A trip to Hoganekkal and Yerkard

It is still a surprise, how the whole thing came thru. Seven of us in different places, stuck with our own busy schedules. But I guess it was those timely kinks that pop when you go thru, an otherwise droning hum of meaningless, well structured dumb life. Most of us felt it deep ... that we needed to break away into some freaky oblivion ... some sun kissed beautiful mountain or some shell strewn bright blue beach. After a week or two's live exchange of pepped up mails we reached the consensus that our peep hole to freedom would lead us to Hoganekkal & Yerkard. Hmmm... now a bit on the chosen spots ... Hoganekkal is a beautiful mass of rolling water right between the fast blurring borders of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It so huge, fast and green that it offers an experience akin to water rafting when u ride the local cup shaped flimsy wafer boats. Then there are the many mini waterfalls, secret spots (well, I'll get to that in good time) and a lot of eye candy!!! As for Yercard ... it’s falsely called poor man's Ooty. A hill station with vast spread coffee plantations and plenty of stupid cliff spots named after every gender/age in the human species (Lady' spot ... children's spot ... God knows what other spots the place sports).

Bali, Sudhir and I took the night bus to Dharmapuri where the rest of the gang (Jaggu, Deepu, Manoj and Sanjeeth) joined in from B'lore. We were too thrilled at the prospects of a long awaited holiday cum reunion, that we didn't mind the sweaty cramped overnight bus ride. Once we reached the Dharmapuri (around 5 in the morning), we had a hot cup of local tea and went about freshening ourselves. In about half-a-hour's time the others landed. Well, actually they came much earlier and had taken a room near by and fell asleep waiting for us. After ample hearty greetings and fulfilling leg pulling, we jumped into the first bus that left to Hoganekkal. It was cool and crisp ride, up and down the slopes of the surrounding hills. On reaching Hoganekkal we found a decent lodge to leave our baggage and have a quick and light breakfast.

Chirpy and happy we skipped and ran towards the boating spot. There we found two boat men waiting to shave us with a mind boggling boat ride each costing Rs.450. After much thought, we went in for it. The boats themselves were nothing but a few bamboo sticks stitched to form a bowl, pretty flimsy ... adding to the whole adventure. We stopped in a few places, midway, where we found moss coated sharp rocks, with the fierce falls very close. Like seals soaking up the sun, we sat there amidst nowhere with the water thundering upon our heads. After we had screamt enough and slipped enough on the thick green slimy moss.... we were schooled away into calmer water where we were promised of serene backdrops of bright green slopes kissing sun colored sands that mysteriously vanished into the grey green waters. My! it was a sight for the Gods who had a bit of adventure in their blood. We pulled over on a small archipelago of wild growth ... the water was still, yet cool ... we all got into the waters while the boat men, resting their over stretched muscles had a quick meal of fried fish. In the water..... it was all that we could ever ask for .... we splashed, ran loose, and did all that we could. The best part of it was, we all learnt to swim in a matter of few minutes.... Deepu was our tutor.... so a best part of the time went in swimming up and down the silent currents of the water.

When we felt our limbs grow heavy as lead ... we decided to crawl back into the boats and move homewards ... it was already noon. The boatmen ... seeing us enjoy the trip so much ... offered an additional 1/2 hour of free ride over the waters ... but we opted otherwise, heeding wisely to aching muscles and growling stomachs. However, before we left the falls we went to a nearby place where the tourism board had built railings beneath an extremely strong falls, where people could have a great oil massage and roast in the sun and then go into the fierce waters holding the railings and feel heaven beating drums all over them. We skipped the oil massage and went under the falls ... that was the icing on the cake .... After half an hours of natures' massage ... we emerged soaking, like a piece of dead wood.

We then rushed back to the hotel, dressed up and checked out. Catching a bus back to Dharmapuri, we all fell into a blissful stupor. On reaching our initial meeting place, we found a suitable restaurant, had a belly filling meal, and dashed to take a bus to Salem ... Jaggu's home town.

We reached Salem around 4 in the evening. Jaggu took us to a good hotel where we booked our rooms for the night. Had a wash, fell into a short nap, woke up and got dressed to go over to Jaggu's place to meet his parents. Had coffee at his home and with ample pleasantries exchanged, slipped out to make it in time for a movie at a near by theater. Not a good movie ... but.. fine. After the film we went to a local eat out ... out in the open under a cool black night's canopy of dazzling bright stars. Closing the dinner with generous helpings of multi-flavored ice-creams we dragged ourselves back to our rooms and pulled the sheets over our numb heads.

The next morning we all got ready by 7:30 and went over to Jaggu's place, where his father had booked a sumo for us to go to a place called Yercard, a hill station about an hour and a half's journey from Salem. With a sweet brown coffee quickly gulped down we sped towards the hills. There we visited many spots ... none too extradinary or out of the world ... but just had fun with photos and climbing over safety railings to walk around not-so-dangerous cliffs. We spent around 5 hours there, and drove down back to Salem. With lunch over by 4:00 we had to rush back to the rooms, for the B'lore people had to catch the 5 o'clock train ... for which they had to go and buy the tickets at the last minute.

Some how, managing to make it in time ... we jumped out of the same sumo into a bustling crowd at the station. Waving a quick and pretty unceremonious farewell to the B'lore guys ... we made it to the bus stop where we Chennai guys took our bus back home.

On the whole ... the trip was more than satisfying ... All are eagerly looking for the next best opportunity to make another great escape into such wild holidays.