December in Munnar

2008 was surely an year of lot of fun filled travel arounds for us. We were looking for a relaxing holiday for quite some time, apart from the short, adventurous, weekend & drive get-aways we had. With club memberships its one thing that we need to plan and book it well before. And that is a bit difficult for us, we being bit of dynamic doers. I somehow followed up day after day and finally got us a 3 day booking to the almost-always-booked destination, Munnar. Of the 3 days, we only had confirmation for 2 days and we took a chance of getting it extended for another day. Booked the train tickets and we set off in mid December.

The train booking was to Maduria. We got off at Madurai, took an auto to the famous Murugan Idli kadai. The place is a 10-15 seater restaurant, which is a small one for its fame, but Breakfast was grand. Though it says Idli kadai, they do serve Dosas, Pongal, Vada, etc. We then took a bus from Madurai to Theni and then Theni to Munnar. We reached the resort only at about 2. We were very hungry and headed straight to the resort restaurant even before we stopped to enjoy the tranquil, scenic views.

Coincidentally both of our holiday destinations with Club Mahindra, since our membership with them, has been to Kerala. We truly have experienced why it is called as God's own country.

Munnar is surely known for its serenity and heartsease & the location of the resort gave us the complete dose of it. The place has an aura of romance and so also known to be honeymooners' paradise. It was 8 degrees temperature in mid December. It gets misty during mornings and evenings, sometimes throughout the day. And sometimes it was cloudy and showered too.
There are quite a few holiday activities to engage ourselves in - Trekking, Overnight camping, Tea plantation and spice garden tour, boating, indoor games (for kids too), etc. We opted for Overnight camping this time. It being the first time experience of night camping, we were quite excited. Together, there were 3 couples, one of them were newlywed. And we thought, what an adventure of night camping for a honeymooner! The place where they camp is near a 40-45 year old bungalow in the forest. They take us on a night trek, then camp fire, dinner and off to the tent. It was pretty cold and misty. Nothing after 50 mts distance from was visible, it gets that misty. Inside the tent is warm and cozy. You could hear the noise of winds hitting the tent all night. Sleep was not as disturbing as we thought it would be.The next morning, we were dropped off at the resort for beakfast. We took a cab and went around the place visiting Periyakanal Falls, Lockhart View Point, Mattupatti Dam, a botanical garden and Echo Point. Miles and miles of tea plantations and it was a beautiful experience of drive on those winding roads.The resort staff were very helpful and could extend our stay for another day. It sure was a short holiday but a much needed and relaxing one for all the peace and solacement we earned.

Scene V - River Rafting in Bhadra river

Arun's instructions:

• The life jacket can stand 120 kilos, so there is nothing to worry (sigh!)


• Hold the paddle end with a proper fist formation.


• The other hand should hold the paddle stick at a height comfortable for one to paddle.


• To move forward, put the paddle at 90 degrees into the water, with your upper body moved a bit forward and pull the paddle back along with moving your body backwards.


• Vice versa to move backwards.


• When I say hold on, hold on to the rope tied to the boat.


• When I say rapid forward, paddle rapidly so we move forward faster.


• If the boat topples (Ah! This was the tough part to even listen to!). If the boat topples, you would start floating within 2 seconds. Everybody move towards the boat and hold it up with your hands.


• Now! who all knows swimming? (I knew this would be coming! Should we even try this? But I want to...) It might be difficult for only the guide to save all of you, in an unlikely event. So, he also showed how we could lock the paddle heads and pull each other.
  

First thing asked us to do is to get down to water, experience the floating. I was only told then that the depth was 30-40 feet! I just pulled up my socks and got into the water, never wanted to leave the rope. It was an amazing feeling. I hadn't imagined I would go floating in 30-40 feet deep water levels. We enjoyed our time floating in the water for about 10-15 minutes.

Arun then pulled us all up into the boat (he just held us by the jackets and pulled up like gunny bags). When we started he said, "Rafting is a team event. Very much needs everyone to be in synch".

Sree and Saket took to the front. I and Atanu synched up with their paddling. Arun was controlling the direction sitting at the back. We rafted a small fall, in the due course hit a rock. But we did synch up good to move out quickly. That gave us all a bit of confidence. The falls were not too high, but there were currents and whirls we had to escape. The river would be plain for a few meters and then there would be 2-3 falls and currents we had to rapidly paddle through. We stopped by every stretch to look back and feel good about getting through it. The whole experience was fantabulous!

