Its been a long time since we've been on a long trip. So we decided to head out of Bangalore on 22st October as we have an extended weekend. After much research I arrived at the conclusion of Wayanad ( I am the only person who has been to Wayanad before, that too as a college trip. So I liked the place very much.). My mom wanted to go to Munnar, but somehow convinced her to go to Wayanad. So the next process involved looking at homestays. There are thousands of them all over wayanad, but thanks to Team-BHP, we were able to finalize on the "Four Seasons Homestay". Quickly inquired and to our luck, the place was available.
Next we decided to leave Bangalore around 2 pm on 22st October itself and reach our homestay by nightfall. That morning (stupidly) I realized that I need some memory cards and chargers so I headed to SP Road at 11 30 am to get those stuff. Shopping all over and was heading back home when I reached the mother of all traffic jams in Bangalore. There was hell lot of traffic on that day (probably because of the weekend ) and believe it or not, it took me 3.5 hrs to reach from SP Road to Sahakarnagar via Mantri mall (a distance of just 16 km and takes 45 min on normal days). By the time I got back home, I was so tired and exhausted that I just couldn't drive
Let me give you an indication of how much traffic I encountered. Normally I get around 14-16kmpl in my Linea no matter how bad the traffic is. However on that fateful day, believe it or not, the Avg Consumption was 8.3 kmpl
. I've never got such low FE in my car before. We were all just too exhausted to leave Bangalore that day. So finally made the decision to leave Bangalore the following morning.
Everyone was so fed up with Bangalore traffic that we all woke up at 2 45 am the next morning to beat the traffic and get to Wayanad ASAP. We played it safe and simple and chose a familiar route to get there i.e Bangalore-Mysore-Gundlupet-SulthanBathery-Wayanad.
Enough talking, now let me post some pictures. We were at Kengeri by 4 45 am and were heading towards Mysore. We were travelling with 5 people on board. Somewhere just before Srirangapattana when the sun rose we stopped for our morning coffee.
The sun had just risen near Srirangapattana
We deviated a little from the highway so that there is some privacy. A good decision made
After feeling fresh and energetic we headed towards mysore for breakfast. My dad who lived and studied in Mysore for over 10 years knew the place like the back of his hand. We had breakfast at Hotel Siddhartha. The ambiance and food were good but a little overpriced.
After breakfast we left mysore and were going towards Nanjangud. The traffic was present till Nanjangud but beyond that the traffic thinned out.
One very good suggestion to everyone travelling around this region. The tender coconut is a definite must have. The size of these things are HUGE and it costs just Rs 12. In Bangalore we wet coconuts that are one fourth this size and costs 15 rupees. We had plenty of tender coconuts throughout our journey and kept us all energetic.
The roads were surprisingly good till Gundlupet. But the torture started when we took a left at Gundlupet towards Sulthan Bathery. The initial kew kms were decent but after that the craters began to unruffle my poor Linea. The pleasant weather and beautiful scenery sort of compensated for the poor roads until a few km before we hit the Kerala border.
Once we hit the Kerala border the roads improved dramatically and we started to make some good progress.
Was doing a steady 60 kmph around these roads
Good roads before Kerala border.
Just after us entering Kerala we stopped at Muthanga ( not for a Safari ride. That's a time and money waste) for tea and bio breaks.
A customary picture of the Wayanad tourist map
Breaks over, now we were going towards our homestay which is near Kalpetta. The Bangalore-Calicut highway which we were on was ok-ok at some places and downright awful at some others. Didn't expect that.
Finally after 5 hour drive from Bangalore we reached our homestay .
That place is just awesome and the people there were even better. Its definitely the best homestay that I've been to.The owners were very warm and kind in welcoming us. This place is spectacular. Let the pictures talk now.
Isn't that pretty ???
Honestly the place was so good that we didn't want to leave the place at all. We spent a good hour just looking around at this place. The owner's name was Mary who is one of the kindest and most humble person that I ever met. She even offered to cook us lunch but had to cancel that as she was preparing fish curry and we all were vegetarians. So instead we had lunch at a nearby Udupi hotel who server us unlimited South Indian meals on a banana leaf for 60 bucks per person.
Now we wanted to explore this place with one criteria which was less people. Nobody likes crowded places so after much discussions we decided to head to Kanthanpara falls which was quite remote, thereby ruling out those humongous buses we often see at Soochipara falls and Edkkal caves. What a good decision it turned out to be. The approach to Kanthanpara falls is so narrow and very scenic. It felt like we were the only ones in the whole region.
One of the spectacular views en route Kanthanpara falls.
Thats how wide the road is and thats how it snakes down the hill
Me inquiring about the directions. The place is so desolate that we didn't meet any people for at least 20-25 kms.
Eventually we reached the parking lot of the falls. There were 3 other cars all KA registered. However the falls itself turned out to be a dud. The one thing that I hate about Kerala is that the cops there are over protective. Forget getting in the water, they never allowed to even go 20 feet near the water. If one dares to go beyond then the guard whistles and mutters something in Malayalam which we can't understand. So this falls just turned out to be a photo shoot. At least the surroundings were pretty.
Our family photo at the falls
Thats how far we could reach
Any further advances and the guard which you see in the bottom right of this pic will whistle.
After this photo shoot we decided to head back towards Kalpetta. Getting down to Kanthanpara falls was easy, however getting up is quite challenging because of the terrain. It was so steep that I had to climb most of the part in 1st gear only. It was so steep that if I stopped then I had to offload all passengers or risk getting my clutch burnt. Thats how steep the terrain was.
My car occupied the whole lane. If any other vehicle came in the opposite direction, then ...
However the steep ascent was only for about 6-7 kms after which it leveled out while still being narrow.
Check out the video of me driving in those roads.
Once we hit the main road, the road was very good and were heading towards Pookat Lake.
The approach till Pookut lake was excellent and by 3 30 pm we were at Pookat Lake. This place is very serene and relaxing. The boating around the lake was quite refreshing. The only irritant being the fact that every thing in Wayanad shuts down by 5 pm max. We actually wanted to walk around the lake as well as go for a boat ride. However only one was possible so we chose boating rather than walking.
While on the boat, the rower said that the Pookat lake is in the form of India map (have to check out that) and that its waters has medicinal properties .I liked this lake very much. Its so much better that Ooty lake which stinks btw. This lake however is very clean . We even drank the lake water (some object drinking stagnant water) and it was good.
PART 2 Coming up...