A Road trip to Sathyamangalam

Trip members: Karthik and family

Trip date:  25 Oct- 27 Oct 2024

Trip Plan : Chennai - Gobi - Sathyamangalam - Hasanur - Germalam - Gobi - Chennai

Route - Tambaram - Athur - Sangagiri - Gobi - Bannari - Dimbum - Germalam - Dhondenling - Hasanur - Gobi - Thiruvannamalai - Tindivanam - Tambaram

This was a 3-day tour with quite bit of road time - 1000+ kms; primarily to explore the ghat roads in Sathyamangalam area.

Day-1

Friday morning, by 5:45 AM we started from Chennai and cruised through the highway towards Gobichettipalayam. The plan was reach Gobi mid-day; check-in, visit Kodiveri and few local popular temples. We stopped for breakfast at Vikravandi A2B around 7:45.

Overall, the route through Athur, Salem bypass and then through Chithode to Gobi was a smooth ride all through. We took a tea break near Sangagiri at Hotel Amutha Surabi - they had so many varieties of snacks and sweets that you cannot find in other places.

Reaching Gobi

I had booked rooms at Hotel Emaraald House - one of the best stays in Gobi, which also hosts a veg restaurant - Amutha Surabhi, truly a great place to have food. The rooms were not available online, I called the hotel and booked the rooms. The rooms were very spacious, super clean and truly a class apart for approx. 3k each.

We had our lunch at the restaurant, meals, mushroom biryani and mixed rices. All were fantastic - we took some rest after lunch.

Kodiveri

Around 3 PM, we started to Kodiveri. Kodiveri is 16 kms from Gobichettipalayam. Kodiveri masonry dam across river Bhavani make small waterfalls through inundated waters. When it is in full flow, it is very beautiful to see; however not allowed to take bath. When the water is less, people are allowed to take bath.

While we went, the Bavanisagar dam was closed and hence, less water in the falls - we could take bath! We spent around 45 mins in the water - it was very slippery and had to exercise lot of caution. We could see lot of people slipping and hurting. The place has change rooms for ladies, but they are very unclean - very poorly maintained by the local body!

We reached back our rooms to dry the wet clothes and change over for the evening. The seasonal rains started big in the evening.

Murugan Temples

Kongu region celebrated Lord Murugan all around. There are several very popular Murugan Temples in the region - Pachaimalai, Pavalamalai, Chennimalai, Sivanmalai, Kaithaimalai and much more! We planned to visit couple of them which are in Gobichettipalayam - Pachaimalai and Pavalamalai. 

Pavalamalai Murugan Temple

Lord Murugan blesses devotees atop the Pavalamalai hill as Muthukumaraswamy. The temple can be reached by climbing 60 steps or the hill road can take you all the way to the temple. The temple is located within Gobichettipalayam. The temple legend is that Maharishi Durvasa was looking for a place for performing pooja for Lord Shiva and located here - he was able to perform his pooja's with full focus after he had dharshan of Lord Murugan. 

The temple has sanctums for Lord Muthukumaraswamy, Shiva in the form of Kailasanathar and those of Lord Ganesha, Goddess Periya Nayaki and few more. We reached the temple in massive rains and managed to reach the shed close to the temple to get down and have dharshan. The temple timings are 6 AM – 1 PM and 4 PM – 8 PM.

Pariyur Kondathu Kaliamman Temple

Next, we visited the very famous Kaliamman Temple at Pariyur - 3 kms ride from Pavalamalai Temple. The region was ruled by the famous king Vel Paari and hence the place is name after him. The Goddess looks very beautiful and blesses the devotees relieving from all the illness and evils. The temple has lot of parking space and well maintained.

Pachaimalai Murugan Temple

Pachaimalai Murugan Temple is a small hillock in Gobi, the temple reachable through 180 steps or by road all the way to the temple. Lord Murugan is on the form of Dhandayuthapani holding a dhandam. In ancient times, the hill was suppose to be Emerald and thus got the name - Pachai Malai. The temple timings are 6 AM – 1 PM and 4:30 PM – 8:30 PM.

Post great dharshans at each of the temples, we reached back our hotel by 7:30 PM. He had dinner at Hotel Amuthasurabhi - some special local flavours whatever were special for the day and each of them were truly delicious.

Day-2

The plan was to start after breakfast and drive through the Sathyamangalam reserve forest ghats route - Dhimbam hairpin ends, visit Dhondenling monastery covering all the forest route through Germalam and then return towards Hasanur and stay overnight. Sathyamangalam town is 24 kms from Gobi and take around 35-40 mins. 

Bannari Amman Temple

We checked out and started from Hotel Emeraald by 8:15 AM and the first stop was Bannari Mariamman Temple, after crossing Sathyamangalam. This temple is right in the end of the roads before climbing the ghats section before the check posts. The temple hosts Goddess Shakthi in the form of Mariamman and is of immense popularity and significance locally. The temple is open from 6 AM to 12:00 PM and 4 PM to 9 PM. 

After a very peaceful dharshan of the Goddess, we started our climb towards Dhimbam - crossing the Bannari checkpost. The check post allows heavy vehicular movements from 6 AM to 6 PM; and LCVs from 6 AM to 9 PM. The non passenger vehicles have a toll to pay; whereas cars can get a zero toll ticket and move on.

