Waynad

To trip Waynad, one needs to have lot of energy, as Waynad demands it. This blog starts from Mysore, as majority of us (from Karnataka) travel to waynad through Mysore.

Forst thing we should be knowing is, Waynad is ad district (not a Town). I want to make it clear initially because, when we say Mysore district, we have a city called Mysore as the district headequarter of it. But, just like Coorg (whose district headquarter is Madikeri), Waynad has Kalpetta as its administrative headquarter.

The first town (well known) we come across in Waynad from karataka border is Sultan batheri.

Distance:

Mysore to Gundlupete (70 km)

Gundlupet to Sultanbatheri (60 km)

The first thing we should think of doing in Sultanbatheri is have a of cup of tea. You can get any kind of tea you would like to have. Get into a decent hote and order for a cup of Masala Chai.

From here, if we start moving towards Kalpette (District Headquarter of Waynad) take a left after 6 km. (from batheri.). This opens the doors to the heaven. We can go to many places like Edkal, Minmuti, Kantapara, Soojipara etc . In these, Edkal is the a hill, from where the borders of all 3 states (Kerala, Tamilnadu and Kerala) are visible. Here we have a cave which belongs to stone age.

Edkal

The other places mentioned above (Minmuti, Kantapara ans Soojipara) are water falls.

Minmuti Fall

To reach Minmuti, we have to park our vehicle in an estate and walk in the forest for about 2 km. Its a walk of moderate toughness, which is exciting for younger generation. If one knows how to swim, they can get into the water and have fun.

By evening, it is better to reach KALPETTA. Here we can find many hotels to stay. We can bargain to get abetter deal. But, the bars close by 10pm here. So, get your food and wine ready by then.

Chambra Peak

Next day can be reserved for Chembra Peak. It is a trekking spot of moderate thoughness situated at 20 km from Kalpetta. We have to take premission from the estate before getting into a private estate, where thsi peak is situated. It takes around 3 hours to trek this peak to rreach the top. We will find a small pond inbetween where one can take rest for a while. We need atleast 5 to 6 hours to complete the trek (climb up and come down).

It is also advisible to stay on the top in the summertime. For all that, permission is the must.

Surpass - A trekking work the time-1 (Bengaluru- Delhi)

Its never an easy thing to start with a long trip plan. The same thing was there with us. We were planning for a long trip to north india from a long time. There were amny openions and options. But, there was no consesus amongst our group.

Suddenly one day, somebody came up with the place "Sarpass". We were more than happy to know that it's about 8 to 10 days of trekking being arranged by Youth hostel.

We booked 9 out of 10 seats online thouth the following link in mid of March, choosing 21st of May as our starting date from base camp.

As we belong to BENGALURU ( formarly known as Bangalore), we had to book flight till Delhi to save couple of days journey to the Nataional capital from Garden city.

19th May 2007 - Departure to Delhi from Bangalore:
The journey started. NINE (9) of us were together. It was our first air flight. And, we were really happy to locate ourselves in Delhi within couple of hours departing from Bengaluru Airport.

Departure at Bengaluru => 5:30 AM
Arrival at Delhi => 8:00 AM


We didn't have much time at delhi. In left out 10 hours, we had to visit some memorable place. So we decided to go to Swami narayana Tempal, fromally known as AkshraDhama. It takes about 45 minutes journey to Aksharadham from the International Airport. Also, its suggested strongly that, one should not carry any luggage and elecrtonic items. (if you are planning to visit it, dump your all luggage at some lodge, or store room). Even we took a lodging near old-delhi station. Even though Lodges here are HORRIBLE, we were forced to afresh ourselves in a dirty room, and spend some time over there.( if you can afford, please look for some nice rooms. Or dump all your luggages in station's cloak-room.)

International Airport to Delhi Railway Station => 20 min by auto
Delhi Railway Station to Aksharadham => 25 min

We reached AksharaDhama at about 11:45 PM.

The Security at AsharaDhama is very tight. Even you cant carry your watch. (forget cameras :) ). and you have to enter it bare-footed. So avoid summer to visit it.

The temple is awesome, superb, great!!! I really can't expain, what a huge amout of effort/money would have been spent on building the temple. It really made me crazy. But at the same time I casted casted down, realising that the same effort could have built at least a hundred schools, tens of old age homes or orphanages.

It takes about 3 to 5 hours to have a proper look at AksharaDhama. The pseudo-motor boat ride is one of the nice experiences you can have. The architecture of the whole structure is amazing. But, the May hot Sun didn't allow as to stay longer there. We left there by 3:00Pm

We departed by train to Kalka at 4o'clock in the evening.

