Two days in Idukki

                                 Getting up early in the morning is one of the most difficult things I could do; that too at 3.30AM after hardly a two-hour sleep is beyond thinking. But this time it’s different. Yeah… it’s time to hit the road for another trip.., the destination being Idukki – the beautiful district in central Kerala where nature has bestowed its blessings aplenty. With the famous Arch Dam, countless number of waterfalls, wildlife sanctuaries, etc., Idukki is a complete package which can satisfy tourists of all tastes.

                                   With the excitement of another road-trip I left Trivandrum by 4.30AM. I’ve always enjoyed the solo drive in the early morning especially with almost zero traffic like any road-trip fan. I stopped at Adoor for a cup of tea and also to pick my first co-traveller. We picked the next guy from Chengannur and cruised along the MC Road with our next destination being Pala.., where the last guy will be waiting. We took the Thiruvalla-Kidangoor-Pala-Muttom-Idukki route to avoid some heavy traffic around Kottayam town. We picked the last one and left Pala after having a delicious breakfast from his home.

                                   The hair pins started showing up a few kms after Muttom., the thrill of driving begins. The climate was not so cool as we expected and we had to use the AC most of the time during the entire trip. We stopped at Nadukani Pavilion, the first stop in the trip. We took some pictures from the Viewpoint there, and spent around 15 mins there. Pretty much nothing else to do there and we left Nadukani since we were not interested in spending too much time there.

Nadukani Pavilion

View from Nadukani

                                   Hillview Park was the next spot we visited. It’s a pretty neatly maintained park and a viewpoint. The highlight of the park is that it offers a wonderful view of the Idukki Arch Dam. You won’t get such a satisfying view of the dam from some other place. And it’s a nice place to spend some time with your camera. The place is best suited to be visited in the evening. Even though we visited there around noon it was quite enjoyable barring the scorching sun. But on the other side the bright light allowed our cameras to have some nice clicks.

View of Arch dam from Hillview park

                                   After having lunch at Cheruthoni we were in sort of a confusion regarding our next spot to visit. We only had finalized the destination as Idukki district and not particularly decided the exact attractions beforehand. We all had agreed to decide it only on the way. Also, boating in dams were something which we already agreed to avoid as we had done some good time of boating on our last trip to Shenduruney(Read it here).Anchuruli and Ramakkalmedu were the two places we finally narrowed down to. To reach any of these places we have to first reach Kattappana and so, we left to Kattappana . The road to Kattappana was such a beauty to drive and the tea gardens beside the road were quite picturesque. We reached Kattappana after a little more than an hour’s ride.

Cheruthoni Dam

                                   After reaching Kattappana we finalized on the next spot.., Yeah.., Ramakkalmedu it is. It’s again an hour’s drive from Kattappana. The road to Ramakkalmedu was not the best. One should be aware of the unexpected potholes and speed breakers. Also the roads are a little narrower too. We were slightly tired but we were ready to climb to the top viewpoint at Ramakkalmedu, and we set out after having a cool lime juice from a local shop. We initially felt while climbing, that it was a very wrong decision to choose the place in the afternoon. But once we reached the top after some tiresome climbing our feelings changed. The place has an amazing atmosphere. We spent a fair amount of time in the rocks at the edges. Hundreds of feet below is Tamilnadu and one can get a wonderful view of farmlands of various types below. The place has strong winds and should be very careful while spending time in the edges. We also visited the Kuravan-Kurathi statues nearby.

View from Ramakkalmedu

Ramakkalmedu

Ramakkalmedu

Kuravan - Kurathi Statue

                                   We avoided visiting the Windmill farm and left back to Kattappana. The return journey in the night was very interesting. We were following the Google offline maps. The slower updating of routes in the map at the junctions, and a number of re-routings made us cover some less-travelled places. For a long time, we hardly found any human being on the road to ask for the proper route. Only then, we slowly realized that we were travelling in the midst of forests. Pitch black darkness around, being the only vehicle at the road for most of the time.., that was one hell of a ride.., a quite memorable one. By the time we reached Kattappana most of the hotels were closed and we didn’t got the chance to try the local delicacies. We checked in into a pretty good lodge in Kattappana for overnight stay.  Time for getting some good sleep… and there comes the end of Day 1.

                        Day 2 started with a breakfast of steamed tapioca and fish curry from a small hotel nearby. After breakfast we headed off towards Anchuruli which was barely a half-an-hour drive from Kattappana. Anchuruli is a relatively lesser known place and is now one of the emerging attraction spots in Idukki. Anchuruli offers a beautiful view of the banks of Idukki dam. The major attraction here is a 5km long tunnel built through the rocks. The tunnel brings water to the reservoir and it makes a beautiful waterfall. The waterfall is said to be more magnificent during the monsoon as the water flow will be the maximum. The flow was not that great during our visit but still it was quite a nice sight to enjoy. We left Anchuruli after spending about an hour there to our next destination - Vagamon.

Anchuruli

Anchuruli Tunnel

Water falling from the Tunnel

                                   We also visited the Hanging Bridge at Ayyappankovil enroute. Spent half-an-hour in the bridge and we were back on road to Vagamon.

The Hanging Bridge

View from the Bridge

                                   By noon we reached Vagamon and had a decent meal (a bit costlier though). We knew it was not the best time to visit Vagamon, but still we felt it was worth a visit as we were roaming the surrounding places. 

Way to Vagamon

The Bald hills in Vagamon      

                  We spent some time in the beautiful brown hilly meadows (Well.. you cannot expect them to be lush green in such hot climate...) and moved on to the Pine forest. The pine forest was a little crowded with a lot of buzz around. We decided not to spend too much time as there was nothing so interesting for us at that moment. We left the Pine forest and spent the rest of the day in the bald hilly meadows till we left Vagamon, just wandering lazily. The sun started to leave and so did we.

                                   Back to road again. Another 200km drive to Trivandrum. Aravind, whom we fondly call Kattappa seemed really enjoying the downhill drive through the hairpins. We stopped at Pala for a tea break. We again took the Pala-Kidangoor route to avoid the familiar night traffic. This time Jijo was behind the wheels speeding the car in full throttle; meanwhile my mind was busy thinking about the destination for the next trip.