Travel With Anjaly

Welcome to Waynad

In Gods Own Country, this is but a tiny jewel. Nevertheless it is the jewel most precious.

All around this place is beautiful green as if nature is blushing in different shades of green, from light to dark as she slowly blooms into womanhood…..Then just as suddenly, there is the unmistakable blue mingled with the green giving it the appearance of a fairyland. The soft white swirls of mist completes the picture of pleasure. Welcome to Waynad, the land of luxury and colours.

I am one of those lucky ones perhaps who actually got to experience this place. I lived here a while!! And no other place, till date has fascinated me like Waynad has. So it is on good authority you are reading this article. Trust me, once here; you never want to go away.

To say I have seen it all would be an understatement, because nature here is very playful. With every season she changes colours and the very same thing I saw just-the-other-day, would look and feel so different. I have trekked to the Chembra Peak (it took me almost a whole day!!), paddled about in the Pookot Lake, seen the Edakkal Caves and in moments of tenderness even visited some of the temples here.

The tea estates are remarkably breathtaking. If you are traveling uphill from Kozhikode in Kerala, you are very lucky because as you leave Vythiri, you see plenty of them. From Calicut (Kozhikode the locals call it) is 100 kms away and easily covered in less than three hours but you have to be very good at the curves that are tightly wound round the bends starting from Adivaram upward till you reach Vythiri. There are strategic locations where you can pull up by the road and drink in the breathtaking scenery and enjoy the sudden fall in temperature. Watch out for the monkeys though, if you are seen with food, they usually do not hesitate to claim their share!!

By now you have almost reached Sultan’s Battery after passing Kalpetta, a picturesque one-horse-town and also the district head quarters. Sultan’s Battery is a little bigger town and like a typical hill-town, is surrounded by hills and eucalyptus trees and tea estates. From here, there are plenty of buses plying to Mysore, Bangalore (Karnataka side), to Ooty (Tamil Nadu side). For an obscure hill station, it is very well connected.

Bandipur, the famous tiger park, is in close proximity to Sultan’s Battery. Plenty of jeeps and cars for hire make it easy for the tourists to travel about. The locals are very friendly and never, even in the absence of a rate-meter, overcharge you.

Head for Muthanga and go on a safari and if you are lucky, really lucky, you can see the big cat up close. A word of warning though. Never venture out into the forests alone, you don’t know which animal is out there waiting for his next meal. The forest houses hundreds of varieties of animals, some not so friendly. Never hunt for any animal or bird or carry away a strange-looking sapling. The wildlife department here are known for their strict rules and regulations and do not take kindly to meddling tourists.

Ooty is about 90 kms away and can be reached in two ways from Sultan’s Battery. You can drive all the way to Gundulpet (55kms) and turn right, drive to Gudulur (via Erumad-Cherambady) and climb up to Ooty.

Don’t be surprised if you are suddenly faced with strange-looking people not very well covered. Waynad and the whole of Nilgiris have a lot of tribal people. Of course many of them have joined the mainstream civilization, thanks to the untiring efforts of the local government, but you can still see them about.

The weather is pleasant all through the year but the temperature can drop suddenly sometimes. It is advisable to carry light woolen clothing in the non-winter season that is usually from March onwards till the beginning of the monsoons in June. In the rainy season and winter, heavy woolens are recommended.

Chembra Peak: A trekker’s delight. You do get to see a few of them huffing and puffing their way uphill sometimes, but for most parts, it is left to itself. And am glad for it. I always felt that it was my exclusive domain, not to be tampered by meddling tourists. Chembra peak is near Meppady town, another picturesque town with thousands of jeeps around. They must be banned, you know, for they contribute to a great deal of pollution.

There are hundreds of interesting places here and your senses will lead you to the right place if you indulge in it long enough. This is also a spice-town and everything is fresh here, from vegetables to fruits and fish and meat. The locals, like I said are friendly albeit a little curious to know your origins. Just for their evening laughs around a ‘chai-kada’.

For anyone planning a visit to Kerala, I sincerely must advise them to head for Waynad first before heading to the popular beaches downhill.

You may wonder why I have never written about lakes before, seeing that I have spent half my life (or nearly so) in and about lakes, sea and rivers (not to mention an occasional dam). In fact when I was very young, I even took to swimming in a river and nearly drowned. That beastly river near Calicut (Kerala) nearly took away my life. But you get the drift. I am a water- girl, among other things.

So with a colorful history behind me, I proceeded to this lake. Well, lakes in general are innocent. They are less wild than the rivers and more serene than the sea. In comparison to a dam, they are like kittens. And this lake was above all suspicion. To give a brief history of this one. Pookot Lake in Waynad district in Kerala (southern India) is perhaps one of the largest fresh water lakes in the country. It sits comfortably in the lap of green hills and thick foliage, two thousand meters above sea level, half way between Calicut and Sulthans Battery in a place named Vythiri, which records the second highest rainfall in India after Chirpunji.

So you see it has a lot going for it. And not one negative. It has everything one can hope for in a lake decent lake __deep calm waters, boats, rolling hills, chirping birds, water lilies….everything. There is also an aquarium where you can watch fish lazily swim in captivity if your tired of the woods. An ideal place to put up ones feet and give in to a short peaceful slumber. How I reached here was interesting.

I had been off to Calicut from Sulthan’s Battery one day (a three hour journey). As we reached Vythiri, the bus was grounded. Now, being grounded in Vythiri is no sin. Thousands of vehicles ply on the road. But that day, we were told there had been a mishap downhill. Understand this. Downhill through 36 hairpin bends is no laughing matter especially if the roads are no wider than your palms and there is a deep drop on either side.

A mishap on a turn and the vehicles line up for miles. To top it all it was a cold misty day, not uncommon, but it certainly made going tough. Many of the locals decided to walk some distance to keep the blood flowing. Likewise some distance away the road branched off from the main road and went right, on which I walked. A board bearing the name ‘Pookot’ appeared behind a cloud of mist so I carried on. I remember some footsteps behind me as well.

That is how I reached this lake.

I have never regretted the walk or even the short mishap in the water. I am coming to that. People, as you know, always want something to remind them of the places they have visited. So it happened that this bloke was trying to shoot a video of this pretty lake, but upon seeing me (I don’t blame him though!!) decided to zero in on me. That was also the time when I had passed out of law school (you bet I am not a spitting image of justice but I did drag my feet through the marble floors of the law school!!) and was bursting with ideas of a freedom and right to privacy. So when this guy insisted on having me in every shot, I lost it.

Also remember that paddle boats are not best suited for racing and are known to lose their balance at the drop of a pin. The bloke and his offending family had the advantage of being in a row boat. So when I finally pulled up beside them and saw him grinning very stupidly, I saw red, or rather green and blue (green being his shirt and blue his pants). My mind told me anyone with that combination on him was trouble. He was stupid alright. When I pulled up alongside, he actually leaned across to show me my pictures, looking pleased. First. I hated his choice of colors. Second: I hated his grin. Third: He was a lousy videographer.

Anyone who could make me look like a sheep shorn of its wooly coating had no right to be a videographer. Without a thought I snatched his stuff and with a curse was about to throw it into the lake when my paddle boat shifted. The rest like I said is history. The lifeguard later told me, between giggles and frown that he has never seen anyone wetter than I was after I had to be pulled up from the lake with water lilies sticking in my hair.

 The consolation was that the video camera was lost for good. It was also then I decided that lakes were deceptive. Now I do not mind much if someone is taking my pictures. Law and ideals have long gone. If it helps any silly photographer, I would even go as far as posing. So long as there is no resemblence to a sheep.