“We didn’t know the language nor had any idea about airports. WE WERE TOTALLY LOST 😥😥😥”
It was a fine morning in the year 2000, i was lying on the shoulder of my mom , she was carrying me and busily walking around the trivandrum international airport (kerela, india) and it was the very day we migrated to salalah, oman. The main point here is its just me mom and my brother who was travelling and it was the first flight experience for 3 of us!!!!.
The idea of moving to a foriegn country was of least interest to me and i was terrible home sick and wasn’t happy with the idea of going away from my grandma, for that 3 year old, migrating means going away forever and never coming back…..
It was the first time we were moving out of india, we had no idea about how a foreign country looked liked and moreover we didnt had any idea about formalities and procedures inside the airport. Mobile phones was not common during that time so we didn’t had one too but my clever dadhad written all the instructions about what all procedures we have to do during emmigration in his last letter! Mom followed his instructions and took the boarding pass and we went to the entrance to bid goodbye to our grandparents , tears started to roll down my eyes but i controlled myself because i don’t want anyone to know that i am weeping.😅
We moved from long queues to long queues to finish the formalities , somehow we finished the procedures and reached the waiting lobby .
The next struggle was the hunger call, there was many cafes which sold food but then only we understood that we made a big mistake , we converted all our indian rupees into omani riyal and we were left with no indian currency for buying food!!!😶 And then came the major problem , i wanna pee!!!🥴 We went out in search for toilet and we didn’t know that our plane had already arrived and people got seated and we was the only missing passengers!!!, the flight attended send a guy to search for us , he walked around the airport calling our names and we unaware of all this went through the other way in search of toilet !!🙆♀️🤦♀️
After half and hour of hide and seek , we met the guy and he guided us to the plane.😅😅😅
old pic of one of our flight journey
The first flight experience was awesome, the sight of huge sea of clouds is still in my eyes , we reached muscat international airport and again the procedures and formalities repeated but this time it was more difficult because the officials knew only arab or english and thier english was having high arab slang so it was much harder to understand!!!😬😬😬
After half hour we hopped on to our next flight it was also a exiting experience and atlast we reached our final destination ‘SALALAH ‘, with a wide smile my dad welcomed us in the entrance of salalah domestic airport.
And hence my life in salalah kick started witha big potfull of biriyani, stay tuned for salalah travel memories, and that was the start of my flight journey which ended me up in travelling in lots of variety flights but my first experience in OMAN AIR was the best!😁
HAVE YOU EVER TRAVELLED IN A FLIGHT?? SHARE YOUR FIRST FLIGHT EXPERIENCE IN THE COMMENT SECTION👇👇👇
Hey, are you a fan of visiting historic places ? then let me introduce you to Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, richest temple in the world!!!
Sreepadmanabhaswamy temple is a temple built in chera and dravidian style with a 16 century gopura and is situated in thiruvananthapuram, kerela ,India. The temple has lord vishnu as the deity and travencore kings are the govering body of the temple.
How to reach
Nearest airport : Trivandrum international airport
Nearest railway station : trivandrum central railway station.
The temple is situated inside the east fort with many other palaces and remains of old city and buildings related to the temple ,east fort is a busy crowded place and bus and other transportation is always avaliable.
TIMING
The temple is open for darshan from 8:30 in the morning to 7:20pm in the evening (timing may change due to covid )
DARSHAN AND TICKETS
Temple has arrangments for free darshan ,special tickets are avaliable at a cost of Rs.150 and with prasadm it costs Rs.180
Due to covid situation ,one should take a online darshan ticket prehand inorder to enter the temple and only limited number of people is allowed inside the temple.
ONLY HINDUS ARE ALLOWED INSIDE THE TEMPLE. FOREIGNERS ARE ALLOWED INSIDE THE TEMPLE ONLY IF THEY PROVE THAT THEY FOLLOW HINDU RELIGION.
WHAT TO WEAR OR DRESS CODE
A strict code should be followed inorder to enter the temple.
MALE
Only dhoti or white mundu is allowed ,if you are wearing a chest cloth (melmundu) then you have to tie it around the waist once you enter the temple.
SHIRT ,TEE SHIRT OR ANY DRESS COVERING THE UPPER PART OFTHE BODY IS NOT ALLOWED.
FEMALE
Women should wear saree or half saree or long skirt and blouse .If you are wearing salwar or churidar or kurthi then you have to tie a dhoti around it.
NO DRESS MAKING THE LEGS LOOK SEPERATED LIKE JEANS ,PANTS ETC ARE ALLOWED.
