1st January 2009, 18:37
| #16 |
| Senior - BHPian  | |
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2nd January 2009, 16:21
| #17 | |||
| Senior - BHPian  | Hi Rajiv, Quote:
Welcome (back) to Kerala. Just as you remember the CVT testing, I still remember you showing me our position in your HTC while going to the airport. (Sorry about your HTC). I went in for a GPS receiver and a HTC phone. @abhilash: Quote:
@snaronikar: Quote:
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2nd January 2009, 16:32
| #18 |
| Senior - BHPian | Onwards...... Hi, Ten minutes later, came across this board. I didn't even remember that this was our state bird!  There was no dearth of opportunities for photos in this part of the drive. We found one just after 18 minutes duringwhich we had travelled 7.3kms. This was the Sholayar reservoir.   Why not a video? The next 15kms was traversed in 48 minutes. With absolutely no idea about the time when we would find lunch, we stopped for some light refreshments and attended nature's call. The roads were in no shape to traverse fast and City does tend to scrape its underside quite easily. So extra care was taken that the scraping only resulted in sound and not damage to whatever was coming into contact with the road. Seeing some crater like potholes, Raja wanted a video of the City crossing a water filled crater. So he positioned himself and signed for me to go ahead. I took it safe and took the shallowest part of the pothole depriving him of a good video and also almost brushing him into the shrub by the side of the road. (The bloody significance of this was realised hours later!) In spite of all that I almost did to him for the previous video, he wanted one with proper action and so another bigger crater was chosen. This time I did not disppoint him. But neither of us realised that it was deeper than comfortable. But I have to give credit to the City, it did manage quite well. Did you guys notice a flash of light when the car was about to go into the water? We had formed various mysterious theories for this flash of light, until i remembered hours later as to what caused it! Almost 181 kms and about 7 and a half hours, we sort of crossed the forest area and were coming back to civilisation as we know it - Cell phone range again! It was the Malakkappara check post.  Some nature shots after the Malakkappara check post!   We were looking forward to lunch by now... Last edited by trrk : 2nd January 2009 at 16:42. |
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2nd January 2009, 20:00
| #19 |
| Senior - BHPian | Vaalpaarai at last! Hi, The next two kilometres took us 13 minutes to traverse as we were literally crawling and stopping to take photos - a temple, a tea factory and the Tamil Nadu state border. The temple:  The tea factory with the Sholayar Dam as the backdrop:  The Tamil Nadu border:  Vaalpaarai welcomes:  We were getting worried about our schedule by now. It was already 01.30PM and our scheduled time to return to Alleppey was 9.00PM as my firend had to drive back to Kollam. Two minutes later we reached the Sholayar Dam. Had to stop for photos. We clicked some before we reached the bridge.   A few were shot from the bridge itself.   Another 3kms later we reached a T junction and we turned right towards Vaalpaarai (our lunch stop!).  After a few turns and a short climb we reached the dam head. We crossed the dam and went by the side of the reservoir.  Water level was low as evident from the snaps. The small dots on the slope are cattle grazing there.  About 10kms later we crossed a small place called Urulickal and the road was bordered with tea plantations.    A curve in the road and straight ahead we saw a tree which seemd to have only blooms and no leaves!  It took another 30minutes and 16kms to reach Vaalpaarai. About 6kms before the town was the sharp turn off towards Pollachi (with its enchanting 40 hair pin bends - as noted down by Ripper). We asked for and were directed to have our lunch in a place oppoiste the Police station. It turned out to be a first floor affair called 'Mary Matha Mess' run by Mr Paulson who hails from Ernakulam. We left after 30 minutes having had a tasty lunch.  Just when finishing lunch, Raja felt something on his left leg and came with blood in his hand. He had an unwelcome guest which was feeding on him. A leech! Must have taken a fancy to him when he was taking all that that muddy water video! It was quickly sent back to its makers and luckily the bleeding stopped quickly. It was 3PM. Our original plan was to follow Ripper's route at least as far as Pollachi. There we thought we will go towards Wadakkancherry and onto NH47 to Alleppey. But we were not sure about the distances involved. On a quick calculation, the drive so far involved a running time of just 6hrs and 47minutes. So we decided to drive back by the same route as we would not have to stop for sight seeing. We were quite sure to reach Alleppey before 10PM at the latest. So we said bye bye to Vaalpaarai at 03.01PM. |
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27th October 2009, 16:33
| #20 |
| BHPian Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Kottayam
Posts: 588
Thanked: 8 Times
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28th October 2009, 19:45
| #21 | ||
| Senior - BHPian | Hi, Quote:
Quote:
Please remember that there are no mobile phone signals inside the forest. Traffic would be sparse, so keep that in mind. My return was through the same route, but with hardly any stops as it was getting late. All the best for your trip. | ||
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30th October 2009, 17:38
| #22 |
| BHPian Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Kottayam
Posts: 588
Thanked: 8 Times
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