my confused stay in a jungle resort

Vythiri Resort is one of the oldest, most popular, quiet an expensive hideout in Kerala. Got married and 1 year passed, to commemorate the great day my wife and I planned to stay and refresh at Vythiri Resort.

Booked the rooms for a couple of days around the Anniversary. But since I wasnt keeping well, I was deciding to cancel the booking. But the management said I can only postpone it to a later date. And that too its only possible if somebody else takes up my booking and pay the amount. The management made it sound like 99% cancellation not possible. I waited till the day before I was about to drive to Resort from Bangalore. I wrote an email at the end of the day saying I am on my way to the resort, to which the management later said it arrived late and missed it.

Next day early in the morning, we started and reached Kalpetta to call the manager and ask for the right route to the resort. The response from him was shocking. Please dont come we have already sold it to somebody and they are on the way too. We were depressed. This last minute change was unexpected. We had even planned of going back to Bangalore after driving around 7 hrs to this place.
The manager said he can arrange Director's Bungalow for another 3000 INR in addition to 6800 INR I already paid for a day. That was way too high for me to afford being a humble s/w engineer working in Bangalore. Negotiated a bit and got it rediuced a bit.

Arrived at the resort and they took us to the spooky Directors Bungalow in a Jeep. It was isolated and nobody would hear even if we scream from its balcony. The location of it was excellent for solace. But my, paying hard earned bucks for a mere confusion haunted me long. The Directors Bungalow had an elevated bedroom, A drawing room with couches and sofas. They had no TV. The bedroom was super amazing with its long windws opening to the jungle. The sounds of birds and the brook running found peace in me.

There was stairs to the basement which reminded me of Paranormal Activity. The phone lines in the rooms were not working and the mobile phone didnt have any coverage. The boys from the resort came in a Jeep to pick us up for dinner. I complained about the phones because I felt its absolutely necessary for any ghostly experiences in the midle of the night :P

Next day was warm and manager announced he would give a room next to the Dining Room and would be great. We were indeed very happy to get out of the scary mansion and to stay where civiization dwelled.
But this room was absolutely BAD. The easy chair were soiled, beds were moist and the toilets didnt seem very clean. I felt the value of the money spent questioned here. We didnt like it at all.
Food was average with not so great menu.

So we had a very adventurous stay here and soon left with a big hole in the wallet.
People looked at my photos and said it was just great. So 5*s for the location and the rainy climate.
Experience with Giant Malabar Squirrels and monkeys were fun.
My verdict 2.5 out of 5.
thanks

Had been to Yelagiri and just returned today. Our trip was NOT very enjoyable but since it is the attitude that drives your fun, I would say we had fun. I would say Yelagiri is never a destination for 2 day get away. If somebody plan to goto Yelagiri just make it a point that you make a RETURN THE SAME DAY.

The gang included Pulla (Tony), Perez (Rajeesh), Nishu (Nishanth), Biju, Myashu (me, Shyam), Pakkan (Deepak), Mithun (Biju's friend), Samjith and his wife Soumya, Monje (Jaimon) and his wife Manjusha, Nidhi, Raayan (Aneesh Rajan). A pack of 13 in 3 cars. Perez's Suzuki WagonR, Nishu's Honda City and Monje's Suzuki Swift. We started from Pulla's after having a kattan splitting the cars as Couple Car (Monje's), the Neat Car (Nishu's), the Fun Car (Perez'). Obviously the Fun Car carried Pulla, Biju, Mithun, Me sometimes ;), Perez sometimes ;), Aneesh. Me and Perez exchanged cars to drive them. Pulla's driving was so smart that we literally sat with our hearts in hands. Aneesh who was sitting in the front was dumb for hours after this flying experience with Pulla, the driver.

We took the Malur-KGF-Bangarpet-Kuppam. This was the route which I took when we I had been to Yelagiri in Bike with another pack of Funners. The road was little bumpy and dirty sometimes. The Honda drivers drove it very carefully. I understood the Honda has a poor ground clearance.

Plan to Stay at Yelagiri, I would say this would be one major mistake that we made. We started off to Yelagiri because we couldnt get the JLR bookings anywhere as it was Ramzan weekend.