There are arrangements for buying dhothi and changing dress is available in front of the temple.
CLOAK ROOM AND BAGGAGES
Baggages and electronic gadgets are not allowed inside the temple ,it should be kept inthe cloak roam just outside the temple.
FOOTWEAR IS NOT ALLOWED INSIDE THE TEMPLE AND SHOULD BE KEPT IN FOOTWEAR KEEPING AREA OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE.
Food items are not allowed inside the temple.
A SMALL TRAVEL EXPERIENCE OF MY FRIEND NARRATED BY ME
Its 4pm in the evening, dad was sitting in front of the tv ,news was played in high volume ,he was thrilled and i was too , the news reader with thier crew was eagerly announcing the opening of the secret chambers of padmanabhaswamy temple. People around the world was astonished when they discovered about the huge sea of gold and jewels buried inside the old temple!!!!
Days and months passed by, one fine morning me and my friends decided to take a visit to the famous temple, we woke up in the morning and took a shower, it was 7 in the morning when we reached the main entrance of east fort. The majestic arch stood magnificent and beautiful and it called out the history of travencore kings , i am a person who is fascinated by history and interested in reading, i got to know more about the east fort , the life inside the east fort during the royal period, the life of royal family and the construction of palaces inside and outside the east fort , the relation of royal family and the temple and all from a book called ‘THE IVORY THRONE’ By Manu S Pillai .
There is a busy street inside the east fort which is still on the verge of waking up ,after 8 am the street becomes real busy that you need to have real good driving skills to drive through the street! When i entered through the arch i felt like i am travelling back in time even though there was mordern buildings we could see all kind of kerela traditional style bulidings , palaces and houses of brahmins etc which is not a usual scene outside the fort , there were also many small temples and statues of cows which is related to the main temple and place looks divine !
Traditional style buildings and palaces which now runs as museum inside the fortElephant statue near the temple pond
We reached the front of the temple , vehicles are allowed only at a distance from the main gate of the temple ,baricade is placed and police guards near the starting of temple pond , the temple pond is real massive one but now its restricted to public , there are also buildings which visually merges into the pond water , these chambers are used for storing special materials used for bathing the deity during special occasions and also there is soo many stories about the pond stating that it is divine.
temple pond with buildings near it
On the left side there is temple pond and on right side there is soo many old buildings which has stores which sells flowers and other items needed for rituals in the temple and also there is a cloak room where we can store our valubles while visiting the temple.
Amoung the buildings there is a building which has a bell in between the heads of two goats which is of traditional importance and is called ‘ METHAN MANI ‘.
old building tower with the METHAN MANI
Finally we reached the golden tower of padmanabhaswamy temple its really beautiful since it was early in the morning the place was not that crowded , we climbed through the stairs and reached the entrance where there is a counter from where we could buy special passess, we bought special passes and they in return gave us a silver plate with some fruits and flowers and other offerings for the god , next we passes through a metal detector and had thorough body scaning to rule out any possibility of mobile phones and electronic gadgets.
golden temple tower
I forgot to tell something we are wearing skirt and top because pants is not allowed for both men and women inside the temple, men should wear traditional dhothi and women should wear saree ,davani , skirt and blouse and if you are wearing some dress with pant then you should drape a dhothi around to cover your pants and dhotis are avaliable near the cloak room and changing room is also avaliable.
I was really astonished to see the beautifully carved stone walls of the temple and we were inside the entrance passage which led us into the main square where the main temples and sub temples where located and the passage went around the temple like a square , as we walked through the passage we saw a long queue and it was for darshan. since we had special pass there was no need for us to stand in the queue, we entered through a seperate door and was allowed to stand near the statue of god and have darshan.
The statue of padmanabhaswamy was huge and there were three doors and we could only see the god as three parts through the three doors and it was a divine sight, we went down another stair to a counter were they took silver plate from us and packed the fruits, flowers and prasadham for us along with the aravana payasam( sweet dessert) which is my favorite, we walked through the temple moving from sub temple of one god to another but this time we are not privilaged we should also stand in the long queue for darshan, after all the darshan we sat on a small low wall near the mandapams , i wondered where the nilavaras(secret chambers) was! The place is huge and filled with sand and beautiful ambience it was a pleasure to come and sit on those temple stairs ,this place has a super power to calm the mind of the one who is visiting the place.
Night view of the temple , pic credits the_real_macbeth (Instagram page)
We sat there for a while and called it a day and headed out promising ourself we will surely be back for the lakshadeepam festival(the festival of lamps), WILL YOU BE VISITING THIS PLACE SOON????
