the chalakudy saga

Well, after a "well" deserved break am back again  to share my one day trip to a place called Chalakudy in Kerala. It was my B-tech classmate's engagement on April 17 and we all planned to get together on the occasion. As usual with all kind of similar stories, only 7 of my friends out of 15 odd who had promised to come, turned up for the occasion, and sadly all were boys..........:-(.......err........joking.....eh.

All 6 of them told they will be in Chalakudy by 11 am, 4 of them coming in a car from Kottayam and other two in a two-wheeler from Cochin. Since am staying in Coimbatore, I had few options to reach there at around 11 in the morning. I took Island express from coimbatore on saturday(april 17) morning, at 5 30 am. Thanks to Jophin who dropped me till the station early in the morning. The train came half an hour late and I slept off the moment I boarded in. I reached Chalakudy  at around 9 30 am.

I had to wait somewhere till my friends arrived, and nothing was more conducive than the railway station itself.
I took a seat and started reading the magazine I  bought in coimbatore railway station. The next 2 hours were very boring and nothing worth mentioning. At around 11:15 my friend Vijay called me and told he will be there within 15 minutes. He was coming with JK in the 2-wheeler.

I came out of the station and stood near the bus stop opposite to it. Vijay called me later and this was the conversation that went between us:
Vijay: "Hey, are you standing near a bus stop painted red in colour??"
Me: "Yes, but where are you??!!"
Vijay:"Can you see a green bus in front of you??"
Me: "Yes, of course...."
Vijay: "Get inside the bus........."
Me: "But, what?? Where are you......??!!"
Vijay: "Get inside it quicky.......or else you will miss it..."

I ran and boarded the bus just before it was gonna start. When I asked him... "Now what???", he replied........."ooooh, man I was just joking!!!"..........I thought of hitting him like anything, but first I had to get down the bus!!! Thankfully, JK followed the bus in his bike.  I got down at the next stop hoping the conductor won't tell anything, as I didn't take the ticket, luckily he didn't tell anything. I went back to the station with JK and saw Vijay pointing his finger at me and laughing.......I chased him and beat him to satisfy my anger.

Then came up the next issue. When JK asked the other friends coming in car about the exact place of Engagement, they told that I knew the place. But, the fact was no one  knew where the place was.....we all knew its in Chalakudy. I tried to call Lucy (it was her engagement ), but as expected she didn't pick the phone. We called Linda, our friend, but she also didn't pick the phone. It was great thinking about the fact that 7 friends going for their classmate's engagement didn't knew where to go??!!. I remembered Lucy sending mail to us about the place. I called my another friend Sachin, working in Trivandrum. He was at office. I asked him to check his mail and tell us about the details. He said he didnt receive any mail from Lucy. I had to give my g-mail credentials to him, and he checked the mail and told the location was St.Sebastian's church in Thachoodaparambu.

From athirapally

We found out the place, not far away, and waited for the others to come. As expected, one of them called me to know about the location. I knowingly told them that the place is St .George's church in "Choodathu parambu", just to have fun. But these guys reached the place without any hiccups as they knew I was trying to play with them. As for the engagement, It went on smoothly. It was the first time I attended a christian Engagement. And for the lunch there on, my friends had  a great time having fish, chicken, pork and beef etc. I had to manage with some vegetarian stuff.

After taking some snaps with Lucy and her partner, we went straight to Athirapally. It was about 35 km from her place. We reached the waterfalls at around 2:00 pm. It was great to see the water flowing down, making splashing sound when it reaches the bottom of the falls.........I don't think you will be able to spot such a magnificent view anywhere else in India.The river appears silent and serene at the top. But, when you go down to get a good view of the water falls , it looks very aggressive and dangerous.

From athirapally

The green canopy surrounding the whole place just adds to the landscape's beauty. We had no plans of plunging into the waters and taking a bath until we went and saw the place. The river's bank at the top was beaming with people. We went little inside the place along the river's bank to have bath.

From athirapally

From athirapally

It was after a long-time, 2 years or so , that we were having fun in the waters. Earlier it was in the Meenachil River near our college. After some time , the clouds covered the sky and we could see lightning and thunderstorms. The climate at that time created a great feeling overall..........We went down the falls after bathing and took some snaps. When we came back to the top, it was raining like anything and people were running awestruck to catch some shelter.

After some half an hour or so, when the rain was not stopping, we decided to go back to the parking lot and leave the place. We had no other option but to get wet in the rain. We started from there at around 4pm and I reached home at 7 in the evening. All-together it was a small but jolly trip.

a day in vijayasree gardens

scene 1

Time: 5:30 AM

suddenly....."ttttrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnggggg"
Sriram wakes up hearing the deafening voice thinking "bullshit, shud b jophin's alarm........its like he sets the alarm for me to jog daily morning...."
Jophin will wake up at this hour(precisely, opens one of his mouth, eh sorry....eyes, looks out of the cover), but as no one is there to make him sit up, watches sriram getting up, but he himself sleeps off........thinking...."nalle jog cheyaam.....ennalum avanne enne vilikaam ayirnu..(I will jog from tomorrow......but he could have called me....)."
Sriram  gets ready n goes to jog.............

