Wayanad Trip - 5th Jan 07 to 8th Jan 07

After planning the trip for over 6 months, it finally materialised from 5th to 8th jan 2007. Two weeks of planning and action items and bookings and finally D-day was here. It was 5th Jan and the schedule said we would start from Bangalore at 1:00p.m. sharp.

But as expected, we started at 3:30p.m. with lots of junk food and lots of fun expectations for Wayanad (ofcourse after a wonderful morning spent scheming for things to do over the weekend.. ;) )

We started with a bang and a big round of antakshari (ofcourse Kannada and Hindi songs both). But our first jinx was the breakdown of the Tempo Traveller in the middle of Bandipur forest (I couldve said middle of nowhere, but well, Bandipur cant be called no where :p ). And Murphy's law couldnt have come true at a more appropriate time. The driver of the vehicle did not even have a torch to go and look at the vehicle and neither did any of us. However, the vehicle was ultimately fixed after an hour using my phone flash light as the torch (The adv of having a good torch in your phone. :p), and we reached Wayanad at around 2:00a.m., and all we could think of was to go and crash on the beds.

The next dawn brought with it promises of an exciting day ahead and we all started from the hotel with complete josh.. :)







Itinerary for day 1: Lake, Suchipura falls, Eddakal caves

First stop was the Pookot lake, which had boating / kayakking and a whole lot of lilies.... :)

The lilies at Pookat lake were almost inviting us to photograph them





And ofcourse, the hunks in our group couldnt resist the temptation to be photographed either... :)

















Everyone except Sowmya and I decided to go for pedal boating. Sowmya and I decided to go Kayakking. Kayakking was an all new experience for me since I was doing it for the first time.

After the boating / kayakking, we went for a walk around the lake, and it was the turn of the monkeys & some flowers to be photographed. They almost seemed to be willing to pose for the photographs (I guess they're used to being the cynosure of all eyes and cameras!)



However, we were soon done with all the sightseeing and really tired, and mostly starved. So, we went to this restaurant near the lake where the "chef" took half an hr to prepare fried rice. And this provided a great time for some of us to grab a quick nap... :)





After lunch, we decided it was too late to go to the falls, so we went on to Eddakal caves. The climb to the caves was interesting (though I did prefer to take the jeep up until almost 1 km of the caves along with Pallavi and Usha and Sumanth - who was our chaperone for this little journey!)




The Eddakal caves looked majestic from a distance and enticing from the inside. My first thought on thinking about the caves was "Why would someone climb so high up the mountain to scribble something in Pali on the stone?" (After thought PJ: What happens if English is declared obsolete one fine day? Ans: No one will be able to understand the logs / blogs! :D)



The climb up to the caves was bad enough. The climb down was worse - given my fear for looking down the hills, but I managed pretty well thanks to Sumanth and Sowmya. On the base landing, we stopped for a few pics, and Janardhan's bag was almost the target for a set of excited monkeys scrambling for food.


As we headed down the hill, we could see a majestic sunset. All of us pulled out our cameras to capture it, but the one best shot came from the best photographer in the group - Thukkaram.

At the end of the day, we were too tired to even move our fingers. But nonetheless, we decided to meet up and spend some more time together. So, we all huddled up in Sumanth and Chetan's room for a few games of housie and pictionary. Housie was almost exclusively won by Usha and Sowmya provided a tough challenge to Vatsa's drawing skills in pictionary. Words ranging from "Perfect" (Neerja just created a Nike logo for Thukkaram to guess it!) to "Ready" (there was the makeup and mirror and car for a date too!) to "Reaction" (emoticons + chemical experiment + burettes + test-tubes).. it was the perfect fun event.. :)

Tired and almost dead, we all collapsed at around 1 a.m. with plans to be up and ready at 8:30 the next morning to head towards the Suchipura falls.

Itinerary for day 2: Suchipura falls
The drive to the falls was extremely scenic with the tea estates and the winding country roads. But it wasn't so pleasant for those with a weak stomach :( So, lots of people fell sick during the journey. But once at the falls, everyone was back to their normal cheerful self... :)

The final 1 km downhill to the falls was fairly easy, but the thought of walking back the distance uphill was daunting. But, the falls were majestic and inviting and all the folks in the team decided to go right ahead and jump into the cool waters. Chetan and I desisted from walking down the last 100 mts of rock and enjoyed the fun in remote mode.

And ofcourse, a scenic location meant a lot of solo pics. So, everyone (including me), lined up to be photographed by the most photographed person Janardhan in the group. In this pic, it almost looks like he is being blessed by a divine deity for all this tapasyas.. :)

And since this most photographed person also goes by an alternate nick-name of Krishna, this pic with all the ladies in the group was imminent. :)



While returning from the falls, the uphill climb didnt seem to hurt as much as I had expected it to hurt. And almost every locale had its fair share of scenic shots to photograph. Near the parking lot, we waited for almost 1.5 hrs to get lunch! One more round of quick naps was in store, where all of us collapsed while waiting for lunch. :)

Once back at the hotel, we started the pack-up-to-leave routine and started back for Bangalore around 6:30p.m. On our way back, the usual antakshari gave way to a round of solos from each of the people present in the bus. So, I started with "Hoove Hoove" (my first attempt at singing in kannada), Pallavi had a dedication and blessing for "Padmanabh" Janardhan, Chetan sang 3 solos - a Christmas carol, a dedication to the Indian cricket team, and a Himmesh Reshamiya song, Vatsa sang a galata Kannada song and Neerja actually sang a "quack quack" nursery rhyme with actions!!!!! :)

The pic to the right is the best pic taken in the trip.. Guru took this pic while we were doing the walk near Pookot lake. He counted 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 and by then everyone was almost laughing. That is when he took this pic, and hence everyone in this pic is laughing :) Neat trick, ain't it?



Overall a good trip except for the instances of eve-teasing which happened at almost every location we visited. Though it was a wonderful trip in terms of the sights and locations, the bitter after-taste left us never wanting to visit this place again. :(