Aiyur Forest

If you are looking for a short road trip with good roads and no real expectation of the destination then Aiyur forest is well suited for you. My brother and his friends were planning such a bike trip and as in the recent past, I tagged along on my Unicorn (the bike, in case it was not clear). Aiyur forest is situated around 80kms from Silk Board off the Hosur road in Tamil Nadu.

We were 6 people on 3 bikes and left from Silkboard at around 5:30am. The roads were empty so we didn’t take the EC flyover. There are two ways to reach Aiyur forest. The first one is via Attibele and the other route is taking the deviation from Hosur. We took the Hosur Highway.

At around 6:30am we stopped after the Hosur deviation to give rest to our bums and also enjoy the sunrise a bit.

We stopped at Sri Sarvana Bhavan in Denkanikottai for breakfast. They serve breakfast on Banana Leaves. Tasted two of the best chutneys I ever had. The idli-vada was really good too. The only disappointment was the coffee. They gave us instant coffee instead of filter coffee!

We reached the entry to Aiyur forest by 8am. We thoughts it is like Nagarhole where you need to do an entry and stuff but I don’t think that was required. But we stopped anyways and the went to the forest department office. They initially told us that they cannot let us through and asked us to explore the Eco Tourism Centre that was under construction by the Tamil Nadu forest department. They explained to us how they have rooms and camping sites for visitors and that they would provide safari and rides to the watch towers inside the forest. The eco tourism center when completed would really be a good place to spend an evening in peace :)

We were then asked to fill out our name and address and they took a fee of Rs 30/- per person (with receipt) to let us pass through. We were asked not to enter the forests on foot anywhere on the route. We stopped by a small lake for some pics.

There is a watch tower 2.5kms off the road which gives you a view of the forest. However the road to the tower is still under construction. We however thought it would be a good idea to go off road :) The roads were just jelly stones and we had a tough time to not skid and fall. One of the bikes actually skid on the downward slope but no one was hurt.

It was almost 10am when we got done with the watch tower and the sun was being brutal now. So we decided to head back to Bangalore. The Rs 20/- coconut water was a relief. This time we decided to take the Attibele route but now while writing this blog I realized we took the wrong route which was actually around 15kms longer than the actual Attibele route :P

This route was awesome too until we crossed the Karnataka Border where we started getting traffic. We avoided the EC road traffic by taking the flyover. Thus ended yet another bike trip of 2017 :) 

TN tourism didnt pay me for this but I thought I should appreciate the effort they are putting into the eco centre. You can stay there in tents or huts and the prices start from Rs 200/- per room with the most expensive room costing Rs 900/-. You can reach out to Mr Thangamini who is the Eco-Tourism officer at +919047832156 / dfohosur@gmail.com.

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