Crew Members: Ashwin and
myself.
Duration: 5 hours.
Date: 30th December 2016
Expense: 360 Rs
Abstract: Brothers on a ride!
Myself being a native to Kannur district in Kerala,
never being to Paithalamala is a matter of utter shame I know. Not that I
never had the plan, execution never happened because of various reasons. This
time, myself and my brother, Ashwin decided, no matter what, we are going to
Paithalmala. Preparations started way before I reached my native for year-end
short vacation! I had secured an SJCAM 4000 Wifi action camera so that my blogs
would be richer in content now on. Ashwin’s new Classic 500 Squadron Blue
served as an added push to make the trip. We had packed a bottle of salt to
fight the leaches as the place is supposed to famous for leach bite.
You can as well follow my new YouTube channel: In Pursuit of Happiness!
Mounted SJCAM on the bike handle
bar, loaded the location in Google Maps and we kick-started the ride at around
6:15 AM from our house. It was cold early in the morning and rode non-stop. It
was getting colder gradually we moved outward from the city. The route we took
was – Kannur town -> Eachur -> Chalod -> Sreekandapuram -> Chemperi
-> Kudiyanmala -> Paithalmala.
The moment we took turn from
Chalod, it was bone chilling cold and we were literally shivering. We could see
the sky gradually getting lit up. By the time we left Sreekandapuram and
reached Chemperi, I could switch off the head lamp. The ride was very scenic
and we were enjoying every bit of the ride. As we reached more and more inward
in to the villages, there were lesser direction boards and we asked with couple
of local folks to make sure Google is directing us right.
We moved through a roads with
rubber estates on either sides and cruised through uphill and downhill roads.
The silencer ‘Beat’ we added for the Classic 500 was roaring throughout the
hilly rides. We were a bit surprised to see no other travelers in our direction.
We reached the Paithalmala base by around 7:30 AM and bike wouldn’t go beyond
the forest check-point. We parked our bike there and unmounted the SJCAM. We
started our walk towards the forest office and there we saw this notice saying,
trekking is allowed only beyond 9:00 AM.
If you had read my previous
blogs, you would have already guessed what we did then. We went past the
electric fence and decided to take the walk rather than waiting for the forest
officials to show up. The walk was amidst dark forest. The trail was clear and
well defined but through creepy silence. We walked taking about my previous
trekking experiences and stuff. The trail for some reason reminded me of the
Kumaraparvatha.
As we moved forward, we
started hearing some footsteps sound from the jungle and we paused for a
minute. We tried finding the source of the sound and we couldn’t find any and
we walked ahead. Little latter, the rattle continued and we were a bit scared.
We were not quite sure on whether to go forward or to stop the mission and
return. We grabbed our guts and moved forward and the rattle continued and time
we decided to stop until we find the one who was really behind us. And then we
ended up finding some birds hopping over the dried leaves. But in that silence,
that very much seemed like a foot step. That was a great relief and we decided
to raise our voice and continued the chat while walking. The rattles continued
and a this time we spotted a black cat like animal running 7-10ft apart from
us. Considering the size of the animal, we guess it should be some wild cat or porcupine.
We moved ahead. Another 15 mins walk and guess what we came across! We could
hear a running foot step over the dried leaves and we were shit scared. All of
a sudden a Sambar deer jumped in front of us in the trail and jumped to the
other side of the jungle. We were frozen for a second and I am sure the deer
should as well be petrified by us. We didn’t waste a single second there and rushed
forward until we could find the end of the trail in forest. We walked quick and
got out of the forest stretch to find that it was already sunny on the outside.
It was a 45 mins long walk and we didn’t realize that sun was already high up
in the sky!
After stepping out of the
forest, another 15 mins long walk over the meadows in the hot sun was left and
we decided to make it to reach the Paithalmala watch tower.
We spend some time there
exploring the watch tower and premises and clicked some pics. Had some snacks
that Mom had packed for us and hydrated ourselves. I was going restless in the
sun and I wanted to get back to shade as soon as possible. We could see a bunch
of school students coming towards the peak from the forest end point. We
started our walk back and met the school gang. There were three teachers
accompanying a bunch of school students was some nature study program. We met
couple other explorers on the way back. We were sure that since such a noisy
bunch of kids went through trails, no animals would dare to stay anywhere near
the trail. Return walk was easier and quicker. By the time we reached the
starting point, the forest officials were already there and there were travelers
paying the trekking fee of 30Rs per head there. We were asked to pay the same
they made sure we didn’t leave any plastic waste there. We started our ride
back and day being sunny already, we decided to head back for home. To our
surprise, we didn’t find a single leach during our walk. I guess, December is
not a friendly month for the leaches! There are more destinations like
Ezharamkundu Waterfalls, Alagapuri Waterfalls, Palakkayam Thattu, Shashi para
meadows etc in and around the place.
Selfie:
The ride and trek summarized in a short video:
Things to remember:
1. Make
sure you are not single if you are planning to venture as we did.
2. Don’t
carry any bit of plastic and forest officers don’t allow those. Even the
biscuit wrappers are not allowed. A group who came at the forest office were
made to empty the biscuits into a paper and leave the wrapper there.
3. Water
bottles are not allowed. Make sure you carry water in glass/metal bottles.
4. Carry
a cap/sun screen if you are planning to spend some time at the peak.
5. Carry
salt/lighter to fight the leaches.
Do’s:
1. Make
plans in such a way to cover all the close by destinations together.
Don’ts:
1. Peak
has a watch tower which is badly scribbled and made dirty! Please make sure you
don’t make your contribution to make the place look dirtier.
2. The
whole place is almost free from plastic. So, do your part in maintaining the
place as it is!
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