God's own Country - Part I

Kerala-God's own country

We started from Bangalore at 6.00Am on 26th Jan. It was chilling and misty all around. We had our breakfast at Mandya and reached Mysore at 8.45AM. We did not enter into city. There is a left turn just before entering the city. The road is not good at all. We reached Gundalpet at 10AM and ahd some sncks there. Finally we reached Bandipur National park at 11AM. The situation was not in our favour. The safari was closed for the day. We spent some time there and returned to Gundalpet. While returning we saw some potted deers and Elephant with cub. We took the reght turn from Gundalpet. From here Kalpeta, the district town of Wayanad is only 75Km. The woad was through dense forest. We saw some elephants, deers and Jackel. This area comes under Muthunga wildlife sanctuary, also called Wayanad wildlife sanctuary. We reached Sultan batheri at arounf 2.30PM and saw Edakkal cave. Its a huge natural cave. Inside the cave is on two levels, the lower chamber measures about 18 feet long by 12 feet wide and 10 feet high and can be entered through an opening of 5 x 4 feet. A passage opposite the entrance leads upward to a small aperture in the roof through which one climbs up to the next storey whose interior is about 96 feet long, 22 feet wide, and 18 feet high. Light enters the cave through a big gap at the right-hand corner of the roof where the boulder does not touch the facing wall. Finally we reached Kalpeta at 7PM. We stayed there for that night. The next day morning we started for Suchipara water fall. The scenic beauty was spendid. The entire road was through Tea garden. It was green all around. From the roadhead it was 2 Km walk to reach the falls. We spent some time there. We had our breakfast there and started for Minmuthi falls. As per the information we had to trek for 4Km through dense forest. After starting the trek we realised that our shoe was not proper for that trek. Beside that we did not have enough water with us. The trail was though dense forest full with dry leaves. We got disbalanced for several times and exhausted soon. We saw the falls from the top and decided to come back. We came back to Kalpeta and had our lunch. We started for Kozikode in the afternoon. Meanwhile we stopped at Phookot lake (A natural sweet water lake) for five min. The place is fully commercialised and did not attract us. The road for Kozikode was through western Ghat but we could not see anything as it was dark outside. We reached Kozikode at 9PM. We spent some time in the sea beach. It was a long and tiring day for us. We had our dinner in a roadside Dhaba and went to sleep.

The next morning we got up early. We had our breakfast and went to sea for bath. The sea is calm and quiet. We took our bath till 11 'o clock. We started for Kalpeta at 11.30. We could see the entire range of western ghat. The way was throgh dense forest. We reached Muthunga wildlife sanctuary at 4PM. We did the safari, but could not manage to see any animals except spotted deer, elephants and some Bisons. But the whole safari was thrilling enough. While returning to Gundalpet we saw a group of wild elephants.

After that we came to srirangapatna had our dinner and finally came back to bangalore at 12.30AM in the night.