The drive from Salem is of optimum duration - long enough for you to savour the first stirrings of mountain air and short enough for you to stop short of oaths to forswear food for the rest of your life. Of course, as you have determined to steer clear of anything pertaining to brewed beans, you are advised to drive up the Ghats with eyes firmly uplifted and fixed on the beauty of the silver oaks.
The Shevaroys? Coffee, coffee and more coffee. Ho-hum! Yawn! Are you one of those whose cup of tea [oops!] is not coffee? Then, read on.

In well under an hour, you are in Yercaud, cruising along the `BIG Lake' - do remember that adjectives of dimension always take the comparative degree. Even if boats for hire are few and far between and the fountain in the center is temperamental during working hours, Big Lake is picturesque enough - which cannot be said about the park across the road.

If the first test of a truly great man is his humility, then you can say that Yercaud is a truly great town. It encompasses all of two sides of a single road. But, of course, there's definitely more to Yercaud than that!

Overlooking for the moment the Oxford Dictionary's definition of a lake as `a LARGE body of water entirely surrounded by land,' take a walk around `Small Lake'. This will bring you right up to the hallowed portals of Montfort, which occupies pride of place on the tourist map, with its appealing architecture and landscaped environs - marble cascades, statuettes, et al. You will find visitors [in well-regimented groups, of course!] going `ooh, aah,' over the campus in appropriately hushed tones, as the disciplined Montfortians firmly ignore all comers.

Sacred Heart Convent being famously `publicity SHY,' you may have to content yourself with an over-the-wall peek as its' equally handsome buildings.

Colonial era churches, convents and educational institutions apart, you can walk up to `Lady's Seat' - so called because a lady of yore is supposed to have fallen to her death on the rocks below. A broken heart or sewing-induced vertigo? Nobody knows! To maintain the equilibrium between the sexes, a recent entry on the `places of interest' list reads `Gent's Seat.' As an avowed feminist, I am yet to visit the spot.

`Pagoda Point' is pointedly barren - except for mysterious pyramidal mounds of stone. What do they signify? Nobody knows!

There's 'Killiyoor Waterfall,' which, strictly speaking, is a trickling stream that sometimes condescends to take a modest leap of a few feet over some rocks.

A more private locale is `Ram's Bungalow,' with its' orchids and serene gardens. A ramble [or, more likely, a tumble!] down takes you to `Aeroplane Stream.'An aeroplane is supposed to have landed there. When? How? Nobody knows!

A longer jaunt gets you to `Bear's Cave' - a bona fide cave this time, complete with boulders, bats and eerie echoes. A secret passage, which served as an escape route for kings of ages past, is supposed to lead to the plains. Where? You guessed it - nobody knows!

The Shevaroyan Temple occupies a very atypical mountain peak; flat as a tableland. Here, one does know for a fact that a small aeroplane from Bangalore did a test landing in the seventies - not a very successful one.

Humour apart, Yercaud does retain its' own understated charm, with its' shaded walks, roses and silkworms, orchards of guavas, pears and oranges, hillsides strewn with blackberries, monkey fruit and passion fruit, periodically blooming 'kurinji' blossoms and small-world seclusion. Oh! And I hope you realize that we haven't mentioned the word `coffee' even once!