Adventure Trip No.2 - India Tour AUGUST 2008

This year my trip to India had many interesting turn of events. Some of them I was prepared while for some, I was not. As usual even this India trip was initiated by my friend Ramesh as he did last time. This time the special occasion being his brother's marriage on September 1st. As being typical NRIs we planned for a few trips well ahead 4 months. Since Rajkumar -Ramesh's brother was a part of it, we did not find much difficulty in planning our trip.But still we had a accrual of options unlike last time and were busy sorting out the preferences. One such plan which interested us was The Island Guest House in Parambikulam, Kerala. Ramesh and myself booked our air tickets well ahead and as per the schedule I landed in India on 10th Aug. Ramesh followed me the same week. The team was the same as last time. After a planned family trip to Ooty on Aug 15th for 3 days which was memorable as ever, the main trip with
my friends followed on 22nd evening. I had to enter another new phase in my life just the previous day in Chennai.Yes, my marriage got fixed with Mohitha,my future wife(at that time). Things became so fast for me which I was struggling to cope up. I was awaiting a bunch of teasings and mockery from my friends. I was actually pulling down Rajkumar who was to be married on September 1st. But least did I expect that my marriage would be on the cards as well. Taking and heeding the wise saying, "everything is for good" I carried on with my plans. Badhri who was lugubrious all the time and Ganesh accompanied me to Ramesh's house in Udumalpet on 22nd evening. We reached there fairly by midnight(which was not actually fair).We were happy to see Ramesh after an year and shared pleasantaries. It was almost 2am when we all hit to bed.

Day 1: Saturday.

The morning we got up around 8am and started packing things. By the time we met the other friends who joined us the same morning. Arun, Dinesh, Vishal aka Dinesh and Rajkumar landed from different places. We started feeling excited as the same team has formed without much hurdles(not forget Badri). Body as we call him seem to be testing tough waters for a while and it took us a long time to convince him for the trip. He was no different from college days.Vishal aka Dinesh a glib minded guy had not changed much. We got our logistics ready and this time it was Bolero a tough vehicle for mountain rides. Vishal was hospitable enough to pack lunch for all of us. Then finally we all hit the road. As usual it was Rajkumar who drove all the way and never to forget that he was the groom to be married soon. On the way we had to buy meat and other cooking stuff until the next day. We arrived to Parambikulam entrance and waited for the guards to escort us. We had our delicious lunch(courtesy: Vishal). We had some problem with a few local domestic/wild animals which were trying to grab our food. Then we had to leave the vehicle as we had a long way to go on water. We got into a row boat which was big enough to accomadate 13 adults. The 5 people apart from our gang were the boat rowers and guides. We were shocked to hear the travel would last more than 2 hours as it was 12 kms. But amazing thing is the island looked not far enough to justify the travel time. The dam is one of the largest in the state of Kerala.It was owned by Kerala Government. It was located on the borders of TamilNadu and kerala. The ride was splendid and fabulous. Though it started getting sunny and temperature creeping up we did enjoy the lustic green sceneries with beautiful mountains and falls. Then the guide gave us the scare of our lives. This dam was housing a large number of Crocodiles. Yes!you heard it right. We were so anxious to see atleast one. Dinesh aka Eli was trying to sight atleast one with his binoculars. Finally we did spot one. It was a large one which was on the banks of the river and basking under the hot sun. The moment we started to sail towards it made it to move inside the waters swiftly. This lone brought jitters in all of us.The guide was assuring us that the crocs wont harm humans as it had plenty to eat in the fishes in the dam. Still we dont want to be the first to be attacked by the predator. The journey finally came to an end after 2 hours of a quiet boat ride. The island looked very exotic. We had to climb a long way on the bamboo steps to reach the guest house. The adventurous stuff that interested us more was there was no power facility in the island. We need to depend on the solar light after hours. We settled our backpacks inside the house.

Famous Eight- Island Guest House-Parambikulam

It was a large lounge with 4 beds on either side. We expected much worse condition but this came as a blessing to all of us. We were provided black tea by the helpers. Everything tasted so good in an isolated and scary island. We started trekking on that island at dusk. It was very very scary and we could feel that we were the only souls on that island at that time. That alone gave a chill down our spines. All our speeches became so volume controlled almost to level 0. Most of the talking was done in gestures and actions. The guide showed us a damp pit and gave us bonus chills by telling an elephant herd was there a few hours ago. The guesthouse actually had a trench dug around it so that dark beasts would not venture in and destroy the bamboo house.We returned to our dwelling after having a long walk around the island. Now dinner time. Since we had bought chicken to cook it was served with chappathi. We had to eat just outside the guest house. Since there was not even a single light except the solar light we had to eat bit fast. It was a different experience chasing away insects which got attracted to the only one solar light. We had to wind up and got to bed. It was still scary around the island and we could hear faint growls from nearby island. That night was unforgettable for Ramesh as he had to get up(sorry he did not sleep at all) n number of times and had a toilet visit each 10 minutes. Poor guy still did not recover from the jetlag he had after he got back from US. No wonder he was half his size the next day morning.

