Well, we were in the last day of our trip (with no return tickets yet:)) and took a early morning bus to Thrissur to attend a friend’s marriage. We reached Thrissur at around 9.30, had breakfast and asked for the marriage hall. None of the auto walas knew where the hall is and I was not able to reach my friend too. Initially my friend had told me that any one in Thrissur town would know where that hall is. I could immediately recollect one of Singara velan’s dialog. Kamal would ask “Ennaya mano veedu unakku theriyadha. Chinna kozhandhaya kaetta kooda theriyum nnu sonnar”. Autowala replies “Naan enna chinna kozhandhaya?”. Anyways, after roaming around for 20 minutes we finally got an autowala and we were in the hall when it was just opened by the contractors who were arranging things for the marriage. The bride, groom, relatives…mmhmm…no sign of them yet and it was like 11.30 when finally they came. I didn’t know that mallus keep their marriage timing this late. Back in TamilNadu it is before 10 O clock at any cost.

We spent like 45 more minutes, wished the couple, took a pic too:) We got the next available bus and came back to Chalakudy. Rukku wanted to shop those mallu set sarees and so we took Unni along with us and we got like some 10 such sarees. Rukku had a long list of women to whom he had to present. I just had my sister:) From there we went straight to Unni’s house and met his family, gave one of those set sarees to his wife as our token of appreciation. We then sat in a near by shed owned by Unni. We had, say, one hour chat with Unni and his friends. Unni as promised gave a ticket to us. We were surprised that he could get us a ticket. At the same time, there was a catch. The ticket was booked in some other person’s name and we would be traveling in their name. The ticked didn’t have Souther Railway printed in it. It had some local jewellers name printed instead. Unni said I have travel on “Dixon” name and Rukku has to travel on “Nirmal” name. We got their approximate age details too. We were initially skeptical about the whole thing as this is completely illegal and railways can punish us for this. But then we decided to take a risk as we didn’t have any other option; all buses to Chennai too were booked.

The train was at 6.45 and we packed up our things and met Unni at the bus stand at 5 O clock types. In fact we have to board the train only at Thrissur, so we have to travel again to Thrissur and that would take solid 50 minutes at least. So we bid adieu to Unni, gave him some more money for the help he extended. In fact we took his contact number too so that we could keep in touch; the kind of help he extended during this trip to some strangers is really immense. We wouldn’t have done so many things in those last 3 days if we had said a big no to the autowala who approached us when we landed in Chalakudy. With that, we got out of Chalakudy with loads of memories and reached Thrissur well before the train time. We checked the PNR status and got to know the seat number and coach number. The ticket didn’t have that info too, some alpha-numeric code was scribbled in that. By this time, me and Rukku had rehearsed the answers we might have to give to the ticket inspector if we get caught. We like rehearsed some 3-4 times before we got in to our coach. The train is actually coming from Trivandram and it already had so many people boarded.

There was this mallu guy who recently got transferred to Chennai and is shifting his family there. He occupied rest of the seats in our bay and we started talking. After some time he asked our name and Rukku promptly replied “Nirmal”. He then looked at me and I was like “uh”…Wat the heck, I forgot the name I am supposed to travel in and I was doing a look up of my Christian name index. Jacob, Jackson, Philip, James….nope I am not able to get it. That guy was still looking at me and I said “I’m sorry”. He then said “I asked your name”. And I am like, yeah, well, yes it is Raghu and turned on to my left to get a stare from Rukku. We continued the chat for some more time after which we excused ourselves for some fresher. Rukku was firing me and till then I hadn’t recollected the name. He was asking me if I couldn’t look at my palm to know the name….it was written in Capital Times New Roman font 14… “Dixon”. We then hoped that the ticket inspector would come after this guy had gone for sleep. And we were talking about all possible consequences this could led us into if the inspector finds out or this guy protests. Even if both of them didn’t have a problem, how would I react when this guy over looks me when I say to the inspector that my name is “Dixon” . We even thought if “Dixon Raghu” or “Raghu Dixon” would make sense… 🙂

Finally we decided to face the situation as it unfolds and had our dinner peacefully. By this time this mallu guy was preparing his kid and wife to sleep and ticket inspector had come to our compartment. We were again preparing ourselves to all possible questions from the inspector. The ticket didn’t have southern railways, no coach number or seat number mentioned there, we are traveling on some other’s name and we have one person to testify that my name is not Dixon…The inspector got our ticket, he marked something in his sheet, scribbled something in our ticket and went to next bay. Ufff, that was it, that just was it…We had a hi-5 and it was like…hey mallu..cmon..talk me…talk to the hand… 🙂 We had a small conversation with him where he was saying how people get tickets somehow from Chalakudy. Like there would be some broker who would block all tickets at Chalakudy and would then sell it for a premium in black market. Everything unfolded in front of us as to what Unni had actually done and why the inspector didn’t ask anything. We thought what we did was wrong but consoled ourselves seeing two people lying in the floor in our bay. Yes, the unreserved guys have come in to our compartment and the inspector didn’t even bother to question them…This is India Inc…

