60 hrs TRIP TO OOTY VIA PILLUR DAM - 13 mar to 15 mar, 2009

This was a real memorable trip. We had 4 bikes with 8 people ( Aswath, Dinesh, Sathiesh, C M Saravanan, Suresh , Vikram, Chandru, Arun) started off to Manjakombai in the Niligri range. It was for attending the marriage of our beloved friend and class mate “HEMA PRIYA” . Manjakombai was her home town and her father is an employee of HPF.


Day 1:

We started off from Periyanaikanpalayam (Coimbatore ) via the pillur dam through Manjur and then to Manjakombai. From Karamadai we have to take a left and just drive asking directions for the pillur dam route. There is a check post at the foot hills and we have a forest guard .We have to persuade him and get the entry through the check post. It is because this is a forest route and this route is known for elephants. Till reaching the next check post it would be a carful and slow drive,expecting elephants at all the turns. But to our bad luck we have never met with an elephant in this route. We have gone through this route a number of times.

We came across a number of settlements on our way. We crossed a bridge and were planning to bath near the bridge, when suddenly a forest guard came from the bus stop near by and warned us that elephant might be coming at any moment for water as there was a heavy down pour the previous night. So we had to abandon our plan and continue with our trip.

Ah the most awaited second check post came. This serves as a border for Kerala also. There is an entry from this junction towards Anakatti( kerala) as well as to Niligri range, our destination.

We are yet to take the Anakatti route, may be some time sooner. Again we had to persuade the forest officer to let us pass through the check post. At both the check posts we were heavily checked for liquor and cigarettes. They were strictly prohibited (thats what they say). Then we started our journey again. All of us were very hungry and also we did not buy much to eat. We had only limited sandwiches which we shared, of course I should mention about C M Saravanan buying a sandwich at double the price from Arun in the middle of the forest.

Again we had to cross another small bridge which was filled with lots of water. It was fun... Aswath was getting desperately hungry and at the same time wanted to consume as many sandwiches as possible, just like Dinesh. So the food package was carefully tackled and brought to Aswath’s hand. We found a nice spot, near a stream were we sat and had our snacks.

As we were having our snacks we realized that we were not alone, but we were being watched by someone... Chandru found out that the monkeys in that location was checking us out. Chandru got mad and shouted “CKM” … too bad that we did not capture it in our video, all the monkeys in that location including the baby monkeys fled from that place. CKM was the name of our University staff. At least he was useful in this manner.

After having snacks we started and the scenery through Pillur-Manjur route is really breathtaking. With no vehicle and no humans around us we were the owners of the place. The very bad and the best habit with ecowarriors is that their vehicle speed will not exceed 30 km in the forest locations. If it were possible these guys will push the vehicle and come (enjoying the nature).

Photo freaks – that would be a better name for this group rather than ecowarriors... just see the number of photos... Oh God!!! Anyway it is a nice habit to take photos to make all memories memorable.

The most awaited bathing spot came. The Canadian power house ii, this is one of the power generation house in this region ,there is a small bridge after the power house which is small but a beautiful spot for bathing. But here sudden rise of water level can be expected. So we should approach the location with caution. It was nice that we had a nice bath .Lot of photos and videos cannot be displayed because they belong to the censored category. We have to be careful in these locations because a lot of people break liquor bottle over here. In our previous trip chandru got hurt and in this trip dinesh got hurt but thank god the wound was small.

Sathiesh advised us not to enter into the water as usual,and as usual we also did not listen to him and got down into the stream. We got down in the water had a nice bath.sathiesh,cm saravanan and suresh were not amused so they did not bath in this stream. The water was fast and a little dirty because of the rain the previous day. The force was good and we had a nice bath. After the bath we had our sandwiches and started again it was around 1 pm.

Arun found a small cave in the path of the stream. Dinesh and arun were hiding and playing in the cave. Before starting from the place arun wanted to walk along the stream and do some adventure but as there were limited no of volunteers for the adventure part we did not do it because ecowarriors believe that “always we have to stay together which will give us more safety and enjoyment”.

