Wayanad - Another Memorable Trek

It was another amazing trek at Wayanad (Chembra Peak). Having a long weekend from Thursday last week we decided to introduce trekking to Sai Sharan. As usual decided to drive down to Wayanad-Kalpetta. Started around 8 pm from Bangalore and the city traffic almost made us change the plan. We reached "The Club" at 9.30 pm. After that it was a smooth ride. We reached Gundulpet - Cafe Coffee day at 12.30 in the night.


Gushed down a couple of coffees and spent the night sitting and chatting. Good time to catch up with Family (especially with the busy schedules at work now). Started from Gundulpet @ 4.30 am and reached the Forest gate by 5.15 am. Gates open only by 6 am and luckily the traffic was not as bad as the last time. We managed to scoot through the gates and reached Kalpetta by 8 am in the morning.

We had booked a Villa (3 bedroom) at Kalpetta. Now you must be wondering why? Actually it is a long story. To cut is short, one of my friend was supposed to be joining us for this trip and he had cancelled in the last minute. But the owner was good enough to understand and just charged us Rs.2000 including breakfast/coffee.


Refreshed ourselves and started towards Chembra Peak. Now comes the gala time. We could not believe our eyes, when we saw Sai Sharan trek all the way. We managed to reach half way through (heart shaped lake). Forced to return because a strong breeze swept Sai Sharan off his feet and he fell face flat. Poor kiddo got hurt on his lip and it was swollen really bad.
Few photos taken up there:

Reached back to the room dead tired and slept like a log till Sunday morning.

Started back from Wayanad back to Bangalore on Sunday morning @ 9 am and decided to go to Gopalaswamy betta (Near Bandipur). Good decision and an awesome spot. Check out few photos below to understand how it felt. We literally felt the clouds pass through us and it felt so divine to be there with God's creation.

We still had lots of time and Sai Sharan was requesting us for another visit to the Mysore zoo. So his wish is our command and we landed up going there. Lots of new additions like the Wolf, Cheetah etc.

The Drive back was peaceful and we reach Bangalore by 10.30 pm in the night and crashed into bed directly.

The good thing about this trip is that it purified all the pollution in my body and makes me feel really good. Looking forward for another trip soon.

Day Three – 9th August 2009 - Wayanad

I woke up for another eventful day exactly at 7.15 in the morning and found half the team still in bed. By the time most of them got ready it was already 9 a.m. We managed to get some parting shots at the resort and completed a very relishing Kerala style breakfast (Puttu).

After breakfast we started towards Chembra Peak and did some shopping on the way for some tea powder. There were some amazing scenes here in between the tea estates.
Photos below

We reached the bottom of Chembra Peak around 12.30 (near Mempaddy) and started the trek uphill around 1 pm. This was the mother of all trekking and took the toll of most of our team members. We exerted our bodies to the maximum limits. Finally only 5 people managed to reach the heart shaped lake and due to time constraints we could not go up to the Peak. Hope to get there the next time.
Video below.

We reached down around 3.30 and all jumped into the stream at the bottom of the peak. It was so refreshing and reenergized the whole team for the return journey. Everybody was famished and just waiting to reach a decent town to have some food. And lo behold we find an Udipi Hotel right in the midst of a Kerala town (Kalpetta town) called Affaas. It was so delighting to see that and we ate (oops sorry hogged) so many things over there. After that the rest of the team did some spices shopping and our return journey started.
You won’t believe this, I started sleeping at Kalpetta and woke up only at Bangalore (Rohan’s house). Gosh even writing this down is getting me tired but at the same time I can also feel the chill up the spinal cord.
Looking ahead for the next personal trek with the team – Kumara Parvatha – The highest Peak at Karnataka – Scheduled in October – Hope to make it – Will update you if I get to go – LOL

Low budget trip to Coorg/Madikere

Let me tell you that this blog is going to be an exposure of the crazier side of me. The last weekend (10th April to 12th April) was one of the craziest weekends for me.
It all started with we (Raadhika and myself) sitting on Thursday night and trying to lookout for a weekend getaway. We thought about Wayanad, Mudumalai, Bandipur and many other such wonderful places. But the major criteria we had in mind primarily been to keep it a low budget (as low as 4,000 INR all-inclusive) and at the same time have maximum fun.
I suggested her Coorg for two reasons: One I have already been there a couple of times; two I was confident about staying within the budget over there. So after lots of discussions and changes in plan, we decided that we would leave to Coorg on Friday morning.
Friday 10th April: Woke up to find Sai Sharan (My son) had his stomach upset and we decided to initially not go as he would lose further health. By 12 in the noon he seemed fine and we started packing for Coorg. I gave a call to my regular resort at Murnad (Happy Homes – Contact person: Kashi Aiyappa and Contact Number: 093421 47137/0827 147137). After a quick nap of one hour, we (Raadhika-Wife, Myself and Komesh-Friend) left from Bangalore at 3 pm in the afternoon.
After a slow drive we reached Madikere at around 10 pm in the night and had dinner. After that we drove down to Murnad. We reached around 11 pm and went to bed around 12 midnight. We woke up early morning around 5.30 am and took a refreshing walk to the Cauvery river bed from the resort.

