17/04/07
I always wanted to see rather dying to see nature’s beauty. My thirst was quenched with the Munnar trip which is full of lush green forests in hills and valleys .
I thought of writing a travelogue but it turned out to be our horrible experiences in munnar trip and there is not much to describe about the place than our struggles because, the time we spent for sight seeing is quite less compared to our journey time which makes the whole trip an unhappy event for many.
When i started describing about the trip my tone was set to a discontented person, and intended to blame the organizing committee and the situations we fell in on those three fateful days. Later I convinced myself as it was no one’s fault, but we ought to enjoy the trip rather than crying over discomfort we faced.
We started in chennai at 7:30 pm on 13th and we reached Munnar by 3:30 pm on 14th. The route we followed was Chennai – Villupuram – Trichy – Dindigal – Theni – Bodinaickanur – Munnar. By the time we reached Theni it was morning 10am. I enjoyed looking outside through window while traveling and it was very pleasant to see the nature’s beauty along roadside from Theni to Munnar. It was greenish on road side with lots of trees that include tall palm trees , coconut trees (like in kerala), paddy fields, sugarcane and banana fields. A strange thing i have witnessed in Theni to Bodinaickanur route is, there are plenty of white silk-cotton trees found every where on roads and households.
West ghat hills starts at Bodinaickanur and will not end through out our journey to Munnar. These hills are densely forested places replete with natural flora and fauna and the green hilltop was our bulls eye to reach, but it was not that soon, it took long time to reach the top (not exactly but near to the peak). There on it was ups and downs in hills. There were few cascades in between and many trees were hanging with loads of fruits. It was very tempted to have some fruits but the bus was not stopped any where in the middle. I thought of coming there alone then I can have stomach full of fruits. When we reached the top(almost) of the hill there were few houses, forming a hamlet, and there are two check posts of Tamilnadu and Kerala. It is interesting that the border between the two states is on Hills. We bought some orange fruits there from the roadside vendor, they were really tasty and cold. And there on it took some more time to reach our resort which comes 20km before Munnar town.
From the check posts till our resort it was full of tea plantations you will wonder how much effort would have gone behind this much vast tea plantations. Cardamom plantations were also there in between. Till i come back to chennai i did not know that they were cardamom plants and we wondered what are these trees and why they planted largely here, I have come to know about it when i was browsing through internet in our lab about Munnar. I read about cardamom trees and saw their pictures. Then I figured out what I have seen there.
We were very tired by the time we reached resort, suits were booked already and the suit we got is pretty good. It doesn’t have fan or AC, you will no longer need it in Munnar. Every one took bath and were ready for sight seeing. We went outside our resort it was rocky hills all around. We posed for photos and we roamed there precariously on those steep rocky hills for more than an hour. There was a small brook born amidst rocks, flowing downwards. I love to see such small streams. I drank some water and posed near that for photos. We returned back to our rooms as it was becoming dark. We ordered buffet dinner at resort. They charged hundred rupees for veg and one twenty rupees for non veg. The food was not so good and they served very few items, and not worthy of money we gave. I got angry and ate so much almost worthy of two tickets on one ticket it self!!!. After dinner our organizing committee has arranged a campfire, we had interesting gossip session there. while we are interestingly participating in that, it started raining after an hour. We ran to our suits leaving the camp fire session abrupt. Though i like to get wet in rain , the case is different in Munnar, it was chilling night and rain will make you shiver terribly. I slept after coming to room, I had a nice sleep as i was tired in bus journey. Early morning we got call from our organizer to get ready for sight seeing, we were ready by 6.30 am and bus started at seven.
Our plan was to visit Mattupetty dam and Kundala dam and boating at Kundala dam. The scenic nature around the Mattupetty dam was very good. We spent half an hour there and had a light break fast with red carrets and biscuts. Then we started to Kundala dam, it is needless to say the scenic nature on the way to Kundala dam was magnificent with Tea plantations at one side of the road and tall trees on the other side. I was witnessing the tallest trees and green dense forest for first time in my life. It was heaven for me.
