Unni (the typical mallu name and our auto wala :)) was at our room at 7AM sharp. He had come with one of his friends called Suji. He works for some plantation in Munnar. We went to a hotel known to unni and had our breakfast…I tasted the famous and default breakfast…aapam with green peas masala..that was a good start for the day… 🙂 Unni had promised to take us to places which normal tourists don’t go. And also we never thought we would do a trip in auto..So we were really kicked about it…First we reached a place which is the downstream of Adhirampalli falls from where the river bifurcates…It was kinda off season and so we could see a lot of hard rocks and with the help of the auto guys we spent close to 2 hours exploring under the hot sun…
In fact no one was around us and we four were exploring as much we could with the given amount of time.
From there, we went up crossing Adhirampalli to reach a dam. This dam is the source for Adhirampalli and we thought we could check out the source itself. As I said earlier, it was off season and hence there was less water at the dam too. We met couple of people there too who are of Adivasis origin. With their help we intruded in to places where normal tourists are not allowed… 🙂 We also managed a small ride in simple bamboo boat. I was damn scared as the boat just had two bamboo sticks running over the length and say 8 smaller ones across the width. You just got to sit in on the cross bamboo sticks and balance. I couldn’t balance properly and was way too scared, a moment of truth for me to realize that I am overweight and can’t balance my own weight.
Rukku being slim and slightly underweight balanced properly and had a good ride:)
It was almost 1.30 types and we decided to get back to Adhirampalli. We had lunch at one of the hotels there which had a direct view of the falls and we were quite excited to get there. We quickly had some parathas and went to the top of the falls. Unni and Suji had completely explored these places I believe. We stopped at many places on the way and explored little bit. We finally reached the top of the falls and our plan was to cross the falls and reach the other side and get deep in to the forest. Since it was off season and water flow was reasonable Unni suggested that it shouldn’t be a big deal. Me and Suji took one route while Unni and Rukku was on another track to cross the breadth of the falls. But after an hour so we decided not to proceed as it was dangerous even with not-so-much-of-water. And given my track record with water bodies, here too I slipped couple of times and had to get the help of these guys. So we came back to the left side of the falls and started to descend. Before that we tried to reach the edge of the falls but then the government had promptly put a security guard there… 🙂 It was a beautiful view from there. What appeared to be a slow off season water suddenly split in to three and was falling at high speed. Well, that’s nature…it can defy any laws… 🙂 We were thinking how much water would be there during peak season.
And now we understood why security guards were placed, especially after the Punnagai Mannan movie…In fact for people coming from TamilNadu even the tourist guides address it as “Punnagai Mannan Falls”… 🙂
From here there are two ways to reach down. One being a proper cemented steps which many of the tourists took. The other one is the steep-no-proper-steps route. I don’t have to tell you which route we took… 🙂 Even this route finally merges in to the proper route and we were standing at the bottom of the falls. Rukku was freaking out to bath in the falls. I strictly told no to him as it was dangerous and I know how notorious he can get…But still he was firm on getting wet. Luckily they had put barricades and security guys were whistling not allowing people to get near to the falls. We clicked couple of pics there and then decided to go to the top and take bath. We took the same not-so-famous route and oh man me and Rukku were panting like anything. I never had any stamina, Rukku had some which is also gone owing to number of fags he has on one day…Unni & Co were climbing happily and we were waiting to reach the top and sit down.
The sprite 1L bottle got over when we finally reached the top…We relaxed for some time and walked to a place where we could take bath. I said no to get wet and I was taking care of the belongings while others got in to the water… I was watching some local kids (Four girls and lucky one guy:)) who should be studying class 11 or 12 walking across the falls fearless. They were bare foot and were so used to the falls that they were talking and having fun and didn’t do any calculation on where to keep the next foot…Realized what I missed as I grow up…the fun part of doing anything and not to complicate simple things… There were these Sabharimala saamis who make it to this falls every time they visit Sabharimala…I guess this is their return route to TamilNadu…
It was around 5.30 types in the evening and it is time they close down the falls for visitors. In fact there were whistles from security guys signaling people to leave the falls. We too decided to get out and started our return journey. We went past one security guy who was getting in to a small bamboo house with one small stove and kettle…Yup, chaya for the whole night…I am sure its a long night for him daily…We started our return journey and we reached Chalakudy around 7.30 types. We told Unni that we had planned to visit Alapaey and Kottayam the next day and had asked him if he can arrange for some tickets for Chennai. He said it’s no big deal and said he can get it for sure. We had little hopes since we had tried to book online throughout our journey at different places and tried even tatkal booking. So we thought he is probably being over optimistic and let’s see what he can do…Unni said he would come next morning too to pick us up to the bus stand where he can get us in to a bus for Alapaey…We paid him say around 650Rs or something and we were happy that we spent less than what would have probably cost us more if we had taken a cab or something…And the best part of having seen places that we wouldn’t have if we had gone by ourselves or through some travels…
With that note we were happy that the trip had gone really well given the fact that we wanted it to be adhoc and weren’t sure of places we were visiting too…
Raghu's Ramblings 