Kolukkumalai & Meesapulimala Trek
Alok worked on a list of Trails in Western Ghats with the altitude and location. Anamudi was at the top of the list, since the trek is banned there, Meesapulimala was on the spotlight. Spent some time of planning the logistics with multiple organizations, we narrowed it down to go with a Local Guide at Kurangini and also chose a different route, Kurangini >> Kollukkumalai >> Meesapulimala >> Silent Valley, to make it a two day strenuous trek. After booking the logistics, we chose to get there on the last week of Dec, 2012. This time it was Alok, Giri, Subish & Myself.
Meesapulimala is the second tallest peak in Western Ghats located at Idukki District, Kerala. It’s at an elevation of 2640mts. Since the mountain resembles a Tiger’s Face, it’s named MeesaPuliMala (Meesa – Moustache, Puli – Tiger, Mala – Mountain). The place is known for its beautiful trial with a mixture of Pine Trees, valleys, terrain, shola forest and its challenging trial. Kollukkumalai is the World’s Tallest Organic Tea Garden located in Theni District, Tamil Nadu; it’s at an elevation of 2130mts.
·Distance from Bangalore: Bang--450Kms--Theni--16Kms--Bodi–17Kms--Kurangini
·How to get: KSRTC/SETC Buses are available from ShanthiNagar
·Difficulty Level: 4/5
·Trek Distance: 30 Kms
·Water Source: A couple of streams can be found on the trail.
·Best Time: Except Monsoon
·Contact Info: Yogesh (Kurangini): 09787019675/09245963375; Senthil (Munnar):
09447031040/[email protected]/www.kesfreladventures.com
·Cost: Rs. 5000/Person including Forest Permission.
Meesapulimala is the second tallest peak in Western Ghats located at Idukki District, Kerala. It’s at an elevation of 2640mts. Since the mountain resembles a Tiger’s Face, it’s named MeesaPuliMala (Meesa – Moustache, Puli – Tiger, Mala – Mountain). The place is known for its beautiful trial with a mixture of Pine Trees, valleys, terrain, shola forest and its challenging trial. Kollukkumalai is the World’s Tallest Organic Tea Garden located in Theni District, Tamil Nadu; it’s at an elevation of 2130mts.
·Distance from Bangalore: Bang--450Kms--Theni--16Kms--Bodi–17Kms--Kurangini
·How to get: KSRTC/SETC Buses are available from ShanthiNagar
·Difficulty Level: 4/5
·Trek Distance: 30 Kms
·Water Source: A couple of streams can be found on the trail.
·Best Time: Except Monsoon
·Contact Info: Yogesh (Kurangini): 09787019675/09245963375; Senthil (Munnar):
09447031040/[email protected]/www.kesfreladventures.com
·Cost: Rs. 5000/Person including Forest Permission.
Day 1
We boarded the KSRTC bus from Bangalore to Theni from Shanthinagar Bus Stop at 8.30pm. The bus was in quite a good condition and was comfortable enough to catch up enough sleep to face our big day tom. After some chit-chat about our previous treks and you know what all stupid topics that we debate on, we tried our level best to sleep, but could sleep only for a couple of hours.
Day 2
Arrived at Theni at 6.30am, after shopping some fruits we boarded the Bus to Bodi. Bodi is about 16Kms from Theni, average journey time is about 30 mins. Before even reaching Bodi, we saw the Kurangini bus crossing and we boarded the bus. This drive is awesome, as usual numerous Hair Pin bends and jungle on either side, the bus took about 30 mins from Bodi to Kurangini. There we go, I’ve been eager to get to this village since the time I watched a Tamil Movie – Myna. Before even I informed Yogesh (Local Facilitator) about our arrival, we grabbed some breakfast – Idly, Vada, Sambhar & Coconut Chutney from one of the local hotels in Kurangini. FYI – None of the phones work except BSNL (Only in some spots) work throughout the trek. Kurangini is a very small village with a couple hundred houses. In the meanwhile, we met Yogesh and we had a small conversation on the trek route, timelines & his experiences. Yogesh packed lunch for us and introduced the guide Kannan. As per the plan, Kannan would guide us till Kollukkumalai, and the next morning we’ll have another guide from Munnar to take us further. Kannan guided us to a stream Kallaaru (Rock Valley), to take bath and get ready with trekking gears, this place was heaven. To describe well, this is a nature made swimming pool with crystal clean water. Swimming for some time before the trek was a bad idea though, but it was quite refreshing and we were all good to start the trek at 9.40am.
