Safari at Parambikulam

Safari at Parambikulam is seeing lots of takers with various option available now . First info to anyone planning to Parambikulam is that you dont have entry from Kerala and have to cross topslip which is part of Tamilnadu .
At the tamilnadu check post and kerala.chec post you will have to pay entry fees and vehicle charges.  There are safari vehicles arranged by forest department amd covers various parts of the forest in thwir vehicle .
If you have planned for an overnite stay then then that plan comes along with a safari and many other options. Thos safari for accomodation parties are done post 3.30 and will close by 615 or so. In one type of booking safari will be done by forest vehicle and in some other it will be your private vehicle .

Also when you have booked for accommodation forbeach group one staff from forest dept will be coming along with you  . So do plan for extra seat for the staff in your vehicle . I had to change my initial driving plan in my car due to this :-(

The staff assigned with you play a great role for your safari . Luckily we had a great guy , a real hero and real wild life enthusuastic - Natarajan .

He is having 20 years experience in this forest and had a good field exposure . However he is still not able to get permenant post and waiting eagerly this service year he could get that offer. He had good knowledge on various birds , different type of animals and trees. As much you are interested he is ready to engage . Some simple facts he told about elephants like it needs 200 L of water a day and 300 Kg of food . As per him elephant is an intelligent animal who could detect fresh water presence , understand the stability of soil before it puts a step . The number of muscles the trunk of elephant having and how much task it could do with trunk .
Hats off Natarajan . All the best.

Chola Visit - Chidambaram - Phase 0 - Plan

The idea was to start something which has temple , scenic , history and within 300 KM . All these spots required to satisfy all the members in the group .  Yes house members .. Wife , kids , in laws and myself (driver) With that in mind decided to cover chidambaram for this season .  The whole plan was made into 3 days plan .

Temples -
Chidambaram Nataraja
Sreekazhi - Sathanathar
Karaikkal  - Shaneeswar
Vaitheeswaran Koil - Mars . Vaitheeswaran
Scenic
Pitchavaram  -  Never miss

Historic
Gangai Konda Cholapuram - Cant be missed if you have any element of interest to history .

All these can be covered keeping Chidambaram or Vaitheeswaran koil as base . I did one day at Chidambaram and two days at Vaitheeswaran .

Overall Route Plan

1(Chennai) - 5 (Karaikkal)

I will cover each in subsequent phases on how I went about these . 

Gingee Fort - A weekend visit from Chennai . Part 1

A quick plan to cover some nearby location from Chennai to drive . This thought was there for  some time and finally zeroed into a plan which suits 2 days and one night plan .  This includes a plan to keep Turuvannamalai as the base and to see around . As part of this first spot was Gingee fort . I will cover this in part 1 and as early possible will publish Tiruvannamalai and Sathanur Dam in subsequent publish

Decided to start the journey early in the morning . But however when you are driving there is no hard time like a flight and train and bound to get some delay . So from planned 6 am departure the journey started only by 6.45

Trip meter all set to start 

Tripometer made to 0 and ready for start . To Gingee it is around 140 km and overall Tiruvannamalai around 175km . You can plan overall trip around 3hrs 30 mins plus . Unexpected traffic snarl at tambaram . So many buses piled up and took some decent time away . This was not expected on a Sunday morning . After that again slowed down near the first toll . They started opening up further counter to avoid rush . In that process some of the cars in front of me and behind me were let off free . Thanks for the policeman 😏

It was crossing 8am and kids started hinting on breakfast halt . I told them we should hit at least Chengalpet or Madurantakam to have bfast . That worked and they were silent till crossed Madurantakam . But luckily saw ad of Murugan idly a newly opened restaurant in that belt post madurantakam . My initial list of choices were Manoj Bhavan , Balajee Bhavan and Arya Bhavan . These were usual breakfast stops in that road and for a change tried to taste at the new Murugan idly one . This is 70 km from Guindy . Took one hour 30 mins because of Tambaram delay

This place has been done nicely . Parking is available and rest room are net and clean (might be because it is still new) . It is built away from the main building which gives lot of freshness feel .
Had to wait as there was crowd . Looks lot of people are experimenting the new outlet .

Murugan Idly Hotel at Madurantakam

Then charging with breakfast car took off to Tindivanam from where a right turn(while driving from Chennao) to be taken towards Tiruvannamalai . From that point another 32 kms to Gingee fort and 66 kms to Tiruvannamalai . You will see a sudden increase in people and traffic when reaching around Gingee . It is speacial graded town and you can see some extra shops . After that you can see two signs one is Raja Mahal and Rani Mahal . These are the entrance point for the Gingee fort . Raja on the left side and Rani on the right . if you just want to do a quick trek of 1 hr then get into Rani . I took the left as the there are many places see and 3 hours trek . However finally I had to avoid trek as in the bassement itself it took 2 hours .

Parking took 40 Rs and entry tickets of 25Rs . No tickets for kids . Amazed to see a fort near Chennai and too in a different style apart from Chola and Pallava which we see usually . There are different description about it but really liked the place and the maintenance . Main spots which you should not miss inside are Marraige Hall , Elephant Talk , bamboo trees , Granaries .

Marraige Hall view are below

tower building

Marraige hall stage view from top of the tower

view of granariies from top

Elephant Tank

Banyan Trees .

Good to see a lot of banyan trees which is a rare sight in Chennai . Also we all used its hanging roots and did some swings

Granaries
Huge granaries with different compartments and different holes to see from outside to see levels . There is also provision to go and see

Really enjoyed this place for 2 hours . There were lot of people who were coming back after visiting the top . Kids were not in a mood to do 3 hrs trek (up and down inclusive) . But everyone was giving a good remark on the top view .












With that we returned to the car and I could see lot of barricade work being done to prevent the crowd for Kaanum Pongal . They exppect a huge turn out at this fort during those days . So better to avoid . I would definitely recommend this with kids and family trip .