The Ride To Palani

I've been wanting to go to Palani ever since my lab technician went there by jeep to get his head tonsured. It was frankly a suprise to me that Palani was only around 130km from palakkad.. Ideal for bike journey..

So this fine sunday we started early morning as usual, me with my friend Arun Gopi.. Only thing riding with him is that he doesnt drive. Often times i'v to drive all day myself often driving more than 350km.. But he's a best friend..
Our route was from Palakkad to Pollachi.. Thats as usual 45km.. This time we went by Koduvayur, puthunagaram, chitur, menakshipuram to pollachi.. Climate was cool in the early morning and the world was still waking up only. As usual roads are good, traffic less and we taking it easy n slow only reached pollachi in 1hr.. It was 8 and we were hungry yet we decided to press on..
Taking diversion from pollachi, we went on Palani road. Its 75km to Palani from Pollachi.. The road was good but at places it was bad. The traffic was picking up and the Tamil sun was slowly showing its true colours. It was getting too hot.. The whole area was intersped with huge wind mills and the road looked like it was snaking throug a windmill farm.. There was strong gust of wind regularly.. The scenery now quite resembled the typical tamil countryside.
We stopped at had breakfast at wayside hotel. The food was good..
Soon we were on our way. The way was turning hilly and hotter.. Far away we could see a huge mountain rear up its head with a temple on top.. Its another 5km with temple view and then we have to turn right beside a huge water pool to enter Palani town..
Palani town is a small, dusty, congested,typical tamil town... We headed towards the temple entrance.. Before that, i felt like taking a bath as i was dirty from the long journey.. There are many shops which offers toilets and bathrooms at affordable rates of 5 and 10.. Bathroom was a large hall with a large water tank in the middle.. Obviously private cabins are not available. Considering there was no one else we made do with what we had..
It was 12 noon now.There are private parking lots available but We parked our bikes by the road and prayed for the best.. Shoe keeping counters are available and we kept our shoes there and began trudging up the steps of holy temple.. There are 650 steps and view from hill getting better and better as we climb up.. There are many shops on the way up selling toys, sweets, icecream etc. We had icecream to soothe the heat..
Half an hour later, sweating and panting we reached the top of hill.. The top provides and absolutely breathtaking panoramic view of the surrounding areas.. The water pool which we passed by down, shimmered in the sun.. Inspite of it being a sunday, it was not crowded as we expected.. There was a 100rs special darshan token or free token.. The free darshan line seemed to have barely 70 people in it and we decided to stand in it n save money.. But alas.. We were in for a shock.. The line snaked and snaked and it actually turned out to be a very long line. And tamilians true to their character always looking for ways to break line and sneak in somehow.. Anyway after a hour and a half of serpentine line waiting we were led directly into the sanctum sanctorum.. The sanctum was a large hall with a big black image of Lord. Lord's face was beautifully sculpted with rather large ears. I couldnt observe much more as i had to pray. I must say i've had enough time to pray and it was a good Darshan.. We circumambulated the temple and came out feeling very blessed.
Outside we bought the Prasadam and the famed Panchamritam. I bought two bottles one for me and other for back home..
We decided to go down via the haulage wench. It was a small toy train like one at Ooty, only more congested n stuffed. But there was a huge rush for this train and we had to wait more than a hour to climb onto it. We could have easily gone down walking in this time. The haulage wench journey wasnt that much exciting with it being stuffed n all, but it was a novel experience.. Anyway reached down, collected our shoes, and we were out of temple.
We had breakfast at one of the hotels in Palani, then we got on the long ride home. We rode slowly taking in the view, scenery and everything. It was late when we reached palakkad. I had to go till Ambalapara to drop my frnd off n come back.. Thats another 45 + 45 =90km more to endure.. Anyway it was very late when i hit bed.