With that note we went to sleep with loads of memories. What started off as an adhoc trip with no idea on what places to visit, with just two of us, we have traveled many places with just public transport. We had used different modes of transport, got to know about these places and most of it the experience you get when you interact with the local people. Amongst all these what stands on top is that we made many friends in this trip. We learned so much from them. Like how the cab driver from Pollachi to Top slip drives more than 48hrs continuously with just a 4 hour break to support a small family. Still he had so much values attached with him and customer service was on top when he took us for the trip. The guide at Parambikulam couldn’t send his kids to school because the school fees is 480Rs annually and he cannot afford that; the tourism department gives him 50Rs per visitor he takes along. The autowala who took care of everything from taking us to Adhirampalli to arranging a ticket back to Chennai, he got us introduced to all his friends and family and we were talking like childhood friends…

There is so much in the world out there…You just gotta step out of your home.

When we planned for the trip, my mallu friend told me that if we get time it is worth visiting Alapey and taking the backwater ride to kottayam in a boat. So Alapey was in our list and Kerala is famous for backwaters. The penultimate day of the trip started off with a bus ride to Alapey. We met Unni at the Chalakudy bus stand and he got us in to a Palakad bus which goes to Alapey. That was some solid 2.5hrs of travel from Chalakudy to Alapey and it was around 11.30 types when we reached there. We just got down somewhere in the town and just walked down the streets looking for some information. We hit a tourism office where we came to know that the ferry boat to Kottayam had left and the next one is around 1.30. The tourism guys were also giving some gyan sessions to couple of foreigners…Sure they made some good money that day.

The town had lots of foreigners and also people from different parts of India. Alapey is famous for the oil massages and that is one of the main attractions there. There are these government ferries available at cheaper rates which is a main mode of transport for localities there. Also there are private boats that you get which starts at some 500. You can hire these for your family and have a good ride in the backwaters. Yeah you know which one we took…The government ferry is pretty decent enough and when we reached the ferry station the ferry was almost full. We decided to do a foot-board in the ferry… 🙂

We could do a foot-board only near to the engine side of the ferry as the other foot-board was already occupied… 🙂 There was quite a good sound coming out of the engine and there was this weird smell of the fuel that gets burnt (The kind of exhaust smell that comes out when you burn impure fuel). That didn’t matter much to us as were enjoying the ride. It was solid three hours ride from Alapey to Kottayam through the backwaters. As we continued our journey we were surprised to see so many small towns(islands) in the backwaters. People live there just like how one would live in a small town with all the facilities like cable TV, telephone and we even saw a Maruthi 800 parked in one of the houses. We were wondering where they would use this M800. I guess they would take the vehicle in a ferry to Kottayam and drive from there… 🙂

The other thing that would surprise you is the house boats. You get house boats of all sizes and there were like hundreds of them at one stretch. This is the main attraction there as lots of honey moon couples hire these house boats. We did see some families probably celebrating their anniversaries and foreigners taking a nice break. I have been in a house boat before when I was in Sydney and know the experience. But here we saw a house boat with a Split AirCon. That was heights and anyways needed in hot county like India. These boats are really huge in size and you get couple of people who would drive the house boat. The one we hired in Sydney is a self-driven one where we did all the driving/mooring/anchoring stuff. These driver guys themselves would do the cooking/cleaning and other stuffs. You just gotta enjoy your time with your loved one(s)… 🙂

The entire ride has enough opportunities to click lots of pictures and I was busy with my camera while Rukku was enjoying the ride (probably getting bored too:))…As we were nearing Kottayam we could see massive agricultural land on the other side of the backwaters and such a plush green sight it was. You will know why Kerala is called God’s own country… We reached Kottayam at around 5.30 and we were damn hungry as we didn’t have lunch too…It was just Kerala chips and good day biscuits for lunch…As we approached the Kottayam bus station we sighted a restaurant and send some parotas inside…We ordered some tea and we got in such a big glass…We never had so much of tea in one shot before…And then it was solid 45 minutes of waiting to get a bus to Chalakudy… There was one guy standing next to us and we first asked him if that bus standing in front of us would go…He said no and we asked him to let us know when Chalakudy bus comes in. When 10th bus came there it was like we turn to our left and he would nod his head saying a big no. We tried hard not to piss him off, but we didn’t care too. At last he nodded vertically and we got in to the bus. We double checked with the conductor to make sure he hasn’t got us in to a bus that would go in opposite direction… 🙂