If you are interested in travelling , then let me take you to malamel para ,a beautiful local tourist destination in kerela, india. FOR THE COMPLETE VIDEO CLICK ON THIS ICON
It was a warm day ,after a full fletch working week i felt like i need to relax a bit , when i thought of walking into nature , many options crashed into my brain but the most beautiful and safest place crashed into me very last! Finally we fixed malamel rock for our evening trip.
It was 4 in the evening when we reached the place, its almost calm and quiet ,there was a few people around and the place had sign boards placed by the kerela tourism department . I was visiting the place for the first time , many people including keralites don’t even know that such a place exists !!!
We parked our car near a dividing road , its the last point till where four wheelers can go , we walked past small temples, even though this is a developing tourist place, this place was known to the locals including my father and his friends from thier childhood, they used this place as a hangout area when they used to bung clasess from school!!!.
There was not much distance for us to walk ,soon we reached in front of a dividing road again, one road leads to malamel temple and the other lead to malamel hill top, we took the second one because we want to enjoy as much as we can before getting dark.
We walked a little to reach a check post like area ,dad went to take tickets while i stood thier enjoying the veiw ,as he came back he was mumbling to himself , he was kind of astonished to see the place modified and having a ticket counter and not even in his childhood wild dreams he thought that such transformation would happen to this place!
I was just wonder struck to see the veiw , i never expected this much beauty in this small place, clouds floated above my head as if it was a endless sea of white wool and it just streched across the horizon as if it will never end.
Malamel rock is not just a single rock ,its a group of rocks and each rock has its own name, there were benches made of cement for people to sit and relax , we sat in one of those benches and relaxed for a while , it was just mind blowing!!!.
After resting for a while , we stood up and was ready to climb the upper rocks, the rocks laid intermixed with tall grassess and climbing up took a little time ,as we go further up , climbing and walking became a little bit more difficult for the older people so we rested in between, enjoyed the veiw and walked again , standing in one rock and looking up make us feel that the clouds are soo near and if we just climb one more rock we could just touch them!!!
Now the time is almost 5:30pm it started to become darker and the the sun is seting and clouds looks like golden pillows arranged in the beautiful sky above me, we climed down the hill, the place is now more crowded ,we went to the cafeteria and bought icecreams, the very next thing i could remember was me surrounded by a bunch of monkeys, the place is full of monkeys now , they waited near us for getting icecream , some monkeys were soo huge and some were babies, the huge ones terrorized the smaller ones and took icecreams and all from them.
I spotted a little monkey who was handicapped and was terrorized by the bigger ones and didn’t get anything to eat, i felt sad for him and gave him my half empty icecream cone to him, he was superhappy and i was too and i waited near him and watched him untill he finish the full icecream.
Its time for us to go back and its getting dark, we walked past the malamel temple, this temple is considered divine due to its close proximity to jadayupara.According to hindu religion there is a huge bird called jadayu who once carried a rock on his wings and the rock fell down and malamel para is considered as that very rock!!! Locals say this is a very divine temple with five doors and the god is really powerfull!
And we bid goodbye to this beautiful place which made my evening wonder full, the place reminded me of my wagamon trip , you can check this out if interested, also let me know how you felt after visiting this place in comment box.
SUMMARY
Location : 15 minutes away from anchal(kollam district , kerela , india)
Nearest railway station :kollam railway station.
Bus service is available but it is better to go in private vehicles than depending on public ones.
Entry by taking ticket ( ticket rate negligible)
Cafeteria is available inside for buying snacks and water.
Hey all i am gonna take you through a offroad wagamon (India)journey, for knowing the details of the place check the summary at last of the page and if you wanna see the full video do click here..
It was a fine morning ,we all were really exited because its the first one day trip after lock down and we climbed up the hills through the curvy roads…
entrance of wagamon meadows
We passedby beautiful veiwpoints and small waterfalls and reached the main destination-wagamon meadows, first we are gonna explore this place then we will start our offroad ride.The wagamon meadows have a ticket counter and the ticket rate is negligible.
We started to walk through the paved path of wagamon meadows ,there is around 14 hills in this compound we walked and walked and walked,posed for some pictures and then again walked.
paved paths of wagamon meadows
We walked and walked but soon got exhausted, it was december ,the time when the wagamon hills used to be covered fully with fog but due to the burevi cyclone which hit few days back the complete climate of the place changed and it became really hot !!!.
