Ramakkalmedu, Unwinding the windiest paradise

Quick Facts given at the end of this post

"Blistering Bernacles!! What am I doing? The vehicle is just going sideways when I am pressing the accelerator". It was a spurt of the moment decision and it seemed to be turning bad. I am struck". 

The journey had started early in the morning for attending a friend's wedding, which was happening at a beautiful hamlet in the Western Ghats, lying between the popular tourist destinations Thekkady and Munnar. Beautifully maintained roads made the journey to Nedumkandam from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, a breeze. It was surprising to note that how neat roads can make the travel less tiresome and one feels like the roadside scenaries just got a touch up to enhance the beauty.

The travel upto Changanacherry was through the Main central road, from where an eastward deviation was taken to take the Kumily road. From Mundakkayam, the real upward climb with lots of twisties happen. In between Mundakkayam and kuttikkanam as we were unwinding the twisties, we had a quick stop when we saw a sea of white animals standing amidst the picturesque mountains. It was a cattle market.

Vismaya Water Theme Park, Truly magical, BUT .....

(This travelogue is based on a trip to Vismaya water theme park, Kannur, Kerala, India on Oct 2011)

Onam, a festival which all Malayalees celebrate, irrespective of the religion, caste or creed is truely an occassion for families to get together and to have a fun filled times amidst the chaotic lifestyle of today.

Come another Onam, and we found ourselves at my Wife's native place at Calicut, in the central part of Kerala. This time our joy knew no bounds when the pookkalam (a flower arrangement) made by us looked really good and all the strain, our legs and backs suffered during the making of this pookkalam went to oblivion when we saw this.

Frankly speaking it looked more good on photos than in real.

The pookalam thing and the grand feast for lunch and gossip sessions kept us entertained during the first day of vacation.

At this time a plan was charted out to visit a water theme park at Kannur owned and managed by one of the leading political parties in Kerala, which is currently in the news for all the wrong reasons.

The gang comprising of 8 people including 2 kids started the journey pretty early, Kannur being distant from Calicut by about 90km, we expected to reach their in one and half hours time. But all our hopes were laid to rest, when we took around 1 hr to reach the outskirts of Calicut.

UB City, Bangalore: A Hangout for good times

In India there are n number of religions, caste, creed etc. Each set having their own customs, cultures and traditions. Most, if not all the groups have been formed on the basis of whom they worship. The subcastes were originally created based on the nature of the work people did, which does not have any relevance as on today, since none of them is currently doing what each subcaste originally did. Another religion is slowly evolving based on their work and it is high time that we accept that as a caste or religion whatever it may be. No, I am not a fundamentalist, trying to create a new religion.

The new religion is 'IT' (Information Technology), the God can be a "Computer", (ENIAC seems a better choice) and the human gods can be Bill Gates, Richard stallman etc under whom subcastes can also be formed.

There is a place in India whose culture, traditions etc has been completely transformed over a period of a decade or two by the invasion of people from all over India, with different backgrounds, but united only to do the same kind of work. This happened in the IT capital of India, Bengaluru (erstwhile Bangalore).

Just visit Bengaluru and you can understand what I mean. The Bengaluru localites are no where to be seen. Only tie clad gentlemen and formally dressed up ladies are seen during day times. Cabs ferrying IT workforce zooming around as if there is no tomorrow.

Stay and work in Bengaluru and you will also start to look like one among them, whatever be your previous cultural, religious or territorial background. The good thing is that the people who live here loves this place just as much they love their homeland. Here people are not conservative anymore. Ladies can move around during night with no fear (This is not possible in most of the places in India, thanks to the great respect for woman).

All this has resulted in propping up of lot of avenues for entertainment too. Pubs, malls, multiplexes, eateries and other hang outs are seen everywhere. Resort people saw a business oppurtunity and many new ones sprang up with lot of aritificial landscaping and wave pools in an attempt to make up for the lost landscape and the absence of coast line. Club Cabana, Confident cascade (Click here to make an virtual tour), Guhanthara etc being the favorite among the techies. Then there is the film city (Click here to make an virtual tour), wonderla etc to make your day full of fun and enjoyment.

