This time around it was to the sparkling
For those who dont have any clue/idea about this place , its the place which is seen in nearly the entire first half of the famed movie "Roja" directed by yes my fav Maniratnam...
To be precise its the place where the song "Chinna Chinna Aasai" was shot :)
We were thinking about the boredom that surrounded us at office during the entire week the usual cribbing session were happening at our lunch tables.. though we had just got back from 
I kinda knew a lot about the place coz i had seen it may be half a dozen times owing to the fact that it is very close to my Dad's native place and I’ve seen the falls in all its glory and also sometimes only in a percentage of its glory. But still i knew that every time you get to see this magnificent falls its gonna leave behind a different picture in your mind !!
Some prerequisites that i had set before leaving for this outing was i wanted the expenditure to be an all time low considering the thousands that I had recently spent on my clothes.. Thanks indeed to the humongous collections that all the shops had as a part of the "Sale Season”. I guess i am born to shop and shop and shop... I just dont get tired of shoppin the way I dont get tired of seeing my Parents daily :) I know thts what u call an "Addiction" hehehe..
Anyways keep
ing the "Cost-cutting" factor in mind my very kind friends planned to travel to this destination only using "Government Transport”. Both the Karnataka and the Tamilnadu Transport services proved to be very helpful !! :)
We boarded the Coimbatore Intercity Express at the City Railway Station during the wee hours of a chilly morning at 6:15 AM. We were lucky and intelligent to go to the farthest general compartment which had only a few people occupying the seats. I got my most wanted window seat and we started off with Gleaming Faces and tht wicked smile on us which said " Ah hah Train!! " hehe ;)
We reached Dharmapuri in nearly 2.5 hrs and we had breakfast at a nearby snack bar.Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyy Delecioussssss food is all i can say about the breakfast. One of my friends went to the extent of planning a drive to dharmapuri on a weekend only to have Breakfast and Lunch here ;)
After the totally satiating heavy breakfast or brunch we started off to the Bus stand to catch a bus to Hogenakal Falls.We got a bus immediately and as expected all the buses here were equipped with a DVD player and 2 TV sets playing the best of Tamil Movies to entertain all the travelers. I guess some people traveled from place to place only to watch the movie ;) hehe
Though i wasn’t very interested in the movie , I had to watch it sometimes to trans
late the dialogues for my friends who were watching it like as if they hadn’t watched a movie in the past decade...(with a gaping mouth) hehe..
After an hour's journey we reached Hogenakal and the weather was pleasant and a bit sunny :) After walkin a distance we had at least 5 boatmen surrounding us and asking us what we would want to do and whether we are interested to go for a coracle ride around the falls.
My first sight of the falls was totally an "unexpected" one. All I could see was water gushing up and down the sides with huge waves in its path. I had never ever expected to see the waters this way. The river was roaring and it beat the sides with a sea like effect coz of which we could see waves coming our way :) It was scary and yet a treat to the eye !
Then we bargained a little and rented a coracle for Rs 450 and started off towards the falls with the boatman indeed :)
It was a pleasant ride though we were constantly engaged with the new sights of the gushing water which i'm sur
e has never reached this level in the past few years at least. The gorge that is seen in the Chinna Chinna Aasai song is now no more visible as the waters have risen to such an extent as to cover the entire gorge which measures a whooping 500 feet in height ! We were bamboozled by this fact... Oh God ! :S
After a nice ride on the waters the boatman stopped at a small rocky area which was supposed to be the only means of viewing the overflowing falls at this time of the year. We climbed the rocky path and reached a point from where we could see the entire range of falls. It was
"Water Water Everyyyyywhere".All we could see was huge volumes of water being emptied into an already overflowing river and we couldn't quite distinguish one falls from the other coz the gap was minimizing by the hour i guess. The sight was simple superb. Then our very helpful boatman took us to a small rivulet kinda place where we could all settle down and play in the water. We all decided to spend around half an hour here and it was really relaxing and enjoyable to get into the waters !! I went a little ahead and tried totally immersing myself in the water but when the water level reached my ear i totally freaked and got back in nanoseconds.. Thanks to the Hydrophobic Me ;) (Yes i dont know to swim.. please laugh) hehe ;)
The entire surroundings was only H2O.. it looked like the gods above were all crying together and the land below was totally getting confused about this sudden outburst that the god's were going through.. hehe...Just a few meters away the waters were lashing and hitting the rocks and water was being sprayed everywhere due to the force. A sight to see and capture indeed !
This i call the "Click of the Day" view !! :)
After this refreshing experience as i would call it "F5" Indeed we went back to our coracle and got back to the banks in around 2 hours. To relieve us from the tiredness we just cooled ourselves with Tender Coconut and Cucumber and then strd off our journey back to Dharmapuri by yes indeed the "DVD Coach" Bus !! :)
The famous Rajnikanth Movie "Muthu" was playing and all passengers were more than delighted and excited to watch it !! :)
We reached Dharmapuri and had snacks at yes indeed the same Snack Bar and left to catch the train back to 
The train though was an "Indian Railways" train came just on time and we were kinda too sleepy on our way back !! Music accompanied us till
reached Blore as expected at around 8:45 PM and then got back home !!
All in all a great and refreshing outing. Though we opted for the cheaper means of transport we were not let down at any point of time !! This proves that we still have some hard working people who make this world a better place to live in and yes Travel In too !! :)
Cheers to Cauvery for her mighty glory , Cheers to the rocks that gave birth to the
Cheers,
Pavi !! :)
