Kotagiri – at arrival

Leaving home in Chennai at 7 in morning and reaching Kotagiri about 8 at night, the whole day went on traveling via en route Dharmapuri, Mettur, Sathyamangalam... it was partially wonderful as we travelled half the way through state highways which are my favorite routes that goes through small towns and villages. We stopped at Mettur Dam to have our fish fries for lunch and the home we know through our past visit treated us with fish fires identifying our latter visit.

While the fish fries get prepared; we explored the nearby shops by buying sweet corns, murukku, color candies… and the mobile vendor who selling porridge got lot of attention from people and being a hot summer day cousin’s chose to have it. We moved further from there and stopped for our lunch break under a shadow tree and after sometime leave to Sathy in search of rooms as we had book for only 3 days in Kotagiri and wanted to stay in Sathy and go to Bhavanisagar and Bannari temple, but we couldn’t get any rooms in ground floor so called the Belair cottages in Kotagiri and they were glad to advance a day in our booking and we went directly.

From Sathy to Mettupalayam, it was a wonderful evening time passing through the winding roads and Eastern Ghats followed by the Western are very pleasant while the sun settle down with different shades and shapes of clouds at various moment. After reaching Mettupalayam we took the Kotagiri road directly without going through Coonoor and the adventure begins here as we passed through the forest road that bears the warning signs of elephant crossing. As we were looking for something interesting, a wild elephant come into our way and it wasn’t hindering but standing beside the road eating bamboo leaves and leaving the dung on the road as a sign of exist.

We didn’t expect an elephant to be standing on a bend and we managed to pass him without fear unlike either vehicles standing on road to let him move and the thrilling part was when a guy suddenly tries to turn his car in scare of seeing an elephant interrupted our path with elephant behind. Parents and the drive come cousin whose fear about wild animals got little tension over this and I and other cousins who were expecting something like this – I mean the elephant, were excite more seeing a wild elephant.

The cold increases in atmosphere as our elevation rise, we had our coffee at a roadside shop near a small village, where a Toda festival was going on and the speakers were singing aloud a Badaga song which we couldn’t understand anything but my cousin identified it was Badaga as he’d studied a year in St. Jude’s public school, Kotagiri. The adventure doesn’t stop and it continued this time in form of mist and it was enormous to quite hide the road for a while nearing Kotagiri and nothing could be seen opposite except a gray screen. We stopped somewhere to let it clear, but it never seems to be so we moved slowly following the road studs laid on the center of the road.

Even it is difficult to dive in mist I feel wonderful moving into enormous mist and cloud that last for nearly an hour, sitting next to diver seat. It was very cold and lightning crosses the sky with thunder when we reached Kotagiri and things become normal soon and we felt very comfort at the Belair cottage. We were allotted to stay at the main building built in British period which is at ground level with couple of steps was very easy for my wheels to get in and the new blocks were at elevation. The people at Belair are friendly and lean any help and in order base they provide lunch, dinner and breakfast and on the opening night we had chappathi-kuruma. The preparations and serving are made by Manipur guys.

mom in front of Belair cottages in Kotagiri