DCH to Wayanad

Wonderful Wayanad! I'll start with the summary. It's a great retreat into the lap of nature with its beautiful hills, tea gardens and waterfalls. I think the fact that it has not been touched by many tourists till now leaves it in such un trammeled form. Now that's the word used for many things in Wayanad on many websites we must have looked at for places to see.So this travelogue is for my trip with my friends to Wayanad. New year's eve was approaching and all people start planning about the 31st night celebrations. A long time back we had a plan to go to Goa, a la DCH, but then as most long term plans fail this one was doomed to atleast for three of us. Some or the other thing put it off. In fact till 29th we were not sure we were going anywhere and if we were going to be sitting at home watching bollywood stars dance on TV and shout out new year, an indication for getting up and going to sleep. But somehow we had Rishi pumping up people to go to Goa again and so me and Anshul were ready to settle for something less demanding than that and so came the idea of Wayanad.

So we 3 hired an Indica with a driver whose name I could understand was something like Illinois. Anshul and Rishi had to come from Bangalore and the trip was to start early morning on Saturday. And so we did after a good Friday night at mysore with Raju chacha food. We were promptly up by 5 totally charged up for the trip that lay ahead. We had planned such an early start also because we could not book any hotel in advance. But as no one was in mood to back off (me perhaps the least) we had decided to go ahead with this and about the night we shall figure out there only.

Things were properly planned (most of them by instructions from Anshul). The things to carry along had been shopped on Friday night and so we had just to put them in a bag and carry. We also took a blanket for safety if we finally had to sleep in the taxi. With all things set we embarked on our journey. It was not such a wrong decision to start that early. We could see a wonderful sunrise in the morning on the way. Its one of those rare things you don't usually see in day to day life.

The journey on NH212 is mostly good as the highway is nicely made with lush green fields on either side of the road. It was a nice drive and we kept stopping wherever we could see things to click or for tea etc.

We had loads of printouts but no one had gone thru them thinking the other would have. As every software engineer does the collection of data was promptly done. So we used to sometimes pick it up and think of what all we should see and the data was so much to decide anything conclusively. In between we would ask Illinois and his advice would have something about him that would put you off from believing.

Our first halt came amidst confusion of stopping or not stopping. It was Muthanga wildlife sanctuary. This place is supposedly known for Tiger, Deers and Elephants predominantly. We took a forest jeep to go about 15 Kms inside the forest to try out luck spotting any of these. For about 5 kms we could not even see a single species of animals except each other in the jeep. And on top of that the Malyali speaking guide was trying to show anything that moved in the forest. The best was when he showed a chicken walking nearby. Anshul and he surely had a laugh to share for a long time after that. Luck could help us only to the level to be able to see deers and some wild pigs. It was a dusty ride with us standing out of the jeep and all our clothes were covered with dust and hairs had turned nice brown shade. Overall be cautious of this place, there are loads of good places lying ahead and this is an avoidable thing for people planning a visit to wayanad.
We made a move as soon as this was over. And our first target was Sultan Batheri. To get the perspective, Wayanad is a district totally in forests and hence there is no particular central place as we had imagined to go to. Its like you enter the forest and then there are small small areas of population and some resorts have sprung up there in the past 2-3 years. So Sultan Batheri is the first place nearest to Karnataka border where you'll find a few hotels and some population. So broadly the major population centres are :
Sultan Bathery, Kalpetta and perhaps Mananthavady (one we could not go). So the plan was to keep seeing places till its dark and then find a place to stay and sleep for the next day.
Hotel was assured by Illinois so we didn't bother.
So the next stop we decided was Edakkal Caves. These caves have carvings which are supposed to be more than 5000 years old. Edakkal needs about 2 km walk up the hill from the place where the cars can go. Do not miss the nice pineapple on the way we had it hesitating and then Anshul almost could eat one pineapple (we all did actually). They have a typical style of keeping pineapple slices with chilly, whatever it may be but it tasted wonderful and yes sweet. Caves allow entry only till 5 pm in the evening and require you to be in a mood to climb around 200 steps. So forget it in case you are coming after climbing Chembra or something. The steps are mostly guarded by railing. The view while climbing is spectacular and you can see the vast forest lying below. Kerela tourism has done its bit by putting "trainees" (I don't know where) batch wearing volunteers to help out people by telling the history of the place. They even help out people who find it difficult to climb up or come down. So as we come to know that the place had Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions, visual symbols and surprisingly one side of the cave wall still is un-deciphered. The cave is called edakkal as 'Eda' means between and 'Kal' means a rock in Malyalam. (pardon me their meanings are exchanged). There is a huge rock stuck on top of you and you can imagine your fate if it just slips over you. The site of the jungle from the telescope is also good. We walked down for our next destination.

The next destination was a dam nearby of which we could not find a motorable way. It did seem un-natural that an advertised tourist spot could not be reached by a car. Surprising!! But we gave up and decided to go see water. Meenamutty.

Now Meenamutty is the biggest waterfall of Wayanad. We could only reach till a point in the tea gardens which said Meenamutty 4 kms. I never believed that the main tourist attraction of Wayanad could not be approached beyond 4 km of it. Only later we were to discover that about 2 km of this stretch was into the most treacherous and steep decent to the water fall. Actually this place is better not recommended for the faint of the heart and especially girls wearing anything less flexible than a jeans. Falls is a wonderful sight and taking bath in the pool created near it (I mean don't even think of standing in its way) is a wonderful paisa wasool. Just staring at the might of the fall from beneath it is captivating. A boy from the coffee garden escorted us through this way to the falls and helped us get down till there. Without him it was impossible to reach there.

After that we searched for a resort and stayed. The room was ok kinds and considering that we were ready to sleep in the taxi if there was no room available due to new year rush, this was very good. There was a campfire and a tribal dance. Though I was sure these tribals were no other than people who would be cleaning our rooms in the morning.

Next morning was in a quite lake called Pookat lake near our resort. Lake offered kayaking and pedal boats. This is a small lake but with nice clean water and amidst nice surroundings. This place has a nice outlet for kerela local spices, honey etc. Worth purchasing all things in small quantities to try. Has weird offerings like Coconut jaggery, lemon tree oil, and a lot of powders with names in malyalam.

Then we went to Lakkidi. Its a view point on the side of the road. Offers great views of the valley. But I feel this place would look like heaven in rainy season (but then you'll surely miss Meenamutty falls).

After that was our return with all our talks of our college days, anshul's crushes and pahuja's marriage plans with me adding my silly anecdotes on songs. This was the DCH trip to Wayanad ,one which we all will remember for long.