Safari at Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve

When we planned for the trip, the aspiration was to do safaris here. With some research and information gathering, we understood there are no safaris in this tiger reserve. Later when I met few locals and forest guard, they told that the animal density is too high and hence safaris are forbidden in this reserve forest. So, the options to site wild life is while you go the ghat sections, by chance, sighting. We are not allowed to stop anywhere in between - most importantly, the roads are narrow and is difficult to park anywhere by the sides of the roads - almost impossible.

Knowing about the area

There are few small villages in the overall ghat sections in Sathyamangalam zone and couple of them have few resorts to stay. Well known villages in this area are Dhimbam, Hasanur, Talamalai,  Mavallam and Germalam. All these villages are inside the forest zone - meaning within the checkposts. Once you clear the Bannari checkpost, and one wants stay in any of these villages, we will not get out the other side. 

From Bannari - one has to drive through challenging hair pin bends - 27 of them. The challenge is not just the steep hairpin bends but the heavy drivers on the trucks who enjoy their daily rides and make it challenging for non-regular drivers on the segment.

The first village after completing all the 27 hair pin bends is Dhimbam - a tiny village. There are 2 directions from  Dhimbam that takes one to Karnataka - one towards Chamaraj Nagar and the other to Kollegal.

Route towards Kollegal

The villages of Talamalai, Mavallam (a diversion on this route) and Germalam followed by the Tibetan Settlement at Dhondenling are on the route to Kollegal - a very narrow road but, well laid through the thick forests. We took this route first after climbing to visit the Dzogchen Monastery at Dhondenling and also try our luck to sight any wildlife.

Route towards Chamarajnagar

The village of Hasanur, followed by the Hasanur checkpost, is the only established village on this route and enter Karnataka - through their check post. This segment of around 15 kms is the most attractive and highly sighted wildlife segment in the zone.

Drive to Dhondenling

The 41 kms from the Dhimbam diversion towards the Tibetan settlement by very scenic through thick forests, often no sunlight passing in, great curves and hardly sighted 4-5 vehicles all through the route. In an hour time we reached Dhondenling and with some local guidance reached the monastery.

Dzogchen Monastery

The monastery is around 1.5 kms from the main road (if you want to call it so), through pucca roads. The place is totally hidden from the main stream and it is learnt that the settlement lives here from 1974 by the foothills of BR hills. We spent 10-15 mins at the Dzogchen Monastery, walked around to see the scenic surroundings and could sight several other stupas all around - a truly native village of Tibet.

It was round 12 noon and we were hungry. We stopped by a cafe which we saw while we went to the monastery - orders some hot momos and noodles with hot chai. All were decently good and no restrooms around. We started back our journey towards Hasanur - we had our rooms booked here!

The return journey was quite slow as well to attempt sighting anything, but ended futile; though we enjoyed the route.

As we reached Hasanur, we spotted of couple of small hotels - serving veg food with eggs. We bought couple of packets of rice varieties and reached our resort - home stay like place - Nature Touch Resort. This has 4 spacious clean rooms - each of them can cater to 4 people. We had taken 2 rooms for comfort. The rooms were truly clean, running hot water and sufficient chairs. We had the food that we bought and some snacks that we carried with us and relaxed for some time.

The care taker advised to go all the way down to the Karnataka border and return around 6 PM with a chance to see any wildlife.

Drive to Karnataka Checkpost

We started around 5 PM, had some tea and snacks at the Hasanur bus stop and drove slowly. We started sighted lot of spotted deer and few wild boars on the road. That was exciting to start and with sunset happening and chillness setting in, a very serene feel!

We drove slowly for around 13 kms, and reached the Karnataka border. The place was sort of crowded with villages coming in and further drive may not yield any sighting. We made a U-turn and drove much cautiously - trying to spot. Hurray - a Sambhar deer and few bisons that crossed (ran) over the road. Well, not bad for the evening drive. We reached back the resort by 6:30 PM. Alas - no elephants or big cats.

By 7:30 PM, we again drove to a small hotel that we saw in the noon for dinner and had dosas. Hotel Bhama - it was, definitely serving quite good food. The afternoon food was also quite food - by quality and quantity. A very silent night and we went to bed!

Day-3

The plan was simple - check out and drive back to Chennai by 5 PM. We know it is going to be a long drive from Hasanur to Chennai and planned to start around 6 AM; aware of the checkpost timings. We started by 6:10 and could see the first set of trucks and containers coming from Karnataka driving towards Bannari. The cold morning drive by the sunrise was so pleasant and adventurous driving alongside massive trucks in the hairpin bends!

We reached Gobi around 7:45 and went the same restaurant Amuthasurabhi for breakfast - no way one can miss this and have anywhere else. Post breakfast started the drive to Chennai. 

Enroute we were accompanied by 100s of buses and vans, going towards Vikravandi for the high intense moment in Tamilnadu politics - star actor Vijay was hosting his first manadu at Vikravaandi. Though we were well ahead of the time, still the massive highway traffic ensured we had to take a detour and avoid the main route - we took our detour towards Thiruvannamalai from Thiyagadurgam and then reached Tindivanam - a detour of 50 kms / 1 hour more.

Having explored the STR by road and knowing there is no safari out there, returned home with memories of the curvy forest roads, steep hairpin bends and great food!