wayanad

Since 2 yrs I had been planning a trip to wayanad with many groups. But it always flopped somehow or the other. Finally materialized with my IISc gang on sep 17th.

sept 17th : Raghu stayed over at my place the prev night and we woke up at 4:30am to get started with our trip. Gopi was ready at 4:30 itself and started walking from Nagaland circle to mathikere coz he had no other work. By about 5:15 gopi, akshay and poly gathered at my place and we left to soma's place to pick him. The route was Bangalore - mysore - Gundlupet - bandipur - wayanad. We reached Mysore by about 8 and Crossed Blore border by about 11.




We checked into a lodge called Doha and then headed towards Meenumutti falls. Our plan was to cover Meenumutti and sujipara falls on day 1 & Chembara peak and Edakkal caves on day 2.

Meenumutti falls was hard to trek. We had to strain ourselves depending on ropes tied here and there to help us in treking. The trek was tough and the guides irritating words made it tougher. He kept blowing his trumpet that he could trek Meenumutti in 20 mins ! Even towards the end of trek wen I asked him how much more to trek he repled "For me it'll take 5 more mins but for u all it would be 20 mins" We felt like throwing him into the falls. Trek was awesome but the disappointing part was that we werent allowed to get into the water. The ideal time to visit Meenumutti falls is Nov-Dec coz only during this time we are allowed to get into the water.

We finished Meenumutti trek by 3 and then went to some toddy shop to have lunch. We had some toddy also to refresh ourselves ! From our interaction with the localites we realized that Sujipara would be boring after treking Meenumutti so we headed towards Pookot lake. We had to rush coz the closing time was 5. We reached pookot lake by 5 and just wen we reached Boating time was over. We found many school kids here. We wondered whats so special about Pookot Lake !! We couldnt play in the water and there was just boating for which we were late :D

So we clicked few pics here and then headed towards some viewpoint near wayanad border. But our bad luck was so good that the entire area was filled with fog. We could barely see each other so let alone viewing Wayanad from there ..!! :D We clicked a pic there just for records (the background was pure white and the pic looks like a studio pic :P )







By about 8 we returned to our lodge and bought some food parcel on our way. Dinner was sponsored by RD and Soma. We slept by 11 coz we had to wake up early next morning for the trek to Edakkal caves.

Sept 18th : Our plan was to vacate the lodge and head towards Edakkal by 7:30 . But RD had to spend time in the bathroom from 6 to 7 which delayed our plans :D We kept pulling RD's legs throughout the day for this :D By about 8 we left our lodge and reached Edakkal by 8:30. This place looked beautiful and we had a spledid time treking up the caves. There were jeeps available to take us to the caves but we chose to walk the distance. We had a good laugh at Soma's style of treking coz he wasnt comfortable treking. We reached the caves by about 9:30 and spent some time there.

The guide told us about the history of edakkal caves. There were some carving on the walls of the caves which was done by inhabitants 4000yrs ago.We expected some intellectual mindblowing message oriented carvings. But to our surprise inhabitants 4000 yrs ago had carved pictures of a man, elephant and sun :D By about 10:30 we reached the parking lot.

Our next destination was Kuruva Dweep coz we were told that its too late to goto Chembra peak. Chembra peak was a half day trek and we had to leave by 4 so we changed our destination from Chembara to Kuruva. Kuruva was about 40kms from Edakkal. The road was blocked when we were just 3 kms away from Kuruva. So we had to park the car there and walk for 3 kms through some forest. After a long walk we reached the spot. We had to cross the river on a raft after which we had to walk for a km to reach the island.

We played in the water for about half an hr and by about 3 we decided to walk back. It started drizzling while walking back but thankfully the drizzle didnt last long. We reached the car by about 4:30 and started heading back to Bangalore. At about 5:45 we realized that the checkpost at Wayanad border closes by 6. So we had to rush to avoid staying back in wayanad. Poly's drving skills saved the day for us ! While crossing the Bandipur forest we got to see some wild bull too !




