Devikulam lake Munnar

Our Valparai trip made us wanting more of the western ghats,  So  when it was time for planning a December vacation we thought it would be appropriate to travel to the western ghats.

The first step was to identify the places we wanted to visit and our list consisted of Munnar, Idukki, Gavi, Kumily, Vagamon, Vattavada, Thekkedy, Kodaikanal. Yes the list was long but we had reasons to choose each of them,\.

Munnar because it’s a popular hill station, Idukki because of the wildlife, Gavi and Kumily because of the location, Vagamon and Vattavada for vegetable farms, Thekkedy because of the lake and Kodaikanal for location and of course passion fruit.  

After searching for the ideal route, road conditions, and places to visit we decided we will  stay in Munnar for 2 nights and 3 days and travel to Kodaikanal and stay there for 3 days, and if possible stay in Vagamon for a day.

We booked two hotels one in munnar for a 2 nights and 3 days  and Kodaikanal for 4 days and 3 nights  through booking .com.

With a sudden change in plans we decided to start a day earlier to Munnar and stay there for 3 night.

We started around 8.30 in the morning after breakfast from Bangalore and took the Bangalore –Coimbatore route till Avinashi. From Avinashi we took diversion to Udumalai road, the drive so far on the Golden Quadrilateral was as usual good.  Around 2 pm we reached Udumalai and hunger caught up with us, we stopped at a road side vegetarian restaurant for lunch.

From Udumalai to Munnar we took the Chinnar wildlife sanctuary route. The entire journey through Chinnar was beautiful, with lot of rivulets, waterfalls and green mountains, we were stopped at couple of forest check post for making entries.

The first checkpost I had got down for making an entry, the price to be paid when not driving. But the guard in the check post asked me not come and said when the driver is these you don’t have to come, I found it quite odd and funny because we were all just family. Well it turned out that the checkpost people wanted money, for no specific reason and would have found it difficult to ask a woman J.

On the way we met a group of elephants, Bisons, deers and monkey One group of monkeys jumped on to car , when we had stopped near the forest checkpost.

We stopped by near one of the roadside rivulets so that kids can have fun, and they enjoyed every moment playing in the cool clean water.

With  a small quick coffee break we headed to Munnar, we crossed the mist covered mountains to reach munnar the road condition was bad for this stretch but picturesque with mist covered tea estates. It was around 7 when we reached Munnar and we wanted to start room hunting, Being a long weekend it was like the entire KA vehicles were in Munnar we could see lot of KA registrations and KL yellow board vehicles,  none of the hotels in Munnar had vcancy and we were prepared for the worst,  with pillows blankets and food inside the car(our second home). One of the hotel in Munnar suggested us to check out in Adimali as there are few homestays around adimali. On the way due to road work we were stuck in an hour long traffic jam, but thank go to it we found some advertisements on the road side for home stays from where we got the details of JOJO Cottage in Anachal.

The homestay is little inside, the resort person allowed us to stay when we had convinced him that we are a family of four travelling and wanted just an overnight stay.  The resort is well maintained and rooms and was quite comfortable, It had  two bed rooms with attached bathrooms a living room, kitchen and porch. The manager of the resort was also very helpful and ensured we were well settled. The  villa was available for a charge of Rs 2500 for the night.

Next day morning we noticed how beautiful the surroundings of the homestay was, amidst cardamom hills, with pepper creepers everywhere and beautiful stream running by side of the road, this was such a value for money.

Thanking we did not get any rooms in the crowded town of Munnar, thanking the manager and owner of JOJO cottage we set out to Explore the tea estates of Munnar. We dropped the Vagamon plan as our guide from Kanthloor said it would be a long journey from munnar to vagamon and then to Kanthaloor since both were in different directions.

We reached back to Munnar and were sure that we do not want to visit any of the tourist places as we were expecting it will be very crowded with so many people in Munnar. One of Friend has suggested a Lake which was little aways from tourist eyes but was inside a private property which needed special permission to visit, anyways we though it was worth a try before  we head to Kanthaloor.

