Once we reached Kalpetta, we called Sunny Mathew (Owner of the resort) and he came along with his Manager (Mr. Alex). It took about 20-25 minutes to reach his resort (Green Mountain) and he kept showing land-slides all the way. There was incidentally 44 centimeters of rain on one single day and almost 10 acres of tea estate had slid away. It was the first frightening incident for the team.
At some stage we had to abandon our vehicle and walk up 500 meters to reach Sunny’s resort. Part of the team decided to travel in a desecrated Maruti Omni Van belonging to the resort. And now comes the second fear factor – Priya suddenly started jumping and she told us that there was something cold up her leg. Syed and I were next to her and so Syed held on to the “thing” with his finger and pushed it down the pant. The “Thing” turned out to be a leech and that was our first encounter with the blood sucker.
Marco suddenly found two of them on his feet sucking blood happily. He just pulled them out and when we reached the resort there was so much of blood flowing out of Marco’s toes. That sent the chill out in the team. Somehow we overcame that after seeing the tranquility and peace of the resort.
We had some tea first (Welcome drink) and shamelessly went for the breakfast table. The breakfast was delicious idlis/omlettes/sambhar and Chutney. We unabashedly ate our stomach fill and took 20 minutes rest.
After that Sunny took us on an estate tour which was by itself a trial trek. Photos below
After that Syed, Priya, Marco, Rohan, Nagabhushan, Marco and I continued to go downstream to the river bed. Surprisingly, I stepped into the water first, followed by Rohan, Nasir & Marco. The water was bone chilling and really thrilling to get into water. At this spot was my first and last direct encounter with a leech. Photos below of the water spot.
After that we decided to go back to the resort. After a chilling walk back (remember leeches all over the place), I decided to go for an authentic massage. The resort had a qualified masseur who did a real good job. Look at the relaxed Photo of mine post massage and bath.
We had lunch after that and even that was delicious and filling. There was a lot of choice for both Vegetarians and Non-Vegetarians. And I crashed out immediately into bed for a solid one hour after lunch. Just could not keep my eyes open after that good massage. LOL
I was abruptly woken up with Nagabhushan roaring next to me (Snoring stage II). LOL
I walked to the next room and found the team playing cards and joined them. We played for about 20 minutes and it got too boring. Decided that we would go to see some tree houses in the next estate (which was itself about 2-3 kms trekking up hill).
We reached there early evening and that was our third fear encounter. We really liked the tree house and the entry to it. It was just a wooden path supported with ropes on both side. To confess, I have a serious problem with heights and surprisingly, I walked on to the tree house first over here. Maybe I was too excited by seeing the tree house or just too embarrassed to accept it. LOL
Check the photos below.
We started back from there and it was already getting dark. To add to it, there was suddenly a power shut down. Nasir had a torch (courtesy Thailand) which helped us to get back down safe and sound. We reached the resort and went straight for the dining area. There was a lot of dancing and prancing with Ruhafza (courtesy Nasir). LOL
Check Photos
After dinner, I went to sleep straight as I was still having the after effects of the massage. LOL.
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