Munnar and Thekkady

When thatha and nanamma were leaving for Hyderabad on 9th April, I wanted to go with them to Hyderabad. So, from the time I came back from Rameswaram trip I started packing my bag and getting ready for my travel to Hyderabad. Looking at my actions, dad and mummy were worried how would I behave on the day when thatha and nanamma leave to hyderabad. So, daddy told me he wants to go to Munnar after thatha and nanamma leave to hyderabad and I will miss that trip, if I go along with them. Hmm.. tough choice for me... I said, I will stay back in Trivandrum and will go to Hyderabad later. Though Daddy told it just to bring me out of that... he was looking for an opportunity to travel to Munnar. Luckily, he realized that May1st falling on a Tuesday is a holiday. So he took April 30th off and planned for a 4 day trip to Munnar. This is in continution with our May 1st travel almost every year. 2009 May 1st, we were in Ooty, 2011 May 1st in Wayanad... now in Munnar. [2010 we went to Ghati Subramanya on a day trip].


The plan is to cover Munnar and Thekkady. So, Dad booked a hotel in Munnar for Day1 and in Thekkady for Day 3. Didnt book for Day 2.


28 Apr 2012: The plan was to start by 6AM from home, stop at Kottayam (around 150Kms) by 9:30 for breakfast and then reach Munnar by 2:30PM.



We started 30minutes late. Reached Kottayam at 9:30. We started looking for a hotel for breakfast. We stopped at a good looking hotel. There was no one inside the hotel. We had a doubt if they have breakfast. But, the waiter there said they do server breakfast. When we asked for menu he gave us the lunch menu [only items available were Paratha, Roti and Appam]. Since we already wasted 10-15min. we thought of having heavy breakfast and ordered for it. We finished breakfast by 10:15.

There was not much traffic on the MC road [Trivandrum - Kottayam]. But after Kottayam we felt it was heavy traffic. It took 1 and half hour for next 15Kms [Ettumanoor]including 15min. break at a petrol pump. It was around 12 by the time we reached KothaMangalam where we should take a diversion from MC Road to Kochi-Munnar-Madhurai highway. The plan was to be there by 11.

From this point the route was very scenic and curly roads. On the way we stopped at "Cheeyappara Waterfalls" on the way. We spent around 20min. there before moving. Within 5 min. drive there was another falls. We stopped again for few pics.

It was already 1:30PM. We stopped for lunch at a hotel on the way. We realized how bad the decission was after an hour. Looking at the price 150/- for a egg fried rice, we thought the quantity would be sufficient for atleast one and half people and ordered only 2 dishes (one egg fried rice and a curd rice - 90/-). we waited for 45 min. to get our order, though there were only 10 customers in the hotel. The quantity was not even sufficient for breakfast. So we ordered another friend rice and waited for another 20min. It never came. Finally we cancelled the order and left the place at 3:00PM. Munnar is around 25Kms from there and our hotel (Munnar Rock resort is 8Kms before Munnar town). We stopped at a view point on the way for some photos.

We reached the hotel at 4PM. The room was decent enough for 1000/-. After half an hour we left for Munnar city. We wanted to visit blossom park, pothamedu view point and athukkal falls before dinner time. We couldnt find the route to falls though we could see it from main road, so we went to Pothamedu view point. The road was very narrow. Only one vehicle can go at a time and there were vehicles in both directions. When we reached the view point, it was fully covered with fog. All we could see was fog and nothing else. So, we didnt waste much time there. Headed towards city to see the park. The park was just next to the road which we took to go to the view point. But, the park entrance in under renovation and didnt look interesting place to spend time in the evening. So skipped it and headed to city. There was a bridge on the way on which only one vehicle can go at a time. We had to wait for 10min. for our turn before the traffic coming from other side went through. Looking at all this, we felt to take a hotel inside city for next day. We didnt have reservation for day 2. Dad didnt want to drive for sight-seeing as he would not be able to enjoy the locations around. So, we went to DTCP office (Govt. of Kerala tourism) to enquire about their packages. They have three packages each in a different direction. Luckily they had seats available in Mettupatty routeonly, which we wanted to go. We reserved our seats for next day paying 600/- (for 2 persons). Now we wanted to book a hotel near the DTCP office so that we dont have to go back far after coming back from trip. We called babai and srinath mama for booking a hotel inside city for next day. Finally Srinath mama booked one hotel "Munnar Inn" through MakeMytrip. From there we went to Saravan Bhavan for dinner at 7PM. There was a big queue for seats. But, the service was very fast, so we could finish fast. It was around 8 by the time we finished our dinner and started back. We didnt know there was a surprise waiting for us at that time....

