Valparai – The long awaited trip
Here are more photos from Valparai
It has been my very long time
wish to visit Valparai. During this December I wanted to ensure that I visit
the place. I have never been here, so I did not have too much of expectations
on this trip. I checked with a few of my friends and finally it was just myself
and Saravanan who were into this. My long time friend Praven Kumar also wanted
to join us from Coimbatore.
We started early morning on
Christmas day so that we can reach Valparai in good time. With 2 breaks for a
coffee and then breakfast, we were able to reach Coimbatore within 8 hours. We
were quite hungry as the breakfast too was earlier than usual and light. So we
decided to have lunch while waiting for Praven. He arrived at the hotel around
1:30 PM and we started on toward Valparai without wasting too much time. We
just one break in Pollachi around 2:30 PM.
Once we hit the ghat roads we
stopped at a few places to take the beautiful landscape and to take some
pictures. By the time we reached Valparai it was around 6:00 PM and we were
desperate for some good rest, especially Saravanan. He always insists on riding
the car himself.
How good can be a trip without
unexpected twists? The person who was supposed to have arranged out
accommodation had messed up. Even contacting him over the phone did not help
matters much. Being a hill station and its winter did not help matters much.
Although it was not unbearably cold, it was still getting cold. Only
consolation was the full moon giving ample photography opportunity! Luckily we
had some backup. We were introduced to a local guy, Prathesh, while we were in
Coimbatore itself and he was able to arrange a very good accommodation for us.
The only drawback was that we were hoping to get some accommodation outside the
town, but the one we got in the last minute was right in the middle of the main
bazar. Could not have expected more in the last minute! Prathesh also
introduced us to his brother who would be taking us to some of the usual local
spots the next day.

After returning back and
refreshing ourselves, we decided to visit a couple of temples in the place. The
first one was a temple in the town itself. This is where we were waiting the
previous evening while trying to get some accommodation. We spent about 30
minutes in this place and headed over to the Balaji temple in Karamalai tea
estate. This is a private property but is quite popular in the region. We had
to park the car about 1 km before the temple and hike up to the place. Unlike
the other temple this was thronging with tourists. We spent another 30 minutes
here and decided to head over to a place called Thanalaaru.
Thanalaru is more of a scenic spot
than anything else. Do not expect any entertainment here. But if you are
looking for a place where there is absolutely no one around and to get some
wonderful view of the mountains, this is the place for you! On the way to
Thanalaru we stopped briefly at a spot to have tea and another brief stop to
take some photos of a very scenic church located in a really beautiful
location. It was a good 1 hour drive from the Valparai town to this place. The
roads are well laid, but narrow, so need to very careful with the drive.

Back in the town, we had a good
lunch, refreshed and in the evening headed over to koozhangal (pebbles) river.
Not sure about the reason for this name, though we did not see too many
pebbles. It is a small, but beautiful river well within a few minutes from the
town. Due to its proximity to the town, one could expect good number of
tourists here as well. of course, there were some unruly ones as well, who did
not bother to pollute the place with loud music in their cars.

