Yelagiri is called as a poorman’s Ooty, the reason being everything over here is cheap and affordable at the same time one would be able to enjoy the climate of Ooty. The maximum temperature here is around 29C. And the minimum is 9C. This is what they say. But Since I went in the month of May the temp was nearly 30 C.
We took a cab to this place from jolarpet.The hill has at the max 7-8 hairpin bends only. So it would be appropriate to call it as a hillock than a hill. So from Jolarpet to reach the top, It hardly took half an hour. Once we reached we stayed in a resort. Unlike Ooty , the hill is not polluted. It is OK. Since we reached the place after a long journey, we decided to rest and late in the afternoon, we went for a stroll.we went to Ponganoor lake.
The lake is also neat unlike the Ooty lake. On the next day we decided to trek to swamimalai. The swami malai is inside the yelagiri only. Swami malai is one of the highest peaks among the yelagiri hills. Total height of this was 4300 ft from sea level. The yelagiri town is located at 3500 ft from the sea level. So if you subtract these 2, the Swamimalai is at 1000 ft approx from yelagiri town. The path for trekking was well paved with stones.
Infact the localities informed us that there was a swami temple at the top of the hill. So with a enthusiasm of visiting Lord muruga, we all set to trek.Before starting the trek, we were thinking that swami malai is another tirupathi or Palani. But it was totallly different, unlike tirupati this place was not occupied by Humans.
Infact you cannot see a single human being on the way, except for the trekkers. The trek to the malai was more covered of trees. The swami malai can more appropriately be called as a jungle. We started to trek at 8.30. Almost everyone in our team was new to trekking. So after walking for half hour, we had break, to rest-a-while. We had taken water bottles, biscuits with us. But we didnt have much of water or eatables as our guide told that as it wouldnt be easy to trek faster. So we took the advise.
On the way we could notice, that some parts of the jungle were burnt by forest fire. We saw jack fruit trees all the way.We thought of taking some jack fruits home. But as, we ourselves were struggling to trek forward, that we ruled out this idea.
And our guide informed us that wild bear and boar used to raom in that jungle. But fortunately or unfortunately we didnt see any of them. The paved steps to the hill were very narrow and some were very steep. Some places didnt have any steps to climb also. So at 11 Am we reahed the top of the hill. We were very enthusiastic to have the dharsan of Lord muruga. But to our disappointment we found the temple to be very very small, and there were no idols of Swami Murugan.
So having come all the way to the top, we decided to climb a rock which was near by. This rock was very huge. On the top of it was a Provison to lite a lamp. We were informed by the guide that during the month of festival they used to light the holy lamp. We all climbed the rock using a monkey ladder.
The view of the yelagiri from the top of the hill was marvelllous.We thougt this view was worth the trek.Then we all moved to another Rock, in the same swami malai, where the TV towers were installed.The climb to this rock was scary as the ladders were in a bad condition.After having trekked to swami Malai successfully, we decided to have biscuits and water.We started trekking back at 11.15.We reached the foothills at 12 AM.
Our guide suggested other trekking points also in yelagiri. But as we ourselves were damn tired, we thought of going to those trekking points during our next trip to yelagiri.
So My suggestion is, if you are good in trekking and like to go for a trek then Yelagiri would be the wisest choice. Otherwise there isnt much place of interest to go around for site seeing. May be people who are tortured by the hot climate can opt for this place where the climate is relatively cool as compared to places like hyderabad and chennai. And a small traveller tip is, buy honey from this place. Yelagiri is famous for honey.