Not Your Usual Kodaikanal Lake

#Tale0

This blog 'Bikes' n Backpacks' is all about tales of adventures (and misadventures) of a traveler on two wheels. I have this strange attraction towards motorcycles that i don't know how or what on earth made my bond this strong towards them, that I made a vow to travel only on motorcycles. This small humble 200km ride from Trichy to kodaikanal with my pal shahrukhan (not the celebrity but he too got those good looks ) is how it all started, my love and commitment to explore new places on motorcycle.

Two buddies, a yamaha motorcycle (The ones they make especially for third world countries just like mine) , little money, Google Map and a strong desire to travel is how it all begin. It was June the tenth, twenty nineteen.  Plan was to start off as early as possible to reach the destination for breakfast. The first part of the ride was to reach my friend's house from mine, a 7km ride just to be greeted by the street dogs, the aggressive ones 

(you know the one's that act calm and cute during the daytime and tryna kill you at night). We had to figure out alternate street routes to have a safer meetup point away from those street dogs. Then from there it was a smooth sail towards Kodaikanal via NH83. It was my first ride to the princess of hills and all those twist and turns had already started dragging me towards the hill. After a while we reached the top and enquired the locals about the whereabouts of 'Kookal'- The hidden hamlet of Kodaikanal (yes, that's the one, not your usual kodaikanal Lake) and to our shock we received the reply that its a bit far from where we were standing at that moment, actually that bit part was 35km in fact. So, we decided to fuel ourselves before heading further and stopped by a decent restaurant to grab some bites.

#Ride to Kookal  Lake

Then the rough ride part started, it took more time to navigate and reach the kookal than it should, thanks to bad network conditions and google maps. We circled around same path more than once and at one point it started to feel like an endless loop. We entered one wrong route after the other and enquired a local only to realize that we are still heading in the wrong direction. As they say

" difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations"

it was true in our case. We finally figured it all out and reached the beautiful offbeat location slightly away from the Kodaikanal. We stayed in this beautiful stay called "Kookal Eco Farms". Finally we found the hidden hamlet of Kodaikanal and it was all worth it. 

Make sure you too find the hidden hamlet next time you hit the roads to Princess of Hills. 

If you read till this part, well this one's not the end, follow my blog and I'll try my best to bring more rides to words in the future..... if you still haven't tried the bikes' n backpacks way of travelling, Well it's never too late, give it a try, you might also fall in love with this way of travelling, who knows ! 

Hasta Luego, Amigos !