on that mid - summer afteroon, kodai was as cold as a very wintry day at hyderabad.that was how it struck us.tolerable during day, and definitely freezing at nights.
after inspecting the cottage gleefully, kids running all over the place,and some freshening up,we went into the town....ofcource the first thing we did was to head for a restaurant. curiously even after binging on all those fruits and chaats, we seemed to be quite hungry.
then we took a boat ride in the kodai lake.(meaning,all others except myself,i preffered to stay back on the shore and watch).it was said to be a man made one, and was really a treat,....i would try to give you a link or two to some excellent photographs of these places. only they can do justice to what words can not describe.
when they returned, everybody seemed to be in high spirits and we shopped around some more...trinkets, tea shirts, shells, and all useless things...it is a virus...the shopping bug..and photos.everybody took photos of everybody ,in twos ,in threes,in groups....
next we visited bryant gardens. they were just adjascent to the lake and very beautiful. some more photography followed...as the kids went to town snapping at everything with their cameras and cells. sadly none of us had any knowledge of botany to appreciate the floral wealth of kodai(infact,we realised this quite early)we wished we had.the gardens had a variety of orchids and also to my layman"observation, had quite a good collection of cactii.

from there, we went to the coaker"s walk.. it was a narrow strip of walk, hewn out of the rock ,on a side of a small summit,looking down a steep valley,and also commanding a comprehensive view of the nearby hills , valleys, roads,...after the lake, it struck me as the best scenic spot. the walk itself was ofcource,quite safe, but also slightly precarious enough to whet our appetites for adventure,...at least for kids and women like me...we had a panoramic view ,from the telescopes arranged there,of the rolling hills, the serpentine roads and the distant PERIAKULAM town and it"s lake.

next, britto took us to suicide point and a view of pillar rock.these two places were so full of milling crowds, we wondered how anybody could attemt suicide there. the only chance of a mishap seemed to be with some enterprising young men, who thought it a bright idea to experiment walking about on those steep and rough rocks.then we went to another site called upper valley view,from where we could look on an enchanting scenery of kodai lake and woods .
we surely enjoyed visiting kodai, but in the end we could not miss noticing few points....
one was.....we selected a wrong day for it. saturdays and sundays, coupled with summer rush were making kodai burst at the seams and it was plainly showing. the chaos at restaraunts and markets were quite irksome.
secondly, it was a small town with nescessarily narrow roads, being a hilly region,....so the traffic jams were a nuisance.we encountered two such jams and it took no less than full one hour to come out of it both times.
thirdly a cottage is good only if you took a cook or provisions with you ,else, one has to go long distances even for a cup of coffee.but not withstanding all these,we had a whale of a time.
we returned to the cottage at about 4.30 or 5 and relaxed ,sitting together,resting our weary legs,chatting and watching, through the french windows , as the evening fell with thousand lovely hues,over the upper valley point and one by one feeble lights started to shed tiny glows.

http://www.mykodaitrip.blogspot.com/

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/India/South/Tamil_Nadu/Kodaikanal/photo471662.htm

http://prabssouthtrip.tripod.com/