A Long walk, Monsoon, Leeches, Wildlife & Railway History.
Parambikulam Trek…At Rs.750/- per pair, these ‘Power’ shoes from Bata are very comfortable and quite cheap compared to the Nikes and the Reeboks. While they are good for a long walks, they do not have adequate grip while negotiating up slippery rocks or muddy slopes…
Mini waterfalls…
A pug mark of a big cat!
A snail…
We saw a few moments of sunlight which quickly disappeared and it started raining again…
Another ‘Machan’…
The Salim Ali center that is under development near the tribal village…
A well deserved break after a long day’s walk…
As always, it started raining again!
Our van arrived shortly across the bridge near the village and we headed back to Parambikulam for a late afternoon lunch. Checked out this quaint ‘Tree Top Hut’ in Pkulam.
Stopped near the valley view point and a photo session followed…
We next headed towards a place which has the largest known teak tree in the world, Called ‘Kanni Mara’…
Caught this Black buck watching us through the bushes…
Kannimara teak tree…
A couple…
A Malabar Thrush?
We headed back towards Bangalore, stopping for dinner in Coimbatore. Somewhere along the way, there was a little bit of a scare when the driver, Kumar, realized that the vehicle was losing brake fluid. He parked the vehicle by the roadside and went to a nearby village / town to get some spares. We were busy watching some movie in the van.
At around 2.00am, somewhere near Krishnagiri, Kumar saw a row of shops selling mangoes at wholesale prices and stopped there for a few minutes. There were so many varieties of mangoes, some of which we had never come across in Bangalore. Almost everyone bought mangoes, we ourselves ended up purchasing a Kg or two of the varieties, adding up to 15kgs of Mangoes!
We reached Bangalore by around 4.30am and were home by 5.00am. Got a few hours of rest before getting ready for office and starting off the week.
My souvenir from the trip… a T-shirt from the Parambikulam visitor center shop.
It was a great trip and a wonderful trekking experience!
By the way, another interesting thing I found out about Parambikulam village is that plastic bottles and thin polythene covers are banned! So you can get softdrinks in cans or glass bottles, but no beverages / bottled water in plastic bottles. A very good initiative indeed! And also, there are plenty of waste bins around the Parambikulam village, with two bins in every place, one for bio degradable and one for non-biodegradable waste.
