The Freak Kovai-Centered Trip

29th June: It was around 12pm. All bags were packed. There was gonna be a journey. Only the destination was vague. This was just the beginning! Siva called me up at 1pm and I told him I was dead bored waiting for getting off. He laughed and told get your bags and come to Koyambedu. I left home at 1.30pm and gave him a call to get off too. A bus to CMBT followed. I arrived a tad bit early and started pacing through the platforms. Perfect symptom of beginning of freak-dom. After enquiries, phone calls, pacing, sitting and more pacing, this short guy dressed all in black with a bag on his shoulders showed up. Yeah yeah, that was Siva. We got into the bus that was off to Coimbatore. We set off at around 4pm. Chats, memory recalls, breath-taking scenes, some rain splattering and conductor-teasing! We dined at Salem bus-stand, curd rice! Slept took over until the bus entered Coimbatore.

While walking back from Pykara

30th June: 3 am. Coimbatore Bus Stand at 3 in the morning. I was all for going to a cemetery for fun but Siva spotted a bus to Ooty. All our other destinations had some incredible showers and it was not safe to trek them right then. Siva had a ooty brain wave and the descend uphill on a bus resulted. At 4-5 in the morning, you do NOT want to be hit by the cold winds of ooty. Chilly! Goosebumps and hair-standing and a pleasant change from all the heat! Ooty bus stand at around 6.45 I think. We had taken a ticket to Pykaara falls. We reached the place around 7.30am. Some snaps and a peek at the falls showed us that water wasn’t all rushing. There weren’t many people there at that time. We had a photo shoot and started to walk to Ooty, 22kms ahead. We hiked for 4 kms before we stopped to eat snickers. Some langurs showed up on cue in the trees overhead. Monkeys have an astoundingly awesome sense of smell. I wish I hadn’t known that. Ignorance IS bliss! Unfortunately, I knew and we started to double up ahead. A lorry came up and we asked for lift! Ooty isn’t Chennai and lorry drivers stop at ooty! We got off at 9th mile, a small hill and did a mini trek and got some photos and immersed ourselves at the beauty of the place.

9th Mile at Ooty

We started to walk again. This time a tempo carrying jack fruit passed by and it stopped when we called out too! Crazy moment when we hanged on to the handles, sitting at the back! Hanging on for life? Hell, it was more like hanging on for fun! Wind whipped our faces and Siva messed up his dress with Jack fruit sticky milk. The tempo stopped for sales and we sat on some stones for a while. Then the next stop was Pine forest. Pines that looked centuries old and reached the sky stood up! After thanking the tempo guys, we set off downhill to the lake below. I learnt to walk on steep terrain without slipping. We reached the lake where the tourists had messed it up well: Pollution from plastic dumping. It stank like million skunks. A herd of buffalos looked comfortable nearby and some Horse-riders stood nearby. We went up and were greeted by a Monkey crowd; we walked a little before we spotted another lorry. We went in the lorry to the nearest bus stand. A bus to Ooty followed. From there, we took another bus to Emerald Lake. Some hair pine swerves and wonderfully crafted tea plantations encompassed the journey. We hiked to the Emerald Lake Dam, a km or 2 uphill. After obtaining permission from the police guard, we enjoyed the breeze on the dam. Still waters which were unpolluted to some extent looked up to us. No photography allowed in that place, though we did manage some sneaky snaps. Then we hiked on to Avalanchi dam, some 2kms away. The guard was nice and we sneaked some photos again. We lunched outside the dam and proceeded down. Siva had some cricket fun with the locals while I stood watching the play. We took the bus back to Ooty.

Monkeying about..

From Ooty We took another bus to near Wellington. We had this plan to trek down the railway track. A short trek on the railway bridge from Wellington to Conoor proceeded with photos, exotic views and satisfaction! We got into a bus at Conoor to Coimbatore. There weren’t any seats, so I had a dizzying roller coaster ride with all the curves, sudden stops and nausea. We got seated at metupalayam when some people got down. We reached Coimbatore after a nice sleep. We got into a hotel below where we charged Siva’s phone after asking the shopkeeper and we had tea and snacks for 45 mins! We decided to kill time by watching some movie. We walked for 2.5kms to Brooke fields mall but there weren’t any shows and so, we ended up sitting near some plug points where we discussed plans for the next day and charged up our phones. It was around 9.15 or something. We took a bus back to the Coimbatore bus stand where we had planned to stay for the night. We ate at a nearby shop watching Rohit and Raina play on the TV. By some misfortune, we went to sit at some chairs in the bus stand where a police officer showed up and shooed us. Totally pissed off, I suggested we spend the night at the railway station! We got a bus to the station and got in. We started sleeping off at the station before some cops came back in and started lathi hitting some other fellow sleepers. It was 11.45pm. I woke up Siva and we went out. We got a bus and got off in some other bus stop. Siva got off because well, he was totally sleep-deprived frenzy! We took to a hotel and paid up and spent the night sleeping like logs.

1st July: 5.20 am. That was when Siva woke me up. The alarms we had set at 4 am had long since gone out. We got ready hurriedly and packed up, gave the keys back and went out to get a bus to Ukkadam. From there, we got into a bus to Palani. After a lengthy bus journey, we got off and got in again, this time into a bus for Pamppambatty. We had this idea to trek up Guthurai-aaru. From pappambatty , this destination was 8kms away. We waited for long and then got into a lorry which dropped us at Mayilaadupaarai. We started walking and we had covered 3kms. We had 3 more kms ahead when a lady stopped us and asked us to wait since bus would be there soon. She gave us a bad review of the place that we started walking back. Bus passed by. We met two other people who told us that the place wasn’t safe and theft by bullying was common. We walked back to bus stand where we caught the returning bus and went to Udumalai. From Udumalai we got into another bus to Thirumoorthy dam because We wanted to accomplish something in Palani.

A foot-bridge in Thirumurthy Falls

We went there and did a trek up the Thirumoorthy malai. Inadvertently I opened up a snickers pack and started munching. I forgot all about monkeys and one little pesky creature looked up from ahead. We ran past the rascal after some comedies. We reached the stream, rested our feet, returned running! We paid a visit to the temple nearby and then got into the bus back to Udumalai and then from there another bus to Coimbatore. We munched on snickers, Monaco biscuits, listened to songs, saw the landscape running by till we fell asleep. We finally reached ukkadam and got into another bus to Gandhinagar bus stop where we roamed past a textile shop for half an hour, talking crap and killing time, waiting to meet up with a friend of ours. After the meeting and eating some corn and ice cream and drinking cold chocolate, we went to the railway station where we got the tickets to home. We waited for the train to come and we had to wait in a line to get into the unreserved general compartment of the train! Looks like things are different in Coimbatore. We luckily got a window seat and we left Coimbatore at 8.50pm.

2nd July: 4.45am.All crunched in a corner where 6 people occupied a side and still managing to sleep we reached Chennai in around 8 hours. Siva got off at Perambur and I reached Central at 5.15am and reached home and traffic and “civilization” at 8 with memories,grinning from teeth to teeth at the crazy moments.