We reached Chalakudy at around 9.30types and went in search of something to eat. The entire town shuts down at 8.30 or so and you don’t get anything to eat…At least thats what we could conclude…If you don’t get anything to eat near the bus stand, then we understand that the city shuts down. There was a highway near the bus stand itself and we walked down there and found a local hotel. We ate whatever we could (mostly dosas) and that was our final dinner in Kerala…We didn’t realize that our trip was coming to an end with the marriage that we gotta attend next day at Thrissur and we still don’t have tickets in our hand for the return journey. We had given some 1000Rs to Unni and he said it would be done. We were hoping that somehow we would reach Chennai on Monday morning as I had to go to office on the same day…

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…

Been little busy since I shifted my company and now that I have got settled in the new company thought I should at least finish off this trip log. So here it goes…

After asking couple of people on what is the nearest place in Kerala from Vaalparai we came to know that Chalakudy makes a lot of sense as it was close to places that we wanted to visit. Next day we took the 7 O clock bus from Vaalparai and this bus too broke after 20 minutes or so. We spent quite some time at the outskirts of Vaalparai as the bus was getting fixed and there was a small family with a newly married couple, the girl’s sister probably and few more people in the bus. They were having the time of their life with too much shouting and all…We also had good time checking out the girl’s sister… 🙂 The journey to Chalakudy was really tiresome as it goes through bad terrains…On the way the driver stopped for breakfast at one of his regular places and we got some kappa or something to eat…We cud eat anything for the hunger we had…And all of a sudden we heard two continuous horn from the driver and off he started pumping his accelerator…And we hadn’t even finished off our tea…We had to literally run and get in to the moving bus and the driver and conductor didn’t even bother to check if every one got inside…It was like if you are lucky you would reach Chalakudy… 🙂

But the driver did really good job in driving through those narrow and bad roads…The roads were better once we reached Adhirampalli as the tourism department had laid proper roads to attract tourists…Lot of people got down at Adhirampalli (the famous Punnagai Mannan falls), we just marked the place as we had planned to come there next day. By the time we reached Chalakudy it was around 12 O clock and we were damn tired…Once we got down from the bus we were approached by an auto wala and he promised us to take to a good lodge. We were skeptical initially since we thought probably he was trying to cheat us. But we decided to take a chance and he got us a decent enough lodge close to the bus stand itself..As per our plan we were supposed to visit some place on the same day but we were so tired and decided to stay at Chalakudy itself. We had informed the autowala that we need to go to Adhirampalli next day and he said he can take us in his auto itself…Generally every one takes a cab or something but we thought this could be a different experience and asked him to come to the lodge at 7 AM next day. We took some typical Kerala style lunch with those fatty rice, came back to lodge and were off to sleep till 5 O clock…

We got freshened up and checked out Chalakudy in the evening…We basically thought could go to some movie and spend the evening but no Tamil/English/Hindi movies…So we asked couple of local guys and we were directed to some holy world nearby…That’s actually a church which has built the entire Jerusalem as models and had showcased the entire life history of Jesus…They had done it really good…We came back, had some food and went early to sleep…We would have hardly some 8-9hrs time and start our journey of 100KMs or so in an auto… 🙂

…from posting this before the trip log is completed. I had been postponing on writing some other thoughts since I wanted to complete this trip thing. But “Anjadhae” just pulled me over. This recent flick of Mysskin and co had been the talk of the town for quite sometime and I saw it last saturday. I seriously don’t know how to put it, but I am very much impressed and I felt a sense of satisfaction of having seen a sensible movie. The movie, in fact it is the BGM, the camera angles and narration that is still in my head.

As such, the story is a normal story of friendship, love, deception that happens between two friends . What stands out tall is the way the whole story being narrated and the way the director involved the audiences in the plot. A lot of scenes have been picturized carefully with different camera angles. The scene where the villain crawls in the bed room to peak through the bottom of the door when the heroine gets her clothes changed is just a sample. When one of the allies (one who is handicapped) of the villain is shot by the police is another scene worth the mention. The police would stop his son from reaching his dad while this person’s leg trembles and looks at his son with a feeling that he is leaving behind his son and family. The other scene where a girl is dropped of a car after getting the ransom from her father, the father walks down in shock, the camera moves at a low angle from a distance captures the hero running parallel in the frame to reach out to the girl.
When kuruvi (common friend for the two friends) takes the bullet that was aimed at the hero, he falls down and holds the bush with one hand and his other amputated hand trembles he innoncently asks why his friend shot him. Just before the interval when Kripa comes to Sathya’s house and claims that he would take revenge for what Sathya has done to him, the camera pans out a low angle at slow motion in frame where the family is standing as a group in bright yellow lighting with Kripa walking tall, wow it was a instant wall paper composed in front of my eyes.