Since we planned to make a 2 day get away from Bangalore, we fixed Yelagiri. Made an initial search on internet to find a decent place to stay since we had girls in the gang. We finally hit upon HOTEL HILLS YELAGIRI. We called them and booked ROYAL SUITEs as they said nothing else is available. They boasted about their rooms, multi-cuisine restaurant as well. Since we are ruled by our tastes we got a little overwhelmed by their comments on the hotel.

When we reached Yelagiri by 1 30 PM in the afternoon and checked in we got shocked to see the condition of the over priced rooms. The Royal Suites were charged 3000/- rs with 4 beds in which 6 people can adjust with their backs to each other. It wasn't wide as they described the beds over Phone. It even didn't have a TV which was working properly. It never tuned into a channel we wanted to watch, finally to save time we had to switch it OFF. The over priced deluxe rooms were never better than a normal double bed room.

We went for lunch to the Hotel to taste the multi cuisine Restt to bless our empty stomachs. But at the end we just got a little more frustrated. Seeing the Menu we could settle only for a South Indian Lunch. As expected the Hotel didn't have any other varieties. Wheh we ordered for 11 meals, they came with 3-4 casseroles with Sambar, Rice and some side dishes. The casserole of rice had rice only for 8 - 9 people. When we asked for more, they argued saying it had rice for 11 people. It was totally a blunder to say that it had rice for 11 people. They were angry when we also argued it is not possible to fit mcuh rice in it. The SERVICE was ATROCIOUS. They gave another plate with extra money. We didnt pay for that though. But in the bill they added service charge, which they said it is part of the tax. The food was very costly and not tasty at all. The bill for 13 people of which 11 people ordered meals was 1200/-.

WE HAD A BAD TIME AT HOTEL HILLS YELAGIRI. I would suggest Yelagiri goers not to stay at HOTEL HILLS. I read a review were you can agree to stay if you are offered a 40-50% discount. Else DONT STAY.

Yelagiri has a Trek, a park, Musical Fountain and a lake. These can be done in a day. I would suggest to reach Yelagiri by 11 AM. From Bangalore through NH7 you can reach Yelagiri in 3-4 hrs. If you are going through Malur-KGF-Bangarpet-Kuppam then it might take 6 hrs. The road is little bad at some places. But our cars including the brand new Honda City sneaked in with little sadness. The experience of drive through this village roads are very cool, traffc less and pleasant. The Kuppam road was amazing.

After the Lunch, all but 4 took a small nap and the 4 Me, Nishu, Biju and Perez went to the TT Table for a hot fuming game. The result was the pair Nishu-Shyam won by 4-0 against Perez-Biju. By 4 30 PM we all proceeded to the close by Lake for Boating. Pedal boating closes by 5 PM but row boats still ply till 6 PM. After boating we walked around the lake and cut time. We had tea near the lake and got back to hotel in anticipation of Volley ball and Camp fire. They gave a volley ball which had a broken bladder. They said they cant fix it at that time. Since everything went bad as unexpected, we went to the Nature Park to watch the Musical Fountain. It was really a bad experience with old Hindi Songs and worst Tamil Songs. The only entertainment was the 'old man dance' who was on high. We returned back to Hotel by 9 PM to start of the Campfire. The things like Park and Musical Fountain are not for funners like us, these places would seem to be a mere place to queue money in. So I think Yelagiri is just a day's destination and if you cant avoid stay stay somewhere.

They said they can arrange Campfire for extra 500 bucks. We had had amazing fun at Ooty with the Campfire. We agreed to it and when it was time for campfire and we asked for music, they said to wait 1/2 hour more and has to pay extra 500/- rs for Music. a 1000 rs for a campfire? We had done Campfire in other place for 500 rs I think it was standard. But anyways campfire expense was saved since it rained at that time. We quickly got fresh and sped for dinner.

We had to fight at the dinner as well. They said we can order a maximum of 30 chapathis only. We were told to take fried rice after that mandatory. This was to move their rice. We got so much irritated by the service and food that we planned we would never ever return to Yelagiri. The dinner costed us 1370/-. Post dinner Funners started of with 28 till 11 30 PM in night.