We crossed Munnar city in 10min. From city outskirts our hotel is around 5Kms. I went into sleep as soon as I got into car. Dad was saying there was heavy fog on the return to hotel and couldnt see anything in the front beyond 10mts. I got up when we reached hotel. After our hotel experience in Kanyakumari, We carried our mosquito net for this trip. So, I slept in the net though there were not many mosquitos.

29 Apr 2012:

We got up at 6AM. Got ready and vacated the hotel by 8AM. We wanted to visit Attukkal falls and have breakfast before going for the packaged tour.

Attukkal Falls is 2.5 KMs from main road. We went up to a KM crossing the Tata tea packaging unit and the falls was clearly visible from there.

We spent sometime and decided not to go further as we may end up skipping our breakfast and dont know if the tour guy stops for lunch. So went to Saravan Bhavan again for breakfast. This time it was too much crowded that we couldnt even get inside the hotel. people were waiting outside too. We didnt want to waste time there and went to Sri nivas hotel, as daddy read good review about that too. The situation was more or less same as Saravana bhava there too. Though we managed to get seats, the order was too late. We asked for masala dosa and poori. After half an hour we got plain dosa and poori. From there we went to the DTCP office where we took the cab for sight-seeing. It started at 10AM. Went through Photo POint [ we got some instant prints from there. They charged 30/- for photo], Honey bee tree [bought one bottle of honey - hope its pure], Mattupatty Dam, [The boating place was crowded so we told the driver not to stop there - but it was in the itienary], Echo point [driver said its echo point but didnt look like. I think it was film shooting point. Dad told me to shout to check as I am famous for it. But, as usual, i didnt shout when required :-)], kundala dam, a tea estate [ this was in the list, but driver could see the top station covered with fog. so he stopped at a tea plantation for a while to wait for the fog to clear off] and finally top station. Though the fog was cleared mostly, it stilled blocked our view from top station. At around 2PM, we headed back to city for lunch. We reached city at 3PM. We were supposed to go to Raja malai after lunch. Driver told us the entry to Raja malai will be closed by 4:30. So, he adviced us to have a quick lunch and be back in half an hour so that we can reach there by 4 and buy tickets before it is closed.

We were running through all the hotels around. All of them were crowded and people were waiting outside too. We were looking for some hotel which is not crowded. Luckily we found one Purohit Restaurent. It was almost empty. The service was fast and food was tasty too. We finished in 20min. and went back to the cab. There were three families including us in the cab. Two of us were back in 30min. We waited for the other couple for another 30min. So, the driver gave us an option. Either we go to Rajamalai as per plan [there is high possibility that its closed] and return or go to Attukkal falls. Actually we felt we have no choice and told him to go to Attukkal falls though we visited in the morning. The driver stopped that cab exactly at the same place where we stopped in the morning for some photos and good view of falls. Then he took to bottom of the falls. It was not as interesting as it was from top.

While we were having lunch, daddy received a message from makemytrip that the hotel he booked for that night is not confirmed. He called them up and they said they will try to confirm the same hotel by 6PM.


We reached back at DTCP office at 5:30PM. Just before we reached there, we got a call from MMT that they provided an alternate accomodation at a better hotel for same price with complimentary breakfast. So, we headed towards Emerald Inn. We reached the hotel by 6:15PM and checked in. We thought of getting fresh and go to city for some shopping and dinner. But all of us were tired and decided to stay in the room itself and have dinner in the same hotel. Around 7PM it started raining. We were happy that we didnt go out. Had dinnet 8 and went to bed.


30 Apr 2012:
We got up little late around 8 and got ready by 9. Had breakfast and checked out of the hotel. The complimentary breakfast was not good. It was a buffet breakfast with only Idli and poori. Everyone wanted poori and to get a single poori one had to wait for long time.

At 10:30AM we reached Tata Tea Museum. But, it was closed. We didnt know that its closed on Mondays. :-(. From there we headed to Thekkady located at 108KMs from Munnar. We planned to visit the places on the way and reach Thekkady by 2PM.

