Yelagiri

October 1, 2007

Yelagiri is a small hill station that is located near Vaniyambadi in TN. It is around 170 kms from Bangalore making it an ideal weekend getaway from here. Abe and I made plans to go there on a Friday night when we were driving aimlessly in Bangalore wondering what to do that weekend. A quick peek at wikitravel made us select Yelagiri.

We left the next day morning around 830 or so towards Hosur. Had a quick stop at Nilgiri’s in Hosur for breakfast consisting of pastries and sandwiches. We proceeded towards Krishnagiri. On reaching Krishnagiri, you have to take the road to Chennai. We made a mistake by missing the sign to Chennai and took the flyover towards Dharmapuri instead of taking a left. We were soon back on track and continued in the road towards Vaniyambadi.The roads are a driver’s delight all the way from Bangalore till Vaniyambadi. We touched 150 on an Alto and you can imagine the speeds you can touch on a bigger sized car.

Just before Vaniyambadi, you’ll have to take a left which actually is an underpass that goes right towards Tirupathur. We missed this as the boards were too close to the deviation and we couldn’t brake that early. Don’t fret if you miss this left. You can go straight ahead take a U-turn and then go left towards Tirupathur. On the way to Tirupathur, you can see the Yelagiri hills on the left having zig zag markings denoting the roads.

We reached Yelagiri around 3 in the afternoon, had lunch at a place called Hotel Hills. They have an elaborate menu card but do not have most of the items in the card. We could have stayed in Hotel Hills but we preferred to do some room hunting as we had time to kill. After scouring 5 to 6 places, we checked in at YMCA, which is around 5 kms from the main town. They had very clean rooms and were real economical too.

Yelagiri is very much a sleepy town and you hardly find it abuzz with activity. This suited us best as we wanted to laze around in a place far from city life. If your idea of a break is a crowded hill station like Ooty, having lots of places to check out, then Yelagiri is not the place for you. There are hardly 10 places to see and a few of them are temples.The major attraction is the Yelagiri lake where you can go boating. There is a circular walkway around the lake which is quite nice to amble. We got back to Hotel Hills for dinner and then wanted to see a movie. As Yelagiri doesn’t have any theaters we had to goto either Vaniyambadi or Jolarpet. We started climbing down the hills when we got to a view point 3/4ths up the hill. What lay before us was something that cannot be described in words. The whole city below was lit up with lights resembling stars and it was a sight to behold. We sat atop the railing and spent around half an hour just looking at the vast expanse. This is one activity that is not mentioned in any site or signboard but worth going all the way just to see the city at night.

The next morning, we wanted to trek to swami malai, the highest peak in Yelagiri. We got ready by 7 and left for the trek. The route goes thro’ the countryside, through fields interspersed with small houses. Soon, you are left all alone and there is no one around to even ask for directions. There was a barrier of some sorts on the way and we had to climb that to continue the trek. The trek was quite arduous for us and took an hour. Do carry at least 2 liters of bottled water as you would be needing them while climbing up. Once you reach the summit, you find a small temple inside a cave where there is a priest waiting for you. We then started exploring the place further and reached a telecom tower which had a crude ladder inside the base. Abe climbed up the tower till the top while I made it only to the half way mark as it was rusty and I was apprehensive it might give way. Trekking down the hill was a bit easy and it took us 30 minutes.

We got back at 10, had a nice breakfast of toast and omelette’s at Hotel Hills (again) and then went to see a place called Nilavoor. We had lunch, packed our bags by 3 and reached Bangalore at 7 in the evening. I felt it was a well deserved break though we didn’t get to do much.

Fact file:
How to get there:
See above

Means:
A private vehicle is preferrable if you are coming from Chennai or Bangalore. If you are coming here by bus or train, you might have to get down at Jolarpet which is the nearest railway station.

What to do in Yelagiri:

Go for a boat ride and a leisure walk around the lake

Just laze around doing nothing

Trek up swami malai

Taste the local honey & jackfruit

Drive down to the view point in the night and watch the city glow in the dark

Observe a few places via the telescope in the observatory just before you reach Yelagiri. You can see the Jolarpet railway station clearly.

Photos from our trip:
Yelagiri

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