Day 3 : May 18th, 2008

“SWAAAATHIII!!!! Wake up!!! We got garlic bread with cheese and an Exotica with extra Jalapeño toppings on it!!”. If, they had said that, I guess I would’ve woken up! But no. It was “Swaathhiiii!! Wake up! We’ll get late and we’ll never be able to camp! You have to have a bath immediately and a quick one! (That’s the last thing someone should say to wake me up. I hate baths. Especially short ones.)” I wish I knew how to drive, because Hrishi got to sleep for longer simply because he was supposed to drive. Anyway, I reluctantly got up, brushed, had a quick bath, had tea and sat next to Sanju watching TV, until everyone got ready. We went to “New Hotel” for breakfast. We needed enough Shakthi to last the trek. The hotel was just down the road. It seemed like our home-stay was in the center of the town. But maybe it was because Kalpetta was such a small town. It is probably as big as Malleshwaram. New Hotel had pakka Kerala food. We saw weird looking idlis and a strange noodles-like item. There was also the normal vada, dosa and all that. First thing Hrishi ordered was “Soodu Vezam”, that was actually hot, pink water! It looked really nice. :P And then Sanju ordered for the one and only “Puttu”. Haha. That’s actually what it’s called. The waiter brought 5 pieces of the idly kind of thing and served us one apiece. It had a lot of coconut sprinkled on it. Sanju asked for Coconut milk as a side dish. The guy brought a whole bowl of grated coconut and placed it on the table. Haha. Poor chap! Given a chance, I think Keralites will eat raw coconut with all meals! The guy brought coconut milk, which was a side dish for everything, the Puttu, the appam, the nool Puttu (the noodles-like thing). It all tasted pretty decent. Sanju fell in love with the Puttu. He literally went crazy!! Kept saying “Puttu rocks” and kept talking to his Puttu. It was too funny. After paying the bill, we got our arses out of that place and started towards Chembra peak.
At 2100 mts above mean sea level, Chembra is the highest peak in Wayanad and is ideal for trekking. It’s a 6 km long trek and apparently, the view from atop the mountain is exhilarating. I’m saying “apparently” because we couldn’t reach the peak. It was very tiring and hot. We had to drive till a point by car and then move on foot. There was some Malayalam movie-shooting going on there. We walked for like 5 minutes along the path and Hrishi got bored. He looked towards his left and said that was the way and claimed that he had taken the same route when he had come here previously. There was an overgrowth of grass and I don’t know if it was because I didn’t have my glasses, but I could see absolutely no path there. We followed Hrishi, uncertain of what was in store for us. It was completely erratic. We didn’t know where we were going. All we knew was that as long as we’re going upwards, we’re going in the right direction. The ground was slippery. I was told to hold on to the roots of the grass and that I could completely rely on them. So we all went up, grabbing onto all the blades of grass we could. By the time we reached a small landing, all of us had deep cuts on our fingers. Yes, when I say blades of grass, I mean it. They mercilessly cut into you. I guess I have very sensitive skin because my hand had so many scratches and fresh cuts; it looked like the aftermath of a catfight. After a short water break, we looked upwards. There was no more grass. There were huge trees that cut off the light before it could reach the ground. This time, Sanju led the way. He had a sharp blade in his hand to cut the branches that came in our way. The trees were really tall and the atmosphere there reminded me of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. I was a hoping to see a snake. But I was unlucky. All I saw was a dead earthworm. :-/ We rested for some time in the forest. Silence was pressing into my ears. But then the crickets were chirping away and there were other insect noises coming out of nowhere. It was nice sitting there and listening to the sounds of the forest. Peace, finally. We thanked Hrishi for taking us in the wrong path because the correct one seemed really boring. We left again, this time we had to walk through tea plantations. There are billions of acres of tea plantation in Kerala. Kannan Devan tea is manufactured there. The estates look heavenly! While walking through these estates, we finally heard human voices and were so happy that we were moving in the right direction. That boosted up our energy and we tried finding the path faster. Hrishi kept talking about this heart-shaped lake, which we would reach when we were half way through. We made it quite quickly to the actual path. As we walked we came across a piece of land that looked like it had water, but had dried up because of the heat and Hrishi said that was the heart-shaped lake. Disappointed of not having been able to see the lake, we moved on and stopped at a spot for pictures. The scenery was spectacular. While we were at it, some Malyali dudes called out to us from 15 ft above and said that they found the lake. I ran towards the lake, closely followed by the rest of them, glad that I would be