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Call it co-incidence or destiny, it took exactly 5 years to revisit Ooty since my last visit on 26 & 27th Dec 2003, when I was working in ABT Industries Coimbatore. But this time the visit was quite romantic - my honeymoon trip. No matter how much Ooty is exposed or commercialised, there lies an iner romantic beauty which attracts people towards it in hoardes. Why Ooty in December, especially this was the coldest winter in past 50 years? Once can enjoy Ooty's natural beauty with lesser crowd during the second season till mid January. Once I decided that Ooty is the place for my honey moon trip, I booked the tickets online via IRCTC and hotel bookings via Make My Trip. These plans made this trip quite breezier and relaxed to enjoy. But more than being a honeymoon trip, I enjoyed Ooty at its sizzling best. Welcome to my travelogue on Ooty this December.

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The reasons that made me love Kerala are as follows - 1. Backwaters & Kayals, 2. Lush Greenery, 3. Beautiful girls, 4. Malayalee's sense of pride about their state, community and assertiveness. I have experienced the last three aspects of Kerala but kept missing the foremost reason for a while. Atlast with the long weekend (Oct 2nd) around the corner, I decided to take a plunge to Alappuzha / Kuttanad - the rice bowl of Kerala. Fortunately for me I had my Alappuzha native friend Girish to help me in exploring their town. So I got my tickets booked long back in June courtesy IRCTC (http://www.irctc.co.in). The D Day arrived, boarded the Chennai-Alleppey Express on Oct 1st... I was clearly excited that I was going to interiors of Kerala. The trip didn't turn out much I expected but it was a welcome change. Against my plan of staying at hotel, I had a nice stay at Girish's house for 3 days. Had a nice / long boat travel in the 'Kaayal' of Kuttanad to Kottayam. Some of the photos are here.

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Yesterday I, Madhu (my niece) and Manikandan (nephew) went to Kiliyur falls in Yercaud to make the dull and otherwise boring weekend to make it interesting. We started early around 7.00 am by Kinetic scooter. Since I and Madhu are loners & we knew that Kiliyur falls will be bombarded with Salem guys along with beer bottles, we decided to make Kiliyur falls as our first destination. Reached there by 8.00 a.m, there was a considerable amount of scantily cladded male tourists, so to make Madhu feel comfortable, I took her and Manikandan to a remote corner where it was a nice waterfall and also deserted. Also Madhu is coming there for the first time, so she had a couple of slips on the steep path. Since we didn't plan to take a bath, we just came with camera alone. We kept chatting and teasing Manikandan. All went well till I started taking photographs.

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Yercaud - normally known as poor man's "Ooty" but I find this epithet insulting. Even though Yercaud resembles like a miniature Ooty, it has its own charm. I was in Salem for 4 years during my Engg College days, yet I had visited that place only twice. After 11 years, I visited Yercaud last Sunday. Technically this is my third trip, but literally my first trip. Once I went with my cousin's colleague trip, once with Mohanasundaram summing up two trips. Since Mohan, who was found as LM & LMS in by blogs, was my object of obsession in my Engg College days, the idea of sharing his pavilion for a long drive gave me a kick rather than visiting Yercaud at that time. Unfortunately within 2-3 months after that trip the frictions surfaced and subsequently I chose to break off after an year and half, Yercaud remained as bitter sweet memory that I didn't feel like visiting anymore. But there can never be a best healer than time. After 7 years I met LMS on this February, also I had marked the year 2008 for extensive travelling and by this time the inhibitions had waned that I desperately wanted to enjoy the natural beauty of Yercaud.

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I had been to Rameswaram thrice earlier but all the times, the visit was restricted to the temple alone. Typically we start at the Chennai - Rameswaram express, land there in the early morning, visit the temple and start back by 8:30 to Karaikudi where my sister was studying. I couldn't explore much about Rameswaram. So this time I decided that I must visit alone and find out various places there & booked the ticket via www.irctc.co.in. Atlast it co-incided with the Trivandrum visit so I rescheduled the travel from Nagercoil to Rameswaran via Madurai. Later I was told that instead of Madurai I could have chosen Karaikudi as linking point. I started from Nagercoil by 8:30 p.m Coimbatore - Nagercoil Passenger and reached Madurai by 1:30 a.m and caught up with Chennai - Rameshwaran train there by 2:30 a.m. By the time I reached Rameswaram by 6:00 a.m, I had a very sound sleep.

{mosimage}It all germinated spontaneously during a Google chat with vaithy when he was in Abu Dhabi, all gearing up for an annual vacation... just a line in Google Chat that read like this - 'Mahesh, Kutralam Polama?'. I lapped p the suggestion instantly and booked the train tickets via IRCTC website (http://www.irctc.co.in). My South Tamil Nadu friends suggested me to book ticket to Thenkasi which is nearer to Kutralam. Fortunately all the tickets to Thenkasi Express were sold out for that day. Did I mis-spell as 'Fortunately'? No, I mean it. So I booked tickets upto Thirunelveli. You can find it in the further paragraphs. The 'D-day' was nearing. The rains started lashing out Chennai and Pondicherry. Everybody started ridiculing me for undertaking a trip at this time. I stood firm in my decision of travelling down south this time, no matter how severe the rain is.

{mosimage}This Eid we had a special trip.You guys know that I love travelling and photography. And I also had a complaint that there are not much of places to move around in UAE.

Recently in a weekly magazine I came across a travel guide and had it safely with me. When we had this Eid holidays for three days, I suggested this place called "Khor Kalba" to my friend Thiru. As usual I, Balaji, Prakash and Thirumalai, all ganged for a trip. I knew that it will be a nice trip but it turned out to be a memorable trip and showed an intresting face of UAE.

If I was posed this question whether I have seen any most beautiful places on the earth some 1-2 years ago, then I would have said a big "NO". If the same question was posed to me this day I will say I had been to one of the most beautiful places in the earth - Thirumurthy hills.Thirumurthy Hills is located at 20 kms from the Udumalpet Highways and about 80 kms from Coimbatore. This is a least exposed beautiful place that too only to the Malayalam film industry (No Malayalam film is complete without shooting a song sequence here, e.g Friends (Friends in tamil), Aniyathipravu (Kadhalukku Mariyadhai), Meesha Madhavan & the list is endless, Sangamam, Janakiraman & Kizhakkuvasal a few to name in Tamil .