Monday, July 6, 2009

Thenmala - Another feather in cap for God's own country.

On a lazy saturday morning when I was pondering over a newspaper, saw a news item regarding the thenmala eco tourism project. When I discussed with my wifey about this, suddenly we thought of making a trip there. Planned to stay overnight, hence managed to find phone number of a hotel and did the booking (hotel greenland).
We rang up one of our family friends and they too agreed to join. So it was 2 x (husband + wife + kid). We decided to go in our Santro Xing. By the time we got ready it was 2pm and by 3pm we were zooming past the MC Road.
The route taken was
Thiruvananthapuram -> Kesavadasapuram -> Kilimanoor -> Ayoor -> Anchal -> Punalur -> thenmala.

The hotel which we booked was in the punalur - thenmal route, some 3 kms before thenmala. There are no other hotels around, barring the motel aaram of KTDC at paalaruvi.

From the hotel staff came to know that there is a light and sound show every saturday and sunday afternoon. So rushed to the thenmala dam site and got into the light and sound show stuff. It is a quite interesting. A good start for the things to come.

The show ended at 7.30pm. Started roaming around the town. Took dinner from a "thattu kada" - typical kerala style road side hotel. This gives a feel of the life in the area rather than being inside the plush hotels and seeing only the scenic beauty.

After a typical gossip session found some sleep. Got up early in the morning. The men folk decided to have an early morning walk. Conditions were near perfect for a morning walk. The unpolluted atmosphere added with the scenic surrounding and empty roads. Wonder if we could have this luxury every day in our life, then we would be tempted to do a morning stroll.

Soon packed our bags and left the resort to explore other picnic spots in and around.
On the way stopped at a restaurant for the morning breakfast. The restaurant was so positioned that one of the check dams of kallada irrigation project was clearly visible. Enjoyed the food along with the 3 dimensional view of the natural landscape.

We decided to go to Palaruvi Waterfalls first. Stopped on our way to palaruvi to explore any possibility of fishing.

The route was unique in that there were lot of high rise trees. Those were huge magnificient structures who had the experience of atleast 4 to 5 human life years, if not more.

Soon we saw one of the architectural marvels. One of the bridges of the Kollam - Chencotta metre gauge rail network. Cannot stop ourselves from stopping here and enjoying this engineering marvel.

Palaruvi (meaning Milk stream) was approachable after a kilometer long trek through the forest amidst rocks. But the thought of seeing the waterfall which is said to be like milk flowing down from a rock was pushing us through. To our surprise the trek route itself was quite scenic.

Soon we reached palaruvi. But owing to the summer season, the milk like stream was flowing in thin lines. Wondered how it will look like after the rains.

After palaruvi, it was time to return to thenmala.

First went to the aquarium to keep the kids interested. There was a good collection of fish.

Found some time to let the kids play in the lawn of the aquarium

By this time it was noon, still lots of picnic spots were left - Boating, Adventure zone, Deer rehabilitation centre, Leisure zone, butterfly safari etc. We had to chose one from among this list. After weighing in lots of factors and brainstorming based on cause effect analyis and fish bone diagram finally reached a consesus on leisure zone, with the name of the zone being the reason to select it owing to the mindset we were in :)
Leisure zone - a walk of almost 2 to 3 kms through dense forest, but path has been laid out.

You will find huge man made structures in between. These structure depict the kerala's rich cultural heritage

Towards the end of the trekking path the beautiful thenmala dam can be seen.

A hanging bridge near the exit point of the leisure zone makes a lasting impression.
That is it. Now we have to go back. Just a normal weekend. But lot of memories owing to this visit. Back inside the vehicle we were zooming to our homes with the haunting thought of going back to work tomorrow. We have left out visiting some of the places here means we have to come back again.

1 comment:

Aliyan said...

It is nice. U still remember the details.

Shibu

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