On the way we stopped to but some fresh carrots, at Loghart Gap, view point and Powerhouse falls. We reached Thekkady at 3PM. We had reservation at KTDC hotel Periyar house inside the wildlife sanctuary. The hotel is inside forest and entry is not allowed after 5:30PM. Even the guests are not allowed to go out of hotel premises after 6PM. The hotel arranges for wildlife boating for its guests. But, the tickets for that day were fully sold out.So, we reserved for next morning's first ride at 7:30AM.

In the evening, we roamed around the sanctuary for sometime and hotel. We could only see Monkeys and Pigs. We went to bed at 10pm after dinner.

1 May 2012:

Got up early and got ready by 7Am. Went for boating. The boating was a 1 and half hour boring ride as we didnt see any interesting animal. We could only see some bison, wild hoggs, pigs, deer and samba deer.

After the boating, we checked-out of the hotel. Had breakfast at Kumily 5Kms from Thekkady. We started from Kumily at 10:30 with a plan to reach Trivandrum by 4PM with a lunch break on the way. On the way to Trivandrum we stopped at a waterfalls for 10minutes. Though we wanted to stop for lunch initially, we didnt stop as I wanted to reach home fast and reached home at 4:15Pm.

Ok. let me go and check where to go next.......

Guruvayoor

Last weekend we planned to go to Sabarimala. But, we couldnt make it for various reasons. So, instead we visited some local temples and ashram.

March 24th and 25th we planned for Guruvayoor.

We started from home at 8:00PM after having dinner, reached the station by around 9:15PM. Our train to Trichur (Amrutha Express) came on time at 10:00 PM and started at 10:30PM. As soon a sthe train started we went to sleep after setting alarms on all the phones for 4AM.
We got down at Trichur early in the morning at 4:15AM.

We dont have any idea on how far the bus stand is and how to go to Guruvayoor from there. There were some cabbies behind us telling us that we wont get any bus at that time and have to take a cab. But, we wanted to take a bus. After enquiring with some people we went to busstand, which is just out side the railway station :-).
At busstand, we got to know that the KSRTC bus is at 6AM. Outside the busstand, therewere few private services. We got into one of the bus to Guruvayoor and reached Guruvayoor by 6:30AM.

We didnt have reservation, so we had to search for an accomodation. The city was too crowded that day and almost every hotel was full. Dad went on search and we were waiting for him. Almost after 45min. he came back saying he found something. We took our luggages and started following him. He was walking, walking and walking... finally we went to the hotel room had bath and left for darshan.

We wanted to have darshan before taking breakfats. But the queue was too long, we changed our mind and went for breakfast. The breakfast was very tasty had heavy breakfast and stood in queue at around 9:30AM. Before standing in queue we had to deposit all mobile, camera etc at a counter there. Men are not allowed to wear anything on top. We came out by 11AM. It was too crowded and they were pushing the devotees even before one gets to see the god.
After coming out we went back to hotel for a quick nap. But all of us fell asleep that no one got up until 2:30PM. Everyone started feeling hungry and started looking for lunch. We were asking every hotel if they have lunch. Most of them said "No" or they have Kerala meals. Finally one place was serving meals with sona masoori rice. We had our lunch there.
We hired an auto for local sight seeing which includes Punathur kotta ( where the temple maintains big number of elephants) and Siva temple. We came back from the temple at 6PM.
Instead og going back to hotel, we wanted to spend sometime around temple before having dinner and then go to hotel.

Nanamma and thatha wanted to have darshan once again. Dad didnt want to go. I stayed with dad irrititaing him to buy me some toys. Finally he had to buy me some toys. After an hour, nanamma, thatha and mummy came back. We were surprised to see them back so fast. They said, they didnt have darshan as the gates were closed for some pooja after waiting in queue for an hour. It will be closed for an hour. So, they left the queue and came back. It was 7:30PM. So, we spent some time around temple going through all the shops.

At 8:30PM, we had dinner and went to hotel for rest.

When I got up early in the morning at 6AM, only dad was with me. He said, nanamma, thatha and mummy went for an early morning darshan at 4AM. The plan was to leave Guruvayoor by around 7-8 AM and visit a temple in Trissur before we catch our train to Trivandrum at 11:50AM.
Me and dad were waiting for thatha and group. They came at around 8:30AM. They said it was too crowded and took so much time for darshan. But, they were satisfied with having nija roopa darshanam.

When we finished breakfast and started back to Trissur, it was 9:30AM. The bus reached Trissur at 10:15Am. The bus stopped at a distant place from railwa station and we walked to the station as we had lot of time. We waited at staion for an hour before the train came.
We reached Trivandrum at 6:15PM and home by 7PM.

