In Pictures | The road trip from Bangalore to Yercaud

If you’ve read about my travel plans for the rest of this year, you know that I was in Yercaud about two weeks back. Yercaud is just 4 and a half hours away from Bangalore (where I live), in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

One of the biggest pleasures of travelling from Bangalore to almost any city in Tamil Nadu, for me, are the beautifully laid out roads which are only made better by the rows and rows of trees and fields and mountains that bracket it almost throughout the journey. The definition of an ideal road trip? I think so.

So before I go into details of Yercaud itself, I wanted to give you guys a glimpse of the road trip.

We started out at 7 AM, which is a little later than I would recommend. This is only because the traffic at Electronic City, through which you exit the city towards Tamil Nadu and Kerala, tends to start early and you don’t want to start your road trip sitting in a jam, do you? If you take off at about 6 AM like I did on the road trip to Coimbatore, driving through Electronic City is a breeze and you might even catch a pretty brilliant sunrise. Fortunately, the traffic was yet to pick up and we managed to get out of the city fast enough.

Sunrise at Electronic City. on the way to Coimbatore

I’m not a breakfast person but I always look forward to it on the way to Tamil Nadu. As much as I love my city, I have to stay true to the fact that I am Tamilian and well, nobody makes a south Indian breakfast better. Pillow-soft idlis, crisp buttery dosas,  ghee-laden pongal accompanied by piping hot, spicy sambhar and coconut chutney that has the slightest kick of green chillies. When you wake up early and just shovel yourself into a car for a journey that will last a good couple of hours, this is the kind of breakfast you want to start off with.

We stopped at one of the most famous south Indian restaurant chains, Adyar Anand Bhavan or A2B for short.

I didn’t stop to take pictures of my food (this time!) but after this stop, it was nothing but smooth sailing.

Is anybody else fascinated by clouds? I cannot get over how majestic they looked on that day.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. ― Rabindranath Tagore

Somewhere in Tamil Nadu on NH44

Brave enough to take a picture only because I was safe in my car. P.S. I’m terrified of cows and all bovine creatures.

After you pass Salem, you get off the National Highway and enter smaller towns that dot the route to Yercaud like Dharmapuri, Kanavaipudur, Nagalur.

Inside the town of Dharmapuri. I am amazed at how well-maintained the roads are even in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu.

As we started the climb up towards Yercaud, the roads got narrower and windier, hair-pin bends at almost every corner and there was a nip in the air. We were finally in the mountains.

The view while driving up… I can never get enough of the mountains.

 

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