Route We followed:
Delhi-> Kalka-> Shimla-> Kullu-> Kasol(Manikaran)-> Sarpass-> Kasol-> Manlali-> Delhi

Bengalooru (Bangalore) to Munnar

Though Not a great place to visit for th people who have been to Himalayas, its one of the best hill stations of the south India.

The main purpose of the blog is not to praise the place but to give a detailed way to reach, and stay there.

Munnar is 460KM from Bengaluru and takes about 10 hours to reach there from Bengaluru by short cut. The shortest way goes like this :

Bengaluru(ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು) to Hosur (ಹೊಸೂರು) -> 30 Km

Hosur (ಹೊಸೂರು) to Mettur (ಮೆಟ್ಟೂರ್) -> 125km (via Thoppur)

Mettur (ಮೆಟ್ಟೂರ್) to Bhavani (ಭವಾನಿ) -> 55 km

Bhavani (ಭವಾನಿ) to Tirpur (ತಿರ್ಪೂರ್) -> 75 km (ಸೇಲಂ ಹೈವೇಯೀಂದ ಸೇರಿ)

Tirpur (ತಿರ್ಪೂರ್) to Palladam (ಪಲ್ಲಡಂ) -> 20 km

Palladam (ಪಲ್ಲಡಂ) to Udmalpet (ಉದ್ಮಲ್ ಪೇಟ್) -> 55 km

Udmalpet (ಉದ್ಮಲ್ ಪೇಟ್) to Marayoor (ಮರಯೂರ್) -> 45 km

Marayoor (ಮರಯೂರ್) to Munnar (ಮುನ್ನಾರ್) -> 45 km


The journey can be enjoyed in daytime. From Palladam to Munnar, we can come across different types of vegitation, forest and if lucky enough, we can also see some wild animals. When we were coming back, we found a deer lying dead on the road.


A journey of 10 hours (~460 km).

Hell on the bank of river Parvati

I’m just coming back from Himachal Pradesh from a trek. In reality what I need to share is not the moments of fun but of the soreness. So sorry for the people who are expecting some fun out of it.

Any how, I’ve to start with the journey. We nine classmates were dreaming about the trek from the day we booked, ( from even before i think). Somehow we reached a place near Kullu which is called Kasol. May be no Indian outside Himachal Pradesh knows that a place called Kasol exists. But it is very obvious that most of the people in Israel know about it. In fact it’s the most loved place for them, and you’ll find them all around. We found it strange as you are feeling now, and asked our taxi driver what was the reason. He smiled and asked me back, “Do you dope?” What he meant was do you consume cocaine or opium? I was taken aback for a moment. But I had to reply.

“No, I don’t dope. But why did u ask so?”

“Then, visiting this place is a waste for you. All come here to dope. Majority of them will be the Israelis.”
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I had never imagined such a place. Only ten fifteen houses; hundreds of Hotels having a special welcome note for all the Israelis; thousands of shops selling everything that is possible to sell; the proud shopkeepers who never cared for any Indian customer; smelling “sanyasis” ( the locals said that the smell was of opium) and thousands of Israelis roaming around making shameless gestures. Few were so overdosed that they couldn’t control themselves and had collapsed across roadsides.

I asked myself, why did I come to this place? Mine was so better. Just was feeling like running away from there. But the other side if dirty mind asked me to do some research there; and we started collecting information even though that was not out intent.

The next day we went for shopping, as we had to buy some stuffs like sunglass, slippers, gloves etc. as we felt the nice breeze on the side of river, a great desire of having strong tea came out. We entered a hotel (so called), and asked him to make 9 cups of tea. The owner of that hotel looked at us as if we asked for something offensive (or he might have felt that why the hell these people didn’t ask “OPIUM”), and went in.

In few seconds, an act by a lady caught my sights. She was sitting very next to our table, and was rolling something. I observed it carefully, and showed it to my friends too. She was rolling something into paper and preparing something like “Cigarette”. Once she opened the roll and we could see dark black content mixed with tobacco. Then it flashed to us, it we some narcotic, which she rolled again and started smoking.

We had thought that she was a foreigner. One of my friends, being attracted by her charm, went and spoke to her. It was a shocking fact that she was a Bengali, and she stayed in Bangalore for two years. And she was staying there happily with narcotics now days.
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The day went in shock. I just wanted to get out of that place. Thank god, the trekking started the very next day. And we left that place climbing up the hills.

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I wrote this as my team news letter editers wanted an article for News Letter. But they found this article to be too pessimistic. May be it is so. but its the reality. Who can help when reality hurts?