At 12 on a relatively cool May afternoon in Yelagiri, hoards of people rushing down the boat house road were hard to miss. The vendor, at one of the few food stalls on this road, had to just point towards the crowd we needed to follow to reach boat house.
Yelagiri is a small hill station in the state of Tamil Nadu. Not as commercialised as Ooty or other famous hill stations in this area. Tourism Development Board of this state organises Yelagiri Summer Festival in May end every year to develop tourism here. With flower shows, boat house, dog show and various other activities, this festival attracts people from all over the country.
My trip to this beautiful hill station was an exception to my usual travel routines as I knew nothing about the place, apart from its name, before I reached there. So I didn't know that there is going to be a festival starting on the weekend that I am visiting. In a usually quiet town, all the security officials deputed on the way revealed the surprise to me and my travelling company :) Once we reached, we could see the place buzzing, with people. Excited kids and happy faces all over the streets walking in the same direction which I assume led to the site of the festival. Since I am so comfortable in crowds and crowds are so kid-friendly (pun intended), we decided to walk the other direction with the four kids among the three families travelling.
However, we still had an hour and a half to kill before lunch time in our resort. So the growling stomachs and hungry kids lead us to the narrow boat house road. We devoured the leftover unappetizing idlis and paniyarams available on street-side stalls and decided to visit the boat house before returning to our resort. What the stalls lacked in the taste of the food was made up by the hospitality of locals of Yelagiri. Kids in our group really wanted idlis and a guy was handed over the last plate of idlis available on the stall. Upon request, he gave up his plate of idlis for our kids. Meanwhile, my kid wanted to have nothing to do with idlis that morning so I requested the vendor to prepare a custom omelette (minus spices and veggies) for my lo which she happily did at a moment's notice. Not only the youngsters but us adults were just as hungry and kept pestering the calm vendor to hand out the paniyarams faster. Please note that he was preparing the paniyarams right in front of our eyes and we could see that they are still being cooked but hunger took the better of our judgement :P Alright, enough about food!!
From here on, we walked to the boat-house which took no more than 5 minutes but my lo slept on the way. Me and hubby dearest decided to skip the boating trip and sat by the Yelagiri Lake, enjoying some stale popcorn and fresh conversation. Festival crowd and festive mood could be seen everywhere around us :) On our way back to the resort, with the stomach now full, I could finally appreciate other things on this street. Freshly cut fruit vendors lined the street along with vendors selling little knick-knacks like keychains, toys, and pretty little earrings. Here are hubby and lo at one such stall.
Yelagiri is a small hill station in the state of Tamil Nadu. Not as commercialised as Ooty or other famous hill stations in this area. Tourism Development Board of this state organises Yelagiri Summer Festival in May end every year to develop tourism here. With flower shows, boat house, dog show and various other activities, this festival attracts people from all over the country.
My trip to this beautiful hill station was an exception to my usual travel routines as I knew nothing about the place, apart from its name, before I reached there. So I didn't know that there is going to be a festival starting on the weekend that I am visiting. In a usually quiet town, all the security officials deputed on the way revealed the surprise to me and my travelling company :) Once we reached, we could see the place buzzing, with people. Excited kids and happy faces all over the streets walking in the same direction which I assume led to the site of the festival. Since I am so comfortable in crowds and crowds are so kid-friendly (pun intended), we decided to walk the other direction with the four kids among the three families travelling.
However, we still had an hour and a half to kill before lunch time in our resort. So the growling stomachs and hungry kids lead us to the narrow boat house road. We devoured the leftover unappetizing idlis and paniyarams available on street-side stalls and decided to visit the boat house before returning to our resort. What the stalls lacked in the taste of the food was made up by the hospitality of locals of Yelagiri. Kids in our group really wanted idlis and a guy was handed over the last plate of idlis available on the stall. Upon request, he gave up his plate of idlis for our kids. Meanwhile, my kid wanted to have nothing to do with idlis that morning so I requested the vendor to prepare a custom omelette (minus spices and veggies) for my lo which she happily did at a moment's notice. Not only the youngsters but us adults were just as hungry and kept pestering the calm vendor to hand out the paniyarams faster. Please note that he was preparing the paniyarams right in front of our eyes and we could see that they are still being cooked but hunger took the better of our judgement :P Alright, enough about food!!
From here on, we walked to the boat-house which took no more than 5 minutes but my lo slept on the way. Me and hubby dearest decided to skip the boating trip and sat by the Yelagiri Lake, enjoying some stale popcorn and fresh conversation. Festival crowd and festive mood could be seen everywhere around us :) On our way back to the resort, with the stomach now full, I could finally appreciate other things on this street. Freshly cut fruit vendors lined the street along with vendors selling little knick-knacks like keychains, toys, and pretty little earrings. Here are hubby and lo at one such stall.
The rest of our day and that night was spent at the resort. Although we didn't get the sweetest deal on our rooms at the Zeenath Taj Gardens resort due to festival crowds, we enjoyed a lot. We savoured our food at the resort which was quite a contrast to the rooms' condition. Lunch was a South Indian buffet spread, dinner was a North Indian buffet spread and the breakfast buffet was a good mix of both these cuisines. And unlike, most restaurants where just one of these cuisines is well cooked, both the cuisines were cooked with equal expertise in this place. Kids and adults alike enjoyed the lush green gardens and range of outdoor activities available. Gardens were loaded with mango, litchi, guava trees, and a wide variety of flowers. Resort owner gave us another display of Yelagiri hospitality by offering us to pick and enjoy as many fruits as we wanted (which we did). Also, warm milk was arranged for the kids' at night and sent to our rooms. Did I say enough about food ;) All in all, it was a fun weekend.
 |
| LO and his aunt enjoying with a handful of freshly picked raw mangoes |
 |
 |
| Older kids enjoying the swings :) |
The next morning our romance with Yelagiri ended as soon as we set to road. The 3-hour drive home took us close to 5+ hours where we spent the first 3 hours covering the first 10 km downhill drive from Yelagiri. Thanks to the traffic erupting for the festival. At one point, lo was literally crying due to the heat his body refused to bear and his aunt poured some water on his head to cool him down.Needless to say, we all came back home exhausted and looking forward to the next fun weekend getaway.
No comments:
Post a Comment