Time: eh....can't specify the exact time.........usually between 7 and 7:30 AM

Jophin  wakes up...... Sriram  has just come home after jogging.........
jophin:"hey!! y didnt u call me when u went for jogging???!!"
Sriram  :"U were sleeping man......."
jophin:"what do you expect?? I will be dancing on my bed???"

End of scene 1


Scene 2

Time: exactly between 7 and 7:30 AM

The first thing I see after waking up will be either of the two things below

1) Darshan brushing his teeth

2) The western toilet in the bathroom

Very sad to say but I used to get a beautiful, closeup view of the always stinking, very fantastically ill-maintained, seldom cleaned and regularly dirtied toilet in my room as my bed lies straight to it. Only if I happen to turn my neck around 110 degrees to the left will I be able to see Darshan !!! I would be thanking the God every morning if the latter happens.

I wake up, brush my teeth..........almost everyday by this time Jophin  might have woken up or in some rare occasions would have had his bath too!!! Sriram  will be walking in and out of bathroom at this time. Since, he has to jog, wash his personal stuff, boil egg, heat the water for bathing, clear the dust on his plane, ahmm....bike..... .......phew!!!!..........he would not have finished bathing by this time.

Around this time , the mother of all bathroom battles starts off.................

End of scene 2


Scene 3

Time: 7: 30 

First it will be Darshan  who gets ready, after that may be Surjith or me, depends on who wakes up first..........around this time Kushal  will wake up. The first thing he will be listening early morning is something his ears find totally crazy and his brain hates to understand, MALAYALAM..........jophin, me, darshan, jayan, Bije..........oh oh ohhhh..........now, where is Bijesh???? Focus shifts to main hall, center bed...............there you go, theres our Biju.........sleeping like a little baby, with his legs resting on Darshan 's bed and his head resting on the pillow which was on the bed when he slept but now is on the floor!!! First Sriram  calls him, then I call him, finally after some 20 minutes, around 8 AM, Bijesh wakes up................booting......please wait for a few hours till the system(Bijesh ) loads, loading brain memory, identifying people around, initializing first task to do (this may take at least 15 minutes)................physical activity of the person will have nothing to do with whats being processed in the brain, but sometimes the system may halt and resemble the action of what to do next?? Well, thats Bijesh  for you.

Suddenly Jayan comes and asks bijesh.."Aaa, RPD ennito??(has RPD waken up?"

............Bijesh replies back, "RPD ninte thandhayada thandha(RPD is your father......)........", Jayan, "ninte Mamanaada...(your uncle....)",well now they will come to a mutual agreement about who is RPD, they stop it, but daily they will reconfirm the same fact.........I haven't seen any other people than these 2 who find happiness in their own Craziness..........

In the meantime, we can see someone taking deep breath-ins and breath-outs..............oh, well well............its none other than Kushal   doing push ups in the front room. After all he has to maintain his body.......... Jophin  follows after Kushal  , he takes some 10-12 push ups.............then Bijesh  too joins.............well, he will be at-least trying to do it, and he does too, and I will be thinking of doing it from the next day, but since tomorrow never comes, I wont be doing anything called "exercise".

End of  Scene 3

Scene 4

Everybody is ready and set to go, but since we don't have any own vehicle,(untill Bijesh brought his car from home and Kushal his bike), we had to rely on Vijaysree Gardens.....erp........sorry.........Sree Balaji Travels for going to office. We call a cab, it will be usually me calling the cab......"Hello, Vijayasree Gardens, send a taxi to Sree Balaji ...........sorry,". Man on the other end...."Understood sir, just give a miss call from tomorrow". The cab comes and we go to our very own Cordys office.

End of Scene 4

To be continued....

Ponmudi

I don't know why, but blogging about beautiful places in Kerala is something I am enjoying the most these days. Last week I had gone to a place called Ponmudi in Trivandrum, Kerala.......a part of Western Ghats, this place is famous for the unending cool breezes that flow through the mountain ranges here, sometimes capable of blowing you away!!! Am not exaggerating, but during rainy season, you should use some muscle power to withstand the speedy chill winds blowing at you.

We were 8 people, and traveled in 2 cars, both my friend's. This was a treat given by me for my college friends as I got a job in an IT firm. We started off the journey on 16th Jan, 2009 early morning at around 2:30 am from my house in Newsprint Nagar, Kottayam. Ponmudi is around 180 to 200 kms from there. We reached at the foothills of Ponmudi at around 7:30, took a room to freshen up, and continued our way up the hill.

Ponmudi, as against what I thought, is not a dangerous place. The way up the hill is narrow, but as the Indian Govt is setting up the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology(IISST) ,

work was going on to widen the roads leading to Ponmudi. Its around 1100 mts above sea level. There are many resorts over this place, we also saw a caravan going ahead of us, maybe some film personality.

