of Devikulam for breakfast. The manager and security guard of the restaurant enthusiastically invited us in. The waiter and cooks did not share the joy, as we heard pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. They were getting their act together and after waiting for a billion years (or 2 protest bandhs in Kerala speak) we got grub, which was by far the most terrible food we ate in that state of good food. I was particularly heartbroken because this was my last meal in Kerala and my expectation from Tamil Nadu was decidedly low.

Post an agonizing breakfast we rode past even more tea estates and the first toll plaza; yes, these modern things do exist in Kerala! You could stop anywhere and click beautiful pictures for lifetime memories. Yet all the buses stopped in one place, where the tourists trampled out, paid money to enter a gated tea estate and then click Shahrukh Khan style photos with other tourists in the background. We rode away as fast as possible from that stretch of tourists!

After the horror show of tourism, we were treated to the majestic beauty of the Anayirankal Reservoir as we pedalled through the rolling terrain circumnavigating the large reservoir. As my heart was filled with sadness of leaving Kerala, I was left chuckling like a schoolboy as we rode past Poop(ara). Unsure of how that is pronounced I kept my wit to myself. The lacklustre breakfast came back to haunt me and we stopped for tea and my final tryst with Kerala snacks a handful of kilometres before the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.

Meter Down

I had great plans to click a photo at the state border, but even though my plans were clear, visibility wasn’t. With a snap of the fingers, everything disappeared behind a screen of white. The fog dancing in concentric circles in front of my eyes, only for me to suddenly veer to avoid a Tamil Nadu cop at the border who was doing pretty much the same with traffic. He gave a big toothy grin and a thumbs up as he saw us as two damp and daft cyclists riding in those low visibility conditions.

From the border crossing at Bodimettu, it was downhill all the way. I would love to say we flew down at breakneck speeds like daredevils, but the truth is we could barely see each other’s high visibility jackets, much less the black road and blacker drop off! We inched down at the same treacle speed we had inched up, as the fog condensed on my beard and moustache, leaving me with no need to drink water from my bottle. A bit like cloud computing or not!

Welcome to Tamil Nadu aka Summer

After what felt like eons of darkness, we were suddenly on flat roads and sunny dry lands of Tamil Nadu. We rode a few more kilometres before stopping for lunch at a half decent place. Once again, the guard at the gate seemed to be the hardest working employee, who gave us detailed instructions on how to park our cycles! A decidedly Tamilian lunch of biryani and curd-rice later, we were ready to tackle flat roads and the heat of Tamil Nadu.

Fortunately, we only got the former and none of the latter, as we rode into Theni. The town was a noisy, dusty bland little place and so we decided not to stay there and ride on hoping for better accommodation. After riding in the ghats for so many days, the flat roads require not just a physiological, but a psychological reset as well. Gone are the beautiful vistas; it is just endless plains of dreariness. I exaggerate, but such it feels.

As we crossed the town of Periyakulam we hit triple digit kilometres for the day and were accosted by a father-son duo on a motorcycle. They excitedly told me in a mixture of Tamil and English, that the son was a rider as well. I equally excitedly asked about his riding. He asked me for my phone, as I handed it over apprehensively. Then he opened YouTube to show me his channel. My excitement died tragically, as I realised, he was a ‘motorcycle rider’!

Tamilian Hospitality

We headed onwards, hammering away on the pedals to find a hotel before sundown. We wanted to stay as close as possible to the base of Kodaikanal’s climb. As the sun stopped shining, fortune shone on us. We found a hotel just two kilometres from the base, where we parked our bikes in a ‘gaming saloon’. I kid you not!

The staff didn’t realise that Chaitra understood Tamil and were doing a lot of gossiping before they were left read faced when she spoke in the same tongue! While the accommodation was decent though overpriced, the dinner we had there was out of the world. It was some of the best Tamilian food I have had in a long time. Outdone only by the cleanliness and service. The female only staff ran like clockwork, no din, no rush, just exceptional efficiency. Before you could think, the next course or an extra bowl of chutney was on your table. Language was not required, neither was AI, because the staff seemed to operate on a different plane of telepathy…

Onwards to Kodaikanal

The next morning, we enjoyed another delicious meal at the restaurant before retrieving our bicycles which were securely locked to the ping pong table in the gaming saloon. We then gingerly started pedalling with our sore legs as we headed to Kodaikanal. Just before the climb a forest checkpost had guards checking for plastic packets and bottles. Only 5 litres or bigger bottles were allowed in Kodai, a battle to keep the ghats clean.

Monkey vs Tourist Menace

The soreness in the legs disappeared as we started the climb, flat roads are far more difficult in comparison. The first jarring thing to notice in the Tamil hills was the presence of monkeys. All along the road, without a break there were monkeys. And brainless tourists throwing biscuit packets from cars for them to clamber across the road to grab. It was remarkable more so, because we didn’t see a single such instance on the way to Munnar. What has Kerala done right which Tamil Nadu cannot replicate?

For us cycling uphill, it was unimaginable to pull out a snack from our pockets. We were too scared of being attacked by our simian cousins. Such is life and we drearily climbed the steep hill of Kodaikanal. The climb was much sharper, steeper and taxing than Munnar and the first bit of respite and food we got was at the midway point of Oothu. Luckily, we were once again blessed with good weather and we made slow but sure progress. The only other remarkable thing we saw besides hordes of monkeys were Kerala tourist buses!

