The Yelagiri Chronicles

Yelagiri, not many must have heard of this tiny hill station near Vellore.This is not your regular Ooty or Kodaikanal, rather it is a place one would want to go for a calm and serene atmosphere. Want to get away from your hectic work schedule on a weekend? Then this is your best getaway, especially if you are at Bangalore or Chennai.

The same applied for us four guys, Mayank, Vivek, Baskar and of course me. We all were bonded by a common thread, a passion for biking. And Yelagiri was the perfect getaway. So off we set. A very eventful and fun filled journey it was for us. So here goes…

To head to Yelagiri one needs to take the route from Sriperumbudur – Kanchipuram – Arcot – Vellore – Vaniyambadi – Ponneri – Yelagiri. The distance is around 240 km and it takes approximately 4 – 4.5 hours depending on your capacity and stamina when riding. J

We started off from Tidel park at 6 AM (15 min late mainly coz of meJ). Myself on a Pulsar 180, Mayank on his Karizma, Vivek on a Pulsar 150 and Baskar on a Gladiator. It being early in the morning we did not expect any major traffic. But I happened to encounter a very drunk trucker near the Guindy flyover. I managed to scrape through the fast closing gap between him and the road divider with just a twisted rear view mirror and screeching brakes!!! Phew... Such a thing so early in the trip did rattle me a little and I ambled on at just about 50 kmph after that until we reached Sriperumbudur.

(L to R): Myself (Apurva), Baskar and Vivek right at the Tidel Park bus stand, right before the start of our trip.

At Sriperumbudur, we had our first break at the Rajiv Gandhi memorial. Started off with the snaps, took a leak and headed off. Here Mayank and Vivek started to experiment with the throttle and went way ahead. Baskar and I (de-motivated) were going on at 75-80 kmph till our stop for Tea. This was the last we saw of these two guys up until Vellore :-)

At the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial: That’s Mayank in the centre.

Biker Boyzzz… :-)

At Vellore (which is approximately 140 km from Chennai) we met up and came to know that even Mayank has had a close shave with a trucker. The main cause was that he had no rear view mirrors, which prompted him to peek behind time and again thus missing the events in front. Also his 120 kmph speed didn’t help slow down thingsJ. It was Mayank’s time to be down now. We had our breakfast just outside Vellore and headed off (Mayank behind this time). It was the rest of the pack that started testing our bikes’ potential. The stretch between Vellore and Vaniyambadi helped us almost touch our respective (indicated) top speeds.

Close shave: Mayank beside his ZMA

Shady Matter: Tea break near Ponneri, right before the ghat roads.

Upon reaching Vaniyambadi one needs to take a left to head off the amazing Golden Quadrilateral highway and onto the state highway. Another left turn at Ponneri and you are at the ghat section. For us, this was easily the best part of the trip. The ghats consist of 14 hair pin bends and plenty of twisties. Agreed, we were not experts at these roads, so no foot peg scraping, but the thrill was still there. And it was amazing. Mayank and I were ahead here while Baskar and Vivek were a little more cautious. At the end of it we reached Yelagiri by around 12.

The ascent begins: Had a great view of the plains from here.

Don’t mess with us: This snap, taken a couple of hairpins from Yelagiri sure would rank among my favourites.

Here was the time for another disappointment. We had booked a room at Hotel Yelagiri and upon reaching there they acted ignorant. We then headed off for a jungle resort called Le Auroville. Bad luck there too. Finally, a guy (a broker, we later realized) offered us a place nearby. It was a top floor of a bungalow, with the owner’s family staying below. For Rs. 1500 a day it was a fair deal, considering that it was a mansion when compared to Chennai’s packed apartments, complete with TV, beds and even a bath tubJ. The broker, offered to get us cooked dinner home and we paid him for it accordingly, happy to be getting food delivered at home for a modest rate.

There at last: Lunch at Hotel Nigress.

For lunch we headed off to Hotel Nigress. A decent place but the quantity of the food was less. Following this Mayank and Vivek headed off liquor hunting and we headed back home. Post lunch we had an hour’s rest and then went exploring. Had a boat ride and enquired about the trekking options for us. This took a couple of hours and, tired as we were, we decided to call it a day.

Hey! I’m on a boat.

The next disappointment was to come a little later. By night, when our dinner had not tuned up, we decided to investigate and realized that the guy is a cheat and spends all the tourists’ money on drinking. So we got dinner ourselves, this time at a restaurant called Hotel Hills. This was pricey but the food was better than the previous one. But that’s not it. At around 9:45 pm the Mr. Broker comes, without any food, totally drunk, asking us to come with him for dinner (God knows where). We managed to push him off and decided to deal with him later.

Next day, early morning we were off for the trekking trip. A little away from the town there is a YMCA camp. They have some trekking spots on their premises. We got their permission and headed off. A funny thing happened here. A dog started accompanying us from out of nowhere and was there with us all the way, guiding us all the way on our trip atop the hill! The trek itself was steep, even tough at some places, but we made it on top in about 1.5 hrs.

Enough is enough: This was one hell of a rock to climb!

With our trusted ‘Doggy’ guide

Bring ‘em on, baby

Yuva: The super studs

You have a saying, the eyes say it all

3 hrs and plenty of photographs later, we got our lunch at a very small shop (we were running out of money, and there are no ATM’s there), which turned out to be very sumptuous. We also had a trip to the Nature Park nearby, which has flowers, waterfall, aquariums and rocky formations. It also had a musical fountain which we skipped. There was a sign board about paragliding too, but to our disappointment, it was only an expected arrival of some Bangalore guys later in the future.

Brrr… It’s cold out here: Mayank on the chair in demand

Another thing that was in demand. In fact, we surprised the owners with our water consumption

The following night was a night of drinking. All (except me) consumed as many as 14 bottles of beer between themselves, and an uncountable number of cigarettes. It was like a mini party out there. But as we had a plan of starting in the morning the next day we limited our celebrations and crashed for the night by around 11 pm.


The next day we started around 11 am, and luckily caught hold of Mr. Broker. We could only get him to cough up half the amount but still, something is better than nothing. And we did not have time to haggle over the rest of the money and be late so we let it go. On our way downhill, Baskar, who was lagging a little behind, skid on the gravel on the road and had a fall. He got a few bruises but nothing major (from the looks of it at least), so we continued. On reaching Ambur, (where we had plans to have for lunch, the famous Ambur chicken biryani), Baskar was unable to ride the bike any longer. We suspected something serious and sent him to Chennai via the bus, leaving the bike at a friend’s home. The rest of the trip was again fun. Flat out riding as Baskar (the slower one, owing to a lower capacity bike) was gone now, even touching average speeds of 90 kmph. We were back by around 7 and took Baskar to a hospital, where they diagnosed a fracture to his elbow. But that’s a different story…

This was just before Baskar’s crash

Better safe than sorry: In full riding gear despite the sweltering heat.

So apart from a few hiccups, the trip was whole lot of fun. Will surely be ranked among the best of our trips, and definitely the BEST bike trip so far.

Writeups: Apurva

Photos: Vivek, Basker, Apurva

Participants: Mayank, Apurva, Basker, Vivek

Bikes: Pulsar 150cc,Pulsar 180cc, ZMA 220cc & Gladiator 125cc