retreat!

Karan says Sakleshpur!
Krishna says Lonavla chikki!
Wayanad is the Green Paradise in God's own Country (Kerala)

We could've equally ended up in any of those 3 places...

But thanks to a koLLeeg of mine, Kalpetta in Kerala got the kall! Ashwin as usual did his last minute disappearing trick, so it was upto Kris Griz and the manager (naane...) to rock the party rock the party (damn you madhu!!!)

Twas my dad's car which was chosen to be the divine carrier, "Better Homes" in Kalpetta the eventual destination and the lush green, scenic routes of bandipur forest en route to paradise!

Now this hit me during our stay in Kalpetta, but wonder what the motivation was for naming the place "Better Homes". I mean why not Best! Homes ?? And I realized that we had arrived at a land of humble people with modest ambitions...Not too high their goals, just neat, good ol' customer satisfaction...

OR

Maybe at some time there was a "Good Homes", and these guys thought "Good a?! Yenna dai?!!? #&%$@$%@*&$ Lets make ours BETTER homes!"


I seriously think its the latter, but still....

Day 1 was mostly travelling. Krishna jumping up and down, hoping to catch glimpses of slithering snakes and enormous elephants and terrific tigers. Yup he basically wanted all the dangerous creatures to assemble and do an ensemble! His infectious was enthusiasm, and the utter brilliance of the greenery around us certainly helped us, cos we totally lost track of time! Only when we hit Sulthan Bathery at around 3 pm did we realize that we were well past lunch time...

We had breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi on Mysore road. Till then was singin, shoutin, talkin anythin! to keep our hungry selves awake and aware.

Note: When Griz is angry at a fellow vehicle driver on the road, or when he is asked to curse, he will pop his head out and shout out "NAMASKARA!?!?!" at the driver. How amicably rude...

4 pm at Kalpetta, and almost the whole day's gone. No sooner did we get into our 1st floor, 1.5 BHK "better" home, than it started raining! And boy did it rain! And it stopped.
And after it stopped kris n I went out for a walk in our chaddis, where we encountered a poisonous frog.



Sorry, wrong photo...Thats what Griz was doing while we strolled. Artwork courtesy me n kris :D
Here's the frog...


Banasura dam the next day wasn't great shakes.

Except for the photos. "Concept" photos were (are, actually) a running theme whenever a bunch of us get together with a camera. Standing and gazing at the camera, or saying hi or smiling...bore agoithu ri! Jana change keltaare :D

So the concept, of concept photos...For instance, Griz' favorite concept photo (u'll find a lot of 'em in his albums) is for the camera to capture our derrieres, while we're walkin away from the camera. Kris had some wacky! ones...Mine are usually context based and rather clever ( smirk)

Then came the highlight of the trip! Soochippara Falls!! Wiki's description of this natural wonder is short and effective:

"Soochipara Falls is a three-tiered waterfall located 20 km from Kalpetta in Wayanad district in Kerala, India. Its height is 200 metres (656 feet).[1]

This falls is around 22 km (14 mi) from Kalpetta. This is one among different other waterfalls present in Wayanad. But Soochipara falls stands apart. A must visit place if you are in Wayanad."

656 feetu.
200 metresu.
Below that naavu!!

There's something totally, unbelievably, titillatingly fantabulous about getting thwacked, slapped and totally abused by 200 metres of unrelenting,unabashed hydraulic force! Not to mention the soothingly chilling temparature of the water...Oh and also the super slippery rocks en route to the base of the waterfall. Yup, thats where we were, kris in his konservative kapde and other two shameless guys in their undies, totally lost in the sound of the water hitting the rocks...hard...really hard! A mind blowing experience!

So we're moving between borders and reach the karnataka border ( i forget the name of the town) and thats where the nightmare starts. A bigggg stretch of crappy roads, followed by a pathway of just stones, with just the jungle on either side of us. An occasional truck/tempo passing us by with a sym(ply)pathetic look on their faces, while we crawled at 10 Kmph in my poor santro for close to 1.5 hrs. This happened smack bang inthe middle of lunch hour and when Griz is hungry, Griz sings! Oh Kris n I were silent (which means mentally cursing our predicament, our luck and the road among other things) but Griz was singin like Johnny Cash ( :D ). Well it kept our spirits up in some way, and the sight of road with tar on it felt like manna from heaven (phrase, courtesy : Ktk).

5 pm found us rattling off items from the menu in the legendary Dasaprakash Hotel in Mysore. After some critical and severe hogging, we were back on the Bang Mys highway, tired but excited and (me) kinda sad that it was gettin over... (watte cliche! anteera?)

The
End.