able to dip my feet, which were baking in my shoes. The lake was not even close to a heart-shape. I don’t really know how it got the name. But it sure was amazing! The peak was around 50 mts higher. Since we were all tired we decided to end it at the lake and go back down. We sat down on the rocks by the lake. Navu was having trouble with her extremely long toenails, which Sanju had to cut off using his “multi-purpose super blade”. Hehe. Su made some bread–jam sandwiches for us. FYI, Bread-jam-kurkure is an awesome combo. And then everyone made fun of the way I say “kurkure”. Seriously! I say it as normally as everyone else does! My name through out the trip was “Dumb Blonde”. X-( Again, %#^&** Hrishi! All of us mimicked the NRI’s we knew and had a good laugh. One of the Malyali dudes, whose name I figured out was Kanta (Haha), kept making uncanny sounds to contact his friend who was at the peak. They communicated weirdly. A bunch of boys came running down the hill and had a dip in the lake. They left along with us. I must say, Keralites are pretty damn friendly. The boys ran down pretty fast and screamed out to us if they had to wait for us and if we needed their help. We said “no” and they left. We started trekking downwards, this time I led everyone. :D Going down was slower than the other way round. The probability of falling off is greater, especially if you don’t have shoes with proper grip. Slowly, sitting down at all places required, I went, followed by Su, Hrishi, Sanju and Navu. We came across a peculiar person who I thought was dumb, in the sense, he couldn’t talk. He said something about his manager climbing up the hill and made Hrishi touch his heart(which he thought was in the right side :P). He also did some dance moves and left me wondering what kinds of maniacs exist. Navu had swalpa fear of heights. So she took her own time and Sanju and Hrishi came down with her. Su and I found ourselves down in a jiffy and we waited for the rest of them. After we were all together again, we started towards our car. We drank water from a tank, which we found on the way. God knows how old it was, but it tasted really good. With Sanju driving, we reached the bottom of the cliff and back at the home-stay. We had to pack up quickly as we were to camp by the riverside that night. We left ASAP. Pavithran sent a guy called Mani (the Dude!) with us just in case we needed help.
Kuruva Island was the place where we were to camp. Every time I think about it, “Kyeruva Island” comes into my mind. Damn that was so funny! It was around 40kms from Kalpetta and we didn’t know the directions. Sanju had completely lost it. He tried to make people think he was a Keralite and asked everyone directions by imitating the Malyalis. “Kyeruva Island?” he said. He got super jacked by one guy who corrected him and said “Kuruva Island”. Haha. Sanju’s crazy act and our “Hotel Keralafornia” song left the horrible, bumpy, mud-roads unnoticed. We met Mani who was the only one we knew in Kerala so far who could speak Kannada. He actually knew every single person in the town. He led the way to the island on a bike on which two people were already seated. We liked to call this guy “Money” rather than “Mani”. He showed us a spot were we could install our tent, said he’d return at night and with that, he left. Navu took out the tent, which I thought would fit in only one person, judging by the bag it was in. It was fun putting it up (I didn’t do anything. I shot a video. :P). Navu was a pro at this, so was Sanju. We let them do the work. And when it was done, I was dumbstruck! Holy cow! That was a huge tent. It could fit in 6 of us easily both for standing as well as sleeping, and mind you, Hrishi and Sanju are more than 6 feet tall. We walked around a little, picking up wooden sticks for the campfire. The auburn branches of the bamboo trees around looked beautiful against the blue sky, which in no time turned into shades of pink and orange. The green trees surrounding the river Kabini added to the beauty of the whole place. We were back at our tent in half an hour. Navu cut up onions and other vegetables and gave us tasty boiled egg with salt and pepper, Sanju made maggi with Knorr soup, Hrishi blended the Russian distilled spirits and the liquid made from fermented sugar-cane product. Su and I made egg sandwiches. We hogged quite a lot. Tired, the married couple went to sleep. The three of us packed up everything and waited till Money arrived. After what seemed to me like an hour he came, talking happily over the phone. We assumed he was talking to his hot, girlfriend, who would have coconut oil smeared on her head 24*7. And then I was teased with him, because I said he was hot. Haha. It was getting cold, and the air was filled with mosquitoes and fireflies. They looked really pretty. Hrishi caught one of them, but I didn’t have enough guts to catch one. Hehe. We went inside and left Money and his hot girlfriend to themselves. We played Dumb Charades for sometime, acting out words from Pictionary cards. Soon, we fell asleep, waiting for the next day, which turned out to be one of the best days of my life. :)


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