Sunday, September 05, 2010

Waynad Trip


Highly excited with the last trip, all the people involved wanted to spend more vacation time and they somehow managed to make me work for 1 more week from Bangalore office only so that next weekend we could have plan for some Kerala trip. Earlier we wanted to go Kanya-kumari or Pondicherry or Goa but nothing was seemingly fitting for a 3 day trip. While browsing websites we came across something known as tree-houses and everybody now wanted to take that advantage, and the place where we had spotted those tree house was something named as Waynad, none of us had ever heard about it, while enquiring from several Southy friends we concluded that it is a highly appreciated place and worth to go, and it was also fitting with our schedule and budget at hand. We ditrbuted the task of staying, arranging cab and tour plan among four of us leaving girls to just enjoy without thinking or stressing too much ;) ... so we started on Thursday night after 1 am as the Kerala Govt. Authority keep the Waynad entrance closed for 12 am to 7am because of a forest area of around 20 km stretch. This place was around 350KM away and cab driver told us it will take around 6-7 hours to reach there. we had already booked the resort via phone, as Dhadhoo got the address of some resort named as Green Mount Cottage run by Mr. Martin Lopez and we got it listed from a website www.inasra.com, and later we realized that they also have their own website, anyway for anybody interested, I am pasting all the necessary info below in this post regarding cottage charges and contacts etc.
Banasura Dam;
We booked the Qualis from some Manish cabs near to BTM watertank, they took 500 INR advance and 200 INR driver charges in case of 10 pm later drivings and 9Rs/km, it was an AC Qualis (we actually didn't require AC for much of the time). We actually wanted to hire a Double AC Qualis but later we realized that seemingly Bangalore doesn't require that due to nice weather conditions there. So, we hit the Waynad district in the morning around 8am and the place where we had booked the lodging was Kalpetta. Its a small village with hills all over the sides and lot and lot of green forest and tea gardens. We didn't encounter much of the tea garden while reaching to Kalpetta but while travelling to Soochipada explained shortly. We noticed bunch of small huts here and there ditrbuted in the middle of forest area and nothing surronuding them like some dense population or some market area and wondering about the difficulties of daily life there, not sure how do they manage their daily affairs but from an external world eyes they were looking pretty awesome concept of a way of spending life, where an individual is farmer, farming happily on a small chunk of land, living in small hut completely furnished with all the necessity and having wife and kids, having a nearby school for kids and hospital for anykind of sickness treatment, everybody was feeling like a fairy tale dream to spend such a life there
... so we hit the Green Mount cottage at 9PM morning where Mr. Martin Lopez was waiting for us with a complimentary breakfast of Masala dosa and tea. Tired after a night long journey we get refreshed in around 2 hours or so and had heavy breakfast, that was completely unlimited and after eating too much from our side we felt that the serving basket was still filled :) .... well, it was a nice drizzling there when we started for Banasura Dam that was around 30 KM from that place.

Again on a nice hilly road we started off for this place and it took almost 1 hour to reach there, Banasura dam is a project where they have lot of water one side, and a cloudy green mountain on the other side and a walkable road in between, they also provide motor-boating facility where they roam in the lake for around 30 minutes. After enjoying that place for 2-3 hours we returned back completely tired to our cottage. Had a pamphlet fish filled dinner at a nearby hotel, and that was an awesome dish I swear.

