The Infy Travelogues - II

 

• Wayanad, Kerala

Out of all the places I visited, Wayanad in Kerala was the only place of which I hadn’t even heard before. I’d like to thank the Infy Travel Desk for suggesting it. The mention of Kerala and people presume that this place must be far off from Mysore but one more look at the Map of India will show that Wayanad is right near the Northern border of Kerala with Karnataka and just a 3 hours drive from Mysore.

Kerala and you can start imagining tea plantations spanning acres, coconut trees, backwaters, churches and educated locals. Yes, attributing the last to the fact that Kerala has 100% literacy! (But as my Facebook status went that day, I was surprisingly unable to spot a school till the time we were about to head back to Mysore :-O). The two things which intrigued me were the no. of Muslims in Wayanad (I always was under the impression that Kerala is full of only Mallus and Catholics) and that they have beef even for breakfast! Couldn’t somehow digest the latter.

The first place which were supposed to visit according to plan chalked-out were the Eddakkal Caves. Considering the efforts needed to reach these caves - which are at a height – dodging throngs of non-cooperative visitors, the result wasn’t really fruitful for me; couldn’t understand the engravings in the grotto and to my plight couldn’t find any explanation there.

The disappointment at the caves was washed off by this one-of-its-kind menu card at the restaurant where we’d lunch (I assume most of you have already seen this uploaded on Facebook).  But make no mistake, the fish it served was again very tasty! Yes, we’d vowed that we won’t have anything other than sea-food on all these outings.

We spent the evening relaxing at Pookat lake which is confined within a dense forest – pedal boating and walking across the path around the lake, buying pure honey and tea-powder.

                      

 

After some rest and a good night’s sleep which were pre-requisites to the day’s task, we’d a typical Kerali breakfast of Appam and a couple of more food items before we drove off to the big one – Meenmutty Falls. The unique thing about these falls is that you need to trek DOWN a fair height to reach them. And is the trek full of adventure! So much so that there are Forest guards and ropes to assist you during the arduous task! The deep valley visible from the corner of my eye where one wrong foot and…  even made me wonder if warming my bed back in Mysore would’ve been a better option :-O

             

Slowly but steadily we amateur trekkers finally reached the… bottom (Yeah, I know, we are so used to saying summit). The thunderous roar of the falls made us forget what we’d been through to reach it, in a jiffy; let the pics describe it for you…

          

The climb up for some reason didn’t seem as adventurous as the descent was and with weary legs we managed to reach the top.

And no sooner we did that, than we were greeted with a thunderous pre-monsoon downpour… a blessing in disguise to clean us up!

Now, at lunch we could only thank ourselves that none of us were pure vegetarians and strictly religious. We happened to unknowingly eat Beef! The restaurant served us the tabooed (which we realized when we were almost done with it) in the name of Chicken! Misplaced order, purposeful replacement due to lack of Chicken in the stock or whatever the reason, there was no point in arguing with the manager after we’d the food.  

This incident more than anything else guaranteed to write a parting note on the Wayanad outing and will help us remember the city, which we didn’t know before, forever!

NEXT: Ooty, Tamil Nadu