We started again to our destination (marriage food),we drived to Manjakombai ,had some tea and bun and then again started in our bikes. We crossed a dam on our way and we saw one of our trekking locations called the MELMUDI and we were really astonished to see those hills from this location.

We stopped near a temple which was near a stream. Dinesh fell down while walking to the stream and then we took some nice snaps .On our way back we saw vikram coming back,and when we asked him he said we were late and he wanted to have a tea. So he had tea and joined us. We again stopped near a big temple and arun and dinesh were very happy that they started dancing around vikram’s bike in the middle of the road. After some time we reached a diversion were the left takes us to ooty and the right takes us to Manjakombai.

We took the left and then after some time we reached another junction called the KAIKATTI and then from there we took another left to reach our destination Manjakombai which was around 5 km or less from there. On our way again we reached a temple .It was a walkable distance from the bride’s house and their family temple as well. It is a very exotic location for taking photos. We took a number of snaps and enjoyed the place and then when the sun came down we went to hema’s house.

We were received with lot of love and affection and we felt home. We met her father ,mother and the other relatives and introduced ourselves. We had a hot cup of coffee and then we were served vadais. We ate all of them and then we were given the option of staying here in Manjakombai itself and the other option of stay would be in ooty. It would be a 1 hour drive but it would be very cold in the night. Considering the factors , we decided to stay in Manjakombai itself. We were given a separate house with neat bed and cozy bedsheets. We had many relatives named sathish and many other names which we do not remember and they were all fond of helping us out in each and everything that we needed. We all tried helping them with making arrangements stuffs.We did not do much but acted as if we did lot(as usual).

Hema introduced us to one of her friend dimple.aswath found a scorpion near the bathroom. One of our friend lost one of his possessions and went on searching for it. We spent a lot of time in search that one.We were served dinner in the room that we stayed itself .We ate well and we had a small walk in the night admiring the beauty of nature and then we all settled down and had a nice sleep.

DAY 2:

The next day morning we had the function from 11 am in the morning. We planned to wake up early in the morning but as usual. We were late and did nothing but roaming here and there in the premises and had our breakfast.The man animal conflict in this location can be seen easily .We saw a lot of monkeys coming in for their catch of food during the function. They literally take food from your plate, hand and from the drums and from everywhere that they can find food. We had to roam as security guards in the location to chase them out. But still one monkey came in and took some food from an old lady’s plate.Then we were trying to get ready for the function and we went back to the same temple spot and took many more photos and enjoyed the location. We then were running for the iron box, comb, mirror and everything. We were even provided with a gas stove for heating the water and bathing.

Somehow we got ready and went up for the photo session And gave a big smile.Around 2 pm our class girls arrived at kaikatti and we received them with a jeep which was arranged by hema’s dad. tThese girls came in bus from Coimbatore and they were 10 in number (desi,Vishnu,narmada,shalini,jothi,shiva priya,kousyla ,deepika ,Vidya v and raj kumar from manglore).

Desi came with her broken legs (very energetic). They all met the bride and then refreshed and came back for lunch.They had a nice lunch and the clock moved to 5 pm. In the mean time we had an incident of arun’s hand gloves were missing, so was suresh’s jacket. We found out that the culprit who hid arun’s hand gloves was sathiesh (thatha).He does this all the time and gets caught.

Whereas for suresh’s jacket it was taken by a person who was not steady. Dinesh ,sathiesh ,suresh and chandru had a small conversation with him and bought the jacket back. And the hero of the show was chandru. though the person who took the jacket said u may have the jacket ,he denied and said its ok.

In the mean time the Badaga Dance was all over the place. Everybody was dancing and we were staring at them .We were invited and even pushed to dance, only some of us danced and the rest were staring and giggling. The boys were planning to have a bike ride outside as usual the girls were there so we had to abandon the bike ride and walk with them.we went to the same temple spot that we had already visited. The girls had a hell lot of fun.lot and lots of photos..

There we were all alone and deepika ,shalini and narmadha started practicing the Badaga dance.Then dinesh also joined them….and after some time we saw that almost all of us were practicing the Badaga dance .We got trained well enough.

