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.