Expedition

Once in a year we used to plan and execute an outing. One such an outing to Gudalur and masinagudi, theppakaadu goes here with narration.
Thiags – the hero of the trip initiated and made all arrangements for the trip. It was really an awesome trip he arranged at the same time I shouldn’t go without saying the “sodhapals” he made on booking the train tickets to the location. He booked the ticket on friday morning 7:15 AM instead friday evening 7:15 PM. Somehow we got it cancelled and started the journey through bus. The Crew was 14 in number and Aru (our Ex colleague) joined us in bangalore with tempo traveler. Landed on the spot (masinagudi) at 8:30 AM unveiling our enthusiastic penchant towards the nature.

Got a good accommodation with the help of Aru’s friends and refreshed ourselves to go for the first spot – Maravakandy dam. We were described about the generation of electric power from the water stored in the tank by workmen over there.

It was really a good view we clicked on top of the dam. Enjoyed there about 30 minutes and passed on to take a look at Winch. We are not allowed to take snaps but as usual our defaulters clicked some of the snaps presented here.
We went to a distance view of waterfalls and immersed ourselves in the free flow of river which carried ice flowing as water.
Then we had our heavy lunch where Aru arranged specially for us which consists of 3 kgs of chicken with a good meal including sambar, rasam and two porials. That really filled our stomach served hot and mirchi prepared in log house at masinagudi. The gourmet group includes Durairaj, Rajkumar, Aru and me.
We then ended up in elephant camp where we saw a peculiar mammal.
Magna - Elephant neither a male nor a female (50/50) known for its ruthless amok. The pachyderm has killed 14 members at its demonic behavior, but now got tamed by the camp.
We were then taken to safari in the woods. That was quiet interesting and an event at the ride was breathtaking. We were looking at wild elephants there. The driver under the eager or showing him off raised the accelerator without releasing clutch to irritate the elephant. At one point the furious elephant started chasing our van. We had a great escape and then heard that was the strategy the driver follows to cover the safari riders every time.
We also watched some of the animals such as bison, and deers. We were taken to view Mayur falls amidst the dense woods.
We ended up on the most important event in the evening – nothing other than boozing. Our guys enjoyed the drink and dishes provided by the resort people. Being a teetotaler (at present) I was put to judge a lots and lots of usual unreasonable altercations. It was nice to be a non drinker among drunkards.
The next day morning we went for trekking for a Murugan (deity of beauty and tamil language) temple. There were shrubs and herbs on the both sides of the path forming a fence. We guys spent there around an hour enjoying the hot vadai’s and samosa’s (sponsored by Ganapathy).
We finished our breakfast with good food items which we had long back when we suffered from fever. Yes it’s nothing other than bun and tea. It simply gives a good reminiscence. We then went to falls. We took a nice bath there for an hour and heard by a volunteer that bathing is prohibited since the water is used for drinking purpose.
The team started to Gudalur and finished our lunch (again with chicken biriyani and fish fry). The climate got totally changed. It was raining and our van moved amidst the drizzling. Some of our guys wanted to take a ride on motorbike and they got a chance too
We went to a famous view point where we need to walk a while to reach the same. We guys stepped for a 10 minutes walk where the leaches sticked and climbed on our legs without our knowledge. We enjoyed the view point and botanical gardens, and glass house that hold some plants of medicinal value.
We returned from there towards bangalore to catch up our train to Chennai. In the mid we noticed blood oozing out o Aru’s feet. We stopped the van and made Aru to check for the mishap. For our surprise we came to know that’s due to parasite which sucked the blood without any pain to the host. The issue got revved up and all are expelled from van to check for the leach.
Everyone had their own shares of leaches on their body sucking the blood. We revealed atleast two to three leaches from everybody’s body. The leach was sticking to the thigh of my brother who fell victim to the parasite joining us in the tour.
After separating leaches from us we started our travel. All in the van had the thought of leaches crawling all over our body till we get down at bangalore station. We had our dinner there opposite to the station and entrained leaving Aru and tempo traveler on the spot.
We reached Chennai the next day morning with usual blues about office and work.

For more snaps browse to http://www.flickr.com/photos/27959298@N00/tags/gudalur/