Tea Estate

After reaching Devikulam we headed further down to Theni on the way we stopped to ask for the route, apart from knowing that there is a lake in Devikulam (Sita Devi Lake) we did not know anything else.

The person to whom we asked knew the place and he said we can go there and take the car but will have to walk at least for 2-3 km, to reach the lake.

Engulfed in tea estates the road to the lake was a picnic in itself, beautifully laid amidst green tea plantation. Covering hills of tea estates we reached a junction with one lead to Munnar (apparently there is a shorter route to Munnar), one to Devikulam (estate we came through), and then two more, confused on which one to take we waited for couple minutes to ask a family walking down the road, they were going towards the scared Sita devi lake and were kind to guide us, We parked our vehicle near their home, This was a small settlement of people working in the tea estates. They showed us the path to reach the lake.

The settlement was on a plain land beautifully carpeted with green grass keeping a mental note to rest on the grass on our way back we went to the lake.

From the tea settlement its was about 1-2 kms walk, the pathway was quite good, and was well maintained, the local people worship the Sita Devi lake and the legend says that Sita Devi had bathed in the lake, the lake also has curative powers in its mineral waters, walking for about 15 mts in the lush green pathway we got sight of the beautiful lake and its surroundings unfolding.

Devikulam lake

The calmness in the atmosphere, the breathtaking view of mist descending mountains with Occasional sunlight in between was a divine experience. I wished the time would just stop there. The grass around the lake was inviting to take a nap but the leeches around the lake did not allow us.

After the enthralling experience we can back the settlement and enjoyed the grass carpet while allowing the kids to play in the small stream that flowed near by. It was almost 3 in the afternoon with no proper plan for lunch, and long drive in front of us to Kanthaloor we started from Devikulam. The settlement was quite active by 3pm with lot of woman walking to the sita devi lake for performing pooja and get her blessings, while we left, thanking them for allowing us in.

Sunway resorts, Kuala Lumpur , Cameroon highlands and Malacca

My First trip the country that is truly Asia...
I had a week long training to be delivered in Malaysia, and with G just turning 2 (in September 2011)
we decided to travel as a family so we can have fun after my official work.

Our flight reached KL around 7 am in the morning, during landing we saw acres of Palm trees and the wide clean Malaysian roads welcoming us
Since we already had visa the immigration at KL went smoothly

We stayed at the Sunway Resort Hotel in Subang Jaya area. The Resort is attached to the Sunway Pyramid mall.The resort itself is so huge and has lot of leisure activities that people come here for holidays.We reached around 9 am and the hotel staff were kind enough to provide us a early check-in and complimentary breakfast on the day of arrival.G was going crazy with the huge corridors and the animal like structures that adorned the entrance to resort.


After settling in we enjoyed the huge buffet breakfast which had almost every fruit available and the main spread was a mix of Indian, Chinese, Thai and continental.
The spread was quite long that we could not cover all of them even after staying 5 days.

Saturday being a holiday we decided to laze around and catch with all the lost sleep during travel. In the evening we stepped out see the petronas towers and visited some of the shopping malls in kuala lumpur.

Since this was a week long visit with no particular agenda in mind. 
Sunday morning along with another colleague of mine we took a taxi on rent and visited Battu caves, China town in KL.

Battu caves is a limestone hill along the banks of river Batu. Its about 13km from KL and is said to be at least 400 million years old.
The caves host a Hindu shrine for Lord Muruga, because of the Vel shaped entrance in the cave.We enjoyed the walk around the caves and climbed uphill to have a look a all view points.


Next day was Monday and I had to travel for work. I quickly cooked up a vegetable Pulav for G in our electric cooker and left for work. In the following 5 days of the week we explored different parts of the Sunway mall, mostly in evening took the rapid KL to visit different parts of KL 

On Saturday morning we took a taxi on  hire and visited Malacca(named after Melaka tree) the historical state, Malacca was earlier a fishing village.
En route to Malacca we stopped by on one of the umpteen fruit shops on the highway to buy some yummy local fruits. We visited  the Museum a good tourist place and were tempted to take a ride in the heavily decorated bicycles but our guide advised against it and we continued our journey.We stopped at a tamil hotel for yummy Indian Vegetarian food which all of us thoroughly enjoyed.

