Ranjith’s Castle

We planned to leave Erode around 2 pm in the afternoon. In the morning after getting up around 10 am, we planned to go to railway station and collect some money from the ATM for the day expense. We really were in a dilemma,  whether to take the car or walk. It is good that we  decided to take the car. When I drove from the main bazar road to the next road, We heard a big sound from the car which I thought was the one from a Eicher Truck moving before us.

All of us sudden the brake pedal became very hard and power steering needed more power from me to drive. I managed to stop the vehicle in a small road nearer to the main road. I called Rakeeb and he came in. This is the problem we are facing for the second time. We thought the power steering pulley has gone for a toss. I managed to collect the pulley shown in the picture.

We  searched for the Tata Authorised service center around the town. We got a couple of ones there. We went to the Jayalakshmi Autos. We also informed the problem to my Service Adviser at Chennai who helped us a  lot in getting things done on the Same Day. The Service Adviser of TELCO Mr Vikram came into our help. Due to Christmas, most of the show rooms around Erode were on a holiday. The Telco adviser made arrangements to provide us with the Idler pulley bracket within a couple of hours and promised us to deliver the vehicle within the day. The guy at Jayalakshmi Auto coordinated well with us and extended his extreme help and delivered the vehicle at 7 pm as he promised at 2 pm. The vehicle was serviced very well. He taught us that you can get the details of the dealers across the country from the vehicle manual. Also the manual is required for an authorized Service center to take a vehicle for service.

I am extremely surprised by the number of SMS I got from Mr.Vikram and a final one at 7 pm to alarm me that my vehicle is ready. I greatly appreciated his care for Customers.

Great Job Guys and Mr.Vikram.

Whenever you drive,  please make sure you keep your car manual in your car..

Cheers - Ranjith

On Sunday, we planned to move to TopSlip and Parambikulum. We started around 8 am and we planned to move through Coimbatore - Pollachi route which seems more promising than the other one. Turbo started misbehaving with the headlight continuously glowing due to a short chircuit problem on our way to coimbatore. We tried to remove some of the fuses which does not give much positive results.

        The best way to handle such a situation is to remove the plug that connects to the headlights.

We did this when we reached Coimbatore after checking some of the local workshops in Avinashi and Arasur TATA Service center. We reached TopSlip around 12 noon after having breakfast at Pollachi.

We told the officer there to block some of the tickets for around 4:30 pm and went to parambikulam dam. That was a wonderful place with a cool climate. We took some good snaps and returned. I really hate the number  of times people stop us at the check post to collect some toll. We paid some fee at two places inside the Kerela region itself. They can make it as one. Also they have a strict procedure that we need to carry a guide with us to make sure that we don’t stop vehicle at unnecessary points. The guide was a good guy and moving good with us. We met some of our friends at the Parambikulum dam who were on a Trek there.

Next comes the biggest headache when we returned to TopSlip. We were not given a ride and the officer completely forgot our blocking. We managed to get a ride at 5:30 pm. In between we saw a Cheetah striking a deer. I didn’t witness it perfectly. But saw the bouncing of the ferocious animal. On our way back we saw a rhino and a wild Elephant.

It was a nice place. I am planning to make a stay at TopSlip on my next visit. You can surely witness more animals when you put a stay at night. Parambikulum does have some cottages and watch points. There is a wonderful Honeymoon cottage too on the bank of the catchment area of the dam.

What I really hate about these places are the way the officials handle people and the charges they levy on us. For example, at each check post they will not return the remaining balance. They will ask for some money without an account. Also the best part comes when the official calculated the charges for our vehicle ride. I am  sure I cannot explain the methodology here as he followed different means for different rides to maximize his revenue. He also tries to explain it to the common people. Visitors know his calculation is wrong. But cannot resist that to loose the next ride.

We pinned our headlight plug at 7 pm and drove down the hill and managed to reach Erode by 9:55 pm.

Do visit TopSlip with a night stay…!

Check out the photos @ Ranjith Kumars’ Picasaweb

Cheers - Ranjith