Day 2 - Sunday

The next day morning was sunny. We had black tea and a few good souls sacrificed their tea for Ramesh, who looked at them like a devourer if they did not hand him the tea. Luckily I had mine. We had breakfast and I did not very much like it. But for Ganesh, back like college days, went for a couple of rounds. Ramesh was very much down due to ill health. We planned to get back home as soon as possible. Poor guy did not have his breakfast I guess. Then we we all started back on the 2.5 hour boat ride back. It was scorching heat as it was almost nearing noon time. We reached the shore safely. We all planned to have a good tea as we were starving and were having black tea for past two days. Then we all got some soap bars. We stopped near the dam and had a walk inside. The tunnel was on the other end. We drove there. It was fairly a large dam. We finally arrived in topslip and we had our lunch in a canteen nearby. Then we boarded a cottage just near the topslip. We were making fun and pulling each other. Badri got a few fans all of a sudden from an women's college bus. After "sighting" Badhri those girls got excited and was Badri but he started pretending as usual as if he did not like them. It was time to part for Rajkumar as he had to catch a bus to Bangalore the same evening. We send him off in a town bus that came at 6:30pm. We were not too happy that he left as he is the one who makes the trip active and well planned. But still as he was getting married the next week we could not expect him to stay back. We got back to our cottage and spend some time chatting.We came to the canteen for our dinner. Then we planned to go for a forest ride with a forest guide. Our luck, I should say, except wild buffallows we could not spot anything but a rabbit which lost its way and was jumping to and fro on our track in the front. We got back to the cottage and hit to bed.

Day -3 -Monday

It was Monday morning and time to wind up our cottage and we started packing up our luggages in the car. We started to udumalpet around 9am. It was Ramesh who started his driving as Rajkumar left the previous evening. We dropped Ganesh in the townbus stand as he had to leave for work the same day. Still we were feeling good that he was able to make it.We reached Ramesh's house in no time. We had a good breakfast and slowly started packing for the next trip down the line. This time we were heading to Kodaikanal. We had a good shower and were resting until noon. We all stared after lunch. Now we had to shift cars and it was Ford Ikon now. Now the members of the previous trip were cut short to just 5 as Ramesh, Dinesh,Badri, Arun and myself. We had already booked a cottage in Kodai. The drive was awesome through the hills. We witnessed beautiful waterfalls on the way-Silver Cascade waterfalls. On one hilldrive bend we were awed to see three falls and we did not fail to snap it in. We reached Kodai in the evening. We had a good masala tea with spicy bajji on a corner. We finally reached our cottage with the help of a reference of Ramesh's dad. It was a good cottage which had 2 bedrooms and since it was just 5 people we were able to squeeze in each of the rooms. It started raining heavily the same evening. We all went to a restaurant -Woodlands which was a pure vegetarian. The food was good. We reached our place bit late due to the heavy rain lashing. The rooms were damn cold and we started watching some crap movie on the laptop. Ramesh was the only soul to sleep alone in one of the rooms.Sometimes the duck behaves weird.We hit bed very late.

Day -4-Tuesday

We got up fairly around 8am and had a walk to a teashop near the main road. We became more hungry after the long walk. We got ready to leave the place and packed our luggages. We drove around the lake and went for a walk in the Coakers walk. We drove to pillar rocks and posed for some "extraordinary" snaps and we had a good chicken biriyani in a restaurant. Our hero arun almost lost his coolers, but was lucky enough to get it back. We started our drive back. We started immediately after lunch as we felt it might rain soon. We got down the hill in the evening and had a tea in a small village. After the tea, much to our amusement the car did not start. It was a tough time running behind the car. Ramesh, being in driver seat was laughing his heart out watching us through the rear.We still suspect that culprit. Badri "really helped" us push the car with his right index finger.Finally the car started and we reached Udumalpet in no time. Badri and myself started to pack our luggage to leave for Coimbatore. Badri and myself got dropped in the bus stand and we boarded the Coimbatore bus.We reached Coimbatore around 10pm.

Unlike last time this trip was very short and covered different places and having a few stopovers. Though all of the guys did not get into the second trip to Kodai, it was still enjoyable. I can realise how I have tranformed myself in the last few years travelling more each and everytime I hit India. Now that Iam engaged I hope I would be "permitted" to trip again with friends once in a while.