After the lunch we went to visit the replica of 'Flor do Ma' a ship which was built in Lisbon in 1502. Flor do Mar was one of the longest-lasting ships of the India run. But when heavily loaded it was very difficult to manoeuvre it.
Despite being deemed unsafe, she supported in the conquest of Malacca. The ship got lost due to a storm during one of its journey.
According to local people, "it's the richest vessel to be ever lost at sea, with a load of precious stones".

After visiting the model we started back to KL, the Malacca city holds lot of memories Portugal cultural in Malaysia with beautiful churches build in 1700.
A midst the crowded tourist place lies the city that brings a sense of satisfaction, through its clean roads and trees loaded with red juicy rambuttan fruits.

We reached Sunway at about 6 in the evening and spent the evening lazying in the mall.
Next day we traveled to Cameroon Highlands with the same guide we started after an early breakfast.Cameroon Highlands is about 200km from Kuala Lumpur on the KL-Singapore Highway. The drive to cameroon highlands was beautiful with mountains by the side. It took us around 2 hours to reach the top of the hill.  We Visited the butterfly garden and went for some strawberry plucking. It was very tough to control G from eating the fresh juicy strawberries but the hosts of the center were kind to allow him have some inside the park. We took our basket of strawberries and stopped by tea plantations to enjoy the picturesque view.


After a tummy filling lunch we returned to KL to start back on our journey to Bangalore..
and wanting to visit again to have more of Malaysia

Temple Festival of Kerala - Thekkniamma kavil Arattu (Vela/Pooram) - APRIL 2012

My Dad was asking us to attend Arrattu(Vela) at Thekkiniamma kavu temple, for people who don’t know about Vela, it’s an annual festival of Kerala celebrated at Thekkiniamma kavu- Bhagavathy temple near Lakkidi a small village in Palghat district.

Even though Lakkidi being my home town and the temple a integral part of our family I have never attended the festival and for some reason was also not keen to be there this time as I felt travel to Palghat during summer would just bring down my spirits.

But Dad convinced me to be part of the festival excerpts of which I share below

We reached on Friday the 6th of April 2012, my expectation of a Vela was something like the Thrissur pooram or more like the Mela in bollywood movies, to my displeasure the temple ground was completely empty with nothing but just a stage and few rods. I made sure my displeasure was well communicated.

Friday morning started with Para eduppu with the temple Velichapad visiting every home to bless the inhabitants with his traditional sword. Velichappadu, is considered as a mediator between the deity and the devotees. ‘Velichappadu’ literally means ‘the one who throws light on any problems.’ Possessed by the deity, Velichappadu dances in frenzy at the festivals in Bhagavati temples, and his dance is called thullal.

Our Velichappadu came home dancing to the accompanied drums in his traditional red clothes and carrying his sword. With dad already decorated the entrance and mom lighting the lamp, Velichappadu was welcomed to our home, the para (a Vessel) was filled with grains from the harvest by the gruhanathan and all of us adding our small contribution later the Velichappadu sent his blessings to us by placing the sword on our head. Even though I have seen this ritual many times in Chennai the feeling I got in Lakkidi was completely different.
This could have been because of the drum beats or the spirituality of Vellichappadu

The rest of Friday went event less until evening when we went to kaavu (bhagavathy temple), for the Kalamezhuthu.

The word Kalamezhuthu is a form powder drawing done with bare hands. The powder is spread on the floor in the desired pattern with bare hands, letting it in a thin stream between the thumb and the index finger. The powders are made out of naturally available material. There are of five colours, representing the five elements (Water, Air, Sky, Fire and Earth) called Panchabhootas, which constitute everything created. These materials are Rice (white), Charcoal of husk (black), Turmeric (yellow), a mixture of lime and turmeric (red) and green leaves of certain trees.

