Our Maiden Trip!!!

Guys,
Am back to my office with routine work schedule, boring talks, lousy meetings, non palatable food…
I miss you guys….

I can’t even stop thinking for a moment about this wonderful trip. It was so nice, right from the day 1 till the time we reached home, lots of humour (especially by the grace of Lux), excitement, thrill, agony (especially while trekking).

You all know that how difficult to plan a trip particularly a night stay outing trip for our IC freaks, many times we planned earlier and never succeeded, it was nothing different for this time too, there were lots of twists and turns, need to address the pros and cons of each individual before planning, it was almost went for a flop, but finally resurrected….

At this moment, we all should appreciate the sincere effort taken by Lux in order to make this event successful. In spite of his busy schedule, he applied for leave on 3rd Nov (monday). Earlier, he came to Chennai for Diwali, the previous week, and just because of our trip he cancelled his extra leave and rejoined his duty, again applied leave on Monday, he underwent enormous pressure from me.

Also, my compliments to the rest of the guys who made this trip true and exciting…

Let me try to narrate those joyous moments in front of your eyes:

31st Oct (Friday): By evening 6 pm I purchased the basic requirements. Cheenu came to Mambalam railway station by around 9 pm, Cellman went for pick up, we 3 assembled at IC, later reached Parthy’s home, clicked few snaps of Parthy Jr. (Ajay), he is so cute and small, very soon he will become big like our Parthy. Hehehe
By around 11pm we started from Parthy’s home, before that we asked Lux to start from Bangalore and decided to meet him at Krishnagiri, which is close to him.
(am trying to pee behind Cheenu)

1st Oct (Saturday): Around 3 am we met Lux, the poor guy has waited for more than 2 hrs for us, we asked him to buy Chapathis and sabji, he promptly did that without any fuss. Lux, kept calling for every 10 mins, to find out where we are, many times we bluffed and told that we are almost nearing, our excited Lux started looking into each and every Sumo which passes by.
Finally we spotted our Lux, who was waiting at the middle of the bus terminus, not giving way for the buses.

Now that our Sumo was fully packed not only with the weight but also by the music. That’s how the journey started…. But the journey was not that easy, disturbed by high speeding vehicle, tiredness, fog….

By around 10 am, we reached Pollachy, took a room, everybody had a bath and nap, before having a heavy brunch. By 1 pm we checked out from the hotel, searched for the Pollachy forest department to book a night halt in top slip for Sunday, we booked ‘Ambuli Illam’ for Sunday night at Top Slip, and soon by 3.20 pm we reached the Parambikulam check post, which was earlier booked by us, which comes under Kerala Forest Dept., so there my work starts, to communicate in Malayalam. Believe me the forest was so beautiful, tranquil, I witnessed the forest for the first time, then I realized why Cheenu, quite frequently stays in forest more than City. Later we paid 4000 for the night halt for Saturday, 2 tribals and 1 forest dept. person accompanied us. We had a quick lunch (bread omelet) in a small hut. We were asked to park our Sumo 2 kms away, where its free from wild elephants, later myself, Parthy and Cheenu walked along with the forest person, to join Lux and Cellman, who waited with our baggage few kms away. While walking down, we came across spotted deers, also we traced a big crocodile on the other bank of the nearby river.

Our real trekking started by around 5 pm, the distance was around 6 kms, we clicked so many photographs on the way, we crossed a river by the bridge, we saw a jeep which was thrashed by wild elephants, long time before, that was kept as a souvenir. We walked, walked, walked….

It was almost dark, but still we couldn’t reach our ‘Thellikal IB’, where we need to stay, we traced the first pugmark of a deer, I was fascinated, instantly clicked photographs, later on we noticed lots of pugmarks of deer and bison.
Finally, we reached the destination; a place surrounded by a huge pit, to avoid wild elephants to enter, linked by a wooden log to cross, there were no electricity for that house, we all were having LED torch, me and Cellman bought 4 of them before starting our trip. The guides had a solar lamp, which was lit inside the room. The house consists of a hall, 2 rooms, kitchen, 1 toilet (only few used it)

We sat outside the house for sometime, chatting and laughing, we were all tired. Parthy and Cellman, went a little further down from the house with their torch, but they came back in a flash hearing a roaring sound, soon we closed the door, and went to our cots, which was already arranged by the guides, with beds and pillows. Our body was so tired, so as soon as we lied down, we all fell asleep, except for Lux, who was busy motivating the guides to prepare the chapathis and sabjis, even he clicked lots of photographs on chapathis and sabjis, showing his photography skills.

By 9.30 pm we were all asked to have our food, as our delicious stuff was ready, it was really tasty, but it was bit spicy. We had Chapathis and Egg kuruma (suggested by Lux). After our dinner, around 10.15 pm, we asked the tribals to take us outside for a night trekking, he nodded.

That was THE thrilling moment, everybody managed to walk in a straight line, as the tribal was leading from the front, he showed us the herd of bisons, (its easy to trace wild animals in the dark, as we lit the torch on them, their eyes glow, as we can see number of glowing eyes), this time we were very close and thrilled, soon, those bisons disappeared in the woods, later we traced a group of deers, at the same time we need to look at the ground too, as there may be snakes moving around the forest. Finally with all these excitement we decided to return back to the house, and decided to go for trekking to spot wild animals at 5.30 am. We had a peaceful sleep, in the middle of thundering snore (the culprits were Lux and Karthik).

Day 2 details, I will post after sometime…..