This place is very silent, the only voice you hear once you reach the top is the gushing sound of the tree leaves waving to and fro due to the blowing winds. Well, there is nothing much you can do here, but if you fall in the "drinking" category, you will like it here. We spent

around an hour here, climbing the hills and enjoying the great view. There are many places nearby like Meenmutty waterfalls, a lake nearby, the Neyyar dam, Crocodile lake etc. We decided to go to Trivandrum( roughly some 24 kms) after that. On the way down, one of the cars showed some trouble. A metallic sound was coming from one of its front tires............we stopped to see what happened, had to use the jackie and remove the tier. A stone was stuck between the break pads and the tire.....which was making the sound. Once we removed it and fixed the tires, it was ok. On the way we had our lunch.

We reached Trivandrum at around 2 in the afternoon. Met our friend Sachin over there, and decided to go to the Kovalam beach, well..............you know why people go there............its not the waves or the sunset that draws attention............but the people who come to the beach. I must say that this is one of the beautiful beaches India has, after those in Goa, and thats why you can find a number of foreigners enjoying the sun and the beach. We had a great time at the beach , spent around 3 to 4 hours there. Went back to the city, had dinner near the stadium in the city. There was the Asianet Ujala awards going on in the stadium and we could hear a hell lot of voices from inside the stadium.

Our stay that night was at Sachin's place. We had to wake up early in the morning as it was our college mate Rigin's sister's wedding on that day. Well, after all, trips are to enjoy, and you won't get time to sleep, even if you find time, you won't be allowed to sleep...........This was a memorable one , after a long time, everyone met again.......memories to be cherished forever..........

Nelliyampathy

This is my first extensively dedicated blog, and am doing this bcoz I want to show u guys a place in Kerala most people haven't heard of much, or seen much............circumscribed by beautiful hillocks and dams, inundated by tea plantations and callow forests, this place is where every adventure loving man seeks to go.........yes, am talking about the silently mystifying Nelliyampathy...........

There is one more reason that am incline

d to do this and that's bcoz when I googled "Nelliyampathy", not much results came out that gave information about where the place is or how it can be reached.....so sad!!

So, I will start by mentioning about the trip we went to Nelliyampathy in Nov'07......I was doing my b-tech in Kottayam, Kerala at that time and was staying along with 11 other pals in a PG. We started on a Thursday night at around 12:00 am in a traveler and reached Pothundi dam at the foothills of Nelliyampathy. We took the route from Kottayam to Muvattupuzha, Chalakudi , Alathur and Pothundi Dam which took around 4 hours. This place is a very silent one, we could hear only the sound of the water

falling off from the reservoir.

As we had a little bit

tiresome, 4-hour long trip, we slept-off in the traveler. It was around 6 in the morning when I

woke up and the sight in front of me was truly mind-blowing....as dawn was just starting to fall upon the sky, it was like the nature had changed its colour from the serene green to the exotic blue.....(you can see the first photo at the top). After freshening up, we started on our way up the hill towards Nelliyampathy. We

were expecting bumpy

roads but it was just smooth all the way, Kerala government has done a good job regarding that. About half an hour later we were in Nelliyampathy. The place is famous for its ravaging beauty of the

steep hills. There are many

suicide points here, I don't remember their names .......and the best part is you can actually watch clouds floating at the same level where you are standing, its like the hills are kissing the sky. Well the first place we went was just great, we had to walk along a narrow path and at the end we could see something in white colour. What we saw when we reached that point

was the open sky, and down below some 3000 meters the lush green land lied, stretching across the horizon.

Well there are many resorts here, where you can stay for two three days and visit all the places nearby. If you are talking about Nelliyampathy, you should not forget to mention about the top-most point over there. Its a 14km up the hill drive, only 4-wheel drive powered vehicles can take that route. You can hire a jeep from the town, the driver can tell you about the place. Its about 4000 mtrs above msl. The route is very rocky and at times you should get down the jeep,

so that it can drive up the way. Sometimes, the driver said that, wild boars may come on the way. When you reach the top, you can almost have the view of half of pallakad district, some 6 dams, clouds floating just before you............its just amazing. After we came back from this place, we had our lunch from a house. We had asked them before to prepare lunch for 10 people. The thing is there is no proper restaurant over there to have food.

Then, we went to a place called Sithakund, its another suicide point, a hill, and if you climb down the hill, there is a huge cave that you can see. It was an adventurous experience for us. We met a local who took us down the hill to the cave. The place is full of leaches, so you should take care of your own blood, or by the time you watch your foot, all the blood might have gone.................huh, was that a bit over-board???

After this, we started our journey back to Kottayam and reached there at night

Well, this is all I can tell about the trip and the place. Its a must see place for adventure seekers. Also, you can have campfire , trekking sort of things here, if you plan accordingly. Any information you need about the place, feel free to contact me....

Writing off

Patruni.......