The figure drawn in our temple was of course Bhadrakali, in the fierce mode after killing Darikasura. The amazing speed at which the artist drew the figure stunned me, he was not referring to any picture but the perfection of the Devi was superb it was as if he was drawing someone from his heart. Once the drawing was complete he sang few songs in praise of the goddess, and destroyed the drawing and the kalam, then enters our Vellichappad who danced in front of the temple and in front of the disfigured drawing of the Devi.

That night I felt how can someone patiently draw such a beautiful painting of Goddess knowing that the he will disfigure the same after some time, it taught me a lesson nothing is permanent, and we need to understand, appreciate and accept it.

Saturday morning:

My mom told me that Poothan and Thirayum will be visiting every home in the village and are expected to come at 7am, I was thrilled now and the excitement of the festival slowly started entering my mind.

There are different version of Poothan and thira and the reason they visit homes, the one that touched me the most was the Edassery Govindan Nair’s Poothapattu.
The story is that once when poothan visited a house it saw a unni( child) and instantly felt motherly affection and took the child, the mother of the child could not control her sorrow and begged to the poothan to return her child. The poothan although felt sorry for the mother could not bear the separation from the child, so it put forths a condition that if the mother is ready to sacrifice her eyes the child will be returned to her, thinking that nobody will be able to sacrifice there eyes. So much was the love for her child that her mother took her eyes and gave to Poothan, which saddened the poothan who made a child with grass and gave to the mother. The mother instantly recognized and asked the poothan to give back her child as she full filled her promise and not cheat her now. The Poothan returned the mother her child and also being a part of Kaali with special powers returns the sight of the mother. Poothan asks the mother permission to visit the child once every year. The mother takes the child and leaves and the poothan realizes it does not know the house of the her unni (child), so she comes to every house on a specific day searching her Unni.

So children are a weakness and they come home to bless the children.

Saturday morning 7th April 2012, Poothan and thira came dancing to our home accompanied with drums at 5 in the morning, it seems the belief in Thekkini amma kavu is that their trip starts at our home and they go to every home later. Even though we have not been part of the vela for years the people have not changed the tradition, we came to know later that every year they visit the home for a few minutes and start off their journey.

This year of course was different. The visit at 5 made us all almost running from our rooms to the entrance with a veillakku (lamp) to welcome them

As part of the ritual they ask money, thira is to act as a decent person and Poothan is expected to keep on asking more even after getting money. When I first heard the people accompanying the troupe asking poothan to leave and she continued to ask for money, I was surprised and thought this a trick to get more money, but later felt bad on understanding that they are there as part of the ritual and asking for gifts/money is part of it.

Dressed heavily both poothan and thira looked complicated with their heavy dresses and more heavier masks. Their dance a mixture of joy, fun ,anger and their strength thrilled me.

The rest of the morning was eventful with panchavadiyum and bringing the Goddess outside the temple on the elephant.
I have never seen so much crowd in this temple, was it the music, was it the elephants or the sheer presence of the Devi that brought people from every where, whatever the reasons the joy and oneness felt truly amazing.

Our temple ground had just one shop of toys for kids and I had to stop by 

Afternoon the KalaVela (Bull Vela) and Kuthira Vela (Horse Vela) started with people bringing hand made Bull and Horse to every home and also carrying the traditional Koda, its seems ladies hold the koda and dance for the Bhagavathy and go to every home along with the bull and horse structures. This is a very good example how humans and animals lived together and respected each other in the good old days. Every day bulls get beaten in the fields and in the work places, but, for a change, this day is dedicated to them. You can only see this in the farming cultures where humans loved and cared their animals. This is something that we are loosing these days..