We reached Kundala dam by 10 am. The view all around is charmingly scenic. The most memorable moments of my trip (probably in my life too) are the moments at boating in the lake. The lake is surrounded by green hills and the water in lake is fresh and greenish, cool breeze was touching my face. The climate is most comfortable and salubrious. on the whole it was a breathtaking scenery. I’m sure you would think of a boat ride with your girlfriend. Unfortunately i had no girlfriend, so i had to adjust boating with my friends. We took a peddle boat (They charged 60 bucks and three persons can go for ride), two guys can peddle it simultaneously and the guy sitting in middle can change the direction of moving boat with a steering. i wanted to spend at least two to three hours (preferably all my life time) in boating it self. But there were many of our friends waiting for their turn to go for boating (there are very few boats) and we got only half an hour time for boating on our tickets. It was disappointing but no other go. I sat at one end and was ready to take our boat to end of the placid lake with peddling, one friend sat in the middle for changing directions, and one more macho friend sat at the other end to peddle along with me. This macho friend was peddling so fast that i could not make it, and i left the whole peddling to him, and i was just enjoying the every moment of the boating seeing around. Wading my fingers through the cool green water on the side of the boat. I took many snapshots on our boat ride. But unfortunately nothing looks good in photos you have to watch it directly with your naked eye. Though we wanted take our boat till the end of the lake, it was almost 20min over by the time we reached middle of the lake, and we had to return to the starting point in ten mins. Our macho man made it possible with his fast peddling. One of our friends said he saw anakonda in the lake water probably he would have seen his own image in greenish water when he looked into it!!. Reluctantly we passed over the boat to our friends.
Later we started to visit Tea Museum. We were aghast to learn that the entry fee is fifty rupees. “I will not come in, I don’t want to learn the process of making of tea, I don’t have the habit of drinking tea either ” my friend shrugged. “Hey give me 5 rupees each, i will go inside and see the whole process, and will explain you later clearly” another friend tried to make a deal. Mean while our active organizers had talks with Tea museum manager and successfully brought down the fee to twenty five rupees. Every one accepted with out a word and we entered into the museum. Just for the sake of naming it a “museum” they showcased few antique things. There is a pot that belonged to second century BC preserved in the museum, which was found in archaeological excavations in Munnar. An interesting news, that we read there was about the railway line to Munnar. There was railway track to Munnar during British rule, but it was destroyed in floods later, and the plans of reconstructing tracks were kept in abeyance since then. A pair of train wheels were also kept for display that witnessed the disaster. Later curator/guide of the museum taken us to a tea manufacturing plant. He explained every step involved in making tea leaves into dry tea powder and making of various flavors/concentrations of tea powder. Many of our enthusiastic guys bought tea powder of variety of flavors there.
Then we started our return journey to Chennai, on the same route, needless to say again about the scenic beauty of lush tea plantations and dense forest around the road. I don’t have words to describe the scenes seen through the bus window. Our bus driver was very cautious in driving through out the ghat road. The road is very narrow and it was very difficult task crossing the vehicles coming opposite, and taking U turns in that ghat roads. A large stone was fell on the middle of road due to the rain last night, and the gap to cross the road was very narrow just as much as the width of bus and there was no protecting wall/rods along the edge of the road, It was breath taking experience for me looking out through window and the wheels of the bus are at the edge of the road, at height of about one kilometer. Thanks to our cautious bus driver, we crossed ghat section safely. Once we were out of the ghat roads, our guys started dancing and singing, every one enjoyed to the extent possible. By the time we reached Trichy it was 3.30 am and our bus driver was sleepy, he wanted to sleep for an hour, he stopped bus at a petrol bunk. We came out of the bus, and just lied down on the floor outside the bunk. We enjoyed the rare experience of watching stars ( and moon ? i doubt moon was there or not) for an hour. After the respite driver back in action. we headed to Chennai.
We reached the outskirts of Chennai at 9:00 am, we thought we could reach hostel, in half an hour but it took almost two hours due to the heavy (usual) traffic. We have become like grilled chicken (Yummy yummy for cannibals) under the hot SUN of Chennai. Thank god finally we reached our hostel around 11:30 am. Thanks to CS club for the great trip.