The beautiful Leela Palace Hotel also has a hang out place with gaming malls, antique shopping centre etc and is open to public. (Click here to make an virtual tour).

During one of my visits I chanced upon to see a beautiful building, standing out from the rest of cult. It was structurally marvellous, innovatively engineered and was really standing tall.

Dukes Forest Lodge - In the Lap of Nature !!

Fog clad mountains, beautiful stream with crystal clear waters, lovely woods spread over green veiled valleys, modern amenities with isolated - traditional cottages, virgin forest, if all these provides you ecstasy, then here is a gem of a place which offers all this and much more. The addicitive quotient is scaling new heights after a visit to this destination - " The dukes forest lodge" located at the foot of Ponmudi (Golden peak), one of the highest peaks in Western Ghats.

Come new year 2012 and a dilemma starts on how to kickstart the new year. Last new year it was pure bliss, in the company of like minded friends and their families, the effect of which had an impact through out a joyful 2011. The dilemma paved way for some excitement when my wife's cousin invited us for an overnight stay at the little known Dukes forest lodge on the way to Ponmudi.

The ponmudi hills already owes a special place in my heart and when ever I visit this place I feel grateful to be living in a city very close to this pristine hill station (Watch my earlier blog on the beautiful hills here). I have lost count on how many times I passed through the winding roads, on two wheels and four wheels, with the former mode being my favourite. Some hectic work at office and some last minute shoppings ensured that we started pretty late than the scheduled check in time at the forest lodge.

A macro perspective

"Perspective" a term very important for any social animal, the reason is known to all. Our eyes are one of the most important aid but at times, it doesn't show the real picture too. When we go to macro zoom, the things which we might not see normally starts to appear beautiful. It is a galore of nature's creativity and we tend to feel that we are seeing only very few things even if it is very close to us.

A visit to a peaceful hamlet at Pathanapuram, where farming is the still the main source of livelihood, made me look into the macro perspective and I will show you how this perspective makes us start appreciate the beauty of the small things. The travel to this place itself is an experience by itself (You can see the beautiful roads and the erst while British established factories here).

It's a pleasure to have one of my cousins reside at this place. This time after exchanging pleasantaries we decided to take a walk through one of their farms, a need aroused because of my kids enthusiasm to catch some live fish from the small stream running nearby. It is pleasure to walk through the narrow pathway, with the stream flowing on side and thick greenery around. The only sounds that we hear are from the birds around and the flowing background score created by the stream. Watch the farm here

Innovative Film City - An Innovative Day Out

A quick holiday in Bangalore, the IT capital of India, and by coincidence lot of relatives happened to be here too. Got a day to spend together and instead of water theme parks and resort's day out package, decided to check out the Innovative Film City. Called them to know their rates , timing route. The response was good and got all the information needed. 

This place is in the Bangalore - Mysore route, around 30 kms from Bangalore town. 

Thanks to the notorious Bangalore traffic we took around 2 hours to cover this distance. This is situated away from the hustle and bustle of busy city. The parking lot was huge and there were lot of cars already parked there. We were concerned on whether it will be real crowded. The person in the ticket counter explained that there is a minimum charge of around Rs.650 per person and this includes free entry to around 10 different innovative creations. Earlier they charged a minimum entrance fee of Rs. 50 and for visiting each stall we had to pay separately which allowed the visitors to chose what they want to visit. But this option was not available now. The entrance itself wore a different look.

The Aranmula Vallasadya: Snake boats, Feast and a bunch of good people

Kerala, the small penisular state in the southern part of India, got its name from the abundant cocunut trees (Kera trees). But one of the most popular things about Kerala which stays in the minds of tourists is undoubtedly the beautiful Snake Boats. In local slang it is called "Chundan vallam" or the Beaked boat. The annual Nehru trophy boat race at Alappuzha and the annual Aranmula Uthrattathi Boat race draw a lot of crowds even from the western countries. Here I try to take you through another ritual based on the Snake boats - the Valla Sadya.