The hills streched endlessly in front of us,the thing which surprised me most was the cows! They just roamed freely as if they were owned by no one they just moved as they like and i wish everyone in this world had this freedom.
wagamon meadow lake
Atlast after a few hours of walk we reached the lake , it is the end point of those fourteen hills, everything was beautiful expect the hot sun!we rushed back to the entrance to start our offroad trip.
just some random shop selling things for the touristshops selling homemade chocolates
The entrance had few shops selling hats and dolls for tourists and some sells homemade chocolates ,we brought a pack of chocolates and headed towards our jeap.
our safari jeep ,the jeep jounrney charge is RS 2000
And now we started our offroad trip!, our driver guy was a nice man he started to explain to us about the journey and the places we are gonna visit and so on, he was a really friendly man, we headed to our first destination.
Destination1: Illadenkunnu
We bounced and bounced inside the jeep as the jeep climbed up through an untarred forest road,suddenly the driver took the jeep to a clear space in the top of the hill and done a skidding rotation with the jeep and i was hanging like a monkey in mid air inside the jeep!. Our first destination is called Illadenkunnu named after a tribal man and its a beautiful meadow.
DESTINATION 2:VELLARAMKUNNU
Our driver started to explain,”this place is like meeshapulimala it is covered in the fog in morning and night and only tip of the mountains are seen at that time, people are allowed to enter here but if tribals find them lighting fire then they will be screwed because if something catches fire then the full forest will be burned to ashes by forest fire.
Destination3:idukki dam backside veiw
The next place we went is the veiw point where we can see the backside of idukki dam,its a large dam in kerela and its the source of water and electricity for people of kerela.
On our route to different places we saw many small tea plantations and they are owned by tribal people ,in local language its called parembukolenthu which means backyard plantation ,its market rate is very high because the tea is of high quality and there are many well educated tribals in this forest and i was really surprised to hear this!!!
Destination4:KSEB manmade canal
On the way to the destination no 4 we came in front of a river with cold water the water from this river flows into the idukki dam.
kseb manmade canal
The canal is 5kms long and is manmade, the canal was made for transporting water for generating electricity, we can walk through the canal,we just went few meters inside and came back.
Its pitch black inside the canal, i used my flash light to see, the canal is full of bats and thete are even people who walked 1km inside the cave but i was not ready to do so.
Destination 5:suicide point
Like everyother suicide point in hill stations of kerela ,this place was really mindblowing, the place with its clouds and yellow sky and the sunset… the place was seriously romantic!!!
We headed back to wagamon meadows the place from where we started our offroad ,its only 4pm in the evening but its almost dark and foggy.
Its cold right now and foggy , the sight of fog descending down is beautiful ,slowly and slowly i was merging into the beauty but its time to leave this place behind ,we got into the car and started off but inside my mind i made a small promise to this place-“i will come back to see u”.
Ksrtc bus service is avaliable but not frequent, its better to use car for reaching the place.
JEEP : There is no need for prebooking the jeep, jeep is easily avaliable and mostly you can find them near the checkpost at the beginning of wagamon or in the front of wagamon meadows.
COST OF JEEP : Rs 2000 for a jeep which can accomodate a maximum of 7 person(rate won’t decrease with decreasing the no of people), this rate is for the 3 hours to and from journey
ITS A BEAUTIFUL EXPERIENCE AND I RECOMMEND YOU TO VISIT THIS PLACE.
Come along and let me take you to trivandrummuseum, in the heart of city trivandrum ,where history merges with present.
It was a bright and sunny day even though its December 1 , i woke up that morning fresh as a morning flower because its the very next day after the exams ended and we needed to relax and wanna go into nature to bid bye to those sleepless nights and stress .As always when we thought of a outing the first place which came into our mind was TRIVANDRUMMUSEUM.
common entrance for both museum complex and zoo
TRIVANDRUMMUSEUM also called NAPIERMUSEUM is situated 15 minutes away from where we stay, it is in the center of the TRIVANDRUMCITY and easily accessible by bus (detailsof thelocation and how to acess the place will be given in summary).
We reached there almost at late morning ,the museum complex contains a zoo also ( click here to read that blog https://wp.me/pcpPxZ-2y)
The best part of being in museum complex is its greenary and the way history merges with nature,when we went through the gate ,a thick green canopy welcomed us ,the first thing we did was, find a place to sit .Usually the grass will all be crowded and its the heaven for couples because in India unlike western countries ,we won’t entertain unmarried couples roaming around!!!!(but i don’t agree with that mentality).But thos place is much more couple friendly.
The oldest living rubber tree in kerela which travencore king Vishakam thirunal bought from ceylon is still here in this park.
People usually come here for many purposes, some comes here for fun like me and my friends,some do combine study in nature some just walk around hand in hand and soo on ,but napier museum ground is a emotion for everyone.
