Toyota River Drive: Kaveri: Final Blog

Finding the source of the Kaveri river, aboard the Toyota Innova Crysta

We’ve had an adventurous tour so far. We witnessed a cyclone, drove the Toyota Innova Innova Crysta through wildlife forests of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and of course through the route of the Kaveri river. And now we concluded our drive by reaching Talakaveri, the source of the river.

Before reaching the source we were greeted by two extremely warm and welcoming gentlemen. Dr Subbaiah and his son Avinash Cariappa are ardent admirers and proud owners of Toyota cars. Dr Subbaiah owns one of the rarest Toyota’s seen in India, the Carina sedan. It’s a 1981 model that Dr. Subbaiah bought in 1988 for Rs 13,000, imported from Muscat, Oman. He says when he first saw the Toyota Carina, it was like love at first sight. He also said the Carina was one of most comfortable cars back in the day and he used it till 2007. It was powered by a 1.6-litre petrol engine that makes 74bhp and is linked to a four speed manual gearbox.

After sipping the delicious homegrown coffee from Dr. Subbaiah’s plantations, we headed to our destination, the Talakaveri temple, which is considered as the source of the Kaveri river. The temple is situated on Bramhgiri Hills, which encompass the Kerala-Karnataka border. It’s quite a sight to watch as clouds cover the temple. The temple houses a symbolic source, with a pool of holy water, and the the Kaveri starts flowing from the same location i. e. the foothills of the Western Ghats. We drank the holy water and indulged into the spiritual feeling while enjoying the nature.

Through our 700km course of the Kaveri, the Innova Crysta has been a great companion. Even during long hours the multimedia system kept us entertained and the comfortable ride quality is commendable. The third row seats too are comfortable for average sized passengers. Moreover, there are plenty of storage spaces: there are bottle holders in all doors pockets and between the middle row seats and dedicated storage space for the third row passengers as well.

Also, the roof mounted ambient lighting makes the MPV feel like a lounge of wheels. Not to mention the 2.8-litre engine packs great punch to propel this 2.5 tonne MPV with ease. And just like the Kaveri, on which millions of people depend, the Toyota Innova Crysta serves as its ideal ambassador as it’s a premium MPV ferrying lakhs of customers to places every single day.