Vellarimala

I had taken a proper vacation in last February and after that there was no break from the lab. I was really exhausted and nothing was progressing in my research work. For this reason, I was planning to have a small vacation and finally ended up with this trekking to Vellarimala. A gang of Seven finally agreed to go for this trekking. The full gang: Sabyasachi, Dibyendu, (Dibs) Kaushik, Kanishka (Kele), Arnab (Hayna), Rajkumar (Raju) and myself (Delta) and all of us were not aware about the level of difficulty of this trekking. We had done quite a bit research in internet to find out the details of the trek. We have a real problem before the trekking. Contacting the Guide. As from the internet, we found only one name, Josethan. We got his phose number also but he does not speak any other language except Mallayali. All seven of us speak only Bengalie, English, Hindi and little bit of Kannad. Shamima, Dibendu's labmate helped us as a interpreter. She conveyed the messege to Josethan that seven of us from Bangalore will be going to Vellarimala on 2nd May, 2009. Once the guide was fixed, we rushed to buy tickets and from Bangalore to Kozhikode and return.

We had also started arranging our trekking gears, nothing much: 7 rucksack, 7 sleeping bag, 5 sleeping mat and 2 tent. We had to rent one tent from outside and other things we got from our Gymkhana.

We have taken sufficient amounts of biscuits, some chocolates and toffee (Dibendyu is very particular about the difference between toffee and chocolate). We had taken Tea also but that was not used. We had taken salt to get rid of leaches (later we found that hand is sufficient to take out leaches from body). All of us had taken big 2 lit. water bottle and three packets of glucose (a must). We had no problem of water as we found a plenty en-route. We had to carry water proof jackets and enough number of plastic packets as we have to fear of rain!

Finally on Friday afternoon, we gathered in Sabyada's apartment and started our packing of bags and tried to make all the bags of same weight. We thought that we will have dinner and take normal BMTC bus to reach Satellite Bus Stand finally we had to drop the same plan otherwise we would missed the bus. Dibs had ordered Chicken Biriyani. Kele, Hyna and Raju went to get some beer cans and we had a good dinner with Chicken Biriyani and Beer. Finally we left around 7:40 PM. We had our bus at 9:05 PM so we took auto to reach the Satellite Bus Stand.

After reaching the bus stand we had a big confusion about the platform number due to the delay of the bus. Finally, the bus came around 9:35 PM.

Confusion about the platform number!

It was a Rajhamsha Executive Bus. The bus conductor does not allow us to keep our rucksack inside the luggage place without extra charging. We took those big rucksack inside the bus and managed to keep them properly inside the bus. I can not sleep properly inside the bus so I was awake for most of the time. When the bus was going through the Bandipur forest, some of us were very much aware to see any wild animal, if possible. After reaching Kalpatta, the bus was mostly on hill and it was very misty. That path was excellent. We kept the window open a little bit and the cold air was just too refreshing.

After crossing the hill, the driver parked the bus on one side of the road and switched off the headlights. We came down from the bus and found that the other side had a steep fall. On this side of the moutain range, the weather was perfectly clear and we were so happy to see the Sky. May be for last 4-5 years, I have not seen so many stars on the Sky and also we could easily see the Milkyway! It was really great feeling. The bus was stopped for around 10 mins and then started moving down the hill. We had requested the conductor to stop at Thammarrasery. The conductor collected the tickets from us with our signature and we had to write "Getting down at Thamarrasery on our own request" as this place is not a stop of that express bus.

The co-guide, Louis, of our trekking came with a Jeep within half an hour and we kept all the rucksack on the top of the jeep and tied with a rope. We had to reach Mutthapanpuza from Thammarrasery which was a 40 min away with a speed on around 55 kmph. We reached Louis's house and was feeling pretty calm due to scenic beauty of that place. We wondered how come every person has such big house with a big garden in front of their house! Josethan was already present in Louis's house and he started preparing tea. We had our first tea of that day with Kerala's herbal tea. It was without milk and it had a good flavour also. After having the tea, nature called us and we learnt from Louis that there is a river just 3 mins from his house. When we reached the river, we thought that it can be a personal river. We had finished our morning jobs and took a very refreshing bath. The river took away all our tiredness of the overnight journey.

The river

We came back to the house and Jose was ready with the breakfast. First we thought, it is "Khichuri" but to surprise, we found that we had "Tapioca" and "Beef Curry" as breakfast.

Breakfast: Tapioca and Beef Curry

After having our breakfast, we were just ready for our trekking. In the meantime, Josethan and Louis were packing things, mainly foods and crackers. Kele was having some typical break dance exercise.

Kele with break dance exercise

From Louis's house, we came by a Scorpio till the foot hills from where we had started our trekking. Josethan took the photo of the whole group. Initial two kilometer journey was normal and it was little bit steep. We took something around 40 mins to complete this 2 KM. We were sweating like hell. We were surprised to see that still some houses are present on this hilly area. Later found out from Josethan that the places on the hills are cheap and people with having less money buy these places. We took rest for 10 mins in one such houses and had lots of glucose. Of course we were not aware what was waiting for us.

Within 5 mins, we entered the forest. On the way to the forest, we found electric fencing for some time. These electric fencing are to save tress from wild elephants. Again after having a journey of 30 mins, we stopped. Josethan gave us some home made "pithe" wrapped in "tej pata". It was made of jackfruit and other things.

Hyna having those cakes

In this place Josethan first fired the cracker. We called those crackers as "Herbal Bomb". It was so powerful that the sound of that was resonating for more than 60 sec within the hills. After taking sufficient rest, we had started. Sabyada was feeling tired and he said that he would not be able to finish and he would come back half the way. We kept on walking thorugh the forest. We started seeing elephant dung and became a little bit aware. We kept on walking and we had reached the waterfall with several break at around 11:30. We were very happy to complete the first 4 KM. We had no idea that we will not be able to take any bath over there. But we waited there for around 30 mins and then realised that leaches had already attacked us and Josethan was helping us to take out those leaches from our body.