On the long weekend of Good Friday we had a trip to Waynad. The trip was rather impromptu to the extent that we only booked tickets to/from Bangalore and talked to a cab driver to pick us up from Yashwantpur station. On the Wednesday evening we kinda finalized that Waynad is going to be a good option in this season compared to Humpi or Mysore and around. We rented a tempo traveller from Bangalore as we were 7 in number and a car would be uncomfortable.
Waynad's wikipedia/wikitravel article gave enough information to help us decide. The place is pretty cool throughout the year with peak temperature of 35 and min of 20 degrees celcius. On arriving we did find it true.
The distance from Bangalore to Waynad is around 240 KM and should have taken 5 hours or so but the calculations didn't work good enough :). Starting at around 8:30 AM from the station we finally arrived in Waynad at around 6:30 or later. Yeah couple of things went wrong. Based on experience of my last trip to
Ooty, Mysore etc. I suggested stopping over at Kamat restaurant on Bangalore-Mysore road. This time the restaurant was too busy. It took us around 1.5 hours to get basic breakfast down and it sucked because of poor service.
Then we stopped at McD which was just 10-15 KMs away from Kamat for some good food. Like all McD's there isn't much that can go wrong, they were fast and efficient in providing us food even though we had to wait for getting seated. Another 1.5 hours gone. Post this the stops weren't too big until we came at the Kerala border. The driver was trying to be extra smart making us pay 1000 Rs to him when the fees was just 380 Rs for 7 days visit. Lots of time was wasted here because of improper papers our driver had or something else, the police official did want to clarify that everything done was as per rules and "Of course I will give you a reciept this is not Karnataka boss, this is Kerala".
Before/After(?) the checkpost came we were able to see some wildlife as the road goes through the forest, We saw Elephants quite a few of them around 3 groups probably all of them were about to cross the road when we saw them. Later during our actual safari in the Waynad wildlife sanctuary we saw one additional animal species the deers and nothing else. As they said if you are luck you can see leopard, bison, tiger etc. but my experience with most safaris say you hardly get lucky ever :D
Our stay was in Sultan Bathery the first city that comes on our route, around 12 KMs before the more famous Kalpetta city. Later in the evening when we went out for dinner most shops were closed by 9 PM, someone suggested that it was because of Good Friday. As I said in my other
post about Kerala festivals aren't the best time to be in Kerala as tourists. We at the Sagar restaurant where we could get Kerala specialities, the Parantha and the Fish curry and other non-veg stuff. The later part of the evening was spent playing "Bang".
The next day we went to the Eddakal caves, much more than the cave part we enjoyed treking towards the cave and then hiking on the hill across the cave. As we kept climbing we could see clear panormic view of the surroundings and as is well know Kerala's mesmerizing beauty made up keep going despite the improper and uneasy route upwards and downwards.
Post this we went to the Soochipura Waterfalls where we spent lot of time treking and then sitting right under the water falls posing for photos and fighting for the right spot to sit or stand. Not to mention before we started the trek for the fall we at a the proper lunch in form of Maggi noddles and omelets for some. Like at all other places the concept was to eat enough to make sure you "
vasule" you contributions to the pool :P
That was it it was around dark and we headed back to Hotel after having our dinner at another restaurant in Sultan Bathery very close to our hotel. Again we couldn't get the veg specialities like Apam and Iddiapam and had to eat the regular north Indian kind of food except for the Laccha parantha.
Next day we took safari at the Waynad wildlife sanctuary. There isn't much we saw there as I already mentioned. Post this we headed on to Mysore where we spent time at Srirangpathnam visiting the Tipu Sultan's summer fort which is now made a museum, It liked it quite a bit though it was small the painting were quite well documented and informative. We also went to see the placed where Tipu's body was found in his last war. Soon we were on our way to Bangalore and then back to Hyderabad.
I remember going to Kalpetta, Sulthan Battery (Bathery) and some other places in Waynad when I was working in Kirloskar Chennai as part of my market survey !! -- Shrenik
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ReplyDeleteKerala is known as the God’s Own Country. It is situated between Lakshwadeep Sea and Western Ghats. It has Karnataka to its north, Arabian Sea to its west and Tamilnadu to its east.
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Lovely post. Thanks for sharing. Soothing green jungles and plantations, giddying hill peaks, a colorful flora and fauna life, and captivating historic artifacts dating right back to the New Stone Age - Wayand charms one effortlessly. Check out best Wayanad tour packages also.
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