So, next day we started in morning 10 am again after a sumptuous breakfast of idli courtesy to Mr. Martin Lopez for Edakkal caves. Cottage owner was an excellent guide too who told us about how to reach and what to do. Well, Edakkal cave was not a good idea as it was first very high for climbing with most of the climbing unlike trekking was stairs and stones, highly crowded and raining badly on that day and there was nothing very exciting about it atleast inside the cave, although outside there was a place (highly congested and crowded) like a viewpoint from where one can view a beautiful sight, but was not enough to perfectly rationalize a cost-effort scenario. So while retuning back all hungry people visited an aunty's lunch cafe where we witnessed Kerala rice and ate it with sambhar, obviously was not a North Indian taste but was good enough to kill a hungry and tired tummy fire. From there we started to Meenmutty waterfall area, a nearby place but still around 20 km away and took around an hour to reach there .... we liked this place because we got a chance to do a small trekking like experience of 2-3 kms, but the fall was not much impressive, although the path to fall was a bit adventurous as it has lot of algae filled stones in the way. Then, we carried to Soochipara through a lushful greenery of tea mountains and forest, captivating enough to win any heart and Soochipara was again a waterfall kind of experience, but a nice waterfall and the recommended one. Here there was an opportunity to actually drench yourself near the waterfall with very cold water something like I had experienced earlier with Kempty fall near to Mussoorie.

So after it again a day off and dinner full of pamphlet fish, game of card (bluffing was the only game with which everybody was seemingly an expert) and then a tight sleep. next day we had to vacate the cottage, rain had destroyed our plan of camp-firing and high cost had destroyed our plan of tree houses but still we were very happy inside. Next day, we were supposed to vacate the cottage and after a nice discussion with Mr. Martin we left the place and reached to Pookod lake. Highly un-recommended place, never go there, boats were there but of no use, fish museum was also boring thing and then pathetic mirror museum and nothing there, highly furstrating place, so it was a time to say good-bye to Kerala and return back.

Again Bangalore by 11:30 PM night and I flied back to Delhi by 11 am morning and then back to routine life after a fun-filled travel and a lot of sweet memories ....
*PS - Second pic is Banasura Dam, Third pic is Meenmutty Waterfall, Fourth pic is Soochipada waterfall and the last one is Green Mount Cottage. For interested people, below is the address:
The address of the hotel is *Old Market Road, (Opp Post Office),Kalpetta, Wayanad, Wayanad- 673121* Contact Number :-* 04936 -203512, 09446257530* Contact Person :-*Mr.Martin Lopez

ShivSamudram Trip



So, it was all started with a sudden program to Chennai. I was supposed to stay a day there and return back to Noida office back as fast as possible. But taking advantage of the fact that I have a facility to also work from Bangalore, I thought it would be a nice option to say hi to my friends and office colleague at Bangalore and then return back. It took only 6hours and 500 INR to reach Bangalore from Chennai. At Chennai, all you need to do is to reach outside the Chennai central and talk to travel agent shops there for a luxury class sleeping volvo coach and they will book the seat just like we do on railway's irctc website, looked very impressive to me unlike going to Anand Vihar here and finding out which bus is available for a particular location and that too without any official help.


Well, it was a pleasant weather there at Bang, talked to friends there and decided to spend the Saturday part of weekend at Shivsamudram. This place was nearly 120KM away from Bangalore and is famous for a large waterfall there. We hired a Qualis and reached to the location around in 4 hours time duration. South Indian highways are very impressive, smooth (just like Hema Malini's cheeks ;)) and straight (like a snake ;)..), no bumpiness and full of small and midsize hills and lush greenery around that makes one feel very good.

However, last 40 km before reaching Shivsamudram reminded me of Delhi-Aligarh GT road, same bumpiness and cracken road. Have enjoyed near the waterfall, nothing much to eat there, we were there with our own biscuits, dry-cakes and cold-drink. There we found a small restaurant that was serving Rice and Sambhar and that was sufficient enough to kill the small amount of hungriness in all of us. Resorted to mineral water so as to avoid any kind of probable mishappening with stomach.


Two hours were sufficient to spend at that place and then we travelled one and half more hour to a nearby place called Talkad, again road was not very impressive and was severely broken at many places. It was a watery place and was upto our necks, we drencehd ourself with a little ball-play there for an hour, few of us also enjoyed the bowl-boating there and I lost my eye-glasses in the river while trying Shadab's summersault :( ..... and again back to Bangalore with lot of fun of antakshari and sholey and with small brawls in the car didn't realize when we reached back with lot of fresh memories forever.