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| View Poll Results: Would you give a lift to a total stranger in a remote forest area? | |||
| Yes ofcourse, I care for people |    | 8 | 11.43% |
| No, what if I get murdererd? |    | 55 | 78.57% |
| I'll run over anybody who asks for a lift |    | 7 | 10.00% |
| Voters: 70. You may not vote on this poll | |||
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| Search this Thread |  26,073 views |
24th February 2010, 13:34
| #16 |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: City of seven islands.
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27th February 2010, 15:03
| #17 |
| Senior - BHPian  | |
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27th February 2010, 17:43
| #18 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
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27th February 2010, 18:21
| #19 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
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| Sunday 29-Nov-2009 - Parambikulam Sunday 29-Nov-2009 - Parambikulam Get up early morning at 6:00AM. We have two walking treks planned. The first one is a one hr trek and starts at 6:30AM. Kiddies to oldies, all are welcome. This is a relaxing trek, and as the saying goes - "No pain, no gain", we don't even hear any animals, let alone see them. Ofcourse, this trek is not meant for animal sighting. Can be considered more of an "introductory nature tour". We're back by 7:30, in time for breakfast. Again, a nice but simple breakfast. A very interesting thing is, the place is managed by about 8 people, who do all the work right from managing the place, making the beds, organizing the treks, organizing the safari, serving breakfast, and cleaning up. Well done by this team. After breakfast, we head for a second trek at 8:30, and by the time we return, it's 12:30, and it's burning hot. This trek is more harder, and more interesting too. The forests too are awesome as you go deeper. We hear an elephant trumpet, and the guide tried to locate it for almost 30 mins, but unfortunately we were unsuccessful. Also see bear foot (pug? hand?) marks. Return back for a simple lunch yet again.   Attachment 296314         Our night halt for today is in a tree house! This is about 8 kms away, and adjacent to the forest road. Pack our bags, and a guide accompanies us with room keys in our car. In Parambikulam, you are not allowed to go anywhere without a guide. Reach the place in about 15 minutes, and we're excited! The tree house is beautiful and fully functional in all comforts. Save for a maintenance office nearby where a few people live, there is absolutely no sign of human life around. The guide leaves us, saying he'll be back at 4:30. We're admiring the scenery during this time, and suddenly a big group of monkeys decend on our tree house, forcing us to scamper indoors. The monkeys seem very aggressive, but thankfully they leave in 10-15 minutes.     Freshen up, and get ready for a nice drive around (again, accompanied by the guide) in about 30 mins. We see some animals too.          Reach back at around 6:30 PM. The guide informs us that dinner will be packed and brought to our tree house. Talk about room service! The food comes and it's great. The guide waits for us to finish, so that he doesn't have to make a second trip to collect the plates. He had to walk a long distance in the night to get us the food, so he doesn't want to make any extra trips, especially since it can get dangerous. We finish dinner, and he collects the plates and utensils. He advises us to lock the main tree house entry too for safety, since there will not be a single soul around for miles  .Tomorrow we leave for Cochin, via the beautiful Valparai. Last edited by PearlJam : 27th February 2010 at 18:23. |
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28th February 2010, 21:19
| #20 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Kochi
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2nd March 2010, 08:44
| #21 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Pune
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2nd March 2010, 09:43
| #22 |
| BHPian Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Kottayam
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2nd March 2010, 10:31
| #23 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
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| Thanks Soccerfan, Bigzero, Majic! Forgot to mention that the pic with the boar represents the state of politics in our country  |
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2nd March 2010, 11:08
| #24 |
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2nd March 2010, 13:15
| #25 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
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| Quote:
The one you're talking about is probably different. I'm not sure about that. | |
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3rd March 2010, 10:05
| #26 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
