Job´ber`nowl`-ism

My father-in-law was home for a week and he along with us wanted to meet my uncle who is in Pollachi. Me and my wife hadn't been to his place after marriage, which is considered to be a custom. Straight away I made plans to try the new route which i had not been through. In addition to that, we also planned to go Munnar from there and make it an extended 2 day trip.

So the route was :

Tripunithrua -> Ezhattumugham -> Athirappilly -> Sholayar ->Valpparai -> Aliyar -> Pollachi -> Udumalpett -> Chinnar -> Eravikulam -> Munnar -> Tripunithura

This is probably the best route in South India. 2 states and 4 main types of vegetations. In fact I guess Chinnar it self had 6 sub vegetations. We were off to see tall trees, hence we kept off from the tall buildings of the city and took the western route via Ezhattumugham to Athirappilly.

Renjini found this tree - made it a photo point :)

Athirappilly, though was not at her fullest was interesting this time as there were locations where i could recall scenes from Baahubali, including the fallen tree where he Shivu draws the face with the mask. Renjini did enjoy the full view of the falls. In fact I carried a bottle of 7up and a bottle of water. As we walked up back to the exit, I felt someone pulling the bottle in the right hand. I turned around and it was a monkey followed by another monkey. And the second one came to me fast onto me for the water bottle. Heads up!! Never carry food when you go there. If you really want to, then take it in a covered bag.

We started from Athirappilly by around 3, reached the checkpost in another 15 minutes. And then, its probably only in 5 minutes that you could see a vehicle coming opposite you. Before reaching Sholayar, I stopped in a few placed to record a few ambiences (Will post them after editing). We stopped near the Sholayar valve house.


Started driving again. As we approached the border we started to feel hungry. When we reached the check post, I asked an officer there as to where I could get some food. He said "There are a few hotels nearby but all places are shut to express condolances to APJ Abdul Kalam who died the previous." Even though we had to stay hungry till Pollachi, we never felt that, as we enjoyed the whole stretch. The 40 hair-pin bends (probably the highest number after Kolli Hills) overlooking the Aliyar Reservoir extremely beautiful. As it was almost dark, we didnt stop by the monkey falls.

Valparai

Aliyar Hair Pins

We camped at Pollachi for the night and started for Munnar via Udumalpet. As like all roads leading to Kerala, even this road leading to Kerala was in a pretty bad condition. Now, this is a totally different vegetation, very much dry It was nothing new for Renjini, as she was brought up in the middle east.