Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Displays range over bottled snakes, human embryos (!), giant moths, stuffed animal car-
casses and black-and-white photos of solemn priests with huge snakes draped over them.
You can also see some pressed
kurinji
flowers
(Strobilanthes kunthiana)
in case you're
not around for their flowering.
1
Parks & Waterfalls
the British officer after whom it's named, is pretty, and often busy with canoodling
couples as well as tourists.
Several beauty spots around Kodai are very popular with Indian tourists and crowded
with souvenir and snack stalls too. They're best visited by taxi unless you like walking
along busy roads. Taxi drivers offer a tour of eight 'sightseeing places' for ?500 (?600
April to June).
Green Valley View
(6km from downtown),
Pillar Rocks
(7km) and less visited
Moir's Point
(13km), all along the same road west of town, have spectacular views to the
plains far below. To go beyond Moir's Point to pretty, forest-surrounded
Berijam Lake
re-
quires a Forest Department permit. Taxi drivers can organise this, if asked the day before,
and do four-hour 'forest tours' to Berijam, via a couple more lookouts, for ?1600. Access
to the lake is closed on Tuesdays.
The river that empties Kodaikanal Lake tumbles dramatically down
Silver Cascade
, on the
Madurai road 7km from town. Compact
Bear Shola Falls
are in a pocket of forest on the
northwest edge of town.
1
Walking
Assuming it's not cloaked in opaque mist, the views from paved
Coaker's Walk
(admission ?5,
camera ?10; 7am-6.30pm)
are magnificent, all the way down to the plains 2000m below. The
stroll takes all of five minutes.
Kodai's lake is very pretty and the 5km lake circuit is pleasant in the early morning
when you can count the kingfishers before the tourist traffic starts. A walk along Lower
Shola Rd will take you through the Bombay Shola, the nearest surviving patch of
shola
to
downtown Kodai.
Most serious trekking routes in the Kodai area require Forest Department permits
which can only be obtained with considerable time, patience and luck. Contact the
Principal
Chief Conservator of Forests
(
044-24321174; Panagal Maaligai, Anna Salai, Saidapet)
office in Chennai,
