Wayanad's wiles - 1

We begin at the beginning... but the beginning is not at the start of my five day trip to Wayanad's forests... the beginning refers to those days of watching Disney's Jungle Book.. and singing 'The bare necessities'.. I wanted to be Mowgli.. growing up with the wolves.. something needed to be done about my primal urge..so i set off with four other buddies from college ( Ja, Dil, Sreeps and Vish) to Wayanad, a district in the North East of Kerala with two beautiful forest ranges - Muthanga and Tholpetty

When are the unreserved compartments getting cushions

We had to get down at Kozhikode (Calicut) as thats the nearest railhead to Wayanad. ( Actually from Chennai the shortest route as far as time is concerned is to go to Mysore and take a bus from Mysore to Sultan Bathery) Owing to timing probs we decided to board the Mangalore Mail starting at 20:15 from Chennai Central on 8th March, Thursday..and as we are college guys, real men..that and the fact that it was cheaper meant that we travelled unreserved.. cost us 150 Rs... the journey to Kozhikode is twelve hours and involved a lot of butt ache.. when we getting those cushions here Mr. Yadav ?? We reached Kozhikode at 08:45 on 9th March, Friday. Took care of our morning ablutions at the waiting room in the station, which to my pleasant surprise is stunningly clean...

Breakfast at the Hotel Divar consisted of 10 Parottas, 4 Pathiris (rice chapathi), Beef Liver curry, Chicken curry, Egg Masala, Fish Curry and Tea and cost us a 'grand' total of 163 Rs.. Food is definitely cheap in Kerala.. We didnt get the chance to explore Kozhikode's famous Mithai street as we had to rush to board a bus to Wayanad.

Schumacher Wannabes

There was no direct bus to Sultan Bathery (which is a major town in Wayanad district and the one closest to Muthanga forest range - our destination) at that time so we took a bus to Kalpetta, the capital of Wayanad.. got into the bus at 11:00.

Wayanad is a hilly district and the roads have many hair pin bends and long slopes..so you kinda expect a journey to be slow.. but trust me when I put this on writing - Kerala bus drivers are fast, recklessly fast.. Dil wanted to puke at most hair pins.. and once we got out at Kalpetta at 12:30, he made us promise him we are not going back to Kozhikode...which luckily for him we never were planning to in the first place.. Kozhikode-Kalpetta bus trip cost us 180 bucks (56 Rs per person) for a journey of 107 kms, Mysore to Kalpetta distance is 140 kms..another bus to Sultan Bathery cost us 105 Rs (21 per head).. Tipu Sultan had built a fort to peserve his arms here and hence the name Sultan Bathery, which in English i assume is Sultan's Battery...halted at a relative's huose for a sumptuous lunch and left to Muthanga

Sultan Bathery to Muthanga bus will cost a person 6 bucks but as the next bus was a one hour wait and we wanted to reach before dark. Hence, we took a jeep to Muthanga Forest checkpost that cost us 170 Rs...Jeep driver's name is Ajit Ph no. - 94473 - 57191.

Watch tower or watch house ?

We reached Muthanga by five and the forest officer at Muthanga told us to parcel some food and gave us a guide..a nice guide but very silent type, not a conversationist..would only answer the questions posed to him.. and some of the answers weren't too convincing... We were allocated the Marghata Watch Tower and as we drove in to the guest house (jeep costing 200 Rs.) we passed a sexy watch tower next to a watering hole and got sight of our first elephant.. the first wildlife we spotted was the Malabar Giant Squirrel, a crimson coloured thing which is the size of a well fed domestic cat... anyways, coming back to the watch tower.. the watch tower next to the watering hole had some problem with the trench around it and that wasnt where we were headed...
Just when we started to enter the deeper forests we suddenly came to a halt..and in front of us was a two storey house... something out of a housing board colony..there was an Adivasi couple living in a hut besides the house and there was a trench around the house.. this was the Marghata Watch tower... there was no watering hole around the tower... suddenly our prospects of spotting Sher Khan seemed bleak.. and it gets even bleaker when our guide says that he has spotted a tiger only four times in his 13 years of work in this range.. hmmm... the guide is even more disappointed when he learns that he is spending the night with 5 college students who are teetotallers (atleast most of the time they are)