A very interesting incident happened at the resort. We met a couple of other people who had come there (George and family) and incidentally George also was from Intel-SRR. While he introduced me to his wife, she confirmed that she had read my previous blog about the last visit to Coorg and the stay we had at Aiyappa’s place and that facilitated them to decide to stay at the same place. This has encouraged me all the more to blog about my travel.
I had already explained to Aiyappa about our low budget travel and he just charged us Rs.500/- for the night stay as well as the breakfast. We started around 8.30 to Talakaveri and reached the place around 11 am in the morning.




It is just 45 kms from Murnad but Ghats section. It is indeed a wonderful holy place and we had a wonderful time over there enjoying the beauty of the scenic view.
We left around 12.30 from there and started our journey towards Madikere. It was a wonderful drive back to Madikere (around 35 kms) as there were a lot of coffee plantations and Raadhika got down more than once to pluck the coffee beans.
We had lunch at a very small place recommended by one of friends there. It is called Krishna Bhavan Udupi hotel and the food was really delicious and within our budget (Rs.100 for all three of us). After that we did some spices/honey shopping at Madikere and moved to Raja Seat. It was around 2 pm by the time we reached Raja Seat and we decided to take the children’s train for Sai Sharan. The ride costs just Rs.5/- per head and we decided to pay for the whole train (Rs.50 extra) so that we can take Sai Sharan in the train quicker.
After that we moved into Raja Seat and it was such a wonderful sight. I have been here many times but always been mesmerized with the wonderful view from here.
After spending some time, we started moving to Dubare. We reached around 4.10 pm over there and decided to walk across the river as it is summer and the water levels were very low. We can actually walk across the boulders available across the river and it was definitely a very enthralling exercise. It took us about 20 minutes to cross the river and Sai Sharan freaked out in the water. He kept persisting at each point to sit in the water and play in it.

We were just in time to see two elephants being fed and two other elephants taking a bath in the river. It was so wonderful seeing this sight and surprisingly the entry was free for the day. Normally, I guess they charge about 20 INR per person for watching the elephants. We got two elephant hair (lucky charm to keep evil eyes away) for Rs.100/- each.
While walking barefoot, Raadhika got her feet hurt and we had to send her back by the motor boat. We (Komesh and Myself) sprint walked through the river and reached the other shore by 5 minutes. It was real fun taking that risk and worth every step.
After that we started moving towards Bylakuppe which is a Tibetan refugee camp setup during Rajeev Gandhi’s period. We reached around 7.30 pm and Raadhika was simply excited seeing the temple and just started telling Komesh to take more photographs of the temple. We spent some time inside the temple and then proceeded towards the shopping complex opposite the temple. We did not buy anything but did a lot of window shopping.
Around 9 pm we started the tiresome journey back to Bangalore. We stopped for dinner around 10.30 pm on one of those Mysore road dhabas and reached around 2 pm back to Bangalore.
Now starts the crazy part. My Uncle and Dad gave me a call around 9 pm on 11th April asking me to come over to our family temple on 12th April (Sunday) as all our uncles and cousins are meeting up there. Now this is a temple located like 40 kms after Dharmapuri towards Mettur Dam. This temple can be visited by only the male members of the family.
So as I was saying, we reached Bangalore at around 2 pm and after taking a quick bath, we left around 3.15 pm from Bangalore towards Dharmapuri. Komesh slept like a log all the way and I drove down all alone. It was so tiring but really fun driving down to Mettur. We reached around 6.30 over there as the road was smooth all the way.
After completing the pooja, we started back from my family temple around 11.30 in the morning and reached back Bangalore around 1.30 pm on 12th April 2009. I was tired in and out but the adrenaline in my body would not just let me go to sleep. Even till now my adrenaline is pumping and waiting for the next exciting trip.
We have planned to do the Coorg trip more peacefully from the 1st of May 2009 to 3rd May 2009. Hope everything goes more as per planned this time around. Praying for a fun and frolic filled life to all the readers of this blog…signing off….Bala….