Day 99 (Sat 14 Oct) - Kalpetta
A knock on the door at 8 am signaled that our 'sleep' was over.
Sarb answered the door to a smartly dressed Indian who turned out to be our guide, Suresh. We said we'd meet him an hour downstairs.
Got ourselves sorted then had breakfast with Suresh. He was actually an artist but done a little guide work to supplement his income. Got some packed lunches from the restaurant and headed off to the bus station.
Todays plan was to head to the Meenmutty falls. A local bus took us through Kalpetta and then into the hills passing beautiful tea plantations. We also passed huge, grand mansions being built with, according to Suresh, Gulf money. Got to a small but busy town called Meppadi where we took a rickshaw to the start of the trail leading to the waterfalls.
Walked down a brick red path cut through smallholdings where coffee, ginger, pepper and tea were grown. Even saw a plantation where rubber trees were cultivated. Quite beautiful.
We both thought that if this was what the path was like to the falls it would be a breeze. How wrong we were! The path soon turned very thin, steep and slippery. At one point the path ran alongside the wall of the valley where a 4 foot stretch of it had broken away. We had to side climb over this gap to get to the other side. Doesn't sound like much but when you are knackered, its blazing hot, the rocks were slippery with cascading water and there's a 30 foot drop below you onto rocks it gets interesting.
The route to the falls took us through really dense forest. Very peaceful. Got to the falls which were quite magnificent.
Jo was not looking forward to the journey back up and out of the valley. However we had a rest, drank some water, said a prayer or 10, took a few photos and then started to make our way back. We managed the climb ok, although there were some interesting moments where you kind of had to scramble up by wedging yourself between rocks.
Got to the top and sat in a small shack where we had our packed lunches.
Whilst we sat there Sarb heard the sound of foliage being pushed aside and was startled to see some 5 yards away a snake fall onto the path. Luckily Suresh told us not to panic as it was a rat snake and not dangerous. It certainly looked dangerous. It was about 5 feet long, with a polished brown upper and a creamy lower. Suresh took Sarb's camera and went looking round for it in the undergrowth whilst we stood at a respectful distance.
We got a shared taxi back. In Kalpetta the taxis are all small jeeps and we bundled in amongst our fellow passengers. As we traveled other passengers got on but as there were no seats had to make do with clinging onto the back of the jeep.
Got back to Kalpetta abut 4 ish. Sarb went for a beer in the hotel bar. Quite annoying really but women were either not allowed or encouraged to enter.
About 6 ish a huge rainstorm kicked in. Very, very heavy rain with plenty of lightning and thunder thrown in. Sarb loved it.
Had another not too comfortable nights sleep.
Sarb answered the door to a smartly dressed Indian who turned out to be our guide, Suresh. We said we'd meet him an hour downstairs.
Got ourselves sorted then had breakfast with Suresh. He was actually an artist but done a little guide work to supplement his income. Got some packed lunches from the restaurant and headed off to the bus station.
Todays plan was to head to the Meenmutty falls. A local bus took us through Kalpetta and then into the hills passing beautiful tea plantations. We also passed huge, grand mansions being built with, according to Suresh, Gulf money. Got to a small but busy town called Meppadi where we took a rickshaw to the start of the trail leading to the waterfalls.
Walked down a brick red path cut through smallholdings where coffee, ginger, pepper and tea were grown. Even saw a plantation where rubber trees were cultivated. Quite beautiful.
We both thought that if this was what the path was like to the falls it would be a breeze. How wrong we were! The path soon turned very thin, steep and slippery. At one point the path ran alongside the wall of the valley where a 4 foot stretch of it had broken away. We had to side climb over this gap to get to the other side. Doesn't sound like much but when you are knackered, its blazing hot, the rocks were slippery with cascading water and there's a 30 foot drop below you onto rocks it gets interesting.
The route to the falls took us through really dense forest. Very peaceful. Got to the falls which were quite magnificent.
Jo was not looking forward to the journey back up and out of the valley. However we had a rest, drank some water, said a prayer or 10, took a few photos and then started to make our way back. We managed the climb ok, although there were some interesting moments where you kind of had to scramble up by wedging yourself between rocks.
Got to the top and sat in a small shack where we had our packed lunches.
Whilst we sat there Sarb heard the sound of foliage being pushed aside and was startled to see some 5 yards away a snake fall onto the path. Luckily Suresh told us not to panic as it was a rat snake and not dangerous. It certainly looked dangerous. It was about 5 feet long, with a polished brown upper and a creamy lower. Suresh took Sarb's camera and went looking round for it in the undergrowth whilst we stood at a respectful distance.
We got a shared taxi back. In Kalpetta the taxis are all small jeeps and we bundled in amongst our fellow passengers. As we traveled other passengers got on but as there were no seats had to make do with clinging onto the back of the jeep.
Got back to Kalpetta abut 4 ish. Sarb went for a beer in the hotel bar. Quite annoying really but women were either not allowed or encouraged to enter.
About 6 ish a huge rainstorm kicked in. Very, very heavy rain with plenty of lightning and thunder thrown in. Sarb loved it.
Had another not too comfortable nights sleep.
posted by Jo and Sarb at
10/14/2006 09:26:00 am
1 Comments:
Did you mean to get that large dragon fly in one of your view shots. Very unfair going for a beer with Jo not being aloud! Jo! get some sleep girl ;-)!
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Anonymous, At
5:06 pm
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