Scene IV - Its everyone's first time

We had just trekked down, and having breakfast while it started raining. We thought we would miss out on more activities. But were not disheartened, 'cos everyone were geared up for more rounds of carom games. After the breakfast, we informed at the reception to find out booking for rafting and then decided to start carom.

Flashback:
Saturday evening's boards: Sree and I won against Atanu and Saket. Then the team got shuffled. Saket and I won against Sree and Atanu. And it took us 7 hours to have only played two full boards. That was quite a game.

So, we were all geared up for more rounds. We played for about an hour when we heard from the reception we had to leave for rafting. We didn't want to stop playing, neither did we want to miss out on river rafting.

We packed our stuffs, checked out from the resort and headed towards the rafting place. Its 30 kms ahead from the resort, we spoke to the people and got our route map.

It was the first time for all of us. I'm sure we all experienced our share of jitters inside. Th thoughts - How would it be? I don't even know swimming! Would the water levels be very deep? Would we really have control over it? Its everyone's first time!!

We had to park our car and move 7kms ahead in their van. The van carried the boat, the jackets, helmet and paddles. We would raft for 7kms and reach where we parked. Arun was our guide. He helped us get ready. I could hear my heart beats loud and clear!

3 years back, when I went to Goa, I had confronted my fear of heights going on a para-sailing ride. Only to realize how beautiful things look from a bird's view. But after I experienced an almost drowning, I had gotten the fear of drowning there. And now, here I was trying it out!

Scene III - The trek, the realization

After a nice cup of tea in the morning, we set out to trek at 7:45 AM. We had a guide who took us to the hill top through the Bhadra forest area. It was a dense forest we were trekking in to. Every time we do this after a break, it makes us realize how much of stamina we have lost, how fit/unfit we are to do this. And everytime, the realization soon vanishes when we are back to our routines.
The trek was too good, until the guide told us there were leeches. They were around only when we were almost to reach the hill top. One thing I was telling Sree before we planned for trek was that we should go to a place where there would be no leeches. And lo! Here I was standing on the rock, screaming, having experienced my first leech bite :( and Sree got 2 of them.
Of course there was no prick or pain, its only the feeling that a slimy thing is stuck on you. It fell off when he poured the salt on it. There were 2-3 stuck on my pants which were pulled out. It took a while for me to come out of that messy feeling and to start enjoying the height and the view.
The surrounding mountains were covered with mist and it looked astounding. Lying down on the rocks and viewing the clouds spread across the sky was a moment.

The climb down the hill top was a quick one, because I was running down trying to ensure I don't allow more leeches to stick around my pants and shoes. I guess that does not help. We observed how they stood straight on the ground to leap out and hold on to us. There were more on the pants while we climbed down, but luckily nothing could get on to the skin. Sree pulled them out before they could.

We had a grand breakfast and were all set for the day.

Scene II - At the resort

We reached the resort at 3:00 PM. The roads from Chikkamagalur to the destination was not good enough for a smooth drive. Few kms when we had to climb the hill was good. We had phoned the resort people and informed them about our arrival, and they had readied the lunch for us.

At the resort, we could not get the tree tops, so we opted for executive rooms. The view from the resort reception and the badminton court was amazing. Mountains, coffee plantations and think forest around.

The executive room was amidst the coffee plantation. The room is quite big, very comfortable and with a spacious sit out.


We had a good lunch and the place to eat had the same setup of a tree top with a nice view to the mountains, forest, coffee plantation and the lake where we could go fishing and coracle ride.

After a good lunch, we decided to take a nap for half hour. The half hour was not the sufficient one and everyone knew that. By the time we woke up it was 5:30. We went up to the eating place to have some tea and onion pakodas. With no activity to be done after 6:00 PM, we decided to play carom. We ordered some evening snacks and wine to the game room while we played. We were reminded twice for the dinner, while we still played. We then decided to continue the game as is after dinner. We came back from dinner and continued to play. Finally at 1:00 AM we decided we should go to bed or we would not wake up for next day morning activities. And we had played two games of carom for 6 and half hours!