We finally reached Blore by midnight. Poly gopi and RD stayed over at my place and left home the next day morning. This sure was a trip to remember considering that I had been waiting for this since 2 yrs ..!! :)

Kodai & Munnar

It was Abiramis wedding in Tamil Nadu (near Karaikudy). Abhith, SK and me decided to attend the wedding and then visit Kodai which is close to Abiramis place. Vipin was also interested in the trip and so we pulled him also along. Abhith, SK and Vipin reached TN 1 day b4 the marriage. I had to come from Kerala and I reached on the day of the wedding. Once the wedding got over we bid good bye to our coll mates who had attended the wedding and started of our journey..!!

September 2008 : We went by bus to Kodai and reached there late in the night. As soon as we reached a Maruthi van came speeding towards us and stopped. They asked us if we need any lodge, we said yes and they opened the door. We got in and they started speeding towards some lodge. It appeared like a kidnap to us and we were staring at each other :D. But we reached the lodge safely and the driver even said that he'l send a guide and jeep for the next morning.

The next morning we had breakfast and then visited Coakers walk. It was cold and we felt the weather was perfect ! After Coakers walk, we went to La Salette Church which was nearly 150yrs old !!! We then went to the pine forest. The speciality of Pine forest is that the alignment of trees look the same from every point. Our next destination was the suicide spot. The spot looks scary and it is sad that there are no safety measures for this place. Anyone is free to jump from here :D. Our guide narrated an incident wherein a couple had jumped from that spot a week before we had been there.

The next spot was Guna Caves. The very entrance to this cave reminded us of Kamal Hassans movie "Guna". We were eagerly waiting to see this cave. Entering inside the cave was prohibitted. But we bribed our guide (Yesuraj Annai) and went inside. The view from Guna caves was mind Blowing. Yesuraj Annai explained to us why this cave is known as Devils Kitchen. (The fog enters the cave from one opening and leaves from another opening due to which it appears from an arial view that someones cooking and hence the name 'Devils Kitchen'. Later it was popular as Guna caves after Kamal shot the movie 'Guna' here ! We clicked pics posing at the spot where 'Kanmani anbodu kadalan' was shot.

We then set out on a trek to Moutain Beauty. The view from here was amazing. Yesuraj Annai was our guide come photographer.He took us to some shooting spots where a song frmo Thenali, Lyril soap ad, a still from the film Ram, etc were shot. Dolphin nose and Echo point were scary.

Yesuraj annai told us that the hero in 'Ram' stood on leg at echo point. We were shocked to know this coz we were scared to stand there on 2 legs itself :D. Trekking came to an end after we visited 2 waterfalls, mountain beauty, Echo point, Dolphin nose and Bear caves.
We returned to our hotel and a good sleep.

Next morning we spent some time in star lake. We went boating and horse riding around the lake. By lunch we started our journey to Munnar. We changed 3 buses and finally reached Munnar by night. It was raining cats and dogs when we reached there. We were lucky enough to get a good lodge. Like in Kodai, we made previous day arrangements for a jeep and a guide.
Next day morning we freshened up and got into our jeep. The guide to us to some photopoint where tourists generally pose for pics. We then visited some dam (I ges its known as Mattupetti).

From there we went to the elephant lake which is besides some jungle.We couldnt spot any Elephant there and couldnt get into the water also.

There was another nearby lake where we found some wild horses. After a small session of photography there, we moved on to Attukkal falls. This was nothing different and remarkable. We spent about an hr here and then decided to goto my hometown 'Perumbavoor'. That was the end of our memorable trip. We didnt find Munnar all that great probably coz we enjoyed Kodai to the core and were quite tired after reaching Munnar.






                                                                   THE END !

Pondicherry

My 1st overnight trip with my coll gang ! This was during our semester break after 7th sem.

*in :- Abhith, Vj, Suda, Bala, SK, Vipin and Tonymon

22nd Jan 2008 : All of us gathered in Majestic to board the Rajahamsa to Pondicherry.We reached pondy on 23rd morning and went searching for some lodges. We finally found one lodge could accommodate all 7 in 1 room. We freshened up as early as possible to kick start our pondy tour :) Our plan was to cover Church, temple,  Pondy beach, Aurobindo Ashram and French colony on day 1. Auroville Beach, Matrimandir, park, Nehru street was the agenda for day 2 !Our mode of transport were Atlas cycles (We rented them).

