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My Wayanad Trip

It was because of Narayanan, we (I, Sathish and Arun) got a chance to go to Wayanad - the most backward district of Kerala. So my hearty thanks to that palavered idiotic friend of mine. This was my first trip with a bunch, strange to me.

It was the first day (or rather night) of the trip. The tempo van arrived, but we were yet to start from our house. It was not unusual for us; after all we got chastised for this on the very first day of reporting at our posting location after training. Sincer Barker( I guess it spells correctly), Narayanan’s project-mate called him. We started running like something, and reached the van only to meet some unusually odd people. We entered the van, and there he was – Mr. Praveen Pratap Singh. Narayanan did mention to us that “to-do and not-to-do pallid” mail which Praveen had sent him. The contents of that mail would make anyone to reckon of the sender as a typical studious, irascible and unadventurous guy. So we did have a fore-notion of him, though it was defiled. As soon as we entered the van, a typical Indian Parliament house ambience could be noticed. It appears as if there were some thousand stentor politicians; all yelling at the House-Speaker. They were asking us to repent for this time mismanagement – being late - by singing or dancing or doing some crappy things, which we rejected nonchalantly. However, their persuasion was so high that we ended up doing a way less intense “Introduction” kind of gesture. Then, the not-so-satisfied stentor crowd appeared to calm down, at least for a while. For a while, there was lull. There was this woman with skimpy dresses on the Television set. All of the sudden, someone blurted. It was none other Priya, Praveen’s younger sister. It seems as if she is either excited after a very long time of silence and sufferings or remains excited all the time. I guess she belonged to the latter category. Priya started “Why don’t we play a game?” I immediately augured a very long conversation, which effectively translates into me being insomniac for that night. She suggested an ice-breaker game, wherein everyone would be required to participate/act on a stupid topic. We started the game by passing on a Frooty bottle in a cyclic fashion, and whoever has the bottle on the stop signal, has to do whatever they were asked to. Everyone had their turn. I tried to be a taciturn on that night, and for that matter throughout the trip. I have to confess it was really interesting, even though it was a stupid thing. The game went on till mid-night.

I can’t finish that night’s experience without my assay of few peculiar individuals. First, I will start with the most bizarre person in our lot – Sincer. I would later explain on why I called him a bizarre guy. On the way to Wayanad, he was very calm. In fact, he was the calmest person in the group, but only after me. This, however, was contrary to my pre-notion on him, because Narayanan used to describe him as a fun loving and candid guy. Second person in my list is Praveen. Even though that mail made us think of him as a pallid guy, he was not so actually. He proved to be a good organizer, but without a good sense of premeditation.

We were travelling and travelling until we reached Wayanad’s Chandragiri Inn, a luxury hotel - at least for the hotelier, at around 5 am. I swear I didn’t even sleep a bit that night. I thought of having a good day sleep from 5 to 7 am, but those two moronic friends of mine (Arun and Sathish) wouldn’t let that happen. At around 9 am in the morning we started for Pookot Lake. The lake view was really awesome. We all went on a boat ride on this 45 feet loch. I am really a hydrophobic - afraid of large water bodies. My heart was in my mouth when I was on the boat. Thank god, no catastrophes happened, and we reached the lake bank safely.

We had no idea on where we should go next. At last, after enquiring about the nearest tourist spots, we clinched on Soogipara (Malayalam: soogi-needle; para-rock) Waterfalls. We travelled nearly 30 km, and finally reached the spot only to learn that we need to walk 1.5 km to reach the falls. We did so. The declivity route was peddle laden and was garnished with slippery red soil. But, our efforts did come with a reward. The waterfall doesn’t look like soogi(needle), but it definitely was awe-inspiring. Some said it doesn’t match to their expectations, but it inspired me a lot may be because this was the first waterfall I have seen since my childhood. I enjoyed a lot there. I walked on the slippery rocks. Those rocks were algae fraughted, and resembled slugs. I went till the bottom-most part of the waterfalls. There were no humans there. The place was full of gargantuan rocks. A single slip could have assured an Obituary column, for me, on my company website. Worse is, no one would have ever found out the muddled cadaver of mine. Thank god again, I safely returned to the safety of the water banks. I, however, did make a fall there, but no a serious one. I literally broke my back. After all the fun there, I ascended the 1.5 km slope to reach the parking lot, with a broken back.

Then, we decided on to go to a cave. Edakkal Cave was one of the most disgusting tourist spot I have ever visited. It was, in fact, not at all a cave. Instead it was a heavy boulder straddling a fissure in the rock, with pretensions of prehistoric etchings on it. I don’t want to discuss much about it ‘coz it makes me really mad. Edakkal cave visit was marked with prodigal parameters: time waste, money waste, energy waste, etc. On the way back to the hotel, we decided to go to another waterfall. It was a serene and picturesque waterfall. That night, we went to a hotel for dinner. We split into two groups: Veg and Non-Veg. The food was not so good, and we ended up with an unkempt dining and paying some 1000 odd bucks. The day ended with that.

The second and final day of our Wayanad sojourn was not as blithe as the first day. We spent most of the day travelling. Our first spot was Banasura Dam. It was a natural dam with a maximum depth of approximately 100 feet. Everyone concord for a steam-boat ride, which was better than the pedal-boat ride of Pookot Lake. It was another superb experience. Nothing more happened on that day. We reached home at around 10pm.

Before winding up this blog, I would like to say a few words about the strangers whom I had met with, in this trip. Priya and Sheetal, along with Uma were the entertainers in this trip for without them, this “travel more and tour less” trip would have been tiresome and tedious. They were yelling, singing and beating like something, their primary victim being Sincer. About Sincer - He was as calm as me on the way to Wayanad. The first day, he appeared to be more or less similar to that on the previous night. And not to much of my surprise, he got galvanized on the final day being everything but calm. And this transition really baffled me. Rumi appeared to be quite introvert. Pooja was kind of moderate, without going to the extremes. Uma was the only person in the group, apart from the four of us (I, Narayanan, Sathish and Arun), who knows Tamil. She mingled with us quickly and was also interactive with us. Gireesh, with his Camcorder, maintained a low profile expect during the van travel to and from Wayanad.

And finally, this trip was really great. I enjoyed it a lot and hope others enjoyed it as well. Thanks everyone for this fantastic and marvelous trip.

Posted by harivis on 2008-12-22 04:34:28 | Rating: