Misty & Mysterious Munnar - Part 1: The Routes

Kerala's claim to being "Gods own Country" is sounds really hollow and unconvincing most often than not. However, there is one part of this highly politicized state that really makes that statement meaningful; Munnar. Munnar is to Kerala like Ooty is to Tamilnadu. Higher altitudes of the Western Ghats with thousands of hectares of beautifully manicured tea plantations.

Since our Bandipur trip was scuttled by the powers that be, we had to think of an instant alternative for the Onam holidays. We had returned from Thekkady through Munnar in July and had not stopped to enjoy it's wild beauty. So we now had an opportunity that came knocking and we grabbed it with both hands.

Access to Munnar from where we live could be through two routes. One route takes you through Kerala on the NH-47 and at Ernakulam you turn into the NH-49 (Cochin-Madurai highway). The other route passes partly through Tamilnadu and re-enters Kerala at the border in Chinnar WLS. No prizes for guessing which route we prefer.

From Palakkad the road to Pollachi branches off to the right at Kootupatha. The road has recently been upgraded and is in excellent condition till Gopalapuram check post at the border.

Looking towards the Kerala side

Don't be fooled by the four-lane like portion just after the check post. It narrows down immediately after you cross the impressive statue of Thiruvalluvar!

Looking toward Tamilnadu side

The next 15 kilometers to Pollachi (Trip distance 48 kms) is full of potholes and it only improves 5 kilometers before the town. At the traffic signal at the bus stand take the right turn to Udumalapet. It is a good for the entire thirty kilometers.

When you reach Udumalapet (Trip distance 77 kms) the road to Munnar is on your right. You can't turn right there so you have to go to the end of the road and take a U-turn and then turn left to Munnar.

Approaching from Pollachi drive to the junction at the end of this road

Make an U-turn and come back to the traffic light for the Munnar road

The part through the town is confusing because a railway overbridge work is lying incomplete for many years now.

Take left here and any right after that

You'll have to take a left through a residential area and reach the Goverment Arts College where you have to turn right and catch the Munnar road, where you have to go left again. I drive by instinct and have never asked for direction but it will be better to stop and ask if you are driving for the first time, especially after dark!

After that it is fairly straight forward till you reach the first major junction where the Munnar road swings left. The road going straight reaches Thirumoorthy dam and the sign board is prominently placed so you can't lose your way.

At Amaravathi nagar (Trip distance 95 kms) you encounter the first in the series of 7 check posts. They rarely stop you at the Police check post but the Forest check post immediately next to it requires that you enter your details before proceeding forward.

This is the entrance to the Anaimalai Tiger Reserve. You are reminded to drive slowly through the forest and you might even rendezvous with a few pachyderms occasionally in one particular part of the stretch.

Single lane traffic throughout the Anaimalai Tiger Reserve. Be careful when you go off the road to allow oncoming traffic. The edge of the road in some places are quite steep and you can do your vehicle some damage. Trucks rarely make way for small vehicles so find a place with a smooth edge and wait for them to pass.

The road is worse in the "elephant" zone (above) and they have put an idiotic sign board along that stretch!! (left). How can you drive fast with so many potholes?!







The next check post is at the Tamilnadu-Kerala border where you are again made to enter your details in a register. Keep a few 10 rupee notes handy as the men at the Tamilnadu forest check posts aren't too shy about asking for a small 'something' especially if you have a non-TN registered vehicle!

Once you cross the bridge into Kerala you have three check posts, the Excise, Forest and Chinnar WLS entry (Trip distance 108 kms). You have to enter your details at the WLS check post again. Next to the check post is the eco-development committee office from where you can arrange treks into the WLS.





The last check post where you have to stop to make an entry is after the sandal forests, 15 km from Marayoor. A little after that is the Lakkom waterfalls, which is worth a small tea break!

Lakkom falls in full flow

 

Downstream from the falls

The Eravikulam National Park (Trip distance 159 kms) is 35 kilometers from Marayoor and just 12 kilometers from Munnar. You will need to plan a half day trip if you want to have encounter with the Nilgiri Tahr, including the waiting time for the  shuttle buses that take you from the reception center to the park.

The entrance is now crowded with food stall and curio shops that make the traffic jams worse. We reached early enough to be on the first bus trips and avoid the holiday traffic.

The bridge in Munnar from the Chinnakanal road

Munnar town (Trip distance 172 kms) itself is very small, wrapped around the confluence of three streams. The road from Marayoor snakes through the main market and reaches a bridge on the left immediately after the IndianOil petrol station. The road running right goes to Adimaly through Pallivasal. You can go to the Idukki arch dam that way. If you take the left across the bridge the road divides at the end of it. The left will take you to Mattupetty, Kundala and Top Station. The right goes to Devikulam, Chinnakanal, Periyakanal and Poopara. From Poopara the left turn goes to Theni & Madurai and the straight road is to Kumily & Thekkady.