We first visited some famous church and temple in Pondy. Our next destination was the french colony which we had seen in many movies. There is hell lot of difference between the pondy town and French colony though they lie adjacent to each other. French colony is extremely clean and the roads are all cemented. The entire colony is calm and peaceful. This is very close to the pondy beach. Aurobindo ashram is inside the French colony so visited that too. A very divine place where you couldnt stop yourself from staying quiet !!
We even visited some museum close to the ashram.

We then headed towards the Pondy beach. But getting into the water is prohibited here so we tried looking for a spot where we can get into the water. Vijay spotted some lonely beach and it appeared quite nearby. So we started cycling towards that direction. But no matter how much we cycled the beach still appeared far away. We cycled for nearly 10-15 kms reached the beach that Vijay had spotted. After reaching there we realized that it was Auroville Beach which was our schedule for day 2 :D.. This beach was very clean and we spent some time playing in the water.

 We even burried Abhith in the sand. :D After about an hr we left from there coz we had to get back to pondy by eve. After returning to Pondy we had dinner and roamed around Nehru street. We then went to Pondy beach and sat on those rocks till midnight. It was great fun to sit on those rocks and look at the waves during the night time !

24th Jan : We vacated our rooms and headed towards Matrimandir. The cycling experience was a memorable one. But on our way to Matrimandir we got scammed at some restaurant. We ordered lime juice. They gave us water, lemons and sugar separate and CHARGED RS.20 for this ...!!!

The golden globe was still under construction and we were disappointed to know that we wouldnt be allowed to enter inside coz we had to take permission from the concerned authority one day in advance ! So we roamed around the place for sometime and cycled back to Pondy.

We now had lots of time to kill coz we had to board our bus in the night. So we visited some park in Pondy. We then went to Nehru street and spent the rest of the time shopping. By night we went to Pondy bus stand and reached Blore on 25th morn.








Like they say that you would never forget your 1st Love, I am sure the 7 of us would never forget our 1st overnight trip ! :) 

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PONDICHERRY REVISITED .........

Pondicherry is 1 place where people love to go again and again. Rakesh, Murali, Vikku and me had been to Gokarna earlier which was a bit disappointing coz it was off season when we had been there. We planned to compensate that by going to Pondy. My 2nd visit to Pondy was with Rakri, Vikku, Liddu, Tiju, Manu, Thoma, Balu, Vinod, Ashok and Vineeth.

Tiju, Liddu and me left from Bangalore by bus and reached Pondy the next day morning. All of us gathered at a hotel. Once the entire gang had arrived, we checked in to a lodge to freshen up. By the time we were ready it was almost evening and we left to paradise beech.

Paradise beech : Supposedly this is the best beech in Pondy and we decided to go and find out what makes this special. At the enterance we were asked to take tickets for the boat ride. You have to go by boat for about a km to reach Paradise beech. By the time we got our turn to go it was quite late and hence we couldnt spend time in paradise beech. We just went on a boat ride and returned to the mainland after viewing the beech from a distance !!

Auroville beech : Our next destination was Auroville. We knew that it was too late to go there but we had no other choice since we had nothing else to do. Without wasting any time we reached Auroville by bus and noticed that people were returning from the beech when we reached there. We just had a glimpse of the beech and we also returned from there. We barely spent 15 mins in Auroville beech :P We then returned to our lodge and dozed off.

                                                                                                                       The next day we spent Manu, Liddu and me woke up early and visited a nearby church. After the mass we roamed around the french colony on cycles and returned to our lodge by lunch. Post lunch we had nothing much to do and we all dispersed in different directions. I was off to Nehru street for some shopping. We gathered at the bus stand by eve and left to Blore.

Ramnagaram Hills and Muthathy !

