Coastal Drive'09

This is a 'journal' of my 9 day coastal drive with Mak aka Arun Kumar. (Dominic was supposed to come along, but his boss decided to jack him at the last minute). The plan was to attend RTMC 8th Anniversary in Wynad on Oct 2 & 3 (Friday & Saturday) for which we started on 26th Sep, Saturday morning.
Mak and I started from my place in the morning and hit the ECR highway. We stopped at Midway for breakfast and then hit Pondy before noon. We went straight to the liquor store near La Terrace and stocked up a few beers, Breezers, Tequila and whisky. From there we drove through Chidambaram, Sirgali, Poompuhar and reached Tranquebar. It was a very calm place by the beach with ruins of a temple and a Danish fort. We then crossed Karaikal, Vedaranyam and reached Kodikarai (Point Calimere). We managed to get accommodation at the forest officer’s guest house.
Next morning we started off to the animal sanctuary where you can drive up to the shore. There were plenty of deer, horses, birds etc in the sanctuary. Then we reached the coast and went up a watch tower to see the edge of the coast with the sea curving backwards at the periphery. We started back and went to ‘Ramar Paadam’ and drove towards Ramanathapuram. We crossed the famous Pamban bridge and bumped into a couple of RTMC guys who had come to Rameswaram for the weekend. We drove towards Dhanushkodi till we reached a place where we could park the car and hired a Mahindra 4x4 truck with a couple of families to go to Dhanushkodi. After a fast and bumpy drive we reached. The place was very beautiful with the shallow seas on three sides. We returned and drove back to Rameswaram, visited another ‘Ramar Paadam’ and decided to head off to Tuticorin for the night.
Started from Tuticorin and went to Thiruchendur temple and then proceeded to Kanyakumari. We were driving through windmills for over an hour while approaching Kanyakumari. It was Durga pooja that day and the ferry to Vivekananda rock was halted. We visited a temple nearby, did some shopping and rode to Trivandrum.
Started from Trivandrum the next morning and drove towards Kochi through Kollam, Allepey and reached Fort Kochi where we unexpectedly bumped into Brijesh and Dodo, who were also touring Kerala. Then, we decided to take the ferry to Vypin islands. It’s a ferry where vehicles can drive into a boat and can get off across the lagoon. There are a couple of newly constructed bridges connecting Vypin and Kochi through which we entered Kochi. We checked into a nice hotel and started out to a Pub called Loungevity. There were only 4 customers including us in the place. I had caught a bad cold the previous day and had brandy-pepper-warm water.
Next morning I visited my school after more than 13 years and met my old teachers. We then went to a few tourist spots which were closed and then headed back to Marine drive in Kochi. We took a ferry around the port in the lagoon for an hour. Then, my b-school buddy Cerin joined us and we went to a pub called Couchine and saw India getting knocked out of the ICC Champions trophy. Then another friend of mine, Mahesh joined us, Cerin left for home and the 3 of us went for dinner. We were going back to our room and decided to do some pub-hopping into Loungevity as it was ladies night. There were hardly any women and we had a drink and went back to our room.
Next morning we started at leisure to Kozhikode and checked into a hotel. We then roamed around the entire city by auto-rickshaw searching to buy a ‘hookah’ (cos DJ had told us its available there and we had to find it the hard way that it is untrue). We had dinner and crashed.
The next morning we bought a lot of Banana chips from a local shop and headed towards Kalpetta, Wynad. We again met Brijesh on the highway, reached early and the gang from Chennai started pouring in slowly (including Dominic who was supposed to have started with us the previous week). We checked in and had a nice party at the place. Next morning, after breakfast, about 19 of us in 4 cars (my Wagon R, Goa Raj’s Linea, Dosai’s Bolero and Rohan’s Bolero) started for what was initially a small drive. It turned out into a full day outing and we went to Wynad wildlife sanctuary. We hired 4 jeeps and went for a 2 hour safari in the sanctuary. We came back in time for the party and had a bash. The Chennai-10 Downing Pub-gang gathered at the reception and finished the tequila that we got in Pondy.
Next day, Mak, Dominic and I started off early in the morning and headed off towards Chennai through Mysore, Bangalore, Hosur and reached Chennai well before evening.

It was a great holiday, much needed break from work, with the sea constantly on my left side from Chennai till Calicut, then into the western ghats and back to Chennai. Probably, forty years later, if this blog is still alive, I will cherish this trip, as most of the roads which I had driven through would have probably submerged. (9 days, 2500 km)

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