The initial hour of the climb is steep and sunlight makes it tough to keep up the pace. After an hour or so, the weather turned out to be cold and we were already in the shoulders of Clouds. We continued our trek with couple breaks and reached the lunch point at 1pm, there is a Single Pine tree near the lunch point which looks gorgeous. We had our Packed Lunch – Lemon Rice, Masala Vada and some oranges. Took some snaps and we moved forward. After an hour or so, we reached a point where the Hair Pin Bend starts; there are 48 of them to cover from this point. This was one of the most amazing parts of the trek, it even rained for some time while trekking this stretch. While we were walking with the guide, he kept explaining us the jungle trees, fruits, animals and etc., which the villages use for their daily needs. They get most of the spices, fruits and cooking ingredients from the forest. He also informed about the forest fire in April, which badly affected the forest’s vegetation. We even spotted a Wild Squirrel (black & Brown) twice, traces of deer, wild cow, porcupine. Finally, we reached the shola forest with thick vegetation, another 1.5 Kms trek from here; we reach our First Day’s Destination – Kollukkumalai. The last stretch was tough to cover because of thick vegetation covering the routes. With good number of scratches on our forearms, we reached Kollukumalai at 4.40pm.
Kollukkumalai is not a place to halt for a night; we need at least a couple days to enjoy the beauty of the tea estate and not to miss the food that was cooked for us. This tea estate is the World’s highest Organic Tea Garden and the people who stay here are just amazing. We checked in to our rooms and came back down to the Estate office to grab some hot tea and biscuits. Alok and Unlimited Tea! He can stay without food and any entertainment for years in this place for the kind of tea that they serve here. The Rooms had LCD, Heater, Geyser, comfortable cots, pretty big toilets; the only issue was that this place has power supply only 3 hours/day, Bummer! Walking around the Estate, we went to a view point, we can easily spot Central Station, Top Station, Tribe Colony – Aadhi Kaadu from here. Here is the best part of traveling, talking to people and understanding the way they live, food Style, Culture, etc. Talking to one of the employees in the tea estate, they’ve been here for 4 Generations. The Village doesn’t have a shop, Hospital, nothing that we enjoy being in urban. All cooking ingredients, daily groceries, other daily needs are bought weekly from Suranalli or Kurangini. Everybody works in the tea estate, Husbands work in the factory while the wives do the tea plucking part of it. They even allowed us to visit the Tea Factory; we visited different sections like withering, blowing, fire, packing, etc. After we loafed around the place for quite sometime, we spoke to Senthil (Facilitator for our next day’s trek) about our next days plan, we all agreed to start the trek by 7.30 :-) The cook who usually takes care of the guests was out of town, so Senthil had arranged food for us in the Estate manager’s House. Let me tell you, the food was just out of the world. We had Roti, Chicken Gravy, Rice, Dhal and curd cooked by the Manager’s Cook. After thanking him for the food, we were back at our rooms. With mist and rain outside, we Chit-Chat for a couple hours and we went to our rooms at 11pm to catch up much required sleep.
Kollukkumalai is not a place to halt for a night; we need at least a couple days to enjoy the beauty of the tea estate and not to miss the food that was cooked for us. This tea estate is the World’s highest Organic Tea Garden and the people who stay here are just amazing. We checked in to our rooms and came back down to the Estate office to grab some hot tea and biscuits. Alok and Unlimited Tea! He can stay without food and any entertainment for years in this place for the kind of tea that they serve here. The Rooms had LCD, Heater, Geyser, comfortable cots, pretty big toilets; the only issue was that this place has power supply only 3 hours/day, Bummer! Walking around the Estate, we went to a view point, we can easily spot Central Station, Top Station, Tribe Colony – Aadhi Kaadu from here. Here is the best part of traveling, talking to people and understanding the way they live, food Style, Culture, etc. Talking to one of the employees in the tea estate, they’ve been here for 4 Generations. The Village doesn’t have a shop, Hospital, nothing that we enjoy being in urban. All cooking ingredients, daily groceries, other daily needs are bought weekly from Suranalli or Kurangini. Everybody works in the tea estate, Husbands work in the factory while the wives do the tea plucking part of it. They even allowed us to visit the Tea Factory; we visited different sections like withering, blowing, fire, packing, etc. After we loafed around the place for quite sometime, we spoke to Senthil (Facilitator for our next day’s trek) about our next days plan, we all agreed to start the trek by 7.30 :-) The cook who usually takes care of the guests was out of town, so Senthil had arranged food for us in the Estate manager’s House. Let me tell you, the food was just out of the world. We had Roti, Chicken Gravy, Rice, Dhal and curd cooked by the Manager’s Cook. After thanking him for the food, we were back at our rooms. With mist and rain outside, we Chit-Chat for a couple hours and we went to our rooms at 11pm to catch up much required sleep.
