[Nutty Nair]

Two Day Trip to Valparai via Athirapally & Vazhachal

Well, this trip was done in January so I think I may be a "little" late in posting this travelogue. But now Laluks has given me a sort of shove in my you know where, so I am penning this down from my memory & the logs available. But as per the latest trend in T-BHP, the teaser.

[laluks]

Puttu kadala and appam....Aaa chayakkada evideyaanu...(Where's that tea shop?)
Its been a while since I saw such tea shops...

[Chevy_lover]

Hey Nutty Nair, the Puttu and Kadala curry looks so inviting and so does the lush green tea estates.

The last time I had Puttu and Kadala curry, from a typical 'Chaya Kada' or Tea Stall, was from Pooppara, the base for all buses, before they start their ascent towards Munnar! It was yummy! Maybe I should head back south soon! Who knows!!

[MX6]

Ranjith. Quick. Come and see the first photo in this log.

[Nutty Nair]

@Laluks - the tea shop is on the way from Chalakudy to Athirapally.
@Chevy_Lover - yes, the puttu & kadala curry was indeed very yummy.
@MX6 - Didn't get you boss. First picture in which log, man? This one or are you referring to some other thread?

[MX6]

Originally Posted by Nutty Nair

@Laluks - the tea shop is on the way from Chalakudy to Athirapally.
@Chevy_Lover - yes, the puttu & kadala curry was indeed very yummy.
@MX6 - Didn't get you boss. First picture in which log, man? This one or are you referring to some other thread?

That message was intended for Ranjith.Rajaram.

[hvkumar]

This travelogue took some time coming, Nutty Nair.
Are there any tea shops or facilities after you cross Peringalkuthu Dam en route Valparai?

[Nutty Nair]

Kumar Sir, After the tea shops/hotels at Vazhachal, the next tea shop/small hotel is at Malakkapparai. Nothing en - route. I admit I am a little late with this travelogue.
@MX6 - Showing some one a photo of steaming puttu, appam & kadala curry in the middle of the night. He must be going nuts having seen it!

[Soccerfan]

atlast nutty nair has started the travelogue . waiting for the next step..

[vrprabhu]

Originally Posted by laluks

Puttu kadala and appam....Aaa chayakkada evideyaanu...

Originally Posted by Nutty Nair

@MX6 - Showing some one a photo of steaming puttu, appam & kadala curry in the middle of the night. He must be going nuts having seen it!

How come you guys missed the yummy "idiappam" - (rice noodles); idiappam and coconut-milk (mixed with jaggery and elaichi) is delicious fare! and where is my perennial favourite 'pazham pori'?

Nair, forget the water-falls at athirapally - anyway it is more of a power generation station now - and concentrate on the food!!

AFAIK, I have never seen a food-o-logue -

so you can start with puttu, appam, idiappam, kadala kari, stew, pazham-pori, kattan chaya and go ahead to kari-meen, meen-polichadu, kalan, thoran.... man, I am salivating on my table - it has been a long time since I had good food (right now I am eating some stale batata wada and waiting for "thak")

[laluks]

Originally Posted by vrprabhu

so you can start with puttu, appam, idiappam, kadala kari, stew, pazham-pori, kattan chaya and go ahead to kari-meen, meen-polichadu, kalan, thoran.... man, I am salivating on my table - it has been a long time since I had good food (right now I am eating some stale batata wada and waiting for "thak")

ee paranjathokke njaan nelliyampathyil poyi mrushtaanamayi thatti....
(All theese were happily enjoyed at nelliyampathy)

[Nutty Nair]

Flash Back
Valparai was a place topmost in the list of my "must visit" places for a long time, but till now whenever I tried to go on a trip this route, some thing or the other would happen & the plan would always fall apart. The last time I tried to go to Valparai was in Jun 2009 when I came for my vacation from Kuwait. That time, me & my friend Pradeep went up to Vazhachal check post in my bike. Unfortunately for us, we could only reach there past 6 PM (or was it 7 PM). The check post officials gave us a dirty look & told us that traffic was not allowed after 6 PM & to come again in the morning. As my friend couldn't come the next day, I had to drop that idea.
Fast forward to Jan 2010 & again I was again preparing for a Valparai trip. This time there were 5 people in all. It was decided that my friends Narayan, Ashok, Bijoy & me would start the journey from Trivandrum on the 22nd evening. We would spend the night at our friend Manoj's residence & the next morning all of us would start for Valparai.

