First travel of the year – Javadu Hills

My first travel of the year happened on the weekend and we did a trip to Javadu Hills; which is a part of the shattered Easter Ghats Mountains, rose between the Vellore and Thiruvannamalai Districts of Tamil Nadu, India. Being a low-lying hill station among the others visited, it wasn’t too cold but being winter there was moderate cold at night, comfortably. And it was the reason for me to choose this time for experiencing some cold, and as I expected the morning was immense refreshing with atmosphere foggy or mist. But it doesn’t wonder me, because it was almost same the way sensed on plains once we touched the highways, out of city and home.

This is not from a hill station, but the hills beyond the Chengalpattu town among the fog.

It wasn’t like every day morning: for me regularly the morning means only after 8 or 8.30 am, the usual time I wake up whether it’s cold or hot no matter what. But I try my best everyday to wake up early and if not the passion for traveling, I wouldn’t be checking sunrise at all or unless bladder filled up to wake me early, that too not much less than the usual time. We experienced a fog of Kodaikanal or any other hill stations on the morning of Saturday and the fog visibly makes invisible the distance buildings, trees and towers and even the Kolava Lake of Chengalpattu lose its trace in gray white. Unlike the usual sight of stunning sunrise over the lake during our early morning rides and the fog lasted until 9.30 or 10am. The roads after Chengalpattu were state highways, which are my favorite lanes taking via scenic countryside’s that hardly visible through NH.   

Jamunamarathur is the capital village of the entire mountain range of Javadu, which has two ways to reach – one via Polur and Alangayam; and Jamunamarathur was the only place to accommodate on the hills, that too the government provided BDO (block development office) guest house. There are many towns close to the foot hills easily accessible via road and railways which also holds many hotels and lodges to accommodate. Gladly we took the Polur route which has a long ghat road section with half a dozen hairpin bends passing through forest division. Before taking the ghat or uphill road, someone needs to sign at the forest check post writing a reason to visit.

A lake near Uthiramerur

It took more than an hour to reach Jamunamathur from Polur and thanks to the GPS in my galaxy player; it was very easy for us finding routes on Google maps. We already booked rooms at the BDO guest house, seeking their phone number at the Thiruvannamalai district govt. website, the guest house had been handed over to a private person in charge who maintained it well. We requested for a ground floor room and also before reaching there we contacted the person in charge on the way, but initially he told someone had haired the ground floor and later discussing with the other describing my state, they decided to shift the room so kindly and humble. Thanks so much to those unknown kind hearted and the wise man who arranged the rooms for us.

(To be continued…)