Amazing trip – Waynad – Day 2

23rd April, 2011
We started from our resort at about 8:00 am, had breakfast and even got our lunch packed; we had already learnt that getting food around wasn't easy, though it was a tourist spot. We had appam, which looked like our rice shavige. Packed Pooris and headed for Pookot lake.

Pookut lake
Pookut lakeis a typical honeymoon destination kind of place, a park with a small lake, surrounded by lush green forset, boating in the lake, an aquarium and some stores for shopping. Suvarana and me took one pedal boat, Joe and Nawnit took another. We pedaled around the beautiful lake. The aquarium had about some 10 - 15 different kinds of fish and wasn't really interesting.

Pookut lake

Lakkidi View point
We headed to a view point "Lakkidi". The day was misty and we could really see anything in the valley. But having mist blow thorugh us and seeing some parts of the valley was interesting by itself.


View Point - covered with mist


Chain Tree


We headed to Kanthapara Falls, on the way we stopped at the "Chain tree". There is a huge chain tied to the tree, and it just made no sense to us. Local legend says that an Adivasi youth guided a British officer through Waynad. The British officer in order to take the credit of discovery, killed the Adivasi youth. This youth's soul couldn't rest in peace, and began to haunt the subsequent travelers. The local priest then captured the soul and locked it up in that tree and tied a chain.  More than the tree it was the legend that made it intresting.

Chain tree


Kanthanpara waterfalls
Kanthanpara falls is about 23 kms from Kalpetta. It is situated in midst of an estate. We could reach the spot without much hassles. The fall looked very good. Best part was the place wasn't crowded and there was enough place for us to wade through the water and watch the waterfall. A leeched dared to go up Kavi's leg and bite her :-). But, she was quick enough to remove it. One leech bit Nawnit too, but he never realized it till end of the day.

Kanthapara Waterfalls

Meenmutty Falls
From Kanthapara we headed to Meenmutty falls, which was about 9 kms from Kanthapara falls. Entry ticket is 300 Rs for 10 people. We went in, and in one of the sheds had our quick lunch. To reach the falls we had to do an interesting trek almost 2 kms of which about 1 km is a hard trek. The 1km was treacherous, steep, and path just about 3 feet wide, slippery at place, any mistake would have us at the bottom of the jungle. We took help of rocks, tree roots to descend / ascend. Some ropes were tied to help us trek. At places, I literally felt I was doing mountaineering with a rope.
Tough trek to meenmutty falls

Rocky terrain around meenmutty falls

 The whole experience was exlerating, and beyond description of words.  We spent about 15 minutes at the falls and started our journey upwards. Weather was very cloudy and we all were scared that if it starts raining we will neve be able to climb back. Ascend seemed much easier. As we reached the top, it started raining and we were so glad that we had returned.
We headed back to the resort, rested and had a dinner at a nearby hotel.

Meenmutty Falls

Somethings To do / not do at Meenmutty
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1. Go with good pair of shoes and tight clothing.
2. Go during early part of the day when it is not hot. So you can spend some time and rest at the falls.
3. Avoid this place if it rains
4. Avoid kids below 10 years and adults above 60 years.
5. Avoid if person has any aliment like backache, knee pain or any heart related.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice photos!