Long Time, Short Trip, Long Blog...

Third term has been unusually slow to take off. But for the 26 classes in the heavily loaded first week, there hasn't been much activity. So when a three day break came along owing to rescheduling of classes in wake of the IIMK-IIMB sports meet, it naturally lent itself to grandiose plans of exploring Kerala. After a lot of planning and discussions, eight of us decided to drive to Ooty in TN instead and started arranging for cars at 10 on Monday morning. As we got ready and were waiting for the cars to arrive, the chettas struck. Due to miscommunication/misunderstanding/mal-intention or just plain Malayalam, we realized two agents had lent us the same Zen and at different prices! huge letdown it was...

But we regrouped and decided to take a Qualis instead of driving ourselves. Since eight would be one too many for a Qualis, we coaxed couple more to join. In the meantime, further discussions ensued on the choice of destination and since we weren't going to be driving now, there were a whole lot of ther opportunities. By the time we left, the ten of us had decided to go to Periyar Tiger Reserve (& not Ooty) in a Qualis and a Scorpio (In Picture, from left to right, back row: Vaibhav, Deepak, Abhishek, Akash front row: Jitesh, Me, Sameer, Deka, Akshay... Not in Picture: Anchit). It was 10:30 in the night already.

We expected to get to Periyar at around 6 in the morning as it was some 380 KMs from Calicut. This was going to be my first major road trip in Kerala and I observed quite a few peculiar things. First, that Calicut was a much bigger city than what I presumed and had infact seen over the past six months. Second, the roads in Kerala although ony two-laned are well laid (save Palakkad district). Third, the interiors of Kerala have a vibrant night life! Yes, you read it right, I actually saw Saree shops chock-a-block with customers at midnight, CD rentals shops open at 1 and people queuing up for a haircut at 2 AM. I'm not sure if this was due to Eid Mubarak the next day or is it generally the case. (Although, Eid can't be the only factor because it was the same for most of the way and it is unlikely that all those areas to be muslim dominated.) Fifth, Scorpio is not meant for long drives if you happen to be sitting on the rear seats. Sixth, the most accomodating guy generally sleeps the least because of explotation. He is left to sit in the middle of the either of the two back rows which are sans head-rests. Seventh, all through Kerala, tea is served as sweet as sharbat. (Picture:Entrance of tiger reserve)

When we did reach Periyar at around 7 in the morning, the first task at hand was to find accomodation. We first decided to try the KTDC hotel inside the reserve and the moment we entered the reserve, the first thing we saw was three deers grazing around! Naturally, the expectations skyrocketed (and you should begin to get an idea of the climax). Meanwhile, we couldn't find accomodation inside the reserve as the cheaper one's were all gone and the more expensive ones were really expensive (5000 per room). We had to find accomodation outside the reserve and there were some good hotels around, there were some really cheap hotels and still some others were obscenely expensive. One particular hotel charged 12000 bucks for one night. Well, I guess there must be certain 'other' services to justify 12000 bucks. Jan happens to be the season when there are plenty of foreign tourists and hardly any Indians around staying in Periyar although there were plenty of local tourists who came for short-few-hour trips.

As for the hotel, we managed a real bargain, 300/- per room and it was not bad (Picture: The gang at LeelaPankaj). The only mistake that we did was that one smart Alec amongst us (name with-held) paid the entire amount of 3000 Rs. in advance and you can very well imagine the service we got for the next two days.

We got ready and by the time we had our lunch at the KTDC hotel (Picture: Lunch at periyar house) and made it back inside the reserve, almost all the possible activities (trekking, boating etc.) for that day inside the reserve were all booked. There is this place called Boat landing inside the reserve where all these bookings are donea and it is as crowded as karol bagh on a lazy winter afternoon. No wonder many told us that they couldn't see any animals in the reserve. Not to be disheartened, we booked a bamboo raft for the next day which was quite expensive at 1000 Rs per head but probably that was our best chance to see any animals and to get inside the real forest (and not the fraud that was the stretch from entrance to boat landing).

With little left to do for the rest of the day, four of us went to Abrahams spice plantation which is mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide to India. It was a unique experience for me. I saw the plants of cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, vanilla, coffee, ram-phal, hanuman-phal, jack fruit, banana, ladyfinger, ginger, daal-cheeni, kadi-patta, tez-patta, green chilly (Picture:Me and Deepak biting a hot chilly), and numerous others in the the 2 acre plantation. Brought up in Delhi, I've hadly seen anything else besides wheat, cotton or sarson crop. At Abraham's, there was an equally good variety of ornamental flowers as well. But the best part was that Abraham gave us a lot of stuff to taste and not in my life, I've experienced such a remarkable sensory perception of taste in such a short while as I had on Abraham's plantation. Highly highly recommended!

(Picture:Akash, Abraham, Deepak and Me)

Periyar, itself has a unique geography. It has two huge disjoint waterbodies and is primarily hilly. The bamboo rafting we booked consisited of a short ride beyond the first waterbody, a short 4-5 km trek to the other waterbody, rafting on a bamboo boat to some non-core area, and then the same trekking-rafting-trekking sequence back.

