Travelling

The annual road trip for the year ending 2025, was a 17-day itinerary covering 5 states , driving through various cities having a mix of temples, beaches, historical places, shopping, eating , nature walks and much more. The total trip from Pune to pune was ~4400kms(4388 calculated precisely).  Individual day blogs have been published already. This one is the merged version of all the days along with some more information. I've also included hyperlinks for each day as this blog in it's entirety could be very lengthy to read.  Day 1 Pune - Srisailam   We had packed and loaded most of our bags on the previous day itself. We targetted to start by 2 am. By God's grace and cooperation from the kids we could start by 1:34am.  We had to cover ~ 800kms and hence this midnight travel was much needed to skip the traffic.  The roads were very smooth making the drive pleasurable and convenient. We covered around 450kms before taking a stop for breakfast at arou...

Day 17 Kolhapur - Pune Today is the final day of this road trip. The journey would start from Kolhapur and complete at our home in Pune with a de-tour towards Tapola road as we are already into the strawberry season and kids want to pick strawberries and have the famous strawberry cream. We had our breakfast at the hotel itself. He served one dish per person. All the dishes were freshly prepared and good in taste. We checked out from GaneshRatna Executive and started towards Tapola road at 8:50am. We had been to Tapola last year and had picked strawberries at various farms. The best one from that trip was the target for today. The map showed 190kms.  We reached Rahul strawberry garden on Tapola road at 1pm.  The same farm from last year. He had sweet charlie as well which was over last year when we visited. That's actually a very sweet and tender species.  We picked the strawberries directly from the ...

Day 16 Mysore - Kolhapur  The mahalaxmi maa in Kolhapur is the wife of sri Venkateshwara swamy in Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh. It is said, a visit to Venkateswara Swamy is only considered complete when you pay a visit to their wife Mahalaxmi maa in Kolhapur.  We checked out from The Paradise hotel in Mysore at 5:20am and started towards Kolhapur. The intent was to reach out accommodation in Kolhapur and seek blessings at the temple early next day. At 5:20am , Google estimated a travel of 695km to be covered in around 12 hours time. Three journey was smooth, with some bumpy rides near kolhapur. We took breaks in between for breakfast, lunch, re-fuelling and finally reached our hotel in Kolhapur by 5:30pm. While checking in, we enquired about the rush in the temple and the best time to have a quick darshan. The receptionist recommended going right away to avoid longer queues. We went to our rooms, showered and got ready to leave for the darshan by 6:15pm The te...

Day 15 Mysore Outing Let's explore Mysore city again after 17 years. The first destination on the list was Chamundeshwari temple located on the Chamundi Hills. Google says darshan opens at 7:30am. When we reached the multi level parking at 7:35am, the parking was full and there were long queues already. We took a special darshan ticket for ₹50 and entered the queue at 8:15am. It took us 3 hours to reach the main sanctum sanctorum. We did have a nice darshan , however the guards there don't allow the devotees to stop there for even a moment. After the darshan, we had sugarcane juice from the stalls outside the temple, put on our shoes and walked back to the parking. We were able to exit the parking by 12 noon.  We then planned to have a tour of the Mysore Palace. We reached the palace's parking and got in the queue to purchase the entry tickets. You will need to remove your footwear before entering the actual palace premises.  The architecture, painti...

Day 14 Ooty - Mysuru Our next destination was Mysuru. We checked out from our hotel at Ooty at  and started our onward journey towards Mysuru.  It was a 3.5 hours drive, but due to a traffic diversion, it got converted to 4.5 hours. We crossed 2 tiger reserves in the way - Mudumalai Tiger reserve (Tamil Nadu) & Bandipur Tiger reserve (Karnataka). As we entered Mudumalai Tiger reserve, a quote read - "Deers aren't crossing the road; the road is crossing the forest." We saw deers, swamp deers,weag h  peacocks, elephants, monkeys in both the tiger reserves.  It was an experience to spot some of the wildlife very close to our car. In around 5.5 hours we were at the Mysore zoo. Also known as Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens. They have a designated parking lot which is around 10-min walk from the zoo entrance. We purchased the entry tickets from the ticket counter. We had been planning to take a tour on the golf cart. On enquirin...

Day 13 Coonoor sightseeing  We woke up to a foggy dewy morning. While still getting ready, a yellow sun rose to shine bright. We had our breakfast and started towards Coonoor. This is a city around 20 kms away from Ooty. Ketti valley view point was 5km away.  It is the world's second largest valley offering stunning panoramic views of nature. They charge an entry fee and have a telescope installed. We were able to see St. Michael's Church which is said to be 150 years old, with the help of the telescope. This church was filmed in famous Bollywood movie Saajan. A railway track is also visible from this point where the song "Chhaiyya chhaiya" was shot. The view was breath-taking with greenery and beautiful landscapes all around.  At 9:25am, we started towards Madras Regiment Coonoor(MRC) in Wellington. Tourists are allowed to take a tour inside their campus in our own vehicles. They also have a museum which displays their arms & a...

Day 12 Ooty sightseeing  The day began with stopping the usual weekday alarm and catching up on some more sleep. We got ready and put in the required stuff including winter wear in the car before going to the in-house restaurant for breakfast. The filter coffee was delicious compared to tea.  Ooty had been witnessing maddening crowd for the past few days. We had planned accordingly. We started for Doddabetta peak by 8:30am and reached there by 9am. The actual parking area was already full, so we parked our car in another temporary parking area. We entered the queue at the ticket counter, purchased the tickets and proceeded inside. The views all around were absolutely stunning.  We went up to the view tower, absorbed the beauty of the nature, strolled around and clicked pictures. We went back to the parking around 9:50am , however the parking was jam packed which took us around 30 mins to get it streamlined and hence start our journey to...