Half of Kerala seemed to be headed to Kodai and the music blaring from the buses wasn’t too promising. Post Oothu, the road flattened a bit and the ever so slight incline felt like an escalator in comparison to the first half of the day. There is not a lot on this stretch of road, primarily because the hills are so sharp and steep that offers no opportunity to construct hotel or restaurant. Finally with no real options we stopped for lunch at Perumal Malai at a hole-in-the-wall food joint.

For Cyclist Eyes Only…

I ordered chicken biryani, while Chaitra asked for curd-rice. The waiter scoffed and looked at her as if she was dotty and served her egg biryani instead! Refuelled we continued our climb as the relatively less distance remaining was deceptive. We kept thinking we were almost there, but the climb was unrelenting. Some 5 km before the town, we chanced upon the most beautiful of sights which only slow-moving cyclists could enjoy. Prancing over our heads in the thick branches of decades old trees were a pair of Indian Giant Squirrels. We stood there awestruck as the sun gleamed off their shiny and colourful coats.

With that mesmerising sight we pedalled on, confident that our evening would only get better. Spoiler Alert… it was not!

At a junction in the start of the town, I stopped and waited for Chaitra to catch up. As I waited two young boys from Kerala started chatting with me. How do I know they were from Kerala, you ask? Well, not because I can tell the difference between Malayalam and Tamil. It was elementary dear Watson from the hairstyles. Kerala boys have the fanciest of hairstyles, making me assume the barbers of Kerala must surely be driving Mercedes and Audis. This Kerala boy was boasting to me about how he is planning to take his girlfriend on an adventurous motorcycle ride. He then saw Chaitra cycle round the bend into view and asked, who is she? My wife I answered. He looked suitably aghast, waved bye and ran back to his bus!

Hotel Travails…

Since it was a weekend, we pre-booked a hotel, not wanting to risk the bus loads of tourists beating us to the finish line. Google maps took us within 200 metres of our hotel, only for us to find the steepest road imaginable. It was so steep, that we walked the descent, having zero trust in our brakes. Moral of the story, when in doubt, use brains, not brakes!

Finally with a look of happiness, we conquering conquistadors reached our hotel, only to be told there were no rooms available and to speak to their customer-doesn’t-care centre in Chennai! After a few minutes of wasted arguing and pleading we climbed back up the steep hill to find a bigger, better hotel for less monies. God does indeed work in mysterious ways or at the very least the hotel booking website algorithms do!

In the chilly wind, we left our cozy room to search for dinner. What we found was that in Kodaikanal you can eat anything you want, as long as it is biryani or chocolate! A most uninspiring dinner later we walked to the lake as shopkeepers were downing their shutters. We found one tea shop open, run by an old couple. The uncle made tea for us as the auntie cleared up the garbage for the day. She then confidently took all the dirty water and dumped it in the lake…

…And the next morning in bright light, we saw the colour of the water and it all made sense!

Jay Walking

After a hard day’s ride, we lazily stepped out of the hotel in search of breakfast. Steadfastly avoiding looking in the direction of our bicycles and promising to spend the day as pedestrians! But avoiding bicycles in Kodai is no mean feat, as the town is littered with tourists renting out tandem bicycles and riding around the lake.

Most of the restaurants had stopped serving breakfast as it was late morning and we finally found one taking ‘final’ orders. We ordered, ate and ran out of the grimy establishment as quickly as possible. It was one of the dirtiest places we had eaten in this entire trip. With our gastronomic tails between our legs, we kept walking and found a tiny café decorated with flowers and a signboard which promised ‘Bangalore’ filter coffee! In we went, and were rewarded with the promised coffee and an interesting conversation with the owner. He was originally from Chennai, who had moved to Bangalore working as a florist for a couple of decades. Tired of constant traffic jams, he escaped to Kodaikanal, starting a small flower shop and café. A horticulturalist by education, he planned to buy land there and grow flowers for supply to the Bangalore flower market. Being a semi-outsider, he was also more open to criticize what he saw wrong in the town. He told us how the taxi unions got autorickshaws and self-drive two-wheelers banned in Kodaikanal, forcing tourists to use their cabs with exorbitant charges.

With that enjoyable coffee and conversation, we left and hundred metres later entered a tiny bakery and got chatting again. The ‘chief’ baker as he proclaimed himself, was from Bihar and had been working in the southern state for a Marwari owner since 2018. It was an enlightening chat about the life of migrant workers, till he handed us a bill of 100 rupees for a slice of cake. The joke was on us, as he showed off the extent of Tamil he had learnt there.

Back To The Future…

We now had a spring in our step, as we walked around the lake. It was a pretty, calm and serene day. Till the time we reached the areas which attracted tourists. It showed how Kodai was a decidedly low to middle income tourist destination. There were far too many stalls with airguns and balloons for us to think it was 2025. It immediately reminded me of Nainital in the 1990s!

The only element of ‘fanciness’ we saw in Kodaikanal was when we dined at a recently opened café. The place was owned by a Mangalorean from Ooty and was filled with the rich kids of Kodaikanal’s many boarding schools.

Kodaikanal is worth a visit. But is bereft of charm, which makes it a place you wouldn’t want to visit twice. The greatest attraction of this hill station for us cyclists is the climb to get up there. From there its downhill all the way, literally and figuratively…

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Read the First Part of this trip as we Cycled to Munnar here. Also read our journey of Cycling in Uttarakhand here.