Top things to do at Kodaikanal

Warning- This article is a satire; Be prepared to get offended! Before I ramble on the “Top things to do in Kodaikanal”, let me crib about the schools and kids.

Travelling with kids leave you with no option but to visit any place in the peak tourist season of summer, winter, Dussera breaks and any long weekend.

It gives you plenty of opportunities to swarm an already swarming place, travel in a fully loaded train and eat in the noisy restaurants. Of course, it also burns a hole in your pocket. But the best achievement is the red splashes in your child’s notebooks for not completing the diligently given ‘holiday homework’.

To enjoy all the above listed perks, we decided to visit Kodaikanal, a very famous and hence touristy hill station of Tamilnadu, in the peak season of April.

A file of cars and minibuses and buses moved into the tiny Kodaikanal, completely making everyone believe that we are still in our own city roads, only the setting been changed from houses to mountains.

I cursed others for they poke their noses in every little town worth its salt. I am different. Period.

For those of us who are uninitiated, let me define things very clearly in the beginning.

1. Every hill station has to have a lake to claim the tag of ‘Hill station.’ Its hills barren, its climate warmer is accepted but not the absence of lake. For what will the tourists do, if not boating in the lake?
2. The second thing a hill station must have is ‘view-points’, to which I will guide you after we are done and dead with lake.

First thing to do in Kodaikanal- Drown in a Lake

Because we too were tourists, we headed out to Kodaikanal lake in the evening. We reached the lake in no time by taking a short cut on foot.

The Sights!

Well, we did not get a glimpse of lake because we landed in a sea of homo-sapiens. With difficulty, we collected our wits that we were ‘at lake’. We tried to position ourselves to have a look at lake.

Ok, we did get a look at the lake through all sorts of ‘We the people.’ It was not as packed as Delhi Metro where your olfactory glands decide if the nearest person to you is a male or female.

The Sounds

A melange of voices reminded us of ‘Unity in Diversity.’ Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali, all frequently sprinkled with many English words, filled the air.

Hindi stood on  its own ground for many tongues. No matter what was the point of chatter, be it deciding about food, clothes, or jingle-tingle things, everyone was in everyone’s earshot.

Boating Brilliance

The only way to enjoy the lake at any hill station is to go boating in lake in fancy boats.

Half of the people were moored at the lake because all the boats were in the lake. Everyone wanted to enjoy the sunset in the lake surrounded by many other boats.

Fine.  There are other ways to enjoy the lake!

Now this whole bazaar, lined at part of a very irregular Amoeba shaped lake was providing a perfect background to enjoy the lake. If not for these vendors, there would be nothing left to ‘own’.

Here the earth dared us that we can not own even an inch of it and yet it was there, presenting itself as lake, trees, sunset and mountains, for everyone of us to take pleasure.

But as we all do not know how to ‘not own’ things and be happy, at every such place which offers a wider panorama for us to dwell in, we set up a bazaar to ‘own’ and feel that happiness which we assumed now to come from the serene lake and its richer surrounding.

So a bazaar is essential to enjoy this lake or any lake.

I could taste the Kodai chocolates offered by every third shop, and even if the taste was not great, I could move on to something to buy.

There was this Cute bamboo crafted Ganeshji  to own. And there were handbags and clutches in every shape and size and color, to match with the wardrobe of womenfolks of every shape and size buying these.

And far too many were the shops selling warm wear, for the Kodai so hot in daytime did a somersault by the force of cold winds, bringing fog everywhere to finally claim what was its own and quell the crowd of tourists to their respective dens to eat, drink and sleep.

Fill it more with Bazar!

Those who could not find a place to put a shop at the designated place like fruit-seller, and other local varieties of raw mango, pineapple, occupied the opposite side of the road.

Tourists swarmed the whole place. And they were enjoying the lake. How ? They were haggling, eating, drinking in various degrees of confusion and chaos.

This was not enough to call it jam-packed so there were taxis plying on the lake periphery. People reached the lake in taxis and returned to their hotels in taxis.

As per the customs of the land, all of us want taxis to reach to us wherever we are standing.

Then there were cycle renting vendors and cycle riders. Nobody was able to ride bicycle in such a fair mode at lake and all were walking with bicycles.

This bazar was perfect to set a novella in its great Indian setting- glittering colors of charm, cacophony of the tongues, smell of humanity mingling with smell of food to create that particular Indian smell in air. Everyone rubbed shoulders with each and everyone. And all of us were fit to be elevated to protagonists or antagonist or support or sub thread.

Finding the Lake

As we snailed through this part of lake and reached where the bazaar ended, suddenly all senses went dumb. That road was still encircling the lake, only that there were not many people.

Lake was also there, completely at our service, if we could be masters of ourselves. 

Not many cross this end of bazaar and venture into solitude of lake. The tourists are responsible and caring tourists, for if everyone choose solitude what will happen to the vendors! And where will the solitude reside then?

Unfortunately, we were not a responsible and caring tourist. We walked along whole of the lake and walked in futile.

There were big trees canopying the road with muted rustling of sounds, old British bungalows with neat windows tempting us to peep in.

Ripples on the lake water  threw its charms over us. The road leading to the upper reaches of Kodai was devoid of hotels and lodges.

With every turn in the road, lake charmed us by showing and hiding its many a changing faces. The sun charmed us by showering golden color on lake, even casting a deep shadow of long when ripples stop but it was not enough. There was no Bazaar!

View points, the second most essential thing to do at Kodaikanal or any hill station!

Make sure to book your taxi well in advance because you might not get any when we all are there.

Why ? Because taxi is a must. After all, these view points are so far as a kilometer or two from the town. Some trickle down fall, a few kilometers away also required a taxi, only condition being the fall should be accessible from the main road.

Ok, maximum fifty steps away from the road.

Much ado about Hiking

For those fifty steps, we all young people adorned the Nike walking shoes, Trekking pants from Adidas, a backpack from Wildcraft, sunglasses from a good Italian brand. That much was surely needed for a fifty steps hike.

Viewing the view points

What are we doing as a country? We must strive to have these view points shifted to fair grounds to accommodate us. Does the tourism ministry know not that there was not enough space for everyone to have a view.

Those who had found some space  were busy taking selfies to view that ‘view’ at home.

And there was not enough time to wait for other people to leave. This was so unfair. We had paid for the taxi and hotel and we must get to as many ‘view points’ as possible to make it value for money.

This gross negligence towards we the tourist not ended there. All the view points looked same more or less.

The same sky, same valleys, same mountain ranges, same trickling fall and just the same vendors everywhere. At least vendors could put some novelty.

Where are those amazing views of Kodaikanal?

After coming back from a day-full of taking in so many views, we asked ourselves – ” where are those amazing views of Kodaikanal  that we see on internet? Despite paying so much money to taxivala, we are yet to see those.”

Here they were: a little away from the tar road, in and around Kodaikanal, if we would like to spend some easily earned calories.

Read about short treks in Kodaikanal here.

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