V-A-C-A-B

After much deliberation and dereliction for months, our group decided to go on a trip.Finally!! Though the destination was undecided, I was happy that we, atleast made up our mind to visit some godamnit place! And what a place(s) it was!

Fantastic Four of us, Ajay, Sriharsha, Suresh and of course, myself hired a qualis on friday night to Athirampally Falls via Valparai. Left Bengaluru around 2300 hrs.

Without any more e-motions attached, lemme blog.

Pollachi: The first place we stopped for bath and breakfast. Found a decent hotel (Hotel Sakthi) in the town and finished all morning activities and let for Valparai. There are beautiful places around Pollachi but we had a tight schedule to follow which we don't often follow @ work! :)

Aliyar Dam/Reservoir: 20kms for Pollachi and on the foothills of Anamalai mountain range which leads all the way to Valparai. Beautiful one (pictured above), though while reading blogs on Valparai, i didn't know why so. Reason: It's a lovers' spot. I could find more no. of couples than the trees to shade them! Anyways, is still a good place! :)

Monkey Falls: The first place on the ghat is the Monkey Falls. Small and beautiful falls. Part of Roja's 'Dil Hai Chota sa' song was filmed here which we remembered when we saw the place! (pictured above..that's Suresh, Ajay and Harsha...hehehe)

The ghat houses 40 hair-pin bends which provides luxurious view of the Aliyar Dam (one at 9th bend is a good one, pictured above) and the lush green forest. Almost the entire strip has good asphalted road, another plus point.

Valparai - The town full of tea and coffee plantations is truely a traveller's delight. We reached the place around 2pm. You won't find a single hill/mountain range in and around the town without a tea or a coffee plantation. I loved the sight immensely though for somebody it might be a bane especially if green's not one of his/her fav colors! Anyways, all 4 of us liked and loved the place.

Although, it was a pain for the 3 others when i had to halt the vehicle every 500 mts to capture in the digicam. Like, taking a mental picture (Sitcom, Friends's one of the episodes featuring Alec Baldwin's famous lines) of this wonderful view. But when you are in such a great place and have an insatiable thirst for snapping every thing that's looks awesome who wouldn't go zany over it? (pictured)

Reached the hotel (Hotel Green Hill) which we had it booked from our Pollachi hotel. Room was good, priced at Rs.900/night for a couple.Refreshing ourselves, we set out for in and outs of the town.

We have had thought of visiting temples and churches amidst the estates, but had to shelve the plan excusing ourselves blatantly that since God's omnipotent and omnipresent. Actually, we were running out of time.

picture: Our evening tea.

Our hotel receptionist/owner gave us 3 routes to visit places. We selected one which had a dam (Nirar Dam), a falls (Chinnakallar Falls) and a river (sorry, forgot the name). Since it was already 4.45pm and dam would close by 5pm, we zeroed-in on the falls.

Nirar Dam: Nice route. 20 kms from the town. Nirar damn (pictured) is on the way. The dam is more of a reservoir than the damn dam! :) From the dam, the falls is 1 km further plus 200mts walk. Loud Tamil music greet you at the falls, a ploy to ward-off the wandering elephants. If you are a Tamil music fan, there's a nice podium to dance as well. The place has a school and a post office which actually amused and pleased me. Good that education is reaching far and wide.

Chinnakallar Falls:Now the falls (pictured), in technical terms, is not a falls at all. Its just a stream of water flowing from a slightly elevated rock. Nonetheless, it's good for some recreational activities like...u can fill in your choice! :).

We couldn't stay long enough to enjoy as it was getting dark and the water was getting cold. Moreover, it's frequented by neighbourhood elephants.

Came back to the town, strolled the streets, ate local delicacies, packed some tea,spices to take back home. Slept early.

Got up at 6.30 am next day to foto the tea gardens (pictured).

Now, being a hill station, here i was expecting a very cold morning. but to my surprise, it wasn't. Benguluru was much colder when I reached next day!

Anyways, snapped some pics, eat some freshly prepared and tasty masala vadas, got ready for our next and final destination. Athirampally Falls (AF).

My first thought while driving towards AF was 'Awesome route; Awful road'! It's a 60kms stretch to AF from Valparai via Sholayar dam. We could only see Tata board in all the tea/coffee gardens right till Kerala and this spans several hills! Really, it's a small wonder how they must have planted a whole mountain range with tea and coffee samplings!!!

One of the many Tea gardens. Or should i say, advertising Sony shot from a Canon! :)

Sholayar Dam: 30 Kms from Valparai. On the way to AF. Some sites claimed it to be Asia's 2nd longest and deepest dam (pictured). I could certainly not find if it's deepest or not but definitely not the longest. But, yes, a beautiful dam surrounded by forests and tea gardens.  As you can see, some work is going on at the place.

Picture: Dam Site.
Without much delay, we set out for AF.

The dense forest, monitored jointly by Kerala & TN, is home to a large amount of flora and fauna. Good that we didn't find much of fauna except for this snake (pictured) else i wouldn't be writing this blog. Would I?!

The best thing after crossing over to Kerala is the Mobile Network. I could get excellent reception near a picturesque Dam (pictured). Good roads are another plus point.So, an excuse to snap some more pics and irritate the group!

Finally, reached AF around 2pm. Had some 'parotta' and went to see our Final Destination: The Athirampally Falls.

The Final Falls: When I first saw this falls in Dil Se's 'Jiya Jale' song, i thought it to be some remote place in the middle of jungle which is largely inaccesible. And still it was the same thought.

But one glimpse of this place changed all these. We had to park our vehicle 200 mts away from the Entry gate (Timings: 8am-6pm) and when we went near the falls, we could see, hundreds already in action (pictured), only posing for camera though and nothing otherwise!. I have seen this falls in innumerable films ever since. Barricades are in place which act as a deterrent to go near the falls with a guard in place to avoid any illegal entry. However, i captured this pic below, in one of those activities. Couldn't resist the view!

Just trekked down to the bottom of the falls (200 mts) and clicked as many snaps as possible. As usual as it sounds, the falls is just awesome. Thanks to the dam authorities, as it was Sunday, they had open the gates for us to catch such an incredible view. The top of the falls (pictured) though crowded, wasn't much fun.

Spent some time, clicked Sunset snap and left for Bangalore via Palakkad (stopover @ Palghat for some lite dinner), Coimbatore.

And as far as our fun quotient goes, we had Suresh with logical and irrational questions and Harsha with more answers literally playing 'kaun banega bakwaspati'. Ajay and myself were intermittently listening to them! :)

P.S. : VACAB stands for the places listed above! :)