Next week we are planning to go to Kanyakumari for my birthday celebrations...

Tenkasi, Courtallam and Tirunelveli

Hi,

I am back after a long time.

After my last update lot of things happened.. I moved from Bangalore to Trivandrum.
Now I started visiting places around Trivandrum. I had been to Neyyar Dam, Kovalam, Varkala, Ponmudi and local site seeing. I will give details on those later.

Two weeks back I had been to Bangalore to bring nanamma and Thatha. I am having nice time with them. I come from school and play with them whole day. Some time I make them laugh and some times irritate them....

Last week I took namma and thatha to Padmanabha swamy temple and Attukkal Bhagavathy temple (Sabarimala of Women). This week on 10th March we went to Tenkasi, Courtallam and Tirunelveli.


We started from at 7:45AM (the plan was to start at 6:30AM :-) ). We took State highway to Thenmala. We reached Thenmala at 9:30AM. Thenmala is an ecotourism project. The route to Thenmala was hilly and green and breezy. So I slept all through. I got up just before reaching Thenmala and wanted to stop there. We stopped there next to the river for breakfast. We had home packed Upma before starting to our destination -Tenkasi.

Thenmala Dam:


The river:


We stopped for a minute on the way near a railbridge for photo.



We had no problem with the direction until we reached TN border. As soon as we crossed Kerala, the road signs changed to local language. And there were no sign borads giving directions to any of the tourist locations. We just headed on the main road, until we reached Tenkasi (we followed the Google maps printout).

The Tenkasi temple tower can be seen from outskirts of the town. We reached temple at 11:00AM.

The temple is big and good. The temple was dark and there were no electric lights inside the temple. Most of the places we had difficulty in seeing the deity in that dim light.

Temple Tower from out side:



The temple tower from inside:





Temple premises:










We were out of the temple by 12:00noon. We headed toward Courtallam which is 6Kms from Tenkasi. I was excited to go there as Dad told me that there are 5 water falls in Courtallam.

We reached Courtallam in 15 min. Our plan was to go to Siddheswara mutt first. But we had tough time finding the place. People there either dont know what is it or not ready to tell us where it is. The worst part is we cant read anything. In just a 2KM city it took us 30min. to find the place after roaming here and there asking for directions. There were some people who misguided us too. Thanks to an auto driver and another guy who helped us find the place.

The mutt is in a small area with different temples. They are performing homas and poojas there. We spent around 30 minutes there before leaving the place.

The mutt from outside:



The plan was to visit the waterfalls and leave the place at around 5PM. All the way I was asking dad for waterfalls. But, we were told that there is no water in any of the falls and its not the season to visit falls. However I wanted to go to falls. So, we went to main falls. Here is the look of falls :-) :



Just to make me happy dad took us to falls and spent some time. We wanted to have lunch there but looking at the monkeys, we decide to have it later on the way.

The time was around 1:45PM. So, we decided to visit Tirunelveli and go to Trivandrum from there. Tirunelveli is around 60KMs from Tenkasi and is on the way to Trivandrum (another route).

On the way we were looking for some big tree for shadow to have lunch. Finally we found a nice tamarind tree at 2:15PM. We took out the packed lunch dishes from car and were ready to start and it started raining.... We moved into car and had lunch inside the car one after the other. We were done by 2:45PM. It was still raining.

We reached Tirunelveli at 3:30PM. Again we had problem finding the temple. We were asking almost everyone for the way to temple.. but they either say they dont know or tell us to go to Tenkasi. We were surprised. We were thinking may be we are in a wrong city... This might not be a temple town etc.. Finally, one guy told us the details and he also told us that it would be opened at 6PM. But, we wanted to give a try and went to temple. Its such a big temple (14 acres) and we wonder how some people in city including a hotel guy on the road opposite to temple dont know where the temple is. As usual, there were no sign boards.. may be they were in Tamil.

As expected, the temple was not closed. It was open but may be there were no poojas being offered that time. Its such a beatiful temple, we just forgot about time and went all over the temple. You will need atleast a full day to cover the temple fully. The sculptures are excellent. There were some pillars carved out of single stone and make different sound when you hit at different place. There is also a beautiful thousand pillar mantap. Thatha and nanamma were saying we should have come to this place first.