We talked and talked for hours ,from gossips to politics to every otherthing that came in between and after that we took some good photos of us and nature ,filmed some videos for my youtube channel and my henna page and my travel page.
After a few hours of rest we went to the restaurant inside the compound and had some yummy biriyani and lemonade.The next aim is to visit the main museum building.
The napier museum is a art museum which was build and opened on 1855 ,the orignal building was demolished in 1874 and this new building was build in the same place ,you may be wondering why this weird western name for a Indian building! The building was named after lord napier, governer of madras (British India).
In the picture you can see horse shaped wooden works resembling the ones in kuthira maalika palace.
The building was designed according to indo sarcenic style with gothic roofs and minarets and i am soooo fond of this building there is a fountain in front and back of this building and the building has its own natural cooling system.
ancient canon from travencore dynasty
The museum opens at 10 am and closes at 4:30 pm and has a very low entry fee ,we stepped into the museum it was beautiful and cool inside ,the architecture was awesome ,from outside it seems that the building is double storied but stepping inside you will understand its just single storied with a small balcony like upper floor (camera is notallowed inside otherwise i would have filmed it for you) and this building reminds me of the chineesesummerpalace situated in kollam kerela which is in ruins now!!!.
little hut like building near the main one
I was exited to see the ancient collection of ornaments, bronze idols ,chariots and the throne which showed the richness of culture of travencore and its kings. The place also contains small hut like bulidings nearby which contains beautiful carvings and the place is rich with trees and flowering plants and i saw a underground room in one building whoes purpose is not known.
children’s park – my weakness
Now its time to checkout other museums, we walked a little through the never ending pathway but was distracted by the childrens park (childrens play space is still a weakness for me) we roamed around a little and tried to get into one of the slides and was scolded publicly by the guards.
The next thing we came across is the naturalhistory museum, as the name suggests its a cool building with skeletons and stuffed birds showing evolution and its a paradise for the science lovers.
Next to natural history museum is Sree Chitra Art Gallery ,a building specially meant for art lovers which displays art works of RAJA RAVI VARMA and also mughal and tanjore art.
Did you see the little one right below the carving ,i think she got confused with the real fish and carvings 😂😂😂
The last place to visit was a beautiful one ,its all decorated with fish carvings ,fish statues and mermaids -the aquarium, i am a kind of person who is damn fond of pets so that i enjoyed it soo much.
And its almost late evening and time for us to head back to hostel ,it was a pretty awesome day!!! Even though i have been here for a thousand time nothing bored me and everything seemed new to me 😁 if you get time, do come to my trivandrum and visit trivandrum museum and let me know how you felt!!!
Summary
Location: trivandrum,kerela ,india
HOW TO REACH
Nearest airport :trivandrum international airport
Nearest railway station: trivandrum central railway station
Nearest bustop: Pmg bus stop
(plenty of bus ,auto and uber is available and is easy to reach the place since its in the heart of the city.)
Entry fee is there for individual museum buildings
Timing :8am to 4:30pm
A PLACE WHERE CULTURE AND HISTORY MEETS THE NATURE!!!
Hey all,planning to visit TRIVANDRUM ZOO (kerela ,India),then here is a compleate guide for what you can see and do in trivandrum zoo and i am sherin and i have been to this place for a hundred times and the last the visit was few days ago! So if you wanna watch my travel video then check this out .
HISTORY
common entrance of zoo
The zoo contains around 55 acres of woodland,lakes and lawns .
The Travencore ruler ,SWATHI THIRUNAL RAMA VARMA had a huge collections of animals including lion ,cheetah,deer etc in his horse breeding centre,he give his collection to his brother UTHRADAM THIRUNAL MARTHANDA VARMA, he along withbritish resident general CULLEN opened museum for the public in 1857.
But they understood that museum along couldn’t attract much public so they made a seperate zoo and opened it in 1859
At first the animals was all caged ,later they understood the need for protection of animals and thier natural habitat and lead to the current naturilistic way.
TIMING
clock room is available for storage of baggage
Opening time: 9am
Closing time: 5pm
MONDAY IS A HOLIDAY
Ticket rate : Rs 20per adult
Special packages are avaliable for family and group with less than 35 members,seprate money should be paid for camera.
If you don’t want to walk ,bungee is available.
Nearest airport : trivandrum international airport
Nearest railway station: trivandrum central railway station
Bus ,taxi or uber ,auto is easily available to this place and its in the heart of the city.
AMBIANCE
The place is full of trees and greenary and gives you a good vibe.