There are many such scenes throughout the film and the reason why I would be watching the movie again is for the BGM (Back Ground Music). Every scene that stays in the audience’s mind has a brilliant BGM which would have had a great impact on the audience. For me (for that matter any one else), it has always been Ilayaraja when it comes to BGM. Frankly admitting, Sundar C Babu has done a great job after IR especially with the violins. IR has used violins extensively which gives the life to a frame in the movie. The same has been thought through and implemented in this film. And just like IR, the back ground score has silence in some scenes which adds to the impact that the scene would create. In fact the BGM of the movie is the one that impressed me first and is pushing me to watch the movie again. There are scenes where the police is searching the villains, the villians escaping from the police and the audience wondering how the next frame is going to be. The BGM has three different music going in parallel capturing the mood of all three perspectives involved.

While the movie fulfills you from different angles, with only couple of songs that don’t bore you too much, a big let down is the characterization of the investigating officer who looks dumb in the screen. When he seriously looks at the map, discusses with his fellow officers and says “That’s right, we have to head north”, the theatre was full of laughter. He is portrayed like a next gen officer and says ” a.k.a Dhaya” it sounded like this person’s akka (sis) is Dhaya. On a similar note the heroine’s role is wasted but compensated by the mottai whose face is not show in the entire film and same with kuruvi’s wife who always covers up her face with her saree. As a whole I could sense a great team work with the director leading from the front, not on the masala lines, not too much of heroism and shouting (which is the trend in action films) and a film worth watching more than once.

As we came back from Top Slip and Parambikulam, we told the lodge guys that we would be vacating next morning and head to Vaalparai. We packed our things (read, putting everything you find in to a bag) and slept early so that we could catch the first bus next morning. We got to know that the first bus is at 7.15 types, but we missed it even though we were at the bus stand on time. After 30 minutes wait or so, we got in to a bus and we could just get the last two seats in the bus. I am not sure why every other bus gets crowded there. Rukku said he would get something to eat and went down. While he stepped down itself I had a hunch saying how would the conductor and driver would react if I ask them to stop while Rukku returns. And that exactly happened in few minutes and the conductor was about to loose his patience. But just then Rukku stepped in and we were off to Vaalparai. I was relieved for two reasons, one was we didn’t get much of the shouting from the bus guys. Secondly, we had something to eat :D.

Well, Vaalparai is about 45KMs from Pollachi and the best part is its an uphill climb. Like you got to cross some 40 hair-pin bends and we were quite excited about the climb. We just asked the guys sitting next to us to give us some room so that we could get to see some of the view from the top as the bus took some great turns in the hair-pin bends. We could see the Azhiyar dam from the top and it was such a wonderful view from the top. Now, another lesson here is we shouldn’t use public transport for everything. If we had come by a car or something, we could stop at some view points during this uphill climb, spend some time and enjoy the scenery. Well, things like this were noted down in our memory so that next time we make it a real good trip. As we crossed all the hair pin bends, we got in to the Vaalparai town and wow it was just tea estates everywhere. Tea and Coffee plantations are the only source of income in this town I guess. There were so many of them and each of the estates had some tall trees amongst the tea plantation. We didn’t know why they grow them too, but the conductor clarified saying that those trees are actually for absorbing the water from the ground. Like, the tea plants cant take a lot of water it seems, and these trees would absorb some of the water so that the tea plants don’t die of excess water.

We got down at the bus stand and got in to a hotel room near to the bus stand. It was for only one night and we just took a double room. We put down our bags there and immediately came back to the bus stand to board a bus to “Solaiyar Dam”. We heard that apart from the estates, there is this dam and another Balaji temple as the tourists spots there. We weren’t interested in the temple so we went to the dam. It wasn’t such a great dam, as such the dam was closed due to some maintenance work. When we inquired, we came to know that the dam has served its life and is about to break down in 3-4years. It would either fall down on its own, or the govt guys got to bring it down. So there was this work to strengthen the dam. We just sat down there for some time and then started to look out for some food. There was one small hotel kinds near to the bus stop itself and we had our food there. The rasam they served us, I still can recollect the taste of it. I think that’s the best rasam I had till now… 🙂 After the food and little bit of wandering here and there, we boarded the bus to go back to Vaalparai. We had to go for a wedding of one of Rukku’s friends. After 10 minutes or so, some smoke was coming out of the bus near rear tyres.

