This is my first travelogue here in Team-bhp, so let me begin with a short sweet visit we made: A day and night at Siruvani Forests.
The disclaimer : Am not a good story teller and as far as the photos go, neither the machine (I’ve a Sony P&S, model DSC-H50) nor the man is an expert. But I’ve to say what I’ve to and here it goes…
The idea germinated last year – two families, mine and my sister’s had been to Siruvani Dam for a day trip. A journey that turned out to be a wonderful surprise for us. We never knew Palakkad had such a beautiful spot with such achingly beautiful vistas. Just posting some pics from the earlier visit
Wide open grasslands…
…with patches of Shola forests and view of the dam reservoir
…and beautiful trekking points that are not strenuous
Siruvani, as most of you must know (at least Tamilians and Keralalites must know) is a dam built in Kerala’s Palakkad district, catering exclusively to the drinking water needs of Coimbatore city, in Tamilnadu. The dam is deep inside the Singappara reserve forest and the water is considered as one of the sweetest in the world. Ask any self respecting Coimbatorean and he will boast about Siruvani Water available in his city.
A kind of mini Safari option is made available by the Forest department inside the reserve. A Tata Ace Magic seating around 6 people and a guide will take you into the forest to the dam site and then to the trekking point. This can be a half a day program
Well, during the above trip, our guide (a youngster from the nearby Attappadi Village) told us that there is a small Tourist bungalow, called Pattiyar Bungalow, deep inside the forest on the banks of the Siruvani reservoir, facing the Muthikkulam falls, and can be booked through the Forest Department office. He said it was worth a night’s stay and is quite cheap – the entire bungalow, good enough for two or three families can be had for a mouth watering Rs.3000
A sneak peek of the bungalow
Now the quest began to find another family who can come with us and two of my cousins jumped at the suggestion and agreed to join with their families. Thus we started on a Friday afternoon – two families from Palakkad and my other cousin and family from Calicut.
The diversion to Siruvani from Palakkad – Mannarkad highway (NH213) was about 8 – 9 km before Mannarkad town, towards the right. The Ghats starts immediately and just after the last village, Palakkayam, the view gets better.
We just had to stop to take in the view
This was peak monsoon period, and as the evening wore on, mist started to come in fast
Finally as darkness was setting in, we (the team from Palakkad) reached the entrance to the Siruvani Eco Tourism project. (Eco Tourism seems to be the in-thing nowadays. Hope it does not turn out to be a fad)
We had some nail biting moments when registering at the security office, since Forest Office had missed out in informing the office here about the booking!!
To make things worse, there is no land phone connection here and the only mobile signal you can get is of Vodafone, which luckily is with the forest guard. Even to get the signal, you have to stand near the one particular pillar in the veranda, keep the mobile to your ear and double up as if you have cramps in your stomach – at least that’s what the forest guard did, and he got the Range officer on line.
But the Range Officer says he has gone for training and he does not know of any booking.
‘Better call up the office directly’
‘But it is past 5:30 and there will be no one there’
‘The security guard will be there and ask him to check the register’
Finally we were able to get the security guard on line and he was able to read out our names from the register. PHEW!!
While this tamasha was going on, we had some time to take the photo of the places around
The road we came – photo taken from the entrance point of the reserve, looking back
The road ahead and my cousin’s Scorpio parked at the entrance
In fact the not only the road inside the reserve, the road from NH213 to Siruvani itself is good. Maybe because it is frequented more by the PWD guys themselves, they are maintaining it for their own good.
A snap from our earlier trip – a photo taken en-route
During our previous trip we had better weather and we were able to find some creatures of the wild – a Malabar giant squirrel spotted at the reserve entrance
The next spotting – the Pitamah of the forest at a distance. People say that these guys can climb near vertical slopes in a jiffy.
Registration over, we take the road ahead. After a series of twists and turns, we turn of the road and through a narrow trail, finally reach Pattiar Bungalow. A trench has been dug up around the lodge to prevent wild animals from paying a surprise visit to the people staying here
This is a 150 year old building probably used as a hunting lodge by the British. It is a fairly well maintained three room house but with no star comforts.
Electricity is through solar power and hence it will be available only for around 2 -3 hours into the night, depending upon the usage. Water was collected from a waterfall some distance away, transported through pipes and stored in an overhead tank. But during our visit there was a breakage in pipeline and we had to depend on the rainwater storage system they were having and this was adequate
The rooms were well maintained, though the walls were a bit damp. The caretaker said that there is a plan to renovate the bungalow by rebuilding the walls
We realise that we are totally isolated from the outside world, miles and miles inside the forest surrounded by the hills. The only other companion is howling winds – wind so strong, it gives an eerie feeling of being in some ‘end of the world’ type Hollywood movie!!
Of course there is a care-taker plus cook, who stays at the outhouse behind the bungalow whenever there are guests. And like all caretakers, he also had stories of sightings of leopard, elephants and gaurs. Should be true, since the lake being bang in front of the bungalow, animals need to come here during summer to quench their thirst. But this was the middle of the monsoon; hence no such luck for us.
The main attraction is the lake in front with the waterfall cascading from quite a good height and the wide veranda in front of the bungalow
The second team from Calicut reached quite late in the night and they had manoeuvred through the ghat roads with only the grass on either side of the road as markers. Add to that the going was slow due to deer, rabbits and wild boars jumping across the road.
We spend the night in the veranda, having food and talking quite late into the night. I and my cousin, in fact, sat through almost the entire night listening to the wind, talking loudly above the noise of wind and drinking some premium bottled barley water. The wind screamed across from behind the bungalow and hence sitting in the veranda at front, we were spared.
Finally we decided to hit the bed at around 4 am.
Ah, Bliss! No night photos, since we had only P&S cameras and also there was no facility to charge the batteries.
Now I gotta go, shall continue the rest of the story later