At about 3 PM on 12th June, Rohith and I were happy that the unreserved compartment was not that crowded. We were headed to Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi and Pillayarpatti before going to Munnar for our trek. We were proved wrong that night when the train got overcrowded somewhere in the middle of the journey. People were boarding it like some town bus and alighted at the very next stop. I jokingly told Rohith: "Looks like this train will get empty only after it crosses Manamadurai". And it turned out to be true. We caught some sleep after the train became free. It had been impossible with that crowd earlier. We arrived at Rameshwaram at 4:30 AM and after depositing our bags at a locker, we visited the temple. Cameras were not allowed and this was a huge letdown. We then went to Dhanushkodi(in a very crowded bus). Till then, we were hating the crowd but in Dhanushkodi, we needed some as only then the van operators would fetch us to the end of Dhanushkodi. Walking that distance on beach sand in the hot sun for about 10 kilometers was not something we wanted to do. We waited for 30 odd minutes and then a group from Karnataka arrived. The van was jam-packed and it made its way through the sand. We walked till the end of the land and saw land at the distance. Sri Lanka, I guess. We then visited the ruins of the village that was destroyed by a cyclone in 1964. In the meantime, we had also made friends with Ashwadh, a lone traveller who had come to Dhanushkodi as he got tired of visiting temples with his family in Rameshwaram. Not wanting to waste time waiting for a bus, we hopped onto a mini-lorry carrying fish and made it to Rameshwaram. We then visited Dr. Kalam's house. After bidding goodbye to Ashwadh, we then caught a bus to Karaikudi. We made a quick visit to Pillayarpatti and then went to Madurai where we had dinner and Jigghardhanda(I have visited Madurai many times in the last two years and every time, it is only for the tasty food :P ). We then went to the bus stand in Theni and spent our time charging our mobiles and camera batteries while waiting for Karthik and Siddharth to arrive. We kept irritating them with our phone calls asking them about their whereabouts every 30 minutes or so. It looked like they would be late, so we set out to Munnar alone.
Munnar was very different from Theni and it was very cold. It was also raining when we arrived, so we took shelter in a bus stand. Karthik and Sid arrived at about 6 AM and we then walked towards the Flower garden in Madupatty road from where we would start out trek. We asked some locals for the directions and everyone kept telling "Oru kilometer dhan..nadandha poidlam". I didn't realise that they were using a variation of the technique that trekkers like me use to motivate frehsers-"Just 5 more minutes". After a long walk, admiring the beauty of the western ghats and taking some photos, we met a group of fast-walking locals who asked us some football questions and we knew none of the answers. After getting trolled by them(we didn't even understand half their dialogues), we arrived at the Flower garden. Plenty of photographs and trolling was done. The garden was beautiful though very small compared to its counterparts in Ooty and Kodai. The officials were very friendly there and they even let us roam about the garden and take photographs without charging the usual entry fee(the garden hadn't opened yet. We had reported early to start the trek sooner than usual). I got the permissions from the Divisional Manager and we waited for the guide and the jeep. We discussed our plans with Muthu anna, the guide, and he listened to it very patiently. He gave us some suggestions and told us(rightly) that our plan would succeed only if we trekked from Top Station to Kurangani and not from Kolukkumalai to Kurangani. He rightly reasoned that Top Station to Kurangani can be done in a very short time if we were fast but the Kolukkumalai trail will definitely take at least three hours no matter how fast we trekked thanks to the steep terrain. My own experience with both these trails in January was pretty much the same. So we heeded to his advice and decided to trek fast. Our guide also requested us not to litter and we assured him that it was one of our 'policies' too. He then vented his frutration about a doctor family from Chennai who had trekked Meesapulimala a month back and badly littered in the mountain.
After a brief breakfast session at Arivikad estate, we proceeded on a jeep track. We got down somewhere in the middle of the track as it was too slushy and the jeep driver was not sure if he could cross it. We left our bags here and took only one bag with water bottles, energy bars and first aid kit. After a trek on the jeep track, we arrived at the Silent valley. We saw a huge falls at some distance. Little did we know that we were actually going to trek to its top before proceeding to Meesapulimala. We were now trekking through dense forest on an elephant path. It was full of elephant dung and I hoped that we wouldn't have to face one during our trek. We were also donating blood to leeches in the mean time :P We saw huge, blood red mushrooms on the way and we also crossed numerous streams. We then arrived in the Munnar Base Camp. We also kept taking turns in carrying the bag as it was quite heavy due to the number of water bottles(six, if I am right) and the steep terrain. After a short break, we made it to the Rhodo valley(which gets its name from the Rhododendron trees) from where we had our first glimpse of Meesapulimala. We were already at 2500 meters.
Rhodo valley was full of overgrown grass and ferns and we used to slip at times as we couldn't see the ground at times. We reached the ridge of Meesapulimala soon and we started the final leg of our climb. We dumped our bag here as it was slowing us down in the almost 70 degree slope. The ridge was slowly sloping on the right to the Rhodo valley but the left side was a steep, vertical drop for about 8000 feet into the Kurangani region. It looked beautiful though. Karthik and Sid were taking their time but Rohith and I made a quick dash to the peak. After 3 years of waiting, I finally set foot on Meesapulimala. At 2640 meters, it is the highest trekkable mountain in India outside the Himalayas(Anamudi is closed thanks to the bad behaviour of touristy trekkers long before. A classic example of trekkers suffering due to the bad behaviour of tourists who climb mountains just to take photographs). We were above the clouds and we could see Bodi and the plains of Theni in the distance. Kolukkumalai, Top Station, Kurangani, Suryanelli and Madupatty dam were also visible from the peak. It was highly windy on the peak and we saw birds struggling to fly. We had a good photo session that included some jumping shots. We then started our descent and made quick dashes in the jeep track which reminded me of Kottaimalai in Jawadhu. The terrain was very similar here. We arrived at the Base camp and had a first aid session to clean the leech bites. This was when I noticed a leech sucking blood from my veins on my right toe. My shoe was full of blood and the bite area was firmly bandaged to stop bleeding.
We were then dropped at Top Station in Munnar where we bade goodbye to Muthu anna and the jeep driver. Muthu anna was very impressed with our speed and he remarked "In the history of these mountains, no one has climbed Meesapulimala this fast". What a compliment to hear from a very fit guide! Surely, our non stop training had paid off. He even gave us some training tips. He promised to help us in our future treks in the region and we even planned for a specific trek in the Kodai region. He also adviced us to call off our trek to the top of Rat tail falls the next day as it would be too tough in the monsoon. We always had that doubt in our minds as we didn't want to get caught in a flashflood(we had already faced some in our previous monsoon trek) and now with a very qualified guide making the same statement, we decided to shorten our trip and return to Chennai. We did a very quick trek(I would rather call it a downhill run) and made it to Kurangani just 10 minutes before the last bus left. Karthik was extremely zombie-like in this period and he didn't even understand what I was telling him. The less said, the better :P We then boarded a bus to Chennai and made it home :) The western ghats never fails to amaze trekkers and we will keep visiting it for more treks!
Contact details: Kerala Forest Development Corporation-048-652-30332. Permit fees-Rs.500 per head and Rs.2000 for transportation.
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