There is a good amount of creative statues.
It the best place to get blend to the beauty of nature
The place refreshes both your body and soul.
ANIMALS
Trivandrum zoo contains both endemic and other animals.
It contains mainly lion tailed macaque,nilgiri langer,indian rhinocerous,asiaticlion,royal bengal tiger,white tiger,leopard,asian elephants,giraffes,hippos, zebras,cape buffallos and list goes on.
Royal bengal tigerhippopotamus white siberian tiger
BIRDS
There is a huge variety of birds like ostrich,scarletmacaw,green wingedmacaw,indianpeafowl,whitespoonbill,greater flamingo,king vulture,emu,rhea and lot more.
REPTILES
There is a seperate part called reptile house which contains a wide variety of snakes and turtles.
green anaconda – the man eater snake
The reptile house is made in such a way to stimulate the effect of real creapy dark forest.
eel fish
BUTTERFLY PARK
Thisis the most recently made renovation in the trivandrum zoo,a place witha bridge completely meant for butterflies and is soo beautiful and provides ys with positive energy.
HABITATS
They have done thier level best for making different habbitats which are suitable for different animals .
There are many lakes and artificial ponds to sustain different life forms
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
If you are very poor in recognizing birds and animals ,then there boards which gives detailed information of each and every animals,bird and reptile.
And there is no need for you to carry snacks because there is a small shop inside which sells tea ,coffee and snacks ,there is also paid toilet for both Male and female.
SUMMARY
Trivandrum zoo is the best place for a one day trip and you can just walk around in nature for whole day long and see around 82 species of animals ,birds and reptiles .The ticket rates are negligible and the place gives positive energy to both your body and mind,the only thing to keep in mind is MONDAY IS A HOLIDAY for zoo.
SO WHAT’S YOUR PLAN,ARE YOU GONNA VISIT THE ZOO???
It was 25 December 2019 , yes the chirtmas day!!! We were heading on to the nearby hill station situated in trivandrum, kerela,India. You may be wondering why am travelling on a christmas day without celebrating Christmas at home , if you check the calender ,there is only a few days marked holiday in it and one of them is christmas and that is the only time when me and my dad gets a day off ( but still my brother was busy with other works and couldn’t join us) and being a passionate travel family we mostly celebrate every occasion travelling to beautiful places.
This time we choosed ponmudi (golden hills) hill station because it was a good destination for 1 day trip and its not the first time i am visiting that place ….
We moved through the regular roads to ponmudi when a sudden idea flashed on to my mind, what if there is something else to see in this place and grabbed my phone and typed -” places to visit near ponmudi” and to my surprise there came a long list of places from which we choosed a fancy place- MEENMUTTY WATERFALLS.
We headed through the roads our google map guided us and we reached a place where we could see a large gate ,a check point and a board showing ” WELCOME KERELA FOREST DEPARTMENT ECOTOURISM KALLAR” .
It was almost noon by the time when we reached this place ,we ate lunch from the nearby hotel and went to the gate ,at the gate they gave us a pass and recorded our car number and the number of people inside it..our car moved in and after a few metres the tarred road ended and we started to move through a narrow dusty road and we came in front of a small shallow river like waterbody with pebbles and boulders and wondered if we should park our car and walk on ,then a car came crossing the river and we decided to move across the river in the car ,as it was Christmas day , the place was really crowded and it took us 20 minutes to move just few meters to block and giving side for other vehicles. At a point a officer stopped us and asked us to park our cars in the parking lot and move by foot because it is the limit till where vehicles can go.
The parking space was almost full and there was a park for kids attached to the parking lot, we walked through dusty unleveled narrow road for a few meters and reached the bank of a river.On one side there was crystal clear water flowing by kicking through the boulders and people happily enjoying the cold water and the little natural pools in the river by swimming and bathing in the water and on other side there were huge boulders and a small shop selling water,juice and some snacks.
when i looked forward there was a sign board showing the direction of meenmutty water falls and a small path went in the direction and disappeared behind some boulders. Dad rested on one of the boulders and me and my mom moved on in the direction showen by sign board thinking that waterfalls was just some what behind the boulders… we both walked and climbed mud and rock steps but the path went as it never ends….
At first we walked through a dusty path and on the sides there were wash rooms for tourist and we moved forward, first it was a small slope and we reached a narrow path were there were bamboo fence on one side and we can see the river clearly and on other it was just tress and bushes,the path was too narrow that people can move only in one direction. Then we started to move down the slope and the dusted floor was really slippery with loose pebbles and stones,then more slopes came and we climed up and climbed and then there were twisting and curving flat path also.
