Spending my 25th Birthday amid the Hills!

Hello there!

Been a busy week with Easter celebrations and traveling to my parents’ home for the long weekend. While summers in India are brutal, I remembered how a year ago, we planned a trip to a lovely hill station to beat the heat. It was supposed to be a couple days but I ended up extending our trip to stay and celebrate my 25th birthday. With my 26th one soon approaching, it felt like a great time to reminisce how our trip went in -

Located at a height of 7,300 ft above sea level, this hill station is situated in the lines of the Western Ghats range.

We caught an overnight bus to this location from Bangalore and reached exactly at 8:00 AM. Since I had done my research on the town, I knew that we had to book a private taxi since they are the only source of transportation in and around the town if you do not have a private vehicle. We were greeted by multiple taxi operators who were trying their best to get some customers. We spoke and bargained around and found a driver who was willing to show us 4-5 spots for 2000 INR for two (23.42 USD).

Since our check in to the hotel was at 12 PM and we had some time to spare, we agreed to the driver, and he packed up our luggage and off we went!

That’s me standing on the ledge because my driver insisted to take this photo with the Kodaikanal Lake as the background.

Our first stop was the -

Vattakanal Waterfalls

A quaint little falls was a nice start to the trip right before our driver decided to spice things up and take us on an adventure!
The driver mentioned that a cave named ‘Lions den’ existed not very far from the falls. He assured us that the path towards the cave would be a bit rough but manageable. We then proceeded to put our lives in the hands of the driver who we met an hour ago and started walking into the deep jungle. The cave does not fall under the tourist radar and hence it was just the driver, my girlfriend and me amid the jungle. Fortunately, our driver was not a killer but instead offered to click photos while we hike our way to the cave.

In a twist of events, we were greeted by rather unusual folks in the forest, Leeches!
Our driver forgot to factor in the heavy rain in Kodaikanal two days before we arrived. As the jungle got deeper, the pathway was filled with wet leaves and branches and amidst them, thousands of leeches eager to grab onto anyone with blood in them.
We ran like captain Jack Sparrow through the pathway to avoid keeping our feet on the ground but somehow those bloodsucking buggers managed to get on our shoes as well as socks!

I didn’t click any photos here since I was running for my dear life!

As we were halfway there to the cave, we found another small waterfall and stopped to remove any leeches stuck on our shoes and pants. We decided not to proceed further because it was getting harrowing and ran back the same way we came from. What a thrill eh!

We then told the driver to not take us to any leech infested area, and he took us to our next spot-

The Dolphin’s Nose

The unusual name comes from a rock cliff which has a shape of a…dolphin’s nose. To get there however, we had to hike for 40 minutes. This number sounded small but the path leading to the nose was not any ordinary path! The whole way was just tree roots and big rocks. My girlfriend changed her shoes, and we then began!

Throughout the way, we met several people coming back and they informed us on how far we were to the destination. We reached the half mark to the destination called the Mountain View and it took our breath away!

We continued through some pine trees and reached our destination! I’m terribly afraid of heights and the cliff was really up high, so much so that even my girlfriend who isn’t afraid of heights got a bit of a scare while heading to the tip of the “Dolphin’s Nose”.

To give you an idea on how high this was, here's another shot in a different POV!

Our driver who we last saw 25 minutes ago just popped out behind us. He completes this hike on the daily since it’s part of his sightseeing tour, and he completed the hike in 15 minutes! The driver mentioned that he knew another spot nearby and we, once again, put our lives in the hands of a man who gave us away to a family of leeches earlier.

Not far away from the dolphin’s nose is a small boulder where you can see another deep drop, and only the locals know the spot! We sat on the boulder and enjoyed some quiet time while chit chatting with the driver and enjoying the fog, the view and some fun echo that happened at the spot.

As we reached back to our vehicle, we realised it was 12 PM. As the hotel was 20 minutes from the town center, we told the driver to end the sightseeing and take us to the hotel. Our hotel was rather small but cozy along with vibrant flora growing in the garden which were thriving due to the cool weather.

We relaxed for the rest of the evening as the temperature dropped and got ready for the adventures lined up on the next day!