Uh...My friend is sitting inside.
So?
He has bought tickets for me as well?!
I just blindly stare.
Which friend?
A guy with a black tee. Sidharth. I can call him if you want.
*Conductor starts laughing*
And that's when it struck me. I was standing in a bus heading to Coimbatore. I should've known about the famed 'Coimbatore kusumbu'. Sid and I were heading to the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary and some nearby places. We got down at Udumalaipettai early in the morning and after bidding goodbye to the conductor who wished us good luck for 'living like kaatuvasis' for the next couple of days, we got on a bus to Munnar. The road to Munnar from Udumalpet was rather interesting as it passed through an elephant hotspot where even tigers and leopards are spotted often. The driver and conductor were constantly watching out for wild animals and it was so much more interesting than the other route from south via Bodimettu.
We got down at the Alampetty checkpost and waited for a few forest guards to arrive as the guard who was already present there wanted to make sure we were safe when we ventured inside the jungle. He felt since we were only two in number, it would make sense to get two guides so that there are enough people in case something went wrong. In the meantime, we spent our time spotting birds and drinking kattan-chai from the canteen run by the tribals nearby.
After the guards arrived, we headed to spot some dolmens nearby and then went to an ancient cave painting site. We were told that this was a tiger zone and we kept our eyes and ears open to all sorts of signals. The forest guards also showed us a number of birds and we were amazed at how good their tracking and spotting powers were. At one instance, they asked us to stop moving and told us that there was a gaur straight ahead of us in the bushes. After squinting our eyes pretty hard, we could make out a faint dark outline of something black. That's when the wind changed its direction and started blowing from behind us. The animal smelled us and it quickly ran away from us. Man! That's when we realised how huge it was.
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| Can you spot the gaur? |
We then trekked through some really thick and interesting jungle spotting numerous bird species. Sid, the birder, was having a field day with all the bird sightings. And me, well I was just having fun. The forest guards also seemed to be warming up to us and they were happy that we weren't littering and behaving like the usual tourists. That's right. We are travellers :P
We then reached an elephant trail and we kept walking on it to reach the stream. As strange as it might seem, following elephant trails seems to be the norm in western ghats treks. We could spot fresh elephant dung all through the trail but we knew the elephants had moved to the other side thanks to the trumpet we had heard earlier and also because another spotter walked into us during the trek with the information of their current location.
We then reached the mighty Thoovanam waterfall and it was raging in the monsoons. This meant we couldn't get very close but it was a pleasure watching the waterfall in all its glory.
After spending an hour or so, we started on our way back to the check post. We were really hungry and the tribal canteen only had some basic cooked rice with some pickle. We were happy about it and just ate whatever we could get our hands on. It tasted awesome and gave us the necessary strength to continue with our plans.
We visited apple farms, terrace fields and more importantly just some random places away from our busy city lives. The place looked like heaven and we took a lot of photographs that have ended up as my wallpapers. We also visited a rock full of beehives and it reminded me of my trek to the Gudiyam caves.
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| What I wouldn't give to wake up to this every morning.. |
On our way back to Marayoor, we spotted a huge hut full of sugarcane. It turned out jaggery was being prepared by residents. We visited them and they gave us a few glasses of fresh sugarcane juice. It was the sweetest stuff I have ever drunk till date and both of us drank as much as we could. We then bought a few kilos of jaggery to take back to our homes. I am not really able to put this in words...so this is how they make jaggery. Hint: It is a lot bigger and hotter than it looks.
We also had some really interesting conversations with our autowala and we learned a lot about the place. We also met a native tribal who explained their history to us(will post a separate blog about it later).
We then went in search of a place to stay for the night and since it was totally off-season, we had the luxury to choose whatever place we wanted. That's when a bungalow like building caught my eye. We paid 1000 bucks and were allocated one of the many rooms in the p(a)lace. Turns out we were the only folks staying at that place. The only other person was the caretaker and at night, the place was kind of spooky thanks to the day long powercut in Marayoor.
We had to go out at night for dinner and it was fun walking in total darkness. Imagine this. Pitch black darkness. The laughter of a few kids. Dogs barking and howling. The presence of wild animals everywhere(a week back, a leopard had killed a few goats in the street). Flashlights in our hands. And you look around, there are a few more people with small lights in their hands. Some are even covering their heads with towels to protect themselves from the cold and this makes strange, scary silhouettes.
We made sure to lock our room doors really well that day :D
The next day morning, after some more roaming around, we took a jeep to Udumalpet. That's when something interesting happened. At the TN-Kerala border, the officials let a car go without checking it because it belonged to some high official. Our jeep driver yelled at the checkpost officials and demanded that they check it properly. WOW! That's how dedicated the locals were in protecting their resources. How I wish this country had more of such people.
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