Wandering at Wayanad
It is not
very often that you get to go on a vacation. When you do, the first thought
that crosses the mind is to take it easy, relax, meander about, take plenty of
rest and get some quality time for yourself. I very much thought it will be
that kind of a holiday when we started out for Wayanad. Eventually, it was very
different and I’m very glad it was.
Why Wayanad?
I was to hear during the course of the journey that 20 years ago, people hardly
visited the place. It was just a sleepy District in North Western Kerala,
blessed with good weather and little known outside of Kerala. Today, thanks
mostly to Kerala Tourism’s God’s Own Country campaign, you would find it
difficult to find accommodation in the District during any of the holiday
seasons of the year although the place is teeming with resorts of all kinds
(and for all kinds of pockets).Sure enough, I had caught the bug and had wanted
to visit Wayanad for 3 years and could finally make it only this year.
There are
many routes to Wayanad and the most popular ones would be to drive down from
Mysore via Bandipur or the Mysore-Kozhikode highway. There are also those who
visit Ooty and then stretch their trip into Wayanad. I thought it would be
better to take the overnight train from Bangalore to Calicut (also known as
Kozhikode) and then drive up to Wayanad.
We arrived
early morning at Calicut on Sunday 27th April. En route, we could
catch glimpses of some of Kerala’s picturesque backwaters and one made a mental
note to return on a separate trip for that. The coastal town of Calicut is
extremely (and uncomfortably) humid. Magic Mama, dad’s friend for over 40
years, had invited us to his place for a wash-and-change and even laid out a
typical Kerala breakfast with Nool-puttu, Idli and fried sliced bananas. He
then gave us his car with his driver and asked us to only take care of the fuel
and the driver’s expenses, which we most gratefully accepted.
Calicut to
Wayanad is about 90 kms.In other parts of India where you would expect to get
out of the city onto highways and come across villages intermittently. Not in
Kerala. Here, the road winds and takes you through one village after another
and before you know you find yourself at your destination. The entire Malabar
coast is blessed with greenery and although the humidity is discomfiting, it’s
a feast for the eyes to see the various plantations en route – Rubber, tapioca,
coffee, tea, palm, betel, et al. Wayanad would be about 6000 ft or so above sea
level (Need to check the facts), so one can call it more of a plateau than a
hill station. Some mountainous routes across the country can give travellers a
tough time and the kids usually experience road-sickness. Here, it was actually
a pleasure to count up and down the 9 hair pin bends to Wayanad.
Our first
stop over was at Pookode Lake which the locals say is a natural lake. The
tourism department has taken special care to keep this place environmentally
friendly and does not allow any mechanised boats nor any kind of plastic. We
were lucky to get a friendly boatman (after waiting for over an hour) who kept
us engaged with conversation about the flora of the lakeside. The lake itself
is shaped like the map of India, he said.The place also has other attractions,
an aquarium and an elephant ride. That day, however, the elephant was not
available. ‘Probably, dysentry’ the boatman speculated.
We had
booked our accommodation at Planet Green Plantation Resorts. I had my worries
about the place. I had read reviews on tripadviser.com which were pre-dominantly
very good, but there were a few who voiced concerns about cleanliness,
infestation and about how the place was very far from the nearest town. The
last few hundred metres as we reached nearer the Resort were especially
disconcerting with a bad stretch of road. The reception had nothing grandiose about
it. I needn’t have worried; the ‘Premium Suite’ that we had booked, was just
wonderful – it had a floor with a wooden finish, a drawing room with two single
beds and a bedroom with a big Kingsize bed. The bathrooms were clean. But the
highlight was the balcony which had a great view of the valley in front of us
and the Chembra Peak in the background. It was a hot afternoon and after a
simple meal, we decided to just take a short nap and decide later about the
evening. We had barely slept when there was a sudden change in the weather –
thunder and lightning, followed by a heavy downpour. It was magical watching
the huge drops of rain against the background of dense clouds hovering over
Chembra Peak. To enjoy Onion Pakoda with tea from that balcony watching all
this – I tell you – was blissful.
The friendly
staff comprising of M/s Radhakrishnan, Raghu and Jestin helped us draw up an
itinerary that would enable us to see most, if not all of the places of interest,
within the next 2 full days. We started early the next morning at 6 am, duly
dressed, for our first halt at the Thirunelly temple. When on vacation, I
believe we should tune our clocks to go with the sight-seeing requirements for
us to make the most of it. Thirunelly temple is about 80kms from the Resort,
situated in the dense forests of what is now the Begur Forest Reserve. The
temple is over 2000 years old and enshrines Lord Maha Vishnu. The site for the
temple is said to have been chosen by Lord Brahma himself and mythology has it
that the adjoining Papanashini river is where Sage Parasuram washed away his
sins after he had vanquished an entire generation of kshatriyas to take revenge
on them over the killing of his father. As in perhaps all of Kerala’s temples,
male members have to wear a dhoti around their waist and take their tops off.
