Off to Tenmala
Tenmala means “The honey hill” in Malayalam, and the name did not come to being for nothing. There was once a time when the hills around this place was abundant with bees, and a lot of forest people could be seen selling honey in the roadsides.But those days are gone now and you hardly see any honey in these areas.
Tenmala has a big dam built over the Kallar river, and is one of those small villages in western Kerala at the junction of Tamil Nadu,Kerala and the forests of western ghats.The Kollam Shenkota Rail and road passes through this village. This road has been an important trade route between Tamil Nadu and Kerala for ages, and is one of the most important passes connecting Kerala and Tamil Nadu.The rail line is meter gauge and there used to be service in this route until almost two years back. If you move a little ahead of Tenmala towards Tamil Nadu side, you would come across a magnificent series of British era bridges, which even after 150 years stand majestically on the side of the road.
The Railway bridge on the way to Palaruvi from Tenmala,this is my personal favorite pic!
This one was taken through the windshield
Another marvelous engineering feet in Tenmala is of course the Tenmala Dam. The tourism hot spots are now developed in and around the dam.
In recent years Tenmala has turned into a big eco tourism hot spot, with the development of a Govt sponsored green zone ,adventure park and organized trekking expeditions. There is a 2 hour trek as well as 2 day trek packages to choose from, depending on the availability of time and resources.The 2 day trek is in the range of 2.5K/head and require a minimum group size of eight.So if you are planning for one,make sure you have adequate headcount!
If you are planning to stay in Tenmala,various options are available including a tree top residence!,this one will set you back by about 3K for the night but is reportedly magnificent.Other options are permanent swiss tents just behind the main reception area or non permanent pitcher tents which will be erected on request inside the adventure zone.
Palaruvi,The milky falls
We checked out the different options and decided that we will stay in tenmala as the last option.Palaruvi Falls,which is quite close by[15km from tenmala]we thought, may provide better options.So we sarted off to Palaruvi Falls after lunch and on the way saw those railway bridges mentioned earlier,which were amazing.By the way for the adventurous, these railway lines offer a fantastic trekking opportunity,especially in the rains.Arm yourself with an umbrella and just start walking .
We reached the diversion towards the Palaruvi Falls after about 10 minutes.We need to take Rs 10/head passes to get to see the Falls.In the ticket counter they were also selling Tea produced at some local estate.I asked them where the tea was coming from,and they told its from Ambanaad Estate.This is the first time that I was hearing about this place and I made more enquiries and found out that the estate actually offers accommodation in its Bungalows. We decided to try our luck after seeing the palaruvi Falls.
The falls is about 5 km inside the forest and is served by a well maintained road.The place is absolutely wonderful in the rains with water falling from a height of about 50 mtrs or so.The place did total justice to its name,and quite resembled a stream of white milk flowing down.
Off to Amabanad!
Later we started our trip towards our final destination,Ambanad Estate.Ambanad can be reached if you take diversion from Kazhuthurutti,which is about 2 Km from Tenmala towards Shenkottai.We did make enquiries at the junction and confirmed that accommodation was indeed provided there.Unfortunately the telephone numbers we got from the Palaruvi Ticket counter were not working,and hence we could not confirm.
We decided to take a chance and started towards the estate.From now on its completely Rubber Country,’God’s Own Corp” for the average Keralite.We drove for about 10 KM into the estate (Imagine its size!), and the landscape slowly started changing towards forest and then small plantations of coffee.But tea was nowhere to be seen even now.We were now forced to think that there was no major cultivation of tea in this area and the tea we saw may be coming from small kitchen gardens!
The road to Ambanad
After a while we encountered the first hairpin bend and then four more in quick succession.Now the landscape changed again and slowly but surely patches of tea also started emerging.Finally we reached in front of the a big gate and honked hard.It was raining profusely,and it took some time before someone opened the gate.He asked as what we wanted and we replied we came to stay in the estate.He said prior reservations may be needed but asked us to go forward and ask at the next gate.So we went ahead braving the heavy downpour and chilly winds towards the next gate which was about 2 km away.
Just inside the gate we saw these boards which chilled our hearts.
The people at the gate were friendly,but they also said prior arrangements would be required, but said that the estate asst manager may be found in the Tea factory near by and he may be able to help.So we went to the tea factory which was further down the road.The tea factory is a huge lonely building which does not look well maintained.There are signs of a labour strike near the gate with posters and banners listing the demands of the striking workers.
The Tea Factory Looking Ominous!
I went inside the factory and got introduced to the Assistant Manager,who was extremly well mannered and polite.He said,to our great relief,that stay could be arranged in the factory guest house which was quite near by.
All this while it had been raining heaviliy and the place and the whole set up was looking absolutely mesmerizing,There were green hills just beyond the factory which were wooded very deeply and the clouds were almost kissing the top of the woods, somewhere up in the hills the distinction between the forest and the clouds were so pale that the seemed to merge into one another,like lovers.
Beautiful,need I say more?