The driver tried his best to get us back to Vaalparai, but on the way there was a road block. One truck with full load of logs had broken down right in the center of the road and vehicles cannot cross the truck and we were struck. Every one started to get down and we also got down thinking that we should help the guys to move the truck aside so that the traffic can flow through. So we went and started to push the truck with full enthu and somehow some 10 of us with local fellows managed to move the truck to the side of the road. We turned back thinking that we did something good, only to find that those who had got down with us actually got down to board the bus that was standing before our bus and they had moved. Well…well…no comments…the driver told us to go in that bus warning us that this bus would move very slowly. We decided to go in this bus only and enjoy the ride (A bus only for two of us). We stopped in between, had some tea and clicked some pics too!!!

We were chatting with the driver throughout the journey and asked him to get us down say about 3 KMs before Vaalparai. He got us down and the remaining 3KMs we walked in the tea estates. That was the best part of the day as we went through the tea estates with a cold breeze and you could just walk like that any distance. Just before we entered Vaalparai, the driver who dropped us down was waving his hands as he took the next trip, of course in a different bus this time. After reaching Vaalaparai, we got tried to get the phone number of Rukku’s friend so that we could ask him the direction and all. But we weren’t able to get it. But we decided to go ahead with the information we had and took a taxi to reach that place. We reached the correct place as we could see Rukku’s friend there… 🙂 It was a Christian wedding and they had formed a group and were singing songs in praise of the lord. It was a good evening as the night fell down we could feel the cold. It was actually a sports club kinds where the employees of Tata Estate can host their functions too!!! We spent some time there and heard stories on how a Cheetah was spotted last evening just near this sport club where it took away one calf!!! In fact we were frequently walking to the entrance of the club which is about 200m from the club in pitch dark. We didn’t come out after hearing that story!!!

We had dinner there (well that was our hidden motive:)) and the host had arranged a cab drop back to the town. We took that one and reached our lodge. It was actually too cold outside and we thanked the lodge guys for giving us the woolen blankets. We went to sleep straight away as we had to board a bus at 7AM the next morning. Rukku was sleeping sound and one cat freaked me out the entire night. The cat was making the cry sound, like it was trapped in somewhere and it couldn’t get out. I was thinking it would stop some time and was trying to sleep. I didn’t want to go out also as it was pitch dark and in the entire floor ours was the only room occupied. And after hearing the cheetah stories, I just couldn’t imagine going out and didn’t want to wake up Rukku too as he was sleeping tight. I don’t know when I slept, but was worried because the next day we had a quite a lot of traveling towards God’s own country…

We boarded the cab that was booked for us at around 7.30 IST (IST means an assumed delay of 20-30 mins) and headed straight to Top Slip. The driver was a nice person and he really works hard for a living. He has been driving for continuous 12hrs and took a 4hr nap and started again to take us and roam around the whole day!!! We reached the toll booth at Top Slip and we were the 8th cab to enter tat day. There is a cap of 30 cabs that can enter beyond Top Slip in to the Parambikulam forest. As such we were told that there are couple of places to see in Top Slip but Parambikulam is a lot better place and a whole day can be spent inside the forest. So we drove further and reached the Parambikulam check post. We just could register there and couldn’t proceed further. As per the new rules they allow some number of vehicles every 30 minutes and for the whole day they allow only 30 vehicles. This is the new order by the forest officer to protect the forest.

So we registered there and came back to Top Slip and went straight in to the canteen to eat something. The canteen had only one item and that is Pongal. We were told that if we need any food we gotta order them a day before. Anyways, we ate whatever was available and spent some time there watching some wild pigs grazing around and reached the Parambikulam check post on time. We payed the toll and drove in the dense forests to reach the reception office. We paid few more hundreds and got a guide there (guide is mandatory!!!). The guide accompanied us throughout the day and showed us places around. We drove in the forest and on the way we could just see some deers and crocs. Actually the guide told us the best time to see the animals is early in the morning as they would come out to drink water. We drove few more KMs and reached a place where there was a tree called Kannimara Teak. That’s one of the biggest natural teak trees in the world measuring at 48.5mts in height and the girth is 6.5mts. Like, it would need 7-8 people forming a chain to cover the tree in a circle. And the myth behind the tree is that there used to be 7 more such trees which were actually angels are something and this the last one of them surviving. Even this was supposed to be cut down, but blood was oozing out of the tree when the axe fell and they stopped cutting it down. And from there on it has been standing tall for 100s of years.

