Wynad trip

Sigh! I lost my post (Don't ask me how, it's kinda stupid), when I was almost about to publish it. It' so hard to write any post all over again. In other cases, I would have happily abandoned the idea completely. But I had to write about our Wynad trip.

So here it is.

Whenever I think about Wynad, two things come to my mind, lush green tea estates and mouth-watering Kerala dishes we had in Sultan Bathery. Rest all doesn't really matter. Kerala is truly blessed with the green color. I was surprised to see so much greenery in the month of May. I wonder how it would be in the rainy season.



As usual, we started late for the Wynad trip. Harsha was waiting on the M.G. Road for about 2+ hours (cursing all of us). I was fearing that he would just give up and go back home. But luckily he was there, acting as a road inquiry booth. LOL. On our way, we stopped by at Kamath's to have breakfast. That place is getting insanely popular. We had to wait for about half an hour to get our seats. While we were waiting, King of Mysore Mr. Wodeyar dropped by in his shiny Merc. Wooohooo, so we got to eat our dosa along with the king.

Rest of the journey was pretty uninteresting, except for the time when we missed one turn and took a wrong road. We asked one shepherd on the way if the road goes to Wynad and he just said it's too far from there. We traveled about 50 Km in the Ooty direction before we found out that we were completely off track. I wonder what did he mean by "it's too far". Did he believe that the earth is round and we will eventually reach the correct place? Anyway, after traveling for 100 Km, we were back on the track.

Once we entered the Bandipur forest, everything was pleasantly green. We even got to see some elephants... just like that. It's weird. In our last trip to Bandipur, we were fanatically searching for the elephants and here they were. Considering how dry that Tamilnadu part of Bandipur forest is, I would say elephants made a good choice by staying in this part of Jungle. We took some snaps but this fella didn't like being clicked and he was about to charge on us. I was hoping to get some good closeup shots, but Aaditya being a spoil sport, he drove away hastily.



Muthanga forest was lovelier. There were huge bamboo groves and I am in love with that place. I wish I could stay in the jungle, inside the bamboo grove.



We stayed at Sultan Bathery. The proprietor told us about this Jubilee hotel and we were just glued to that place. We religiously had our breakfast, lunch and dinner at Jubilee. We had some really good Kerala dishes and the lime tea was heavenly. Me and Harsha must have had about 50 cups and we got it packed as well. :-D

Ok, we did get some time to see two places in the amidst of this eating spree. Edakkal caves were ok. the jeep ride up to the bottom of the hill was thrilling. I wanted to do couple of rides back and forth but other were too embarrassed. They have built steps and put up ladders wherever possible. So climbing up to the caves is kinda easy. After that only Aaditya and Harsha went up to the top of the hill. It was a difficult trek, but the view from the top was so amazing that it was worth it (as per them).



Next day we went to see Soochipara waterfalls. Drive was nice. We were passing through the Malabar district and after one turn we suddenly saw this huge landscape with sprawling tea estates. Where ever one can see, there were tea estates on all the hills. It was an amazing site. So green and so lovely.



Soochipara waterfalls were ok. Considering it's summer time, there was enough water to splash. We spent some time near waterfall and watched people bath. Harsha took some nice pics (LOL).



We had planned to stay in a tree house in Muthanga forest, but it didn't work out. there is always a next time.

I am eager to go to Kerala again.