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| Monday 30-Nov-2009 - Parambikulam - Valparai - Cochin Monday 30-Nov-2009 - Parambikulam - Valparai - Cochin There are no treks planned for today, so get up lazily. At 11:30, we're off to Cochin, which is about 220 Kms away. Stop at the forest checkpost for filling up our water bottles. We need to go back the same route, via Top Slip, Sethumadai, and Annamalai. Forgot to mention earlier that the roads are bad between Top Slip and Annamalai. At Top Slip, we stop at the tourist reception center to collect brochures. The guy sitting there is quite friendly, and apologetically informs us that they don't have brochures, because they plan to rename Annamalai wildlife sanctuary to "Rajiv Gandhi wildlife sanctuary". Talk about the egos of our political parties  .Soon we're off, and we hit the checkpost at the Tamil Nadu border. A lone forest guard (in uniform) hurriedly comes to our car, and takes a look inside. Initially I think that he's checking if we've smuggled anything out. Then he comes to my side, and tells me that there's a person who needs a lift to Sethumadai, and whether we could drop him. This person now mysteriously appears, and he's ready to get in. Now I need to make a quick decision as to whether to entertain this request. Decide at that instant that we won't take him, so politely refuse to take him. He informs us that he is ready to "buy a ticket". I guess that's the terminology they use, to indicate that they're not cheapskates, and want to travel the right royal way. Politely refuse again. He seems to understand and he goes back to where he mysteriously appeared from, and vanishes. The forest guard has gone back to his checkpost by this time. We're off too. Now I discuss with my wife, what we should have done. Hence my poll at the beginning of this thread. She agrees that we did the right thing. If something had happened, people would have asked "Who asked you to give a lift to a stranger?" The forest guard would have conveniently absconded or outrightly denied the whole thing. There were no other "witnesses" too. So we just brush this incident off and give no more thought to it. At Annamalai, we take the deviation to Udumalpettai, which will take us to Valparai via the beautiful Aliyar dam. The roads are excellent and the drive is fantastic.   The car behaves amazingly well and the torque delivery is simply addictive. Keep the RPM above 1600, and the multijet is eagerly ready to take off when you press the accelerator. The 40 hairpin bends are conquered in no time, and soon we're in Valparai town. Stop at the Green hills hotel for lunch. Egg curry and chapatis, quite good.             Soon we're off to Cochin via Malakkiparai and Athirapally. Roads till Malakkiparai are excellent. But once we cross into Kerala, roads turn extremely bad. Drive at not more that 15-20 Kmph for the next 30 odd Kms. After that, roads are marginally better, and it's possible to go at a "healthy" 40Kmph@. Nice scenic route.    Soon I start hearing a minor sound from the dashboard. My first rattle in 6000 Kms! I am excited to join the Swift rattlers club so late. Makes me feel like one of us. All throughout, there's not a single person or habitation to be seen. No mobile signals. Not much traffic too. I sincerely hope it remains this way, forever. Soon we reach the Vazhachal checkpost, and it's almost 5:30 PM. 3.5 hours to cover 110 Kms, very comparable to Ravi Shastry's innings. There are a lot of tourists. We stop for a quick photo break, and we're off again. Athirapally is closed since it's 6:00 PM now, but we again take a few photos from the road.    Roads are good, but two laned without dividers. Take the bypass to reach the NH instead of heading to Chalakudi. We pass through many small towns in pitch darkness, as there are no street lights all throughout. Kind of strange - pitch darkness in a densely populated area. Soon we hit the NH and head to Cochin. It's almost 9:00 PM by the time we reach Cochin. We have passed atleast 7 checkposts in our trip today. That's the maximum I've ever done in a day in my life. Next 3 days are spent in Cochin. Not much to report here. Then we head to Ooty. Last edited by PearlJam : 3rd March 2010 at 10:12. |
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3rd March 2010, 11:02
| #27 |
| Team-BHP Support   | Excellent Valparai ghat pics  Look at pic no. 9 (just above the cow pic) to understand how well engineered the road is. The banking is perfect. I'm suprised about rattles in Swifts. My brother's 4 year Alto has run 40,000 kms and doesn't make a squeak. |
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3rd March 2010, 12:42
| #28 |
| BHPian Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Kottayam
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3rd March 2010, 19:03
| #29 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Bangalore
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| Nice photos. Valparai route is always tempting. Quote:
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4th March 2010, 10:13
| #30 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
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Thanked: 1,660 Times
| Thanks smartcat, Majic! @bijuks: The 3 pics after the "hairpin bend 40/40 pic" are the only ones I have. There is nothing really to take - thick jungles all around, but no real scenery as such. It's very beautiful, but there's only so much that a camera could capture |
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