My journey to Aranmula temple on the weekend just before Onam was to attend a "Vallasadya", an offering to Aranmula temple.The ritual consists of rowing the snake boat to the temple, following all the traditions. On reaching the temple a pooja ensues, followed by a good feast for which the person who is offering the Vallasadya can invite guests. Since this vallasadya was been conducted by one of my relatives, we were invited for this function.

By the time I reached the starting point of the boat christened "Laka - Idayaranmula chundan" the rowers had already embarked on the boat dressed in traditional attire.

Believe me, this thing is really huge and can accommodate around 100 people, with the protruding back portion standing as tall as 15feet.

Where Sports matters more than Academics !! – A walk through the LNCPE, Thiruvananthapuram

In Kerala, there is no doubt about the fact that physical education is given way low priority in schools, where teachers and parents alike are hell bound in spoon feeding kids with a plethora of unwanted information, which they have to simply recollect during exams. Eventually exams turn out to be a test of retention power of students. All this has resulted in making most of the students perceiving only the field of Medicine or Engineering as the career option.

This kind of high importance in academics has had its effect in Kerala’s performance in National Games. Kerala is indeed one of the states which had produced a number of great athletes. But of late the supremacy of Kerala has been questioned, if one goes through the standings in the National Games.

Under these circumstances, I was surprised to see a beautiful and well maintained infrastructure for sports training in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. It was the time of our annual cricket tourney and this time the venue was Lakshmi Bhai National Centre for Physical Education. The cricket enthusiast in me still not dying down, so naturally I was also part of one of the teams. Apart from playing cricket it turned out to be a fantastic day as I could walk around and find some of the finest grounds all in a sprawling campus.

Some interesting guests in my house!!

Here comes a different journey. A journey through some of the interesting guests who happened to visit my house, with their activities caught live on my cam.

It was bright Saturday morning. The sun shining brightly and the mood was generally lethargic thanks to the holiday. I was about to begin a small walk around my house when something struck on my eyes. It was the anthorium plant and the leaf was kind of having a big coating around it. At first I thought it must be the flower, but on a closer look found out that it is made of soil.

Looked like tha handiwork of ants, but ants generally don't create such delicately balanced home hanging down from a leaf. I decided to wait with my camera to see if the house owner comes out any time. There were no visible holes in the structure anywhere too.

The wait lasted about 15 minutes when a beautiful miniscule helicopter began to circle the area. This red flying object soon landed in an area close to where I found the mud home.

It was a beautiful dragon fly. The color combo was something which we don't usually come across. I sat patiently to find out whether it is his home sweet home. The shape of this creature would have surely influenced the design of helicopters. In a flash the fly jumped to a branch closer to the muddy house.

Rediscovering Ooty (Part 4): Kid's Park, Film Shooting Point & A Memorable Camp Fire Experience

Sleeping out in a cool chilly morning on a holiday, with no timelines/engagements planned is one of the best things in most people’s life. We are doing the same thing here in Ooty at the beautiful Brookdale resort. Flip open the window and we can see the beautiful valley sprite up by the morning sun. Just open it and real cold air came gushing in. Adjust the woolen blanket and go to sleep again. Simply fantastic !! Thank God for giving us this fantastic routine called sleeping, something which can be enjoyed by the rich and the poor, irrespective of their caste, creed or race.

This day we have plans to visit the Ooty town. Yesterday was wholly spent in this resort and it was truly enthralling. (Watch our exploration of this beautiful resort facilities here). We could stay here in the resort today also exploring their wide property. But somehow we cannot digest the thought of a visit to Ooty without roaming around the town to the regular picnic spots, a routine which we had practiced right from our school excursions.