Narmadha ,shalini and jothi were enjoying their photography session.as it was darkening we had to leave the place .We went back and joined the function .We all started enjoying and danced to the fullest.Iit was really nice and all the people around us taught us and we were dancing happily.

We had our own stage for dancing and all were watching us dancing and there was another group from Chennai….. They were not that sportive .These Chennai girls were in saree and did not dance much .We people were dancing at the tip of our toes. kousalya ,Vishnu ,narmadha ,shalini and deepika were just dancing ,dancing,dancing……

We had a small dinner break, superb dinner and we started to dance again. Desi even with her wounded leg enjoyed by dancing and of course we had to stop dancing at some point of time, It was around 11.50 p.m. we had another function of putting a chain in the bride ‘s neck by the bride grooms mother. We were sitting near hema and saw her eyes ,she was on the verge of crying.

And after the function we had to make our way to ooty.It was a cold night and the marriage function was in ooty. So we had to leave but before leaving we were served with chapatti and pulikolambu .It was very tasty and we were also very hungry .We filled our tummies.

And then we all started.All the girls and raj kumar were in the jeep .and the rest of the boys in the bike. We were all covered with sweaters but vikram did not have any so he had to travel with his shorts(poor guy).dinesh was driving his bike even without putting the keys and after the bike stopped for a number of times he realized it .All of us sighted a porcupine on our way to ooty.

In the mean time we had eight more of our friends waiting in hpf (rahulan ,senthil p,senthil l,suresh kg,sathish r,dhank kumar,karthikeyan and arun k) .The girls stayed at hema’s quarters and the boys stayed in the hpf guest house. The place was really nice. We had a nice good night sleep in three rooms.


Day 3

As usual we were late in the morning. The girls got ready early and made it to the function on time. The boys were a little bit late but made it for the photo session and the food. We were joined by our other friends in the morning(vimala shree,suji,aravinth,saravanan,aarthi,murali raj,hari,anitha mani,govardanan)

We had to fight for getting a place in the dinning hall. With lots of difficulty we all had our breakfast cum lunch .we had the main photo session with the couple and it was 1 pm so we decided to leave conveying our regards to the couple. At that very moment revathi turned up with her gift. Then we met the couple again and gave the gift .Then we all bid adidue and started on our way back…

Suresh and rajkumar left in the bus with girls and aravinth and friends left in their vehicle and so did revathi. And the rest of the boys in eight bike started their journey towards Coimbatore at around 4 pm .We took the route via kotagiri and to mettupalayam and Coimbatore. It was raining and it was cold .The drive was really pleasant .As usual we had a lot of photo session till we reached kotagiri and cup and cups of tea also.Aswath almost met with an accident while trying to photo dinesh(he might have got over by a car).Aswath took photos of his old school, horse on the roads and a sheep .

The bikers got divided into two groups the fast drivers and the slow drivers. The fast drivers left in a jiffy whereas the other group9slow drivers) went slowly and steadly taking photos even in the dark. At the foot hills of ooty they sat on the road and were relaxing also and then they completed their journey by 10 pm.

It was a sweet 60 hr journey . 36 people came for blessing this couple…….

Written by : Dinesh

Edited by : Desi

Organiser : Dinesh and ecowarriors

Participants : Dinesh, Aswath, Sathiesh, C M Saravanan, Suresh, Vikram, Chandru, Arun, Desi, Vishnu, Narmadha, Shalani, Jothi, Shiva priya, Koushi, Deepika , Vidya V, Raj kumar, Rahulan, Senthil P, Senthil L, Suresh K G, Sathish R, Dhank kumar, Karthikeyan, Arun K, Vimu, Suji, Aravinth, Saravanan, Aarthi, Murali raj, Hari, Anitha mani, Govardhanan, Revathi - (36)

Photos By : Dinesh, Arun, Dhana Kumar, Suresh, Vishnu, Aswath, Chandru, Saravanan C M, Jothi, Rahulan

No of Photos : 2890(approx)

No of Videos : 138(approx)

Database : Central Warrior Base