Avalanchi | The Travel Chronicles of an Enthusiastic Arien and a Lazy Piscean

This was one tourist spot that my SIL insisted on visiting. I was not so sure because we had come here before and they do not allow you beyond a particular point. Well, we started out late as usual. It was raining as well but surprisingly a lot had changed since our previous visit. One of the first things I noticed was that we could go beyond the point.

They had 1 number of tourist-friendly boards to let us know that we were entering the Reserve. We had to get tickets which turned out to be a big hassle. It was quite crowded and we didn’t know if we could go this trip or the next. There were so many vehicles and so many people and chaos reigned.

Because we were told that we would get the tickets after 1 hour, we proceeded to visit the trout hatchery that was close by and not as crowded.Well, we figured out why it was not crowded. The place had moss all over the place, was dinghy, and begged for maintenance. Instead of standing outside waiting for the ticket counter to open, we were inside an absolutely dark building that we all wanted to quickly get out of but we were taken all around and someone took the pains to explain the process while we listened (im)patiently.

When we got back, we found that chaos still reigned supreme and we doubted if we would visit the most talked about tourist spot in recent times. And all of us were hungry. We also noticed that folks who came after us were talking to some of the locals and getting their ride before us. That is when we realized that the trip may not happen and all our effort was for naught. SIL, who had left the whole trip in the hands of the men folk, jumped to action and in a few minutes we were off. Yes, that is exactly how it happened. The men folk were quite surprised.

The drive was in a Tata Sumo and we did not share the vehicle with anyone else. It was terribly cold and foggy. And the cold breeze all but threatened to kill us but we stayed warm in our sweaters and jackets. The guide who accompanied us, stopped at all the relevant places, a waterfall where we all did the obligatory pose – some snaps came out ok but most of the snaps had a bit of someone else who also wanted a photo – it got a bit irritating, of course.

It was a windy day so my hair was flying all over my face and most of my snaps have come out natural but hardly great 😀 The Arien was busy shooting pics irrespective of the state of my hair while I tried to control my hair. In fact, when I had my hair somewhat controlled, I found the Arien shooting some shrub 😦 Well, so no great snaps of me!

Apart from the regular snaps, the Arien was experimenting with Black and White pictures and so almost every one of the regular snap was also shot in black and white – except my snaps of course, to lend an effect to the snap. Well, it worked.. mostly 😀 The drive to the place was so interesting that we enjoyed the drive a lot though we were all shivering a bit. Winter had not officially started but there was quite a fog.

We also stopped near a bizarre looking tree opposite a temple. The Arien, of course, first shot a picture of the tree and then sauntered over to us. We were all on our way to the temple. Aunt refused to get off the Sumo so the rest of us decided to go. I am not a big fan of praying in public but for some reason I felt compelled to do so this time.

The temple was just another temple, it appeared at a turning and the Sumo was stopped after the turning. So, you kinda have to walk down to the temple and then climb a few steps to actually stand before the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Also, the guide and the driver both expected us to spend some time at this spot, praying or taking snaps and so they took a break. If my uncle was in the Sumo, he would have said “Aaah.. thats ok.. we have been to a lot of temples, Keep going.”

Anyway, those were some of the highlights of the travel to Avalanche. We all agreed that this trip was well worth the wait and thanked SIL profusely for pushing for this trip. Without her effort, we would have all headed back to the room for some eating and sleeping.

Nope, not over yet. One more post on Avalanchi with a few more pictures to follow. Also, since we went on this trip in 2012, it takes me a while to go over my meager notes, the pictures, and piece together a post.. be patient you all 🙂

After all tht talk ’bout a lazy, relaxed holiday, it was but expected that we wud run around
like crazy 🙂 The next day dawned bright and sunny and after having a lazy breakfast, we decided to check out a place known as Avalanchi in Red Hills. For some weird reason, I kept pronouncing the name of the place as “Avalanche”. It was a while before ppl corrected me and I was informed tht the place was “Avalanchee” and not “Avalanche”. Todas are known to live in Avalanchi. It was a loong drive and we reached only around 12:30 pm. Having been to Udhagamandalam a.k.a Ooty so many times, I did not expect to find something new but Avalanchi was all-new.

It was also very beautiful. It was January and everything looked so blue and beautiful. The hydroelectric power station that we saw at Avalanchi was actually built in the 1950s. The water of the Avalanchi lake gets its colour from the Blue Mountains or the Nilgiri hills.

Red Hills is also known as the Lake district because of the following lakes: Emerald, Avalanche, Parson’s valley lake, Porthimund, and others. There are a total of 8 lakes according to the folks here and I am unable to recall the names of the other lakes 🙂 From atop the Red Hills, these lakes reflect the sunlight and look like odd-shaped mirrors. We drove up the Red Hills so we could take a picture of at least some of the lakes of the lake district. There was a mist of some sort, and so the pictures were not as clear but they did look like mirrors in the way they reflected the sunlight. The whole place was serene, peaceful, and we were totally enjoying ourselves. As usual, we had missed lunch and so we decided to leave and snack at some place. The Arien was busy shooting pictures of the mirror-shaped lakes.

As we drove down, we identified the light green shrubs as tea shrubs. At least, it looked a lot like the shrubs that we saw at Chembara peak. Anyway, the tea shrubs looked lovely and the Arien stopped to take some more pictures. It was quite cold despite the sun peeking out. Avalanchi had the hill stationy weather that one looks forward to wen you visit a hill station. Red Hills is actually a great place to trek but we had not planned for a trek and so we decided to head back to Udhagamandalam. Tomorrow we were going to check out the activities that the resort had informed us ’bout. If possible, we would also try to get on the Nilgiri express. We were checking out tomorrow and so today we would relax like we had decided we would 😀 We realized tht we shd have brought our hdd so we could have caught some nice movie. The collection at the resort was soooo out-dated – it was simply not worth it 😦