The serene setting was a visual treat.
About 25 kms
from there was our next stop, the Kuruva Island, on the banks of the Kabini
River (a tributary of Cauvery River). One would have to cross a tributary on a
Bamboo raft to get into a series of islands amidst other tributaries. It’s a
long nature-walk here which leads to a picturesque spot where the river gushes
through amidst rocks.
Lunch,
especially for those given to North Indian vegetarian tastes as are my kids, is
often a trying time in these parts. Wonder why Kerala Tourism hasn’t addressed
this need when they seem to have taken care of several other aspects of tourism
comfort. Wayanad is pleasant, but by no means ‘cool’ in summer. So, one would
be best advised to wear comfortable cotton wear with good hats and a healthy
dose of sunscreen. After ‘meals’ for us and some milkshakes for the kids at the
only vegetarian joint ‘Mint’ at Mananthavady, we then went to Banasura
Sagar Dam, our next stop. The Dam houses a hydel project of the Kerala State
Electricity Board, has a nice garden, but the main attraction is speed boats
across the Banasura Sagar. The place is absolutely breathtaking but by then we
had spent almost all our energies. It was time to return to the Resort and call
it a day. The kids, thoroughly famished, dug into the Aloo matar and Rotis that
night, which were by no means authentic, but had the right ingredients.
It was
action time again early next morning. We now headed for the Muthanga Wildlife
Sanctuary about 60 kms away to the north-east of the District. Google maps
contributed to our losing our way a bit and we could eventually make it to the
Resort only by around 8 am. The Sanctuary’s jeep took us into the forests and
we could see deer, elephants, peacocks in the wilderness. Muthanga is the other
end of the Sanctuary that starts at Bandipur, which we had visited only a few
months ago. The oft-repeated sanctuary talk that one has to be lucky to see animals
at the sanctuary followed us here and we nodded in acknowledgment. From the
sanctuary we stopped at Sultan Bathery, a quiet town nearby for breakfast at a
Udipi Restaurant after which it was time for our next stop – Edakkal Caves.
This was an
endurance test. Imagine that you get dropped off your car at 11 am on a summer
day of not less than 35 degrees centigrade and humidity in the high 70s. You
then need to climb steep roads for about 2 kms at a gradient of 1/2 metre per 5
sqms and then from there you need to climb about 300 steps on a steep climb
amidst rocks. If it weren’t for other tourists of all ages doing the same, it
would have been easy to call it off and return. Eventually, after an hour’s
climb, we successfully climbed into the caves. A friendly guide there explained
that humans lived in this cave before languages in the form of scripts were
introduced as can be seen from the hierographics on the rocks there. ‘Edakkal’
means ‘stone in between’ and the formation of the caves was such that there was
a huge rock amidst two sections of the hill. There is also an inscription in
Tamil-Brahmi script suggesting that tigers lived in this cave. As one would
imagine, there are wonderful views to be had of Wayanad from the top of these
hills.
After
stopping at a bakery nearby for some snacks and, you guessed it, milkshakes, we
stopped by at the Agricultural Research Station at Ambalavayal. While the wife
and kids went around, I sat and had a chat with the Officer-in-charge and more
importantly got my iphone recharged during the conversation. From there, we
went to Karapuzha dam, another picturesque water spot. Having already seen the
Banasura Sagar Dam we figured it would be much of the same and seeing
threatening clouds looming overhead, beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the
Resort in the next half an hour.
We had a
relatively leisurely morning the next day, leaving at 7 am for a stroll down
hill from the Resort to Coffee and Tea plantations nearby. The owner of the
Resort is also an author and I purchased a book ‘Ajaya’ authored by him. After
breakfast, we left for Calicut. En route we shopped for spices at Kalpeta town
and stopped at Lakkidi view point to capture the breathtaking views of the
valley from a height of about 3000 ft. Not to leave anything undone, we even
went to Calicut beach in the evening before we returned to the station to take
the overnight train back to Bangalore.
It was an
action packed holiday, something that I would not have bargained for at the
start of the trip. But certainly very refreshing. A few words about Wayanad in
particular and Kerala in general.
·
Surprisingly
clean place and beautiful roads all through.
·
People who
prefer to talk in Malayalam which could be a bit of a problem for a North
Indian.
·
The place certainly
needs some good vegetarian joints – there is plenty of seafood and meat for
non-vegetarians, but I am not qualified to comment on that option.
·
I would
recommend the Resort that I stayed in – Planet Green Plantation Resort, about 6
kms to the east of Kalpeta town. There are a host of options to choose from
though.
Until the
next vacation...cheerio !