We started at 8 on Wednesday morning and were accompanied by two porters, one guide and one armed forest guard. As these treks generally turn out to be, all we could initially see was Tiger footprints, a few monkeys and a couple of malabar parrots. All through, we trekked along the periphery of the jungle for four or five KMs, not entering inside once. We also trekked through a marshy land and as a result my ASICS running shoes were all drenched in mud and I realized how bad an idea it was to wear them to this trek. Sadly for me, the worst was still to come. (Interesting to note that some bravehearts in our group did the entire trek in their floaters and the special socks that were provided to protect from leeches, Picture: Starting the Trek ). During the 5 KM trek we were hungry as hell and breakfast was finally served at around 11. I don't remember wanting a breakfast as badly as that in a long time.

Anyway, next came the bamboo rafting and it turned out to be a wonderful experience for me (four days on, I'm badly sunburnt!). The ten of us were divided into groups of five on each raft and we ended up racing with each other(Picture: Gang on the Rafts) with no idea of the destination! As we were rafting, we first saw a couple of Bisons on distant land and we started heading in that direction. By that time, one of us had convinced the guide, that for an extra consideration of 300 Rs, he would take us to the reserved area and make 'maximum try to see elephants' . Tiger sightings were rare in any case as there are only 38 tigers in Periyar spread over 778 sq Kms. The guide himself last saw a tiger, three months back. And considering, what happened later, I'm sort of thankful that we didn't cross a tiger!

Anyway, we started rafting towards the land of Bison. As the guide decided to take a rest along the shore of one of the land masses, four of us decided to take a trip inside that land mass. We walked in merrily and we started moving towards the middle of that land mass. I felt a need to relieve myself and was about to do that when one of us spotted a big, fat, grey colored, 2 mtr long snake. Two others also spotted it, I didn't but all of us ran as if our lives depended on it. And come to think of it, our lives did depend on it. In hindsight, I think it was a wise decision not to relieve myself on that particular spot!!!

We kept moving towards that 'distant' land and at one point were rafting totally against the wind and current. Despite the best efforts of 6 fully grown males, the raft was just crawling along and we somehow managed to reach the shore. From thereon, the guide took us in the reserved area, and it was in stark contrast to the beaten-trek earlier, no paths, had to make our own way through the bushes. We trekked along and inside the forest on a huge hill but still no luck, the only animal we could spot was a wild boar. Disappointed and disheartened, some of us were really tired and refused to go a further four KMs. where the next elephant territory started. Some of our diappointment melted when a sumptuous lunch was served.

By 2:30 PM we started rafting back to the point where we started. As we got down from our rafts, another forest guard told us that he had spotted elephants on the other side of the trek in the morning. Our guide took us there, we crossed a marsh again, but this marsh was slightly different, you could easily make out that it was made of elephant dung and it covered hundreds of square meters. We had no choice but to cross it. The guide was leading the way when he told us to stop and to be dead quite. Then he signalled to move along quitely, you could sense the tension in his body language and suddenly there was an elephant roar. We rushed for cover and took shelter in a nearby feature which had tall elephant grass. As we sneaked around slowly, the majestic elephant came into sight. There were four or five of them. We were a good 100 meters away from them and quite excited. And in this excitement, the flash of one of our camras went off and the elephants noticed us. They had their tails up, there was a thunderous roar and then they almost started running at us. All of us almost panicked and ran backwards. The forest guard kept his senses and gave some directions on his walkie-talkie, and then there was loud noise of a motor or something. The Elephants retreated on hearing it. We moved a little forward and then slowly the entire herd came into the picture. there were atleast 11 or 12 of them. And they did make a truly magnificient sight. It's one thing seeing a domesticated elephant behaving like a dog and a totally different thing seeing a wild elephant in its own backyard. Trust me, it does not look like a friendly animal. Infact, even a wild boar looks very menacing!

After this tremendous experience, we started trekking back to our base point. All in all, it was a fairly satisfying day. We had a Rajasthani thali for our dinner, Salutations to the enterprising spirit of the Marwaris, A restaurant offering Rajasthani food in the most unlikeliest of places. And to top it all, the owner told us that his brother operated one such joint in Calicut itself and when we told him that we were going to Kodaikanal next, he gave the address of another of his siblings, who ran a Patel Bhojanalaya in Kodaikanal. KodaiKanal itself was fairly uneventful and dull. The only highlight being the bicycle that we rented and drove along the lake and some part of the town. We also met a few batchmates at Kodai who initially went to Ooty but cam to Kodai as there wasn't much to do at Ooty. Poor chaps.

Anyway, won't like to talk much of a hill station (Kodai) where you could roam around in a t-shirt in early Jan. Fraud. (Actually few of the guys had a peculiar 'unmentionable' motivation to visit Kodaikanal)

The journey back to Calicut was as interesting as the journey t0 Periyar. We took a different route and came via palani-kedimedu-pollachi and sort of bypassed Coimbatore. Palani is an important temple town and the route from Kodai to Palani had some of the best panoramic valley-views that I've ever seen in my life. I also saw a windmill farm near Pollachi, the place I guess was Udumalpet (but I maybe wrong). This was the first time I had seen aw indmill farm as wind mills are not that common up in North India. Pollachi town was a bit of a revelation as I never imagine shopping malls in interiors of Tamil Nadu (Okay, not the kind of malls we see in Gurgaon but decent three storeyed buildings). Passed through Pallakad district and it had some of the worst roads that you can imagine. The more I see of Kerala, the more I'm convinced that although the average living standard is far above North but the peak is abysmally low.

Anyway, the trip concluded at 12:00 AM at the Harvard Steps. For four thousand bucks, the fun on the trip was a real bargain!!!!