On Sunday, we started our trek by 9 after breakfast from Hotel Surabi, completed the trek by 12 30 PM.

HOTEL SURABI had better and cheaper food. Lunch was good here, dosas at breakfast was little oily.

i am Shyam Chand k. I am from Kerala, always known to be god's own country. I dont feel the the way its god's own country at times by looking at ruler's actions or sand smuggling from rivers or bandhs n hartals. or is it that i donno how a god's country should be. This is the present day scenario I m quoting. there are places in kerala where if u go its paradise, or kinda heaven. the places are becoming acute touristic n the beauty is reducing day by day. the business has started to grow which also started to grow plastics and other wastes. u shud also keep in mind that Global Warming is also affecting kerala's atmosphere. the temperature is increasing and the summers are getting scorching. winters doesn't seem like winter as the impression of a winter night would be to make u wear atleast a shirt. u'll find it difficult to sleep even with the shirt. its a bit cool in the morning, n i feel the climate GODdish at that time.

the best thing in kerala where u can experience is what u can experience only in kerala and that u experience in mornings. oops what does that mean... i was talking abt the climates, u shud be getting up around 6:30 am, plzzzzz do it. u shudn't be an appartment 'resident evil'. u r supposed to have a small house in a compound, say 8-9 cents of land atleast. a small backyard where u have a lil grass or mud. concretes shud be avoided. if u dont hav 1 go ahead n stay with some of ur frenz who hav it in kerala. getup in the bed, yawn a lil bit, offcourse u can open ur mouth wide n no need to keep fingers in front of it. the fresh air is gonna clean up the atmosphere around u which breezes thru the already open windows. so u don hav the feeling tht u r nauseating others surroundings... get up tie up the 'lungi', u shud be or else u will be like when u were born. a very very important part of a malayalee lies in the lungi. its also told that malayalees loose a lot of time for tying n folding and even fancily waving the ends of the lungi. but thats fascinating, n if u have never done it... i wud copy the NIKE ad here, Just Do It...

take ur brush rub the Vicco or KP namboodiri's toothpaste on to the bristle, straight set out. u feel a lil chilled or a bit cooool when smart winds blow thru ur thighs n naked half body. u r not wearing a shirt here. i also set another requirement here, the compound should have a well. better u hav a cement wall around the well. take a bucket of water from the well, u have all physics laws being used here, n the application of pulleys comes into pic. take the water spray to the face, n then u come out of the coccoon of sleep completely. the water wud be relinquishly sweet too. fold ur lungi push the brush to the mouth n start off. u walk thru the ground in the mud, in the grass, its a gr8 experience. present day malayalees has grown up with the western culture that they hav a motor attached to the bristles n they need to simply keep it in the mouth, also not coming out of the bathroom inside house. i pity them for not enjoying the brisk crisp morning breezes.

u may hear nature's sounds from all types of crows, sparows, parrots, mynahs, cows(they r very important in a malayalee life, as morning is the best time for the cows to be milked), sometimes manmade 'suprabhatam' too. u wud also hear cookers whistling, vapouring, or dosa being prepared from others house. u feel like brush on n on n on n u finally will leave it with ur mouth n teeth weared out... take a towel from inside come again to the 'well bank' take another bucket of chiling water n jus pour it from ur head... i recommend to repeat this action atleast 5-6 times. u also understand that its an excercise for ur bisceps n tummy. u'll be now jumping in the air of cold... believe me ur whole day is fresh after this.

eat hot puttu with kadala/cherupayar or idyappam with stew/thengapaal(coconut milk) or vellappam with stew or soft small small idlees or crisp thin dosas with chutney... aaaahhh... yummy, pls somebody get me any of these things NOW for me... believe me these delicacies are best when are prepared in coconut oil...

the day, that u say, u making ur own day, starts only after this.....
enjoy the kerala mornings, now i feel n also u wud Kerala can be called as Gods own country...
nex time u visit, try to simulate this....

i m shyam chand k. now i m in bangalore, said to be garden city, aaaaah, will talk abt its mornings sometime later....

email me @:
shyamflipflops@gmail.com
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099009 66224
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