With the desperation to reach Anemudi (English Meaning : Elephant Head, Highest Peak of South India 2,695 M) from Top Station via a unknown forest route, we reached a place called Vattavada. It is quite disappointing for us, as our faulty tourist map guided us wrongly and we ended up to a dead end near to Tamilnadu Boarder. We just proved the saying "what ever happens is for good" by taking this wrong path. We were starving for food and we got a hotel to fill in our hoggish stomach. It is 12 Noon, we are able to only smell CHOR (cooked rice in Malayalam) as the breakfast would have digested in others stomach by now. Any how its not too early for us to have our lunch. While the lunch is getting ready, let me pull our experience to post till now.
It was the alarm for us, we got up at around 5 AM with the past three days habit. It was quite dark, foggy and even more chilled out side. With the frozen hands, we struggled a lot to get our tent reomoved. After putting the luggage on to the motorcycle, we headed towards Top Station. While crossing the city, we came to know Top Station view point will be opened after 9 AM. But for us journey matters a lot rather than the destination. Two glass of kata chai (black tea) gave us enough boost to start our journey cheating the freezing cold breeze.
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| Tent Site at Munnar |
Just before reaching Top Station, we stopped at a view point looking at those western ghat mountain valley covered with clustered cloud with clear blue sky. The view was just awesome. While we were clicking pictures with our sophisticated photographic equipment, some tourist misunderstood us as photo journalists. After hearing our travel plan, finally they took suggestion from us to make their itinerary bit interesting. Out those Shasank and Family who were in a holiday trip to Munnar from Bangalore made a note of all those places for their return itinerary. While I was busy with tourists, Santhosh was actually working towards an adventurous evening. In that process, he had already convinced the tea shop owner at the view point for a night stay inside the shop. It was all set from our side to spend the night at the tea shop. After noting down the contact no. of the tea shop owner, we continued towards Top Station. It was a private property of Periyar Residency and there is not much arrangement for vehicle parking. With our incredible convincing skills, Santhosh and myself managed to park our vehicle near to the entrance gate at a fruit shop. With the hungry stomach, we enjoyed one of the western ghat fruit and wood fire burnt corn. There are lot of trekking and camping organisers available at this place. Periyar Residency is one of such organizer, who charges around INR 700/- per person for one day camping, trekking and night forest walk where animal sighting is confirmed. These charges include food. It seems with a clear sky one can see Tamilnadu from Top Station view point. We were not that lucky as it was quite foggy and we could hardy see anything after ten or fifteen meters.
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| Top Station View Point |
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| Top Station View Point |
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| Top Station View Point |
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| Top Station View Point |
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| Top Station View Point |
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| At Top Station |
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| Top Station View Point |
With a reference from our route map, we started towards Vattavada. While we were crossing Pambadum Shola National Park, initially the forest was quite thick with narrow roads, but soon after, we saw people cutting the forest trees and trucks carrying tons of woods from the forest. With a few kilometers of ride the dense forest turned to a normal grass land. It was quite disappointing that people still don't understand the value of forest. At the Hotel, we just came to know from local findings that Anemudi is few kelometers away from Munnar and we have to cross Munnar to reach there. It seems the lunch is ready and we have already made our plan to be at the top of South India by today evening. Hope you guys will have something interesting to read tonight.
As usual, I did not miss the tasty wood fire cooked meal with chicken curry, while Santhosh was trying to make a smiling face with the available vegetarian options. By this time people had started comparing us with the Highway on my Plate couple, Rocky and Mayur. Anyway both of us were quite hungry and utilized the offered opportunity for a stomach full lunch. We met another biker group at the same hotel and they just entered the small cozy looking hotel by looking at us. We spent some time sharing our travel plan with them. After a warm see off from them, we started for Munnar to reach Anemudi. Just after crossing Top Station, we saw a small stream near to a village and some how managed to reach there by taking a small off road from the main road. The water was clear and even more chilled, but with no other options, we utilized the opportunity to get freshen up. We tried our best to convince villagers for a night camping near to the stream, but with all our effort, it was a clear deny at last. On the way back to Munnar, we faced heavy traffic jam and it was more than 10 kilometers. Luckily with two wheeler and my incredible short cut skills acquired riding in bangalore, we were able to over take the traffic. One piece of advice, please avoid travelling to tourist place during "long weekends", you just end up sitting inside the vehicle..
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| On the way to Munar |
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| On the way to Munar |
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| On the way to Munar |
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| On the way to Munar |
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| The place where we got refreshed |
We reached Anemudi just before 4 PM and struggled a bit for parking. But we were both quite determined to conquer the summit today. While Santhosh was waiting in the queue to collect tickets, I somehow managed to convince the two wheeler parking guard to keep an extra eye on the vehicle with all the luggage. Though initially guard was in the denial mode, but with my convincing skills, later he agreed. While I was returning from parking I met the Rajesh's companions whom we met at Chalakudy river view point. It was nice to meet some one whom you already met before on the same trip. Suddenly I head a sound "
Satish bege banni paa. Tickets ready aithu" (Come soon, tickets are ready). We were lucky enough to get in to the last bus as closing time to visit Eravikulam National Park (Both Rajamalai and Anemudi is part of this park) is 4.30 PM. It was INR 83/- per person and INR 30/- per camera to visit the peak. No private vehicles are allowed in side the national park except the plantation and local villager's vehicle. Forest department vehicle, mostly a 40 seater mini bus,takes you till the Forest Gallery which is last point for the bus. We have to walk around a kilometer to reach the base of Anemudi. While walking towards the top, we could see couple of Nilgiri Thar. With the strict rules of national park and the distance of the animal, it would be difficult to capture any picture even using a telescopic lens. Though we could not conquer the summit due to national park rules, we could capture the spectacular endless western ghat valley view. Santhosh insisted that we shouldn't miss taking Farzana next time here to conquer the summit. On the way back we witnessed one of the beautiful sunset ever, but were not lucky as we were in side the moving bus. Down at the parking, we were very happy to see our Shakila untouched.
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| Valley view from Animudi |
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| Valley view from Animudi |
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| Animudi Peak |
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| Valley view from Animudi |
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| Some board at the Animudi Peak |
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| Some board at the Animudi Peak |
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| Some board at the Animudi Peak |
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| Sun Set on the way back |
It was already dark and with a expectation to capture the golden colors of sun set, we headed a bit towards Chinnar Wild Life Sanctuary. On one of the curvy roads, we stopped. While we were quite excited with the camera to capture some long exposure frames, we were equally scared about wild animals. After taking two to three pictures, we headed back to Munnar. Today also our luck was not with us for sighting any animals. With experience of last night cold, we bought same one quarter brandy and carried some food to have in side the tent. Though we had planed to halt at the top station tea shop, we ended up putting the tent at the same ground as yesterday. It was around 7.30 PM, when we reached Munnar and Top Station is around 35 KM from Munnar. This was our first repeat stay till now. The brandy has started working out on my body, let me stop here and close my eyes to get a nice dream. Good Night all.
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| Long exposure with the high way vehicle trail |
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| Long exposure with the high way vehicle trail |
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