Planned and went over to Munnar after a much planned and debated plan! Booked a Toyata Innova (The best part was that this was a new vehicle and we were the first ppl to take it on a long trip... the vehicle had barely done a thousand Kilometers!), to take us there and that is where the adventure began!!! The vehicle was registered as a tourist taxi with an "All India Permit"!.... Now why am I delving into this information.... we will come to that later! We took off in the mid of the night.... hoping for it to be an uneventful, enjoyable vacation.... only to come back with a bouquet of experiences ;). Finished paying the road tax for entry into TamizhNadu! (No, it is not a typo... thts the way I have heard them pronounce it!!!) Anyway...... on our way, we found that the reglar route to Munnar from Cumbum has been closed due to some road repair work and we have to take another route!! Not that any one complained... the roads were scenic and amazing!! And the driver (who is a kannadiga- from Karnataka) started getting delierious enroute and started talking in Hindi.... it freaked out Suresh who was sitting up front with him!!! I should have been awake to see the scene watch the dumbfounded expressions!!!
After a little bit of searching and checking with the localites in Cumbum (some bum, dum dum) we found the elusive little alternate road that would take us to Munnar!!! @ first it looked nothing like a road leading there... but once we hit the hill roads and the ghat sections, we were sure that this is the road that would take us to our destination! The Kerala-Tamilnadu border is up in the ghat sections!!! Our driver got out to check where to pay the road tax for Kerala, so as to continue and then was returned by the guards @ the checkpost saying that we need to go back to cumbum (almost 16 Kms of hill road) and then get the permit and proceed!!! Man, that really stunk! We were wondering what to do when another senior guard comes, checks the papers and says..."You have All India Permit, you need not pay anything, you can proceed"..... which we promptly did... but there is another part to this scene.... I will come to that later... much later....!!!!
We finally reached the Sterling resorts in Munnar....
We prepared for a wonderful trek through the hills the next day, hired a guide who knew the hills very well and set out! The truth remains that we were never prepared for what fate had transpired! We walked for some distance and met an old man who worked in the tea estates in the hills and he asked us why we are trekking in this wet weather.... the hills are filled with leeches!! Yep... the thirsty blood suckers!!! While talking to him, I just happened to wait for a minute and felt something itching near my ankles.... what do you know... I have already been hit on by the bloodsucking leeches!!! There were three already on my foot and a couple running on my shoe trying to feel their way around to suck me dry!!! Infact while trying to shake them off and attempting to get through the jungle territory, I managed to land my foot into some slush which was teeming with leeches!! Yeeiai! All of us did the only thing that we could... run like there was no tomorrow!! Some of those leeches were horrendously huge.... some as big and thick as your thumb!! It's a pity that I could not click pictures of the leeches when they were doing their job!!! The tea estate workers apparently have some kind of mixture which they smear on their feet and hands... which acts like a repellent!!! Why did we not carry that??????
In between the trek, after the first leech attack, with your's truly opening the show for the leeches, the rest of them decided to put their trousers in their socks and walk along!! That is when we came across a tractor which was going through the paths of the tea estate meant for gathering the tea leaves accumulated by the workers. He agreed to drop us off a some distance ahead and all of us climbed aboard the wagon that the tractor was pulling!!! Imagine this.... a tractor on a path with just enough width for it and its wagon, with the mountain/forest on one side and a sheer drop on the other!! We went through on this path for almost a kilometer and it was horrifying... with his tyres slipping and turning and the wagon hitting/scraping the side of the mountain @ every turn!! See the criss-cross paths that are cut all through the tea estate (these are just the mild ones... could not take photos when I was in the tractor wagon.... could not pry my fingers off the handle I was holding on for dear life!!!) . The best part... the wagon was secured to the tractor only by one small sickle shaped hook and no clasp over it... one wrong bump and we would have bumped off :-p
All in all the 10 KM trek got cut short to 3 KMs and we hiked back to where the road was and got back into our vehicle! and prepared for another adventure for tomorrow!!! We were to head off to a place called Kolukumalai... the world's highest tea estate which also sports a 100 year old orthodox tea factory! We hired a 4X4 jeep for this journey as the entire journey is on more hills and extremely small roads with the typical hill road... mountain to one side and an amazing tea plant slide drop to another!!!
Well... looks like my combination with the satan is quite strangely prophetic!! The vehicle # was "KL6A6161"!! The vehicle promptly went on all its power and slamdunked itself into the side of the mountain.... loosing only its mirror in the process... hmmm nice Ad campaign for Mahindra... the jeep continued later on it's worn out bald as a baby's bottom tyres all the way up the mountain and then back again with it's precious cargo of 6 wary travellers (looking out for an experience)!!! It took a total of 12-13 men to move the jeep out of it's predicament!
We rested for the rest of the day and left for Thekkadi... we wanted to catch some elephants... not in the literal sense! and the driver was driving through the ghat sections like a man on fire!!! Dude was Michael Shumacher on an F1 race through Montecarlo and he took us through some 80 Kms of hill road before we could hurl our breakfast as tea estate manure!! As time would have it... we barely made it to the boat ride in the Thekkadi reserve... which it seems is a huge man made lake... the damn thing is 120+ feet deep and is quite massive!!! All we caught is some more rain (like it was not enough already), some wild bison and some deranged aqua birds sitting on trees getting drenched... not had a bath till now.....
O yeah... we did catch a baby tusker doing his thing on the banks and the boat promptly turned around without even going near the tusker.... hey what the heck is the zoom on the camera meant for?
Thekkadi is right where the Kerala and Tamilnadu state borders meet and if you remember the beginning of this tale... we did not pay the road tax while entering Kerala!! We wanted to... but did not have options.... and the police @ the checkpost are notorious in collecting humongous fines for such circumstances for they simply seize the vehicle and make you squirm and scream till you just want to pay and get the hell out of there!!! And there is no guarantee that your vehicle will be in the same condition while under their "seizure"! Things go bump in the night/day whenever :-p. Our driver was shitting bricks ... nope did not mess the vehicle ;) while crossing this checkpost and well nothing happened.. we just waltzed through and our driver did a repeat of his schumacher driving!!!
The rest is my story (not his-story) and so is the whole thing till here ;) the roads were good and so was the vehicle....wonderful experience and wonderful company.... would I do it again? Hell yeah....... how else am I going to get stories to put my grand kids to sleep???
Labels: Travel