We had planned to visit Muthathy which is on the banks of river Cauvery. One scary part of Muthathy is that there are unpredictable whirlpools and many have died. But we still chose to go there promising ourselves to stay within our safety limits :)

*in :- Abhith, Vj, SK, Suda, Reshma, Kunal, Andy, Appi, Akshaya, Nischita and Tonymon !

25th April 2008 :  All of them gathered at my place by 7 in the morning. We all decided to put on hats for the trip and luckily i had a bunch of hats at home. After some initial set of photography we left from my place once the entire gang had gathered. Our mode of transport was Nish's car and Abhith's car.

We had to go through Kanakapura road to reach Muthathy and it was superb to rip on this road. Vijay had just got his initial driving lessons and took this as a chance to master his driving skills. So Vj and Abhith were the drivers for the day ! :D Our first pit stop was on Kanakapura road where we stopped to take a pic.

 Our next stop was between Sathnur and Muthathy village. There were lot of farms and trees on the way so we stopped to click some pics. Vj and me got into our monkey business. We climbed trees and gave all possible poses :D. Andy and Nish also joined us. Appi was tempted to climb after andy and nish climbed. We helped her climb and all of jumped down and started walking off. Appi started screaming for help coz the little one didnt know how to get down from the tree :D

Abhith, Reshma, SK, Kunal and Suda were in the other car. They were scared to death by some eve teasers when they stopped at some place to click pics. But thankfully nothing happened and Reshma was safeguarded by the Electrical warriors :D

 We finally reached Muthathy by afternoon and all of us were disappointed that there was nothing remarkable here. Akki was busy clicking some pics and abhith rushed into his swim suit. Rest of us were trying to figure out what next ! We then decided to spend some time in the water. All of us except Appi got into the water. Appi was scared of water which was good for us coz we had someone to click pics when we played in water :D Andy nearly drown in knee level water and many of us rushed to save her :D Thanks to some localite who warned us about the safety boundaries in Muthathy !

After playing in the water for sometime we started our return journey. On our way back we felt that the trip wasnt that entertaining. While going through Ramnagaram VJ and me thought of stopping by some hill and trek. So we all looked out for some good hill to trek and finally found one. So we parked our cars in front of the hills and started trekking !

All of us could comfortably climb till one point beyond which it looked risky. But Vj and me felt we could climb further and we great difficult climbed a bit more than the others. We posed for some pics and were celebrating like we conquered some peak :D But this celebration didnt last long coz we were worried on how to get down. Climbing was fine but getting down looked very scary. We finally slided down shouting and screaming :P




Ramnagaram hills saved the show for us without which the trip would have been incomplete ! On our way back we even lost our way but finally reached home by about 10 in the night.

THE END !

Hogenakkal falls

This is one place that would never disappoint you no matter when you go there. Each time you visit this place, you get to see some new spots. I have been here twice and this blog is on my 2nd visit to this "Niagara falls of Karnataka" with my church gang !

*in : - Santhosh, Merrin, Reji, Jaya, Johnson and Me.

26th Jan 2009 : Our mode of transport was Santhosh's Sumo. Its always a pleasant and lively atmosphere when Jaya chechi and Reji are around. We kept cracking jokes and playing some kiddish games like Antakshari on our way to the falls. Since we started off late we reached there by 2:30 which is a bit late. Jaya chechi had a vomiting sensation coz of the travel and this was a matter of concern as this was more than a reason for our trip to flop. But thankfully she was alright in sometime and we went ahead to have lunch at some nearby hotel there. (Note : It is better to make some arrangements for food coz hotels are pathetic there).

The sight of water tempted Johnson and me. We jumped into the water and had a dip. After a few seconds our heads popped out of the water and the scene that we saw drove us out :D (We saw a lady cleaning her kids backyard and this was a few cm's ahead of us :D)

The ride in those round boats (kotta) was superb. They even rotated the boat round and round which scared the gals in r group !

There was a spot where we could stand below the falls. The water pressure was just perfect !!