After spending some time there, we reached a check dam and the guide told us that this is a small dam and you have the second largest dam in India few KMs from there. We stopped here and there to find some animals that could be spot but we were terribly unlucky. But still we continued with some hope. We had lunch in between in a hotel known to the guide. And the best part is, they do not eat curd because no cow is available inside the forest. Yeah, if they bring up any cow it would be eaten by the animals that would roam during the night. After lunch we went to the boat house to take a boat ride. There are no motor boats available for tourists and we have to go only in the bamboo boats. This is a measure taken to keep the water pollution free. In fact we drank the water directly from the storage and it was just too good!!! Was thinking the kinda treated water that we get in the city 😦 The guys who were driving the boat were telling stories on how the forest is damaged for some few thousands of money. Like every year the government allots some amount to protect the forest from wild fires. This forest is being shared by both TN and Kerala government. These guys were showing the area that belong to TN where the forest was in black color because the forest officers just ignite fire every year intentionally and show it as a natural wild fire and get the amount from the government. We were hearing such kinda stories during the ride that took us some one plus hour. Obviously we rowed for some time 🙂

After this we went to the main dam and it was a mind blowing sight there. It was such a huge dam and there was so much of water around. This dam was conceived in the late 60s by then TN CM Annadurai to save the southern TN from water shortage. We were amazed at the kind of vision this person had. He constructed a huge dam 5 decades back to save people in the future!!! And the guide was explaining us how a rail track used to be there where the dam is currently. The brits used it to transport woods from the forest!!! In fact from the dam, there was water gushing out and it was just the seepage. We just couldn’t imagine how much water would be coming out of the dam when it reaches full level. We were told that every year the dam gets full and so much water is released that it goes above the distant bridge that we could see from the dam (Check the bridge in the pic…) In fact the guide tried to get the keys of the dam so that we could go inside and check the generators and instruments inside and he was telling that it would be too chill inside (naturally, without any A/C). But we couldn’t reach the guy who had the keys (lady luck was never with us)

Well, after doing all these things, we gotta know the actual thing one is supposed to do at Parambikulam. You gotta book a log house for two days (Call them 2 months in advance and book it). You reach there on day one, take a boat, a guide and two security guards with you to the log house in a boat. These log houses are situated in islands in the water body. You stay over night there, the guides themselves would cook food for you. After past midnight, you start on a night safari with the guide and the security guards (who will have guns). You go inside the forest and you can see all the animals that would be roaming around. There are more than 350 leopards, lots and lots of elephants and all wild animals. You do the safari whole night and come back to the log house in the morning, take nice food and rest and do some more boating in the water body and leave the place. We got the contact numbers of the guides and reception and lots of info about the place and phew it was such a experience!!! We decided to come back for sure and stay in the log house sometime. My friend said he is planning his honeymoon there…(getting wild in the real wild :D)

We came out of the forest by 5 O clock types and did some shopping in the eco shop there and came out of Parambikulam to reach back Top Slip. We spent another 30 mins of our time there as we were supposed to get out of the check post before 6. As we drove past the check post, we had started singing “Vaalpaarai, vattaparai….”

The next place in our trip was the “Monkey Falls” near pollachi. In fact it is just 3 KMs more from the Azhiyar dam that we visited the previous day. So we set out in the same bus that took us to Azhiyar, got down at Azhiyar dam itself and decided to walk the three KMs to see if we could end up in something interesting on the way. Just about a KM from Azhiyar, there was a small place off the road where we could hear the sound of water gushing out of something at high speed. So we jumped off the road and did a small trek over the hard rocks, spent some time out there and obviously clicked some snaps too!!

