[laluks]

Day 03

This day was much anticipated. Today all I would be doing is going around hairpins, yes some 200ish - a rough count on my route map. Today is also the rest day for the family, and I would get to drive Civvy alone to all these hairpins the way I want to - exhilarating - indeed it was !!

Plan was to drive through Manjur Mulli Attappadi to Mannarkkad and back, and in between show up in Korakundah, near Upper Bhavani


Thrilled woke up early and left the resort by 06:30AM.

It was 16 degrees and pleasant


After a few kilometres stopped by to enjoy the soft sun and the breeze




Views were nice and pleasant










Thanking for the wonderful and pleasant day, I drove on.

Stopped a little later at Manjur




It was here I hatched a plan to drive up to Korakundah!!

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[laluks]

The roads were to die for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnXi7vAdhjM

Take a look for yourselves


Inviting roads, this made my day






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[laluks]

Day 03

Continued onward through some narrow winding roads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kkO1OV12sM

Stopping at times to click some pictures







Till finally landing up at the Check post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6qB5r3SMkY

Please get your permissions beforehand


You must take the road below, the above one takes you to a village


Ooty is 47KMs from here



Some views of the beautiful tea estates nearby






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[NPV]

@laluks - thanks for sharing your non-stop journeys and experiences
This travelogue is now in it's 6th year with updates almost every 6 months from another visit to Ooty Hats off to your spirit!

[laluks]

Originally Posted by NPV

@laluks - thanks for sharing your non-stop journeys and experiences
This travelogue is now in it's 6th year with updates almost every 6 months from another visit to Ooty Hats off to your spirit!

Sixth year , I won't stop will I ?

Ooty is just around the corner, and hides a lot of secrets. I believe I still can do a couple of drives again.

[laluks]

Day 03

After the impromptu drive to Korakundah, I returned to get back to the plan of the day. To drive all the way to Mannarkkad in Kerala via the Mulli route.

This route has been in news for various reasons, like it was discovered, it was dangerous, it was the one to die for and all that in various forums ever since it was "discovered"

I was waiting for an opportunity to follow the discovery and I got it this time. I have captured the entire route in video, and for saving some time in play back the videos are made to play a bit faster, even then the videos are substantially longer.


The drive from Manjur towards Mulli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiXnEs-paFs

The first hairpin sign I saw



I stopped at 9th hairpin for some pictures


The road was beautiful





The hairpin, I felt it mostly like an U turn


The surface was good




Nice views too


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[laluks]

Day 03

Continued further towards Mulli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fFMTFLgE-w

Stopped again for some pictures








Nice Views always









Drove on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E95urxuDdgw

Reached Geddai


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[laluks]

Day 03


Still more to go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsOTXL03c9I

Reached Kundah Powerhouse


Kundah Powerhouse








Kundah Dam






And thus completes all the hairpin (sorry U turns) in this route!!


The last leg of the Manjur Mulli route

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX9c-hb8_LU

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[venkatt1800]

Lalu, you just keep surpassing yourself with every new post. The superlatives ran out a long time ago for this particular Ooty travelogue. By the way, are the roads good enough right upto Mulli or are there any bad stretches? And what about the "dangerous things" ie Elephants awaiting riders on this route? Please more pictures. They convey much more than the videos.

[laluks]

Originally Posted by venkatt1800

Lalu, you just keep surpassing yourself with every new post. The superlatives ran out a long time ago for this particular Ooty travelogue. By the way, are the roads good enough right upto Mulli or are there any bad stretches? And what about the "dangerous things" ie Elephants awaiting riders on this route? Please more pictures. They convey much more than the videos.

Thanks Venkatt.

From Ooty all the way to Mulli roads are good, no worries. At some places they are narrow.

"Dangerous things" - every other posts I have read about this route was all hyped and boasted, hence I mentioned it that way

There were elephant dungs around a few places nearing to Mulli. I have no clue if they keep moving around there often. There are bus services in this road, and hence I doubt there would be any interferences from them during the day, night could be a very different scene.

