Eash Unleashing…

After an year of balancing one’s work, life & studies, it was time to unwind a bit and enjoy the leisurely moments. Yes!!, it was the vacation(?) after the nerve wracking first year at PGSEM. That’s the day, when the morning dawns with copious amount of laziness, coupled with coziness. It is the time when irresponsible behaviour does not tickle your consciousness. That’s the instant when, the inner self militates against the weariness and propels you to stay late in the night just to enjoy the smug feeling of being awake without compulsion and duress. That’s the day, it would seem that almost everything is at one’s own volition.

That’s also when, my parents, brother and I decided to go for a trip to Valparai, Topslip and Parambikulam. My father, an astute planner, browsed through internet, called the travel agencies well in advance to chart a trip, which would take us through the scenic mountains of western ghats. Here is a brief account of our trip.

We reached coimbatore junction from chennai by Nilgiri express and were welcomed in the station by the cab driver. The driver, being a native of valparai, was informative and helpful. In coimbatore, thanks to my father’s shrewd thinking, we obtained the inter-state travel permission(for the next day athirapally visit) from a govt checkpost. Pollachi, around 70 kms from coimbatore, was ideally positioned for a quick morning breakfast.

Valparai is around 70 kms from pollachi and on the foothills of valparai are monkey falls, aliyar dam and maharishi meditation hall. Breakfast was good enough to end our journey chats and to place us under slumber. It convinced our cab driver, who was too eager to please us, to leave us undisturbed and to plan aliyar dam, maharishi meditation hall for the return trip.

In the monkey falls, apart from the troop of monkeys, there were none to disturb us and it was a fairly private morning bath. The waterfall, gentle in force, was conducive for a comfortable bath.

As it was early, there wasn’t any crowd and we had an enjoyable bath. Then we proceeded to valparai.

After two hours of journey, we reached valparai. On the way, there were small towns by name rottikadai , and … a town (where pirivom sandhipom was filmed. I forgot the name). We took some snaps on the various hairpin bends, where aliyar dam forms a beautiful back drop. On the outskirts of valparai is a stream by name “koolangalaru”, where there were lot of pebbles around.

On reaching valparai, we packed our lunch and went to places nearby. There were Upper Neerar and Neerar Dam. Upper Neerar is a weir and the place near the neerar dam recorded the second highest amount of rainfall in an year in India. Also we went to a waterfall near chinnakalar. Trekking to that place was much more enthralling than the waterfall itself . Then we reached the hotel by evening. There are a lot of stories about leopard visiting a town and making a kill during the nights.

Finding a pure Vegetarian mess, leave alone a very good hotel in the town was difficult. There was a mess by name “Sabari mess” where pure vegetarian food is served.

Next day, at around 8:30 a.m, we visited Sholayar dam, which is 30 kms from valparai.

It is supposed to be the second largest dam made by rocks in asia. There was very little water, as it was in the maintenance mode. On the way to Athirapally falls, we also saw Sholayar dam-2. This trip from valparai to Athirapally is in a heavily wooded forest.

Dead trees were not removed, as it would affect the food cycle and hence it was left to disintegrate. A Bus would ply once in the morning and evening and there were very few towns(around  5-6)  in this stretch of 100 kms.

Then we reached athirapally falls in the afternoon. We had a bath in the falls. There were lots of tourist from kerala(challakuddy) and we were the only ones from valaparai. This falls is the one featured in punnagai mannan film.

We returned back by evening and proceeded to pollachi. On the way, we visited the meditation hall in the foothills. We spent our night in pollachi and started early on day 3 towards Topslip. Parambikulam, a wild life sanctuary can be reached only from topslip and is in kerala. Only 30 vehicles per day are allowed towards topslip, parambikulam, as they would not want to disturb the environs.

In the kerala checkpost, we were asked to deposit any plastic bottles, jars we had, to prevent people from throwing away plastic items. A guide accompanied us in our car throughout the journey inside parambikulam santuary.

We first visited thunakavadu dam and took some snaps. On the way to parambikulam dam, we could see bisons roaming around, black monkeys atop trees and deers grazing  in the wild.

The parambikulam dam is connected by a tunnel to thunakavadu dam, which in turn drains extra water to aliyar dam. This is called the Parambikulam Aliyar Project (PAP). Parambikulam sanctuary has lots of teak plantations and it seems british planted them, fell it after few years and send it by a tram link to cochin. This tram link is now closed and forest cover has emerged in this area.

One teak tree which was not felled by the british, as it had oozed out blood(as per the history) now stands as the tallest and largest teak tree in the world. We boated in the parambikulam lake and could see crocodiles, elephants and lots of deer.

We returned back to coimbatore that night. Next day, We shopped around coimbatore, watched cinema in a theatre and boarded the nilgiri express to come back to chennai…

Hotels in Valparai
1. Green Hills Resorts – Hotel Green Hill: 04253 – 222262 – Did not stay here. But heard it is good
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cyberwarrior/valparai_trip/1146834840.html

2. Hotel Treat. – Stayed here. Fine for a night or two stay.

3. Hotel Krishna

Travels
Lakshmi Travels in Coimbatore – Driver : Ramesh – native of Valparai – 09842219900

PS: I should thank Sathyakumar for lending me his high resolution camera and thus enabling me to record some of the finest moments.