Then came nayadi, a hunter by origin, nayadi’s are know for their knowledge of herbs and cures for various diseases,
They arrive singing a song to let people of the house know that they have arrived, Our nayadi sang a song out of which all I could grasp was “etha shankaran naydi vannatunde” (Shanakaran nayadi has come)

The name of this nayaddi group comes from the word nayattu, meaning “hunting.”
The Nayadis spend their days searching for water and firewood, making ropes, and gathering herbs for sale. They are spiritually oppressed by their belief in the pantheon of Hindu gods. The Nayadis also worship “regional deities” such as Mallan, Malavarhy and Parakutty. They are known for their nattu vaidyam.. It seems one of the nayadi’s gave a new life to my uncle when he was a kid. Their treatment is unique, during earlier days when un-touch-ability was in its peak they are not allowed to touch the patient, they talk to the patient from a distance, analyze and provide the method to make medicines which is later given to the patient.

Shankaran Nayadi came home singing and started asking for clothes, we gave him money but he said he wants clothes, for which we politely declined telling we are just stopping by and we do not have any. He started making fun and asked us to change our clothes and give him what ever we were wearing as he liked them, later amma given him a dress which he happily took and said that he has come only to keep up their tradition of visiting houses and asking for clothes, it seems he comes every year visits 5-10 houses and returns back home. When asked he sang a nayattu and was mentioning that nobody asks for this now, they just give money. He was very happy to sing and blessed all of us and left.

The rest of the afternoon was eventless and finally clock stuck 5 and we were to go to the temple……

The temple grounds was covered with people and shops quite contrary to what I saw in the morning, it had at least 50 shops selling a variety of things from toys, dresses, flowers, slippers crockery to halwa, puffed rice and juices.

In one corner of the ground there was sringari melam, one side had the kala vela, there was kavaddi attam and couple of other troupes dancing and singing. It seems all of them come to temple dancing perform before the goddess and retire for the evening.

This started with Poothan and Thirayum and continued with karim bootham, nayadi pattu, kala pooram, kavidi attam, velichapaddu thullal and finally anapooram.

Aanapooram had 9 majestic elephants decorated with netti pattam and koda and panchavadhiyum to tap legs.

It seems the same troupe will come back in the night again and perform once more after the kalam ezhuthu.

The day’s events took me to different period and made me think of our forefather’s era, whatever that was performed here would have the best attempt to recreate that magic, but my heart started wondering and yearning to know more about the actual magic, which I know for sure is left to my imagination.

We could not wait for the events of night or next day as we had to get back to Bangalore, but I returned with memories forever and thanking my Dad for convincing me to be part of this 

Valparai, Athirapally, cochin from Bangalore

For a family that travels almost every weekend to Kerala, a railway pass would have been the best option, But our family staying in different places of Kerala, and for the ease of commute in Kerala we always end up travelling in car, our second home.
This time too we did.We had a wedding to attend in first week February, although we could have managed the train tickets if we had booked well in advance,
we delayed booking the tickets and justified our self the need to drive so that we can reach Bangalore back on Sunday night itself to ensure we have smooth Monday.

Unplanned school holiday prompted us to start on Friday morning and take an unusual route for an eye teasing experience…

The easiest route from Bangalore to Cochin is the one through Coimbatore, Palakkad and Thrissur. But we wanted some excitement from the usual route and we decided to take the offbeat Valparai route

We started at 6 in the morning from the comforts of our Bangalore home and took the golden quadrilateral till Avinashi, Since I had already packed pav butter jam(Leftover from our last night pav baajji dinner) for all we did not stop for breakfast. But we did stop once for diesel and once for a good refreshing coffee at the aavins outlet near avinashi, we grabbed a pack of aavins fresh and delicious palgova(dhood pedha) as well.

On the Avinashi-Comibatore road we took the LnT By pass to Palghat and took the Pollachi exit. The route to Pollachi from the bye pass is about 34 kms but was covered with coconut trees on both sides.We stopped to buy delicious guavas from the one of the many roadside vendors, Its been a while since I had such delicious guava . These have been grown in Palani and left me feeling guilty that we bought just 3kgs. From a family of fruit lovers, all of us including my 10 month daughter couldn’t stop eating them.The vendor rightly put in that they taste so nice that we will want more.