Then we walked couple of KMs more to reach the monkey falls, wondering how many monkeys would really be there and how much of trouble they would cause to us. Just in couple of minutes we reached there and understood what really those monkeys can do. It was jumping over the cars and bikes, dancing over the helmet that was locked to the bike, few small monkeys went under the cars and were playing like anything. And we assumed that the monkeys don’t do any harm to the tourists and entered in to the falls. We decided during the start of the trip itself that we wouldn’t take bath in the falls and stay away from the waters. So we decided to do things that wouldn’t get us wet. But somehow we managed to get wet…No no not by taking bath in the falls, we fell down with full style. We were clicking some snaps, while I was posing, Rukku was handling the camera. He asked me to go to the center of the falls so that he can take a better snap. I thought I was carefully keeping by feet, but just when I was about to position myself for the snap I felt something hit my head hard. Yeah I realized I fell down after hitting the hard rock. For few seconds I couldn’t even help myself getting up… There were couple of college students standing near by who gave their hands and saved me from sliding down. After standing up and coming back to normal state I was looking for this Rukku whom I thought would’ve started to come and see how I am doing. But I could see him standing at the same place and asking me to pose. I was like what the hell man? And went down to ask him if it was funny. But after I went down only I came to know that he had also fell down at the same instant when I fell down. In fact he had fell of a small cliff like thing and luckily he had his bag on the back which had saved his head hitting the ground and he was holding the camera up to save it too!! Thank god noting happened to the camera:) And then one guy came and told him, “enna sir photova indha angle laendha edukkaradhu…paarthu sir…” Ada paavingala naanga enna P.C.Sreeram-a, K.V.Anandh-a…edho memory stick ellam cheap-a irukkudhae nnu photo click panrom da…idhuvae film roll naa motha trip kkae naanga 40 photo dhaan da eduppom…If you closely observe the photo you can see the wet T-shirt…:)

After this incident my confidence with waters went really down and for the whole trip I was very hesitant towards stepping in to water, though most of the places we went were like falls, dams…After spending another hour there we decided to head straight to Tirumoorthy falls which we heard is another good falls around. So we went back to Azhiyar, had food there in some local shop and inquired about going to Tirumoorthy falls. We were told to take a bus to a intermediate place from where if we could take a bus which would go to Udumalaipettai then we could reach Tirumoorthy falls. We did the same and reached the fallls at around 3.30 types. We wasted some time in waiting for buses. Only after reaching the falls we realized that we should have come to Tirumoorthy in the morning and could have easily spent the whole day there. Just as a falls, it is only about climbing say about a KM up and reaching the top spot where there is one Panchalinga temple. And probably you can take bath here too. There were lots of sabarimala saamis who were coming back after the darshan. On the way they come here, take bath and head straight to home.

But what would make it interesting is taking the off route. Like you have steps to climb to the top, but you gotta just jump out of the parapet, step in to the hard rocks, and from there you can spend hours climbing here and there, taking the hard routes and some risks. We did things like that and there were no security guards around. So you can do anything that you would like to that makes sense to you. We did things like that and reached the top of the falls. It was definitely off season I guess otherwise there must be like a heavy gush of water from the falls. In such times these hard rocks would have been submerged in the waters. The pic is the end of the trek we did where we went down some big rocks to climb another big one…

There were only couple of buses running between this place and Pollachi it seems and we were told that if we were lucky we could get a bus at around 6.45 types. So we had to cut down the time to be spent there and got down like in 10 mins flat just to find a bus standing there and it was a bus to Pollachi. We just picked some cauliflower pakoda and went in to the bus and it starts just we sit down. We were totally happy as the first day itself went really well. Around 8.30 we were back in Pollachi and again it was Gowrishankar for dinner. We spoke to the lodge guys and told him that we need a cab to take us to Topslip the next day. He spoke to the travels guy he knew and said he has arranged for a Indica and it would come at 7 O clock itself and asked us to be ready. We were also told that only some 30 vehicles are allowed beyond Topslip and we gotta be quick in getting in there. We quite didn’t understand the funda but just made sure we went to sleep early. We were quite excited about the next day as we have heard a lot of Topslip…

After refreshing up at the lodge, we set out to visit the first place of our trip and got impressed with Gowri Shankar. If you know me well you would have guessed it right. Yes, that’s the hotel where we had our lunch 🙂 For Rs.40, they provided a very good lunch in a A/C hall which was very impressive. And then we boarded the bus to visit Azhiyar dam.

This place is about 45-50 mins travel from pollachi and this dam is the primary source of water for pollachi. There is a park at the entrance of the dam where kids can have a good time. And then you climb some 100 odd steps to go to the actual dam where you can see the storage. We could actually go only till a point in the dam after which it was closed for tourists. But some people who knew the PWD guys managed to use the influence and got in. We were talking to the watchman there for about 10 mins and 5 more mins he would have accepted some money to let us in. But we decided to move away as it was getting late. There was a boating option available which again we didn’t take. Instead we decided to walk down the dam structure and do a little trek in the surrounding forest kind of setup. It was pretty decent for the given amount of time we had. We clicked some snaps here and there and it was getting dark. So we decided to wind up for the day and board the next available bus.

