THENGUMARAHADA - 10th to 11th mar 2009

All of a sudden after returning from Mysore (Industrial visit), we the ecowarriors planned for a trek to Thengumarahada on 10th March. 

It is a small village in the foot hills of the Niligiri range near the Bhavani Sagar dam. After the tiresome Industrial visit only 4 were present in the ecowarriors den.  As per our plan we started the trek on March 10th from the ecowarriors camp situated at veerapandi pirivu. This time there was a new addition to the ecowarriors group Mr. Krishna. 

We five started to Mettupalayam bus stand at around 9:15am and reached the bus stand at around 10:00am. Since we did not know the exact timing of the bus to Thengumarahada we went early to the bus stand and waited. 

Saravan kumar and Krishna were asked to stay in the bus stand and were asked to enquire about the bus timing then and there. Sathiesh, Dinesh and Arun went to have their breakfast. 

They had a tasty and delicious breakfast and returned to the bus stand at around 10:40 a.m. All five of us were anxiously waiting for the bus.

Exactly at 11:00 a.m a yellow colored bus arrived at the bus stand and we all boarded the bus. The bus started its journey at around 11:10a.m, towards the most awaited place Thengumarahada. 

After boarding the bus we came to know that the bus starts from Gandhipuram, Coimbatore at around 10:00am and reaches Mettupalayam at around 11:00am. 

Then it starts from Mettupalayam and will reach Thengumarahada at around 1:40 p.m. Sathiesh tried showing us the Bhavani Sagar Dam view point from the bus while we were travelling, it was an amazing view but unfortunately we were not able see the dam. 

We had a very pleasant journey till Bhavani Sagar. We then reached Bhavani sagar bus stand. The bus was on halt for 15 min. The bus got crowded like anything and we had to stick to our seats in order to save a place for sitting.

We then entered the Thengumarahada check post near Bhavani Sagar. From there the route was really bad, it was a sand road which extends till Thengumarahada. We had a lady sitting near us who had returned from Chennai just that morning and she said that Chennai was the cheapest city of all .We had to hear her humbug all through our bus journey. 

Krishna by mistake sat near a window and all through the journey he had his head hitting the ceiling of the bus, lot of bumps were on the road as well as on Krishna’s head. 

The bus was travelling like a boat in the sea. Both side of the road was covered by dry forest. It was a nice experience for us because we have never travelled through such a route. 

It was a time of some regional festival and we had hundreds and hundreds of vehicles and people all around the forest, cooking and making noise and dirtying the place with plastics and unwanted wastes. 

At the same time there was a training camp which was carried out in the forest nearby for the IFS officers. The trek guides for these programs were also travelling with us in the bus and they got down after crossing the power house which is 10 km from the check post.

After a tiresome travel we reached Thengumarahada one of the beautiful places which we were awaiting to visit. There was a beautiful stream which is the Moyar River and we had to cross the stream in order to reach Thengumarahada. 

We had two options to reach the other side, either we can cross the river by a coracle or we can cross by just walking. 

As it was summer and the amount of water was less and even the speed was less. So we choose to cross by walking. 

The coracle is a run by the people who have taken the contract. As there was some regional festival we saw lots of people bathing in the river.

From there we started walking towards the most beautiful town Thengumarahada which was situated at the foot hills of the mountain. Both sides of the roads which lead to Thengumarahada town were greenish with full of paddy fields and mountains. 

This village is surrounded on three sides by mountains and one side by the Moyar River. This village can be seen from Kodanad. 

Ecowarriors are basically very good photographers and started to take snaps as and when they entered Thengumarahada. The sceneries were a real feast to our eye and cameras. 

We were tired, we halted near a coconut farm and had some bread sandwiches. The village had some shops.

We rested for more than 20min and started the journey towards the forest. We entered the forest opposite to the trekker’s accommodation and travelled a small distance. 

We found the skull of a buffalo. It was almost a fresh skull because it stinked. We took some photos.

Due to low light and other constraints we were not able to continue the trek into the forest. A black dog accompanied us all along. 

We had arranged our accommodation through one of our friend Suji, but because of constrains we were not able to get our accommodation. 

Then we had to use our other contacts to get a place to stay. It was around 6:00 p.m when we started to walk towards our place of stay. 

The sun started to descend into the mountains. We immediately switched on our cameras and started taking snaps of the beautiful locations. It was really amazing scenes; there are no words to explain the beauty of nature. 

We took ample number of snaps and reached our place of stay. There was no power in the house .we went to the river and had a nice bath, it was darkening and there were rumors that in the river there were crocodiles and we were scared that it might float to our location and so we left, but Sathiesh was reluctant and stayed for some more time and then came. 

We took rest for some time and around 8:00 p.m we went to have our dinner. We had a delicious dinner. Since there was no power we bought some candles; we lighted the candles and started playing candle light cards which was the only entertainment that we had apart from enjoying the nature and the silence. 

We had a nice time over there by teasing each other and playing cards. After some time around 12:00am we had a small walk outside and we were staying just beside the river itself and so we were a little terrified. 

Elephants and wild boars could come at any moment. So we had a small night watch and went to sleep. Our sleep was disturbed by a rat which was making a lot of noise and as we did not have proper accommodation arrangements we did not have proper bed spread to sleep on. 

We had to adjust with our bed sheets. Anyway we had a nice sleep that night and woke up early in the next day morning.

We freshened up and had a nice photo session in the morning. We saw a jeep crossing the river. We spent some time at the river and crossed the river to reach the bus. 

This time no one was interested in sitting in the bus (there was no place to sit) and so we were hanging at the door steps. 

While travelling along the roads of Thengumarahada we were able to see Deers and Bisons at close proximity. A forest officer of a lower grade boarded the bus. He had a very big mouth. Do our dismay we did not see any elephants or tigers. We reached Mettupalayam and we had our breakfast and returned back to our base camp.

Written by : Saravanan C M, Dinesh

Edited by : Desi

Organiser : Dinesh

Participants : Dinesh, C.M Saravanan, Krishna, Arun, Sathiesh - (5)

Photos By : Dinesh, C.M Saravanan, Arun

No of Photos : 656(approx)

No of Videos : 45(approx)

Database : Central Warrior Base