It was around 12 noon when we reached Pollachi, and with kids sleeping decided to delay lunch until Valparai
The drive from Pollachi was through beautiful roads with beautiful well maintained coconut farms spawning on both sides.
One can see the majestic western ghats behind the these farms. Which indeed was next stop.

Pollachi to Aliyar road

We reached Aliyar Dam, Although we did not stop to take a walk on the dam, we could get a good view of the dam from top of the mountains. Which on a bright sunny day would be picturesque with the farm lands of pollachi in the background.

Aliyar Dam

The assent to Valparai covers 40 haripin bends with comfortable roads, with every turn one can better view of the Aliyar dam. We stopped for a brief routine forest official checking in monkey falls and proceeded to valparai.

We passed through the annamalia tiger reserve, The valparai area is quite popular for tiger and leopard spotting but we did not get to see any of majesties.

When you reach Ayerpaddi you are suddenly engulfed in acres of tea hills.I have seen many tea hills but this was beautiful, serene and untouched.The green hills will tempt anyone to get down and take a walk, and so we did. We stopped on the road side for a cup of hot tea and for a walk in the hills.

Tea Hills in ayerpadi

We could reach chalakudi without going to valparai, but our hunger and the desire to see around took us to Valparai
It is a small beautiful town with hotels, cottages and home stays in every corner. We stopped by for lunch at Ayyappas hotel around 2 PM. This hotel is near the deviation we had to take to chalakudi. The food was awesome with dishes made from the local produce.

After making our tummies happy we continued on chalakudi road passing through Sholayar dam, malakkapara (Angel’s rock).  We saw few elephants near valparai tata tea estate.We stopped to take pictures even though they were quite far from the main road, our stopping of the vehicle caught their attention and they started trumpeting
ensuring that they are not photographed without permission.

Near malakkapara forest officials check your car for bottles and plastic covers. Do ensure that you give the correct numbers as they enter the data in a slip and give it to you.This slip needs to be provided to the officials in vazhachal for checking during exit from the Idamalayar forest.We reached malakkapara at 3pm, the forest is closed for road travel from 6PM to 6am.

Drive From malakkapara to vazhachal is through narrow roads. The road is good except for a stretch of 1-2 km which is under repair.The drive is beautiful with thick forest, beautiful hills, sholayar dam and Poringalkuthu Reservoir giving you company.I am sure this stretch would be beautiful during the monsoons

.

Upper and Lower Sholayar dam

 

We were tempted to stop on the road side streams and during elephant spotting, but having seen tigers at close encounters in nagerhole forest. We never stop on the roads if the forest rules say so.

We reached vazhachal at 5.15 and were told that the entry to both athirapally and vazhachal closed at 5PM,
even though we never planned to stop by the falls we were tempted to catch a glance of the majestic falls. So we stopped at Athirapally view point for some time.

Athirapally falls

From Athirapally we made a short stop to take bath in the chalakudy river to make the kids in the car and inside our hearts happy.

Chalakudi river

After this stop we traveled to chalakudi and then joined the golden quadrilateral to reach cochin our destination at 7.30PM.

The offbeat drive was tiring but was a beautiful experience which would stay with us for years.

For people travelling through this route couple of notes from my experience.

1. From Pollachi to Valparai there are not many hotels, so either have food in Pollachi or wait until you reach Valparai.
2. Ensure your fuel tanks will take you to Valparai.
3. There are no petrol bunks on the malagamalai-vazhachal road in the Idamalayar forest stretch you will not find anything or any body.
4. The vehicle population is very less so stopping is not a good idea.
5. Valparai region is quite famous for its tiger attacks so abide by the rules.
6. The roads inside the Idamalayar reserve forest are narrow but good. Sunlight might be less at few places, so entering this area before 5.30 pm is better.
7. Travel, relax , have fun and Take care.