Inside Temple:




But we wanted to reach home before its too late. So, we came out at 5:45PM. We bought some halwa (Tirunelveli is famous for halwa) and started back to Trivandrum. After getting out of the town, we saw a sign board saying Trivandrum is 161KMs. Surprised. Dad was expecting it to be some 80KMs....
Kanyakumari is 50KMs from there. So nanamma told to go there and visit that too. We anyway came prepared for a two day trip with all the clothes etc. But, dad has Kanyakumari trip plan for another weekend. So, he wanted to go home.

Until Nagercoil the drive was breeze on the 4-lane highway. After that it was worst. It was dark and there were no sign boards in English!!!!!
It was 10:10PM, by the time we reached home. and was 12 mid-night when we had dinner and went to bed...

No plans for tomorrow.... will come soon with my tomorrows schedule...

Making Roti

Chikmagalur

The plan was to celebrate my birthday in Udupi and visit other places around during Ugadi weekend, if thatha and nanamma had come. But, they didnt come. So, dad planned for a Chikmagalur trip for the Ugadi long weekend.

We started from home on 1st April at 7PM and got a BMTC bus to KGBS. All the roads were crowded and it took 45 min. to go from Corporation circle to Mysore Bank circle, which is lesstan 2 KMs. Most of the people got down from the buses and started walking.
After sometime, our bus driver got irritated with the traffic and said, he is not going towards bus station and asked the passengers to take another bus going to bus station. We had to switch to a different bus crossing all the traffic. After all the stunts, we reached KGBS at around 10PM. Our bus was at 10:30PM. We were waiting in KGBS and dad was trying to control me not to go near the buses. Finally the wait ended at 12:30AM, when the bus arrived on platform.

We reached Chikmagalur at 5AM on 2nd April. We had booking in Soundarya Residency near the bus stand. We checked-in into hotel and slept 7Am. We got ready by 8AM and had breakfast in the attached restaurent there. By then our cab was ready.

At 9AM, we started towards Mullyanagiri. Reached the place at around 10AM. Thought there was not much greenery due to hot summer this year, the road to Mullyanagiri was very scenic. We had to climb up to Mullyanagiri peak. This is the highest peak in Karnataka. There is a small temple on top of the hill. Though it was sunny, the wind was very cold and I started shivering.

Some photos near Mullyanagiri.

On the way:


At Mullyanagiri:


From there we went to Seetalayyanagiri. This is a very beautiful old temple.
At Seethalayanagiri:



From there we went to Honnamala falls. This does not look like a water fall. But is good place to enjoy sometime in water.



Dada hired cab for two days. But the driver seems to be in hurry and wants to go back to town early. We could understand his feelings as it was the big day for all cricket fans - 2011 world cup final match.

Then we headed towards Baba Budanagiri. This place was closed for some renovation, so we had to skip it. Then we went to Manikyadhara falls. This is near Baba Budanagiri. There was no water in fall and there was a board which says "anyone taking bath in the fall should leave their clothes there". So, we skipped it.







The cab driver was very happy that we didnt spend time there and came back early. Then he said, he would show rest of the places next day and took us back to Chikmagalur. There was no place to have lunch. So, we too wanted to go back to town and have our lunch.

We reached Chikmagalur by 1PM. Had lunch and then went to a muncipal park at 3PM.

The park is big and had a toy train too. They said they will run train only if they have enough people. So we were waiting for more people to come. A big family came at 4PM and we did a toy train trip around the park. Then raomed around the park sometime.





Reached hotel at 6PM.Took some rest and had dinner.


Day 2 [3 Apr]:
we got ready by 8AM and started for Kemmanagundi. We reached Kemmanagundi at around 11AM. Its a small hill station. It was not scenic as expected. Dad's photos of his previous trip [in May 2008 with his friends] had so much of greenery. Even he was disappointed with the look. We roamed around the place for sometime and headed to Kalathagiri falls.















The place was too crowded. There was some festival going on and no place even to stand there. Someone said, they were celebrating BCCI's [Its not Indian team] victory
in 2011 world cup cricket. Crazy people...

We could not spend any more time there and started back to Chikmagalur.

Reached Chikmagalur at 2PM. Had lunch and got our return bus to Bangalore. I didnt have anything from morning and was not feeling well and puked in the bus. The bus didnt have open windows and dad and mom had to pack all of it in their kerchieves... until they reached home.... yaaak.

Reached home from a not so good trip at 9PM .