The Route: Trivandrum - Ernakulam - Chalakudy - Athirapally - Vazhachal - Malakkapparai - Valparai

The Travellers: Ranjith, Manoj, Ashok, Bijoy, Narayan.

Camera: Sony DSC H5, Sony DSC W130 & two others (model & make don't remember)

Our Ride :Xylo E8 ABS

I will be uploading the log in Excel sheet, so please see the same for detailed trip log.
Eventful Start
Evening of the 22nd, the Xylo's small boot was packed with our bags & a 20 ltr. water can. At around 4.45 PM we started our journey towards Ernakulam. First, we went to Pazhavangadi temple at East Fort where we broke the customary narial & after that we hit the road to Ernakulam. The traffic was heavy (just as a certain Mr. HVK had predicted)& somewhere before Attingal I think, the vehicle before us did an emergency braking & Bijoy had to brake quite suddenly. The ABS in the Xylo ensured that we didn't rear end the vehicle in front of us. But a Santro which was following us quite closely couldn't brake in time & he rear ended us. We, especially Bijoy, was quite upset but we managed to speak with the persons in the car without getting angry. We surveyed the damage to the Xylo, fortunately the driver of the Santro had swerved at the last minute resulting in a slight dent & a scrap to the bumper. We felt that arguing with the person was not going to help anyway, so we noted his number and continued our journey. We stopped at Alleppey for dinner. We reached Manoj's house late in the night & after a round of cards, we crashed down as we wanted to start early next morning.
As we started in the evening, not many pictures were taken in this route.

[aargee]

so we noted his number and continued our journey

Why? To give him sleepless nights is it?
The pics with trees are looking awesome to me.

[ampere]

Nothing like chai ka tela; potti kadai or chai wallah... are something one looks for a cold morning drive! Cannot miss one!

I really liked the title: Eventful start + Card Deck!

Ranjit, Beware its Tea shop and not Annapoorna !

[Nutty Nair]

@MODS - Pl. edit the date in the previous post to 23rd. It was a typo error.
@aargee - Mainly it was a precautionary measure in case we needed to file a complaint for claiming insurance. Also, if the other party files a case in the Police Station, then we should have at least the vehicle number for filing a counter case.
@ampere - this is for Ranjith.Rajaram, right?
@vrprabhu - a food - o - logue? Hmm.. on second thoughts, nice idea

Now back to the travelogue.

Athirapalli and Vazhachal
Now I have been to Athirapally and Vazhachal 2 or 3 times before. The first trip was from my school, of which I have only hazy memories. The other two times the visits were very short and with time constraints (one I have already described in my previous post). So I was able to neither spend some time nor take any decent photos of the falls. This time I wanted to spend some time and also take some good photos of the falls. I discussed this with my friends during the night stay at Ernakulam. They were in agreement with my plan. It was decided that we would start next morning at 6.30 AM so that we could spend some time at scenic places along the way and also reach Valparai before dusk.
The next day (24.01.10) morning we started our journey at 6.40 AM. Morning traffic being thin, we reached Chalakudy at 7.30 AM.We were hungry by the time we reached there and started searching for a decent hotel to have breakfast. But Ashok had other ideas and threw a proverbial spanner in the works ( or was it our collective stomachs?) by announcing that he wanted to have Puttu. Puttu sounded a good & yummy idea, but the problem was getting the stuff. Now, fellow mallu T-Bhpians will be aware that Puttu is not available in your usual hotels. So we started searching for a typical small tea shop/hotel which has Puttu in its menu. But no such luck in Chalakudy. We took a gamble and moved along the smooth one lane road towards Athirapally, hoping that one of the small junctions on the way will provide us with the elusive "Puttu". Finally when we were all starting to lose patience, we found a tea shop which displayed steaming Puttu and Kadala curry.

The Xylo was parked in a jiffy and for the next 20 minutes or so, the Xylo was a mute spectator to 5 grown up men gorging on the food with an obscene grin plastered to their faces. Even the shop keeper and the other customers were looking at us with strange faces, but who cares?

That is Ashok in the black T-Shirt

After having our fill of Puttu and also a cup of hot tea, we resumed our journey to Athirapally. The road, although a one laner was very smooth with good markings.





Further along the way, we came across a nice site. We stopped the vehicle and with cameras in our hands, went to explore the place.






Found this thing floating on the river.