After repeated visits to Yercaud, Ooty, Mysore, I was simply too fed up. This trip to Vythri, Wayanad was something I wanted. This was a repeat visit too but it has been so many years since we visited that I thought it was a good option. The Arien obsessed over starting early and for once I decided not to mess that up. So, surprisingly, we were up and away by 7.30 am which was a super achievement 🙂 The libran toddler who wakes up at 6:15 every single day – woke up at 7 that day but we were still able to get away by 7:30.
It was a nice, long drive. The libran toddler fell asleep for some part of it. Cannot blame him – it was a long boring drive for him. I had a bad cough and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. The Arien was also not feeling all that well. But, we made good time. The route we followed was: Bangalore – Breakfast at Up South – Nanjangud – Gundlupet – Sultan Bathhery – Kalpetta – Resort.
Where we would stay was discussed, fought over, agreed to two months earlier. I wanted to stay someplace else but the Arien felt it was too expensive and so on and so forth till we both agreed on the Windflower Spa and Resort. We reached the resort around 2 pm.
As always, we had tonnes and tonnes of luggage – hotel staff invariably wonder if we are staying for a month. We settled the luggage in and then went for lunch. Lunch was ok – not great.
The room was nice. It was actually a suite with a sitting area and an attached balcony (nice n wide), and a bed room. The bathroom was simply huge. We totally loved it. The resort had a number of monkeys and so we were asked to keep the balcony door closed all the time and to not keep anything valuable in the
balcony.
The libran did not want to spend any time inside the room and was busy pulling at his Dad’s trousers and pointing out. The libran is happiest outside and so after a nice long walk, we expect him to smile and be happy but he will cry and throw tantrums because he wants to be out longer.
Both of us are usually at wits end and will try all sorts of diversion tactics. He will calm down just as suddenly and play with his cars as if that crying, yelling, screaming episode did not happen. That happens every day at home but we were surprised it happened on that day as well.
We were quite tired from the drive and would have loved to snooze in the afternoon but that was not to be. We just hoped we could sleep early so we could do some sight-seeing the next day.
Day 4
frm far. The Arien decided that we must go boating in a pedal boat so we cud take sm amazing shots of the lovely lotuses. You recall we now are in possession of a borrowed SLR which means that the Arien is forever taking pictures. It was a warm day totally unlike the other days and in ten minutes we were perspiring so much tht we actually had to head bk 😦 We did take some pics that looked good. The Arien was completely tired – I guess the rock climbing involved with Soochipura falls had totally drained him. I was worried that we may cancel all plans b’cos he looked very tired and so I moved to the Fresh-water aquarium. This served as a good distraction as it was cooler. Soon, the Arien was engrossed in taking snaps of the numerous species of fish, having totally forgotten tht he was tired. And guess wht!! Yess.. we saw the most expensive fish yet again. However, this one was a lot smaller. I walked arnd while the Arien took zillion snaps. The Arien decided to have the local ice-cream that looked very much like Qwality Walls Feast. Only it wasn’t!! 😀 It had peanuts n was actually bitter. The Arien offered to share his ice-cream with me after his first bite which clearly told me tht he did not like it at all. The Arien struggled for a few more minutes before he finally threw it away, mostly uneaten. We purchased half a kilo of Wayanad’s Tea and moved on to the next spot.
Our next visit was to see the famous chain tree but we missed it and kept going till we reached the Thamarassery Ghat Pass which was also known as the Lakkidi view-point. This is the route that takes you to Kozhikode. The view was breathtakingly beautiful and there was a lovely mist that made most of the view invisible, at times. You may recall this was a sunny day n a lil warm – However, it was cool up here. The mist tantalized you by alternately showing you sm of the trees that were completely entwined and then hiding it all frm you with a sudden movement. We wondered if this was the chain tree. I asked the ppl who were standing arnd. However, tho’ most of them were eager to help, they did not understand our question at all.
elusive chain tree. Well, going by my earlier goof wrt Phantom Rock, I wondered if I was even vaguely right. We had not planned on travelling to Kozhikode and so we took a few pics frm the view point and decided to hunt for the chain tree and so turned bk. We almost missed the chain tree, the second time. It was a fairly large tree with a some chains hanging from it and a lock. There was also a small temple near the root and I was completely unimpressed and shocked. I could not believe my eyes. This was the chain tree??? The Arien had a hearty laugh. I was not able to see the humour in the situation. Legend has it that a young tribal guided a british engineer through the difficult mountain terrain into Wayanad. Eager to take credit for discovering a new path to Wayanad, the engineer killed the tribal. The ghost of the tribal was supposed to cause most of the accidents in this route until a priest chained the spirit to the tree, now known as the chain tree. Well, I dunno wht I was expecting but this sure was not it. We took a snap, naam ke vaasthe and moved on. It was past lunch time – we were not hungry – but it was too late to visit Vythiri resorts and so we dropped the entire idea and decided to visit Banasura Dam, instead.
The Banasura dam is the largest earth dam in India. We opted for a jeep drive across the dam and it was a quick drive. However, the beauty of the scenery was something else. We opted out of the boat ride n instead stared at the amazing surrounding hills that are on all sides except one. I was pretty impressed by the cleanliness all arnd. No plastic bottles, paper strewn – n also not as many ppl arnd. The government of Kerela has been involved in the development of the place by constructing a small park with a number of swings for kids to play and also for adults to sit on. The place was so peaceful that we were tempted to sit there for a while – which we did. There was a nice breeze and it was very relaxing. Soon it was time to leave and we got on to the jeep. We wondered if it wud b ok to take one snap of the dam when we were mid-way but the driver was rude and told us he will not stop. We were too tired to walk the rest of the way n so we left it at tht. It was 5:45 when we left Banasura dam and we were yet to have lunch, as usual. We had snacked a bit and so we were not very hungry. We dropped Meenmutty Falls frm our Itinery. Ppl told us tht there wud b very less water and Soochipura Falls wud b better. Having been there earlier, we decided to happily close Day 4 on tht note. We were checking out of Sultan Batherry tomorrow and so a good ZZZZZ was in order.
The Travel Chronicles of an Enthusiastic Arien and a Lazy Piscean 