Day 3
Our initial plan was to leave at 7 am for breakfast and start our trek at 7.30, but it turned out to be late. We were all ready by 7.30 and went to have breakfast – Idly, Poori, Palya & Chutney at Manager’s home and ready for the trek by 8.30 am. Since the guide was expected to be here in a couple hours, we bought some tea from the Estate Store. The Guide reached Kollukkumalai only at 10.30 am; starting the trek at 10.30, we just had enough time to cover the trek and board our bus 11pm from Dindugul. Keeping the time intact, we started our trek. 4 Trekkers from Chennai joined us from Kollukkumalai, exciting to see new companions while trekking, isnt it? The initial hour is through the Tea Estates, with picturesque views around. As we trek along the tea estates, the route diverts to steep climbing on Dry Forest. The guide Saji was a very helpful & an intellgent person, he knows everything about the forest here, he is being doing this for 14 years now. As we trekked, we went through Shola Forest, it looked like it rained the previous day. The guide got us good snacks, Bananas, Chocolates, Tetra Juice Packets. He also found us Yellow Berries, Raspberries while trekking, munching some of them we resumed our trek. The final climb to the Summit is really steep and it’s about a KM long. One of the flowers Kurinji, one of its kinds blooms once in 12 years and it was supposed to bloom this year. Due to the forest fire, it didn’t. But we got to see other varieties of Kurinji while trekking. At 12.15, we finally made it to the much awaited Meesapulimala Summit. This summit doesn’t look like a usual summit, it doesn’t have much of flat land like others and we reached much quicker than we expected. Photo Session for a while and we opened our packed Lunch, Parota and Egg Curry. With our clock ticking to be on time to board the bus, we started descending.
As usual, we descended much faster than we ascend. The initial hour is pretty good walk around the Mountains and this goes on for about 1 ½ hours. There were steep climbs that we had to do, but they ended abruptly. We reached Rodo Valley around 3 pm and without wasting time, we moved ahead. Finally, around 4.15 we reached the silent valley. We had just enough time to catch the bus, from Silent Valley, it takes an hour to reach Munnar, Munnar to Theni Bus takes 3 hours and Theni to Dindigul takes 2 ½ hours. Our Bad luck, the jeep was late and we reached Munnar only at 6. With almost having no time, we even thought of staying back in Munnar for a day. But, I had to get home on 31st for a family occasion and we spoke to Senthil and arranged a Jeep from Munnar to Theni for 2000. The Jeep ride was as good & adventurous as it can get, with hair pin bends and all of us in the tension of reaching the place on time. The Jeep reached Theni in 2 hours, we got a bus from Theni to Dindugul at 8.30 and the bus reached the destination at 10.50 pm. I ran towards the bus boarding location and the others ran to buy some stuff to eat. Ahhh! The bus is going to be 30 mins late, yes … we made it!! Had Parota, Dosa & omelet near the bus stop and we were all good to sleep as soon as we get inside the bus.
The bus started at Dindugul at 11.30 pm and the bus was pretty good with AC and comfortable suspension. Watching Tamil Movie Robot, we all catnapped.
The bus started at Dindugul at 11.30 pm and the bus was pretty good with AC and comfortable suspension. Watching Tamil Movie Robot, we all catnapped.
Day 4
The Bus arrived at Bangalore at 5.30 am and we all left home with lots and lots of memories and with a crown for completing our first twin day trek.
Kollukkumalai & Meesapulimala trek is one of the challenging treks offering the best scenic beauty. Considering the above contacts, this trek is one of the easiest to plan. Though it’s quite expensive compared to other treks, its totally worth.
Kollukkumalai & Meesapulimala trek is one of the challenging treks offering the best scenic beauty. Considering the above contacts, this trek is one of the easiest to plan. Though it’s quite expensive compared to other treks, its totally worth.