Cyclone - Neelam

After Sandy the 'big brother' cyclone lashed NY, Chennai and surrounding area is ready to face the little sister cyclone 'Nilam'.

As per report, Nilam is currently crossing Mahabalipuram from 5.00 PM onwards with gusty wind, the rainfall is less and expected to cross in about 2 hours time.

It has been intermittently raining since yesterday morning at Chennai.

Today, morning we had a bit of sun coming out in morning, however since 2:00 wind speed has increased though its just drizzling.

Had been to terrace of our building at about 6:00 PM and could feel the pressure of the wind, should be in range of 50~70 Kmph. Interesting, to see clouds just moving across in great speed.

Power has been shot down most part of city.

Chennai had received 50% excess rainfall since start of North east monsoon around Oct 20th and as usual the Chennai's infrastructure woes continues due to rains. Further, fortunately rainfall is pretty less while Nilam is crossing.

Lets hope we receive lesser rainfall in the next few days, as we are approaching 'Deepavali', otherwise Chennai would just float.

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Kerala Trip - A travelogue - Part 2

We finalized our journey plan a day ( Part 1 of Travelogue ) before our actual travel. On the day of travel we started around 7:30 AM from Chennai, for travelling about 80 kms to reach Kanchipuram took close to 2 hours due to traffic, once we crossed Kanchipuram the drive was much easy on the toll road. 

Reached Coimbatore around 3:30 PM, a distance of about 530 kms. Took a bye pass at Coimbatore and traveled towards Palghat. The road from about 30 kms to Coimbatore and another 50 kms towards Palghat was not good and there was heavy truck traffic as well. Just about 8 kms before Palghat there is a diversion to Mallapuzha, once we got into that road and after a km drive, the road was good and we could see lush green sense the fresh air around, reached Mallapuzha around 5:30 PM. 

Evening time view from top of the dam was nice. 

As it was getting dark called out to Tripenta and checked availability. This is one of two possible accommodations at Mallapuzha, checked in the hotel around 7.00 PM. I must say, the hotel was in middle of lush green with mountain around.

Next day morning, we started our drive from Malapuzha around 8:30 AM, the plan was to reach Athirappilly Water Falls (127 Kms from Malapuzha). I was aware till Thirusur, it would be normal road (though called as National highway), however to our surprise the roads were really bad with poth holes, hence 70 Kms journey took more than 2 hours. However the road from Thrissur to Athirappilli falls of about 70 Kms was good, and reached Athirapalli falls around 1.00 PM. 

 More than words, photos could speak much better about Athirampalli and Vachhal falls. After spending few hours started our drive towards Ernakulam and reached pjprincess a resort, which was quite away from busy city centre. Had a pleasant overnight stay at this resort. 

The following morning picked up my daughter from their school vacation tour ( which was their last day, before their return to Chennai) and drove towards, Munnar. The road and drive towards Munnar was much better, in fact the Ghat road was pretty less in Cochin - Munnar direction. Reached Munnar in the afternoon, checked out few resorts, based on my already shortlisted research on tripadvisor and finally chose Elysium resort Elysium resort is not far away from Munnar town, yet you would not miss the view of greenery and the mountains.

Following day went around Munnar and witnessed some of the mesmerizing beauty of nature, the next day left Munnar and drove towards Madurai. This was a ghat road and even captured some picture while driving on the ghat road. Reached Madurai in noon and spent about a day there and proceeded to Chennai the following day.  

In all, would have driven around 1700 KM in about 5 days. 

Finally ending with my own quote

    " It was a treat to watch the vastness and bounty of nature which was so soothing to mind, for one who is, confined to city life most part of the year, where almost every inch is man-made and short lived with arrogance of 'me' associated with it."
 

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Kerala Trip - A travelogue - Part 1

For a week vacation in September this year, had initially planned to visit Munnar, Kerala.

 In fact, decided to drive to Munnar from Chennai, the initial plan was to pick up my daughter from Munnar as they had planned a school trip to Ernakulam and Munnar at same time. However, just before two days of planned trip, got information from School that they would be skipping Munnar and return to Chennai directly from Ernakulam. This created dilemma in our mind, whether to skip my vacation plan, the other option was to drive down to Ernakulam and pick my daughter for the planned trip to Munnar.

Drive to Ernakulam?... its around 700 KM from Chennai, how are the roads?. How long it take to drive?, do we need to take a break, these were the question in my mind and had just 2 days to plan, if opting to drive to Ernakulam. Not much information, I could get from friends and hence turned to Internet. At first I wanted to check the NHAI roads as these are toll express ways and driving on them is much easier. I hit upon the map on NHAI web site. Chennai to Ernakulam did not have complete cover through expressway (NHAI), if its not NHAI road, it could be taxing and hence planned to take a break.

The interesting point is NHAI map provides details about Expressways (toll roads) across India.

Had two options,

Option 1: Drive to Madurai (Express way - NHAI) and then to Ernakulam. Driving from Madurai to Cochin, one has to use the Ghat road to reach Munnar and then drive down to Ernakulam and back Munnar. Driving 4 times on Ghat road could be quite taxing for an amateur driver like me.  

Option 2: Drive to Coimbatore, Palghat, Trishur, Ernakulam all through plain and then up the mountains to Munnar, then Madurai and back to Chennai. Slightly longish route. Most of the roads are express ways when compared to option 1. Hence choose this option.

With a day to go, the next one was to check for places where we could take a break along with accommodation. Based on the NHAI maps, understood that express ways (toll road) ends few kilometers from Coimbatore and further Coimbatore is about 500Kms from Chennai. Hence decided to stay overnight at place near Coimbatore. However, preferred a place away from city and hence the option was Palghat. Further narrowed down to Mallapuzha (Palghat). The other location for our accommodation just fell in place, which were Cochin, Munnar and Madurai.

Will continue soon on this travelogue....particularly with pictures on mesmerizing beauty of nature and the drive through Mulapuzha (Palghat), Athirapalli & Vazhachal falls(cochin) and Munnar.

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