We were talking to the local tea shop guy enquiring about the bus timing. Actually we had to get a bus in front of the park. The bus which comes from pollachi drops people at the park and goes to one more stop further, takes a halt and starts again for the return journey to pollachi. The tea shop guy told us to board the bus when it drops people at the park itself, get a ticket till the next stop and then take the return ticket from there. We were actually thinking probably its too much to do such things and we could board the bus only when it returns. But then we just saw one bus coming fully loaded and we couldn’t even get inside. So we thoguht probably this guy is right and we crossed and were waiting for the bus from pollachi.

To our surprise, there was a huge crowd waiting there and we found that it is a practice there and we got to do the same. We got in to the next bus that came and found that the bus stopped in between to make sure every one got the ticket for that one extra stop. Imagine how much revenue govt would be making out of this concept. Anyways, we managed to get a seat till pollachi, got down at pollachi, bumped in to Gowri Shankar again, had a nice Chilli parota. We went to bed early around 9.45PM itself so that we could start early for the next day. We had planned to visit couple of falls the next day…

I had been planning for a trip down south for quite some time and my friend I.S(Arun) had been telling about doing a trip to Pollachi. Somehow it was always in planning stage and I.S left for the US during middle of the year. Thanks to the leave policy of my company, I can just carry forward 6 days of my annual leave, rest would lapse if not taken. So I told one of my close friend Rukku (Rukmangathan) that we would do a trip for about 10 days during the year end and had asked him to block leaves (he also has similar leave policy). We thought of doing trip to Goa, Karnataka and other places but we never sat together and planned anything. So I decided and told him we would do a south trip and land in pollachi and finish off at a friend’s wedding in Thrissur.

We just knew the landing point and the final destination and left out the in between part. We said we would plan it on the fly. So we just went ahead and booked tickets for Chennai – Coimbatore on 22nd night. I had visited CBT sometime in 1999 and at that time it took me 10hrs by bus. So I assumed it should be around the same travel time or probably improved by and hour or so. The bus timing was at 8.45 in Koyambedu bus terminus and the bus didnt get out of the terminus till 10.15. There was a damaged sewage line and the entire stretch was jammed.

We were sitting in the last but one row of the bus and the guy behind us was full time on the phone. Okka makka 8.45 kku kadalaya poda aaramichavan midnight thaandiyum neruthala…engalukka sema kadi..naangalae rendu pasanga porom..idhula ivan appa appo “illati..chumma dhaan sonnaen…yaendi chelllam serious-a eduthukkara…chi azhadha…” appadi appadi nnu sollitu irundhaan…pesattum…vaendam nnu sollala…bus la avan avan kadi la irukkanae..nammoloda volume kammi pannalamae oru yosanai vaendam…and more over after vizhuupuram the roads were very bad…some times we even had doubt if we were goin in a bus or a boat…full-a side ways la dance dhaan…idhukku naduvula indha dog-oda kadala vera…suthama thookam pochu…

Oru vahizya next day morning 10.15 kku we reached Coimbatore and at that time many hotels stopped serving breakfast too. We just went to the ever famous Arya Bhavan and had couple of left out Oothappams…and then pushed off to the Okkadam bus stand to get a bus to Pollachi…Coimbatore and Pollachi are well connected by road and there are lots of private buses running between. But the problem is there is too much of crowd. In fact people still use the old method of throwing handkerchiefs through the window to reserve seats and in fact we saw one guy sending his kid through the window and you should see the happiness in his face after the kid reached and sat in the seat…So we left couple of buses thinking that most of the crowd would have gone by and we could get some seat. Since it was a long weekend there was huge rush. So we restored to our ways of getting seats. Just push through the crowd and dont care about what they are yelling. Somehow Rukku managed to get two seats…the last two seats of the bus.

The speaker was on full volume with all kuthu songs and the driver never took his legs off the accelerator. My guess is he would have kept some stone:) In flat 50 mins he reached Pollachi and there was not even a single stop in between and he almost never changed gears or even slowed down. Rukku’s friend is from Pollachi and he has booked rooms for us. We went straight to the lodge and told that friend’s name and got a room. The lodge owner was telling about how Rajnikanth, Balachander and all had stayed in the lodge and its one of the biggest lodge in Pollachi. We got our keys and went straight to the room and wanted to see how the rooms are in the biggest lodge of Pollachi. The room though was quite ok (cos we would be staying only for 8hrs in the night) didnt even have a latch for the bathroom door. For the remaining three days the other person used to lock it from outside when some one is taking bath (We didnt want to take any kind of risks 😛 )

We got freshen up in an hour or so, had lunch and boarded the bus to visit the first place in our trip…