If you want to avoid the traffic there is an alternate route from Marayoor, passing through Kanthaloor, Anaimudi Shola, Kundala & Mattupetty. The 8 kilolmeters through tha Anaimudi shola will require a vehicle with good ground clearance. I will tell you about this route in subsequent blog.

I will place the links to the blogs related to each of the places I mention here as I update it....just follow the links as they come along

Making of a New Woodcrawler

There comes a time in every daddy's mind when you start wondering if your little boy has grown up. I recall a conversation a couple of years in Bandipur with a Canadian tour operator, who was showing my son the photos he'd shot of polar bears while taking his guests on a wilderness tour in his native country. He said, "Don't come when your dad has to bring you; come when you can bring him".

Supreme court seems bent on throwing obstacles on our Bandipur visits for the time being but it gave us to explore some very unique parts of wild  Kerala. We drove 535 kilometers over four days and walked through some beautiful ecosystems which, if Bandipur were accessible, would have never popped up on our scanners! I will go into those experiences shortly but today I'm just a proud father of a son who loves nature as much as I do.

I wasn't sure if a boy, just a couple of months away from his 10th birthday was ready for  Woodcrawling but this trip seemed to have been designed by someone up there to test a 10 year old's resilience.

Day-1: 26th August 2012. Anaimudi Shola National Park
Our stay at Marayoor on that day was with the intention of checking out the famous fruit and vegetable farms of Kanthaloor and a trip to the mid-sized bit of the Shola National Parks here, the Anaimudi Shola. It's not for the faint-hearted especially if you are very "leecho-phobic". My son loves these slimy creatures. He says they have to feed too so there is no harm in contributing a little for the leeches' cause!

Day-2: 27th August, 2012. Eravikulam National Park

The home of the endangered Niligiri Tahr. It is a long climb to where the tahrs graze but it is well worth it. Unlike other national parks there is no restriction on the time you can spend here. We had come up to the reception center many times and gone back because of the crowds. This time the halt in Marayoor ensured that we reached in time for the ticket counter to open. Not surprisingly. this is the bit the little Woodcrawler loved most!

Day-3: 28th August,2012. Pampadum Shola National Park
As usual the timeshare holiday activity department portrays every task so difficult that you tend to think they are so concerned about you. Actually, if you do things on your own, you'll find that you spend ten times less!

We drove off to explore Mattupetty, Kundala and Pampadum Shola. The man at the forest station was skeptical. He said we were here during the wrong season but if we were willing to tolerate the leeches we could go. Someone should tell these guys that leeches are not going to put off a 10 year old waiting to do his third jungle walk in as many days!

Day-4: 29th, August 2012. Chinnar WLS

Last day of our trip saw us spend little time on Lakkom waterfalls between Eravkulam and Marayoor. As we reached Chinnar WLS I remembered I had promised the lady at the Eco-development committee counter that we'd be back to take a trek. It was 2PM but cloudy. I asked my son if he was ready for another walk in the jungle. I shouldn't have asked, because the answer in the affirmative came even before I could complete the question!

As we moved out, Selvam, the guide started off about "an elephant chasing a foreign tourist yesterday". I shut him up before he could narrate the entire episode. I hadn't planned for this walk and my son was in his "Ona-kodi", the new dress for Onam, a bright orange t-shirt, and he was sticking out like a beacon!!

A few minutes into the walk the guide paused in  mid-stride, his stick held up horizontally to tell us to stop. I could smell the elephant (or it's dung). We moved forward cautiously without any uncomfortable encounters with the elusive pachyderm.

The going is stiff in a few places but the little woodcrawler seemed to take it in his stride. With the invisible elephant behind us, he was more comfortable.

There were signs of the gaur and elephant but quite old and it was no deterrent for him. He just kept pace with the guide like a veteran trekker!

He was the first in top of a rock face that had some caves, (more about that later).......

...and while we waited to catch our breath on the very top. The guide went to take some pictures of the caves, and us.









After going to "Point - B", we began our descent. A lone gaur on the way provided the only interesting diversion. The guide was over cautious but then he did not know about our experiences with this large herbivore in Bandipur and other places.

Back at the car, my son showed me his foot. The shoe had scraped the skin off his heel and the blood had soaked into the material. All through the walk he had never complained or protested.

I have every right to be boastfully proud! After all this is what a dad looks forward to. No TV or Playstation for my son, ...

The Woodcrawler Version.2


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Trial of the Tusker - Part 4 - The Elephant that Monayi Saw

A visit to Thekkady is incomplete without a boat ride on the reservoir. The boat landing point is some 5 kilometers from the check post at the boundary of the park where you have to purchase an entry  ticket that you have to produce when you return. You reach the parking area from where you have to leave your vehicle and walk for about five minutes to reach the boat jetty. This is where you buy tickets for the boat ride and your camera.

