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)

Wayanad's wiles - 2

Is that Orion or Scorpio ?

I have never seen so many stars in the sky...the moon was not out..may be that's why..but trust me there was not a single speck of sky that was not occupied by stars...time was 19:00 hrs and not a single nocturnal creature was spotted... we heard a lot of noises... one bird had a particularly entertaining sound which resembled a villain's or comedian's laugh... the city bred boys that we are, the only bird sounds that we can recognise are that of crows, cuckoos and hens..to make matters worse, our guide didnt seem to know the name either..

Early dinner at 21:00 hrs..Parotta and Beef and we climb upto the balcony and hit the sack...Early start tomorrow morning... the cold and the sudden and bright appearance of the moon at approximately 23:00 hrs plus all the forest sounds ensures that the sleep is a disturbed one... The moon is so bright and its appearance is so sudden that Dil wonders who put the lights on ?

These pug marks are real

Trekking starts at 06:30.. Vish and Sreeps are keen to show us the pug mark that they spotted when they woke up ( those two had risen earlier and thanks to their joblessness..made up a pug mark to fool us ).. we played along and started our trek only to be confronted by real pug marks...leading into the jungles.. His Majesty was certainly there somewhere...

We trekked upto the Trijunction which is the meeting point between Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and we also got to climb up the watch tower we had seen the previous evening..but no elephants to be found
Samba deers, Langurs, Spotted deers and suddenly....

Our forest guide, after an hour, takes us off the beaten track and into the jungles. The group automatically becomes quiet, thanks to hunger and a sense of danger. The guide mistakes a wild boar to be a bear, but quickly corrects his mistake when the boar starts to run.. we are dissapointed to say the least, but the sight of a majestic Samba deer with antlers proves to be some consolation although his majesty still eludes us...
We continue walking through the forest trail with our guide leading us through the way when we suddenly come across a pile of elepant dung..and then a fresher pile and then the freshest pile and then suddenly there he is.. a lone tusker.. Lone tuskers are the most dangerous animals in the forest... Elephants are very group minded.. a lone tusker means that the particular Elephant is an outcast, which means it has a bad behaviour..having heard the stories of numerous deaths at the hands of tuskers from my uncles, i am a bit apprehensive of going any closer. The guide seems to be more apprehensive and takes a u-turn as soon as we finish taking our snaps... We continue walking for another hour and we reach the dormitory by 10:30.

4000 B.C. ! you gotta be kidding me

Briyani for luch from Hotel Jubilee at Bathery costs us 60 Rs per plate.. big mistake ordering a heavy lunch cos our next destination is Edakkal caves, 12 kms from Bathery..bus cost 14 Rs... containing prehistoric paintings...4000 B.C is how old the paintings are...

God bless the shopkeeper who tells us to leave our bags at his shop before climbing... oh what a climb.. the five of us are not weaklings...but we struggle through the climb to reach the top..splendid view and super caves.. history around us and the comforting thought of a downhill climb... we wind up by 17:30 hours and get on a bus to Mananthavady ( 27 Rs from Bathery for a journey of 48 kms)