While playing in the water reji flicked some shampoo packet and started using it ..Johnson also joined him. A few moments later a tamilian gal started shouting "ange paarungoo....avangala namma shampoo eduthittirkk.." This was a but embarrassing for the 2 of them :D

There is another spot wherein kids jump from top of the cliff and collect Rs.10 from those who witness this brave act. This stunt was also shown in the film "Raavan" (Abhishek Bachan / Vikrams dupe jumps of from a cliff at the start of the movie). Its sad to know that kids do such risky stunts for their daily bread.




  Merrin had given her spectacles to Johnson to safeguard. But the it slipped out of Johnsons hands. She had been pleading to Santhoshettan for a new one since 3 yrs and hence this was considered as Gods will :D

After all the masti and fun we returned to Blore late in the night. We had dinner at Millers road and reached home by midnight. Small group small trip and good fun is what I can comment on this trip :)

I would definitely recommend Hogenakkal for a weekend trip ..!! 

Go goa !

A much awaited trip which the 3 mallus (Abhith, VJ and me) had been planning since 2 months !
*ing  : - Vj, Yezdi, Abhith, Pulsar, Tonymon and UNICORN

It all started with a forward on Ratnagiri which I sent. I suggested a trip to Ratnagiri, Abhith suggested to make it a bike trip and hence the plan. Abhith had no issues in getting his bike coz he and his bike were in chennai so his parents wouldnt get to know. Vj had to get Abhiths sis married to take his bike out :D. And I had to keep my bike in office and goto Kerala 2 days before the trip so that I could return to Blore, take my bike and escape without my parents knowing bout this bike trip :D. so 3 of us set out on the best bike trip in r life and our destination was Ratnagiri.

2nd June 2010 : Abhith came from Chennai and Tonymon from Kerala. Abhith and Vj had some documents to be prepared so first got that done and by bout 2pm started our journey.Total distance was 775kms so we targetted to cover 400kms on day 1. Our plan was to stop for a 15 mins break after every 100 kms. Midway vj's bike broke down.Considering VJ's bike's state and the weather conditions we started reconsidering our destination  Our decision maker throughout the trip was a 1 ru coin. To decide between Goa and Ratnagiri, we tossed a coin and Gods decision was Goa !! We continued our journey. By bout 7pm we were just nearing Davengere. It was a bit disappointing that we just covered 250kms on day 1 (that was coz we took long breaks and had lot of photoshoots on the way) !! We haulted at some lodge in Davengere.

3rd June 2010 : We freshened up, vacated the lodge and continued our jouiney. Day 2 was a bit more entertaining coz we deviated from the highway and went through villages. We touched the ghat section by eve. The ride through the Ghat section was amazing. By about 8pm we crossed the Goa border. Our initial plan was to halt in Panjim but Abhith suggested that we stay in some beech resort in Calangute. That was a superb decision. We reached Calangute by about 10 and checked into some beach resort. Off season helped us find a room without difficulty ! We freshened up and went to the beach side shacks to have dinner. Sofa's and dining tables were spread along the beach side which was awesome. We had our dinner watching the waves. The shacks were open til about 2am. We returned to our rooms and dozed off..!

4th June 2010 : Our plan for the day was to cover Agoda fort, Mapusa market and Baga beach. But the 3 of us felt that we werent in the best of our spirits. On our way to Agoda fort there was a small lake. We thought of doing some photography there.

After about an hour of posing we were back to form and went ahead to Agoda fort.  There again we had some posing sessions.For some strange reason this reminded me of Kalapani :D

After Agoda fort we headed towards Mapusa market. We thought of roaming around Goa in Goan ishtyle so went in search of those jhataang shirts which we heard was dam cheap in Mapusa market. In burning sun we roamed around the market not getting what we wanted. And finally we returned to Calangute. After spending some time in Calangute beach, we walked to Baga beach.After returning to Calangute beach we had a funny experience which im sure the 3 of us will never forget lifelong :D

5th June : We started our return journey early in the morning. Though we took 2 days to reach Goa, we just took 1 day to return to Blore. 600kms one day was beyond imagination for us !! By midnight we reached Blore tired and exhausted. We waited at some tea stall till early morning and then returned home by about 6. Flat on bed we slept the whole day !!

Undoubtedly this was the best bike trip ...!! But im sure there is something better to come ;)