It is suggested that you reach the ticket counter well in advance to avoid the rush, especially during the holiday season. Since we were in the middle of what was supposed to be the monsoon season the crowd was slow in building up. The boats do a "two hour" trip so there is nothing else to do till the boats return. Of course if you have company of people like Monayi time passes very quickly.  Monayi probably had one too many, early in the morning because he was swaying like a palm tree in the wind. He ambled across unsteadily and asked me"Which country are you from?". I was taken aback. I did not know that a jungle green dress habit made me look like a foreigner! He looked a bit upset when I answered him in Malayalam but carried on without losing his composure. He wanted to know if my camera was 'professional' and if I was with some 'channel' (read NatGeo or the like!).


When the boats arrived we managed to shake him off. We were assigned a boat run by the Forest dept while Monayi was on the other, run by the Tourism dept. A trip is scheduled every two hours but it doesn't work that way. You get on the boat and wait for it to fill up. We were on the boat on time, by 9.00 AM but when it finally took off it was after half past. So the 'two hour' trip actually becomes a 90 minute trip if there are not enough people to fill the boats.

The boat involved in the Thekkady boat tragedy, Jalakanyaka, lies on the shore abandoned. A mute witness to that horrifying day in September of 2009. 

It was reassuring to see the life jackets on the seats and the guide insisting that we wear it if the boat were to move. There is also a partition rail between the two rows of seats to ensure that passengers don't rush to one side of the boat when wildlife is sighted. That was one of the alleged reasons, and the lack of life vests, for the Jalakanyaka tragedy.

There is a pole with markings of water level at the jetty. It spoke of the failure of the monsoons this year as the water at the bottom, near the 115 feet mark!!

A sounder of wild boars cropping grass on the shore was the only wildlife in sight till the boat finally took off. It had been raining in small spurts so the reservoir was not filling up too quickly. The banks were green with the the newly grown grass. Perhaps the elephants would put in their customary appearance.

There were a lot of water birds on show. The darters and cormorants occupied vantage points on the dead tree stumps.....

.....some were snoozing.....

....others were peering down into the
murky water looking for their breakfast to swim past.

Still others were hunting in gangs, perhaps rounding up shoals to have a better chance of snaring a meal.












Kingfishers were there too. I saw all four types but couldn't a decent picture because of the light and a rocking boat.

The pied kingfisher (above) and the white breasted kingfisher waited long enough for me to squeeze off a few shots.













The KTDC's Lake Palace Resort lies in the middle of the reservoir. The only access being by boat. Room No: 44 is the room with the view but it costs a whooping 15,000 rupees a night even in off season!

A couple of white necked storks were sitting on another stump building nests on what appeared to be artificial branches placed conveniently to entice the birds into nesting on that particular stump!

The only large mammals we saw were a herd of gaur on the distant bank, too far even for my 300mm. I've seen gaur at touching distance in Bandipur so this was something not worth screwing on the teleconvertor for! 








As we turned around and returned there were only the birds to keep us interested till we reached the boat landing area.

After a rather anti-climatic boat ride we met Monayi again. He probably slept through the two hours because he seemed sober as he waved good bye. "Did you see the elephant", he queried with that mischievous glint in his eye. While his family found it amusing  I knew he needed another drink!






We walked back to the car park, disappointed that our tryst with Thekkady's elephants did not happen, we saw this little fellow on a branch above us. A Malabar Giant Squirrel. If not elephants at least an elephantine squirrel!!

We are due to meet up with elephants anyway, provided that the Supreme Court lifts the ban on trips into the jungle at the tiger reserves. Our bags to Bandipur are packed and ready. We leave on Sunday!

Watch this space.......

A Break from Woodcrawling

I'm a Woodcrawler. Period.

Nothing will make me consider crawling the footpaths of a concrete jungle but sometimes professional compulsions can make me change my mind.

(Thekkady will be back here shortly but I have to take a little break here and go to Mango Musings briefly.)

You see, in my circles I'm considered a reasonably decent speaker and if the subject is on my specialty, Glaucoma, I'm occasionaly invited to enlighten an already enlightened audience! I had therefore dragged myself to Ernakulam (Cochin) for the weekend and since I hate driving out early in the morning on the nightmare called NH 47, I left on Saturday afternoon with my son.

At the end of 24 hours I had to admit that if I discounted the NH 47 experience on my way towards my destination it was really a Grand Experience.
(You can click the link to go back in time and enjoy the old world ambience of the Grand Hotel, Ernakulam as soon as I finish that post, which will be very shortly. Meanwhile enjoy the crisp papadums for starters!)