Since I was driving alone, I thought video might be a better option to cover more distance before sun down

[laluks]

Day 03

Finally reached Mulli Check post


If you go straight ahead you will hit the road to Karamadai and finally Coimbatore. Here if you take right, you will reach Mannarkkad, Kerala.


Mulli Check post and directions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx2peIOKBtg

Here I took right towards Mannarkkad. It's a dirt road from the check post for a few kilometres.

Within some distance I reached the state boundary








I continued on the dirt road towards Attappady

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uyBr14HxG4

Stopped for a few pictures of the dirt road




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[laluks]

Day 03

Drove ahead to Attappady

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olHD60nZMCo

Beautiful views ahead






The road surface was good



A river by the side through out the drive












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[laluks]

Day 03
Continued to drive on, idea was to reach Mannarkkad and have a nice Kerala lunch with all its style, relax and return back. All these while wifey and kids at the resort enjoying the buffet spread, to me CM buffets started becoming monotonous and uninteresting!!

After leaving Attappady, I reached another checkpost at Mukkali and then onwards it was a nice curvy twisty road through a thickly vegetated (forest?) area towards Mannarkkad.

Mukkali Manarkkad route

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTpWRbCpKIA

After exiting the foresty section this sign board caught my attention


Silent Valley is just around the corner.


I did not stop and continued on towards Mannarkkad.

I found a wonderful hotel by the road, and checked with him if he had Kerala meals. He liked my honest enquiry and he said "Available, and tell me what all you fancy, i'll make it for you " On that happy note, I decide to break my journey there. Had a hot lunch of red rice, fish curry, fish fry, many varieties of vegetables and most importantly the Kerala Sambar - the spicy one, which I was missing for a long time. I was fed up with the sugary sambar I get everywhere. Not to mention the pappadams

By the time I finished lunch it was already 13:00 hours. I decided to start my return journey, happy about the progress so far.

A click somewhere


And then I reached back the Silent Valley Junction


I stopped to enquire. There is a interpretation centre at Silent Valley, and you can book your return trip to Silent Valley from an office near the mosque at this junction. Our sedans and cars wont go, it's really bad roads and the forest guys have a 4x4 Jeep service for this 20+Km stretch. You'll have to return from Silent Valley latest by 17:30 hours.

Since I did not have much time to spare I thought of moving on, toying the idea of going to Coimbatore and taking Mettuppalayam route back to Ooty

[laluks]

Day 03

The idea was to drive to Coimbatore via Anakatty. At Thavalam instead of taking the route I came in, took a deviation to Kottathara and headed on towards Anakatty. This route goes very near to Siruvani River, and there's a board which says Siruvani view, if you like to stop by.

I drove on enjoying the straight roads and light drizzle.

Thavalam Anakatty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3UBpQMsy98

On reaching Anakatty, I kind of switched plans. Instead of heading towards Coimbatore, and Mettupalayam, I thought why not back to Mulli and drive all the hairpins upwards to Ooty

Here I decided to get back to Mulli. I decided to go towards Tholampalayam and further join the Karamadai Mulli road and reach Mulli from the other end. If you remember at Mulli instead of going straight ahead, I took a right towards Attapady in my onward journey. Now with this routing I would come in from the road that was straight ahead!

Little did I know while deciding this routing that this would be one smart decision, since the areas were pristine and beautiful.

Anakatty TholamPalayam drive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0uONzboLyQ

Some 20Kms before reaching Mulli there is another checkpost and then onwards its some patchy curvy ghat section, but interesting drive.

Here's the drive video from the check post till Mulli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvmeBM5IzH4

On reaching Mulli, the checpost guy was shocked to find me coming in from the other direction . Here I gave a lift to a family, whose aged mother I inferred was not well and was critical in Manjur. I promised to drop them at Manjur, and listening to their discussions I could figure out it was serious and they wanted to reach her as fast as possible.

Mulli Manjur Drive Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXz7ZEaVVJ8

You can see in this video a group of scared bikers enquiring about elephants since they encountered elephant dung on the way.




Soon, I dropped them at Manjur, though I did not have to go into the town. After seeing them off, I started my journey back towards Ooty

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[laluks]

Day 03

To have an overview of the drive, you can refer this screen grab of my GPS trail for the drive

Route orientation for the day