There was natural forest on both sides and when we moved on we could see trees with huge roots twisting into different shapes on both sides and somewhere even on the middles of the path and like every other visitor we too sat on those roots and clicked pictures,huge trees where everywhere ,some trees had roots which was naturally made into steps on some slopes ,even though we were walking through dense forest and the air was fresh and filled with sounds of different creatures we didn’t get that compleate feel of walking through forest because of the huge number of tourists present there that day.we walked and walked and walked but we didn’t see any waterfall or any sign of it ,there was no mobile range in that area and its hours since we started walking and when we started walking we were like its just a few metre walk just go see the waterfall and come back snd head on to ponmudi , but now its hours of walking and we are in the middle of nowhere, we kept on asking the people coming in the opposite direction about waterfall and they were like its not at all near and we have to walk much more distance .
As we moved forward the slopes became steeper and steeper and in front there were huge rocks looking like hills standing upright as if they were placed there with help of some crane and some of them had natural concavities where you could stand and take pictures,some of the rocksstood in such a way that it acted as a kind of unbrella or shield and stone and cement benches were placed beneath the rock forpeople to rest. And in someplaces rope were tied forpeople to hold onand get support while walking through slopes.
As i told at the beginning ,we were not expecting a trek and didn’t wear dress or footwers accordingly and it was hard for to walk through the slippery path and also we didn’t had any water stocked to drink..As we moved forward the sound of water flowing became more clear and it had a soothing effect. We reached a place werethere was a steep sownward slope but this time it was tightly and loosly packed with stones looking like steps and huge boulders was all over the place.
It was a little bit hard for my mom to climb down those steep steps ,when we reached down we were standing in front of a naturalbridge across the river, we can’t say it is a proper bridge, there were stones and pebbles arranged in the floor of the river and a rope was tied across the river along with that so that people could walk across the bridge by getting support from the rope, there was a life guard standing the bridge and he was trying hard to avoid crowding in the middle of the bridge and then also some people crossed the rope and tried to bath in the river and thelife guard was pissed off and was blowing the whistle hardly ,i was very fond of walking through fresh cold water and walked through the brigde two to three times,mom was really afraid with me doing that,the place had a history ,a few years back they have opened the dam without and informing as nd the waterlevel raised in the river and so many tourist crossing this bridge wrre washed off and died.
We crossed the bridge and moved forward and again walked and walked and walked and atlast reached a the waterfalls…. the waterfall was not that big but it was beautiful and the water had small fishes it and the crystal clear water was really cold .The atmisphere was soothing and rejuvenating and we spend alittlebitmoretime there.
It was time for us to turn back and walk ,this time we walked back thise 2 km in a little more hurry because it was about to rain heavily and my dad was sitting alone iver there . When we reached at the place where dad was sitting the first thing i could remeber is buying a pepsi and talking a huge gulp of it . It was 5′ o clock in the evening we got into our car and headed on to ponmudi road but unfortunately we were stoped by the police because ponmudi hills were crowdedwith people and it can accommodate no more people and nobody was allowed to go so we headed back home… it was really pleasent feeling when i returned home and if you arelooking for a perfect one day trip spot this is one of the best one !!!
It was 3 in the morning , my alarm went live and i tried to force open my eyes , i was so tired and i was travelling and exploring for past 5 days ,my eyes was half closed but i could see my friends rushing around busily getting ready to head to nandi hills . Me and my friends was on a 7 days college tour and this was the last day at banglore ,i slowly lifted my body up and thought for a second .. “its just yet another hill just like the ones i have visited in my travel life” …. hessitantly i wokeup and got dressed up and vaccated our room and went down to the bus, always me and my friends are the last one to arrive but this time we were the first to reach ,everybody was getting down to the bus , in a few minutes the bus was unlocked and we rushed on to our seats ,it was totally dark inside and we all dozed off to sleep.
All of a sudden i just opened my eyes ,my friend sitting next to me was trying to wake me up, our bus was climbing up a hill ,its not fully morning yet but still we could see the beauty around , bus stopped at a entrance and we all got out , small vehicles can only go further up from there so we have to walk, the entrance place was filled with small tea shops selling snacks, tea and coffee and there was only a small number of people other than us but there was a huge group of monkeys out there !!! We walked fast because our main aim was to watch the sunrise ,the sun have almost rised ,the rays started to fill the dark sky so we walked as fast as we can .