We returned back to our rooms
after having some dinner. We had planned to drive to athirapally falls the next
day, which is about 75 km and return to Pollachi in the evening. So the plan
was to start a bit early. We vacated the room around 6:30, had an early
breakfast and started on our way. Though the distance was not much, the entire
route is through the ghats with narrow roads and a couple of check posts in the
state border. The Kerala tourism and forest department are quite meticulous in
ensuring that no non-permissible items like drinks or any inflammable items go
through the forest zone. The ghat road after entering the Kerala border can be
termed as the highlight of our trip. Though they were quite narrow, the drive
was just amazing!
We stopped in Sholaiyar dam
briefly, but were not too impressed by the place. We also stopped a couple of
times, once for a break and another time to have a good look at the Malabar
Giant Squirrel. We reached the exit post near Vazhachal falls at about 3:30pm,
which about 2 km before Athirapally falls. This is a small one compared to
Athirapally.
We spent a few minutes there and
decided to proceed to Athirapally. We didn’t want to miss out on that after
coming this far. It was already about 4:30pm so didn’t want to waste any more
time even if Athirapally is just about 5kms away. We had driven only about 4km
and there was long trail of vehicles standing. Everyone were waiting to get a
parking space for their vehicles. The road being narrow (ghats remember) it was
making things difficult. We found an empty space and parked the car there and
decided to walk up to the falls entrance from there.
The ticket we bought in Vazhachal
was valid here as well. So at least we were able to avoid the long
queue for getting the tickets. It was a short climb from the entrance of the place to falls. If the drive from Valparai to Vazhachal was the best part of the trip, then I should term this as the biggest disappointment of the trip. Athirapally is known as the Niagara of South India. But what we saw was nothing near that. There had been good rains this season and thought the water flow would be good. Especially after seeing incredible water flow in some of the lesser known waterfalls like Tiruparappu due to the rains, my expectations of Athirapally had grown high.
The place was definitely huge and if the river was in its full flow, it would have been a sight to watch for sure, but not sure why there wasn’t enough water, irrespective of the good monsoon that we had. We walked down the cliff to be bottom of the falls where there was a small flow of the water. Spent till 6:00pm which was closure time and then hiked backed up towards our car. We drove to Chalakudi town from there which was about 30km. The road, although narrow, was really well laid and not much of traffic. Keep in mind that this route – Athirappally to Valparai or back is open only from 7:00AM to 5:00PM and closed after that.
queue for getting the tickets. It was a short climb from the entrance of the place to falls. If the drive from Valparai to Vazhachal was the best part of the trip, then I should term this as the biggest disappointment of the trip. Athirapally is known as the Niagara of South India. But what we saw was nothing near that. There had been good rains this season and thought the water flow would be good. Especially after seeing incredible water flow in some of the lesser known waterfalls like Tiruparappu due to the rains, my expectations of Athirapally had grown high.
The place was definitely huge and if the river was in its full flow, it would have been a sight to watch for sure, but not sure why there wasn’t enough water, irrespective of the good monsoon that we had. We walked down the cliff to be bottom of the falls where there was a small flow of the water. Spent till 6:00pm which was closure time and then hiked backed up towards our car. We drove to Chalakudi town from there which was about 30km. The road, although narrow, was really well laid and not much of traffic. Keep in mind that this route – Athirappally to Valparai or back is open only from 7:00AM to 5:00PM and closed after that.
We had a quick dinner in
Chalakudi and the next stop was Pollachi. So we had an early than usual dinner
and decided to hit the road as soon as possible so we can reach Pollachi before
it is not too late. We had a brief stop in Vadakancheri to buy the famous
vadakancheri chips and proceeded on to Pollachi. The road after Vadakancheri
was narrow and through villages making the journey a bit slow. By the time we
reached Pollachi it was past 11:00pm. Praveen had some emergency back home in Coimbatore
and had to leave immediately. So we dropped him off in the bus stand and went
to our hotel which we managed to get booked through a couple of contacts.
For the next day we were
wondering whether to go to Tirumurthi dam and explore the area, but we were
told that permission is denied due to heavy rains in that area. So as an
alternative we thought of driving to Topslip and then into Parambikulam Tiger
Reserve. We started the day around 8:00 and took a leisurely drive in the
beautiful Pollachi road towards the Anaimalai range. Had breakfast on the way
and proceeded on with the journey to Topslip. The customary check at the check
post did not take more than a few minutes and we were soon into the ghats. Once
again the drive was really enjoyable and the weather was just perfect for a
relaxed drive. We drove slowly deliberately to see if we have any luck spotting
some wild life. We did spot some monkeys and a few birds but nothing much else.
In about an hour time we reached
the checkpost in Parambikulam. Had to wait there for about 20
minutes to get our vehicles checked in and registered. We then proceeded to the Forest Information centre and got ourselves booked for the jungle safari. We had to wait for another 30 minutes for the vehicle that was allotted for us to arrive. I have to mention here that the Eco Tourism that Parambikulam runs is one of most organized ones. The safari was more than an hour. This was the only time in the entire trip that we were able to spot some Indian Gaurs real close. Otherwise the massive beasts were quite elusive. Apart from the Gaurs we were able to see some Spotted Deer, Sambar deer and few peacocks. The tribal village inside the jungle was our stop for lunch. It was quite good considering it was in the middle of a jungle. We stopped briefly in the Parambikulam dam and then proceeded to visit the Karianchola teak. This is the biggest living teak tree in the world. It should have been more than 200ft tall. You have to be there to see the sheer size of the tree.
minutes to get our vehicles checked in and registered. We then proceeded to the Forest Information centre and got ourselves booked for the jungle safari. We had to wait for another 30 minutes for the vehicle that was allotted for us to arrive. I have to mention here that the Eco Tourism that Parambikulam runs is one of most organized ones. The safari was more than an hour. This was the only time in the entire trip that we were able to spot some Indian Gaurs real close. Otherwise the massive beasts were quite elusive. Apart from the Gaurs we were able to see some Spotted Deer, Sambar deer and few peacocks. The tribal village inside the jungle was our stop for lunch. It was quite good considering it was in the middle of a jungle. We stopped briefly in the Parambikulam dam and then proceeded to visit the Karianchola teak. This is the biggest living teak tree in the world. It should have been more than 200ft tall. You have to be there to see the sheer size of the tree.
After a few minutes drop there,
we returned back to the information centre. It was already past 3 and we had
plans of going over to Coimbatore for the evening. We had already vacated our
room in the morning. So we did not rush our travel to Coimbatore. It was only
about an hour away from Pollachi. The day ended with a good dinner in
Coimbatore. We had plans of visiting Maruthamalai Murugan temple in the morning
and start our journey back to Chennai. So we went to the temple as early as we
could manage and returned back to the hotel around 9:30AM. I then caught up
with my old time friend and mentor in Coimbatore. We had decade long stories to
chat, which we did. The 2 hours went like 2 minutes and so did our plans to
start back to Chennai. Since it was already noon, we decided to have the lunch
in Coimbatore itself and start our jouney.
By the time we hit the highway it
was around 2:00 PM. We should have been about an hour away from Chennai at this
time, as per our original plan. Nevertheless the journey was a pleasant one and
with just a couple of breaks we reached home in good time for a nice dinner and
sleep. Yet another place, that goes into the always growing “must see again”
list!
There could be a few places that we may have missed and could have missed things like bird watching. But this was just exploration for us. There are quite a few places that may be of interest to the wildlife enthusiasts. Parambikulam for sure is one such place. I hoping to visit again just for photographing some birds and other wildlife.
There could be a few places that we may have missed and could have missed things like bird watching. But this was just exploration for us. There are quite a few places that may be of interest to the wildlife enthusiasts. Parambikulam for sure is one such place. I hoping to visit again just for photographing some birds and other wildlife.
No comments:
Post a Comment