Someone is knocking hard at the door. “Breakfast sir”, the room boy is coming here for the second time with breakfast.

By 11am our sojourn starts with no specific plans, no preconceived notions or expectations on how the destination will be, as we were already satisfied with the place of our stay.

The day is really bright. The roads are stunning, the scenery alongside the valleys even more stunning. Gliding slowly through these beautiful ghat roads is pure fun and all the approaching vehicles seems to pose as models for a vehicle ad.

Confident Cascade, Bangalore: A fun filled day Guaranteed

The fight was between Confident Cascade and Guhanthara both of which had good day packages for a good gettogether. We could hear our siblings discussing on the pros and cons of these places as they were hell bound on entertaining us. We had made a visit to Bangalore with no previous planning. It was the last weekend of the summer vacation, my better half and myself wanted to see the new little kid in the family, my brother's cute little gem who just makes anyone drool over him, my son badly needed atleast one visit to Bangy in every vacation, thanks to the numerous malls with umpteen game options for him, something which is badly missed in Thiruvananthapuram our dwelling place.

An added incentive of the bangalore visit is the 750 km drive through the highways. This time we had come through the Wayanad route eventhough the fastest is the Nagercoil, Madurai, Salem, Hosur, Bangalore route (To know why this is fastest Click here). The drive had almost all the ingredients and we could taste all kinds of roads, the beautiful NH 47 till Thrissur, (now the four lane work between Ernakulam and Thrissur is almost complete, so driving times have drastically reduced), the fun to drive NH 17 stretch upto Calicut, the beautiful ghat section at Wayanad (Watch the twisty trails of Wayanad here) with some bad roads but spellbinding scenary, the plain but twisty roads through Bandipur which is a class of its own and the fast highway from Mysore to Bangalore with horrible speed breakers at every town intersection.

After calling these resorts a number of times, to know the options available both of them came to us for a final decision. Guhanthara is a cave resort and their website shows some interesting 3D views of the ambience inside the cave with pools and artificial waterfalls around. But their outdoor space doesn't seem truly inviting. The confident cascade had almost all kinds of sport activity at their perusal. Finally the matter was put to vote and based on the count of hands the final decision was confident cascade and it was easy on pocket too when compared with Guhanthara @ Rs 550 per pax.

The 18 km drive from Domlur to Bannarghata took around 90 minutes. This is the beauty of Bangalore where at times we feel as if pedestrians tend to reach faster than the motorists whose main job is to make his vehicle kiss the vehicle in front and wait endlessly at the not so tasty jams - the traffic jams.

We were a gang of 10 adults and 4 kids in two cars and it seemed a pretty long drive. It was almost noon when we entered the parking lot of Confident Cascade.

Rediscovering Ooty (Part 3): Woodbrook Lake

(This is part 3 of multipart Ooty travelogue. Click here to read Part 1 or Part 2)

Dark clouds began engulfing the area and it felt as if rains will come pouring down any time from now on. But the sight of woodbrook lake during our journey up here in the morning was still afresh in our minds.

(For the full picture of the journey, visit here)

A little earlier, we had a glimpse of this lake from another perspective too, when we had a magnificient view of the panorama from the top of the hill during our trekking episode (Watch the trekking experience here).

Rain or no rain we are going to the lake. Instead of walking down we decide to go in car, just in case it rains we have some cover available. The beautiful exit path from the resort once again is right in front of us. The path is very steep, and their is one hair pin bend too, but the exemplary scenery on both sides is spellbinding.

Dark clouds seem to accept defeat against our determination to have a face off with them as they were seen running for cover behind the mountains. The wide open area is right in front of us and the vehicle comes to a halt amidst one of the exquisite ambience it has ever been.

This is not a regular picnic spot. It is one of the sleepy villages of Ooty which has the charm of not being commercialized. If this place was devoid of any activity in the morning, now it is not so. The local lads are having a good game of volleyball in their traditional attires.