A dream come true. The planning of “Wayanad visit” started way back in 2006 and had been in “planning” stage until recently when the plan was converted to execution :-).
A conversation over the coffee table sparked off a 3-day vacation to the misty hills of Wayanad in God’s Own Country.
This was my first trip to a place which lies beyond the claws of the tourism departments. And believe you me, it has been the most picturesque one till now. I was on my own for most of the little time I had out of my work schedule exploring the beauty sitting in the lap of nature. It starts with a 5 hour drive from Dehradun with the beautiful Ganges accompanying us till the mid journey. The river has its many facets- it was calm and it was slow, it was ruffling down the mountains in a torrential speed at the bends and curves, the rapids – ravishing.
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| From is silence an opinion? |
We were involved in the daily grind of office, and were really needing a break. The initial plan was to plan a trip to Switzerland by end of September, and there was some careful planning going on, although at a slow place (September end was after all, more than 3 months away). And then suddenly, in June end, we decided that we really needed a break, and why can’t we go in July ? Keep in mind that we were talking about a period that was only 2 weeks away, and we had to plan visas, place to visit, hotel stay, plane tickets, and so on. Well, no point in going through all the details of this part (suffice it to say that we got the visas in the nick of time); in a matter of 2 weeks we were on our way to Switzerland for a short (4 nights stay) trip. This was about a standard a trip as is possible - I had checked many sites and the trip that was advised for us was the standard one; 2 nights for a trip to Interlaken, Jungfrau (the Top of Europe), Lucerne, and Mt. Pilatus.
What we had been given as part of the package were plane tickets, 5 days of train passes on Swiss Rail (including the journey to Jungfrau and Mt. Pilatus), and hotel bookings (with complimentary breakfast). I was a bit worried, since the only thing we knew about where we were going was through Google searches, and we were on our own during this traveling.
Kaddukhal seemed ideal location since it was on a ridge, and additionally the place was peaceful and away from settlement. We were more than delighted when we stepped out of the bus. We were overlooking into a beautiful valley. On our right side, we could see the way leading up to the Surkanda Devi temple. We bowed out of respect and started moving towards the left side of the road into the jungle. We had checked out with the local refreshment shopkeeper that there was a nice view from a certain point 2 km inside jungle. The place was ideal for tents and mostly foreigners visited the place for hiking and tents. We felt that we hit the right spot on the planet earth since that precisely was the call of the day. There was one serious problem. As per shopkeeper, there were certain instances of bear sightings in the jungle but the frequency was very less.
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