When we walked upwards through the tarred road there was a entrance point but this time it was not a mordern parking space and coffee area it was huge fort wall and gate which was built almost a few hundred years back during the reign of the Mysore king -Tippu Sultan. Atfirst in the hotel room when i thought of nandi hills all i could think was hill top like ponmudi or munnar with tea plantations and barren grass hill tops but now i understood i was wrong …. the place was filled with lush greenflora , there was also many trees and many varieties of cactus was growing near the old fort wall… and then we moved on and reached a place where tree houses all made of wood was situated ,there was not just one but many and also there was hanging stairs and wooden bridges connecting them..
We walked as fast as we can ,as we moved towards the top the climate become more colder but atmosphere was so refreshing with fresh air and mild cold breeze and the fresh smell of green grass was giving a overall high positivity ..the road went up twisting and curving and branching at some places we took short cuts by climbing the the rocks and grass to reach the upper part of our road ,as the road was branching we also splitted ourselves and went on as small groups.
Finally we reached a spot where we could see the golden sun rising up into the beautiful dark sky , it was a mesmerising veiw i couldn’t take my eyes off it was soo divine ,for a while we stood there watching the beauty then we moved on to explore the place. The place was really huge and lot to explore we didn’t know where to start and where to move ,so we moved on taking random roads and roads that took us to another and another and another.. we were like going around in a circle enjoying the beauty ,on one side there were rocky ground and mesmering veiws of the nearby hills and the sky looked as if it was painted by a expert !!! There were metal benches placed in the rocksfor us to enjoy the overwhelming beauty.
And on the other side it was lush green and there was also steps leading into more lush green , we started to climb those steps..as we moved forward everything became more greener and there was big trees and sunlight slitted through the canopy giving a tindal effect , there were many species of plants which i couldnt recognize, there were more benches made with cement for us to rest and when we moved forward we entered through a arch covered totally with plants and in front there was a heart made of plants placed on a big gardening pot.
The steps and the small roads were now made of stone blocks like the fort wall we saw earlier.when we walked foward we came across a beautiful white building and it had a beautiful garden in front and it contained many white decorative models like swans etc ,it was tippusultans and later british took over the bulding and made it british raj’s summer rest house and now its a hotel but it was totally closed and was prevented from local tourist entering inside the fenced garden. Nandi hills has a big historical importance ,this was one of the valuable posession of tipu sultan and breaking into nandi hills was considered a big victory for other forces. Now this place contains many flora and fauna which belong to rare species and some are endemic to western ghats and the only other place you can find them is nandi hills.
A sudden distraction from the lush beauty came in the form of a phone call, it was my brother he have been in banglore before and have also visited the place before ,when i told him i am in the middle of nandi hills ,the first question he asked was ‘have you visited nandi yet ?’ And thats the moment when i realised that i have missed the major part, the nandi temple !!!! The nandi hills was huge and there was no sign board so we seeked help from Google map,we startedto walk as the map said we walked and walked and walked and atlast there i am standing in front of a 1300 years old hindu temple dedicated to lord shiva ! The name if hills was said to be nandi hills because of two reasons one is because there is nandi temple and the second is because the hill is said to be having the shape of bull. The temple was bulid on a huge black rock and had a large temple pond, there was a man standing outside the temple to keep our footwears and the temple pond was a big one with a lot ancient stories living with it , a lit bit away from the compound wall, outside the temple there is again statue of nandi ,the mount of lord shiva and according to Hinduism if we have any wish just tell that secretly on the ears of nandi and the wish will be fulfilled and we too told our wishes to nandi.
Its almost time for us to climb down we slowed moved in some random path , the sun is almost fully rised
We tried to walk through the road going through the edge of the hills ,there is still the old fort wall going around with high metal fence on them,and there was many look out places created in the fort wall and the veiw through them was pulling me back to nandi hills again
we moved downwards and reached the parking ground , now its filled with people , there were many couples and riders and there was also people who came for thier morning walks and the teashop all became live , we bought some coffee and snacks and sat on some avaliable space , there were a huge group of monkeys roaming around ,some were small some were big and some were even caring babies ,they were searching each and every bin for food and they opened the frooti covers and snacks packets like humans dos and was also chasing some stray dogs ,some where even fighting with other monkeys ,i was too afraid to take out my camera and click a pic of the monkeys because they are likely to snatch my camera if i dare to do that!
After a few minutes of group photo shoot we bid goodbye to nandi hills ,even after this 11 months passing by still i can hear each of this picture speaking and i can feel the cool breeze and natural soothing smell of green grass ,if you like to travel you should surely visit this place one day because nandi hills is a mixture of a history, architecture and natural beauty all mixed in postive vibes !!!.
