The next place in our trip was the “Monkey Falls” near pollachi. In fact it is just 3 KMs more from the Azhiyar dam that we visited the previous day. So we set out in the same bus that took us to Azhiyar, got down at Azhiyar dam itself and decided to walk the three KMs to see if we could end up in something interesting on the way. Just about a KM from Azhiyar, there was a small place off the road where we could hear the sound of water gushing out of something at high speed. So we jumped off the road and did a small trek over the hard rocks, spent some time out there and obviously clicked some snaps too!!

Then we walked couple of KMs more to reach the monkey falls, wondering how many monkeys would really be there and how much of trouble they would cause to us. Just in couple of minutes we reached there and understood what really those monkeys can do. It was jumping over the cars and bikes, dancing over the helmet that was locked to the bike, few small monkeys went under the cars and were playing like anything. And we assumed that the monkeys don’t do any harm to the tourists and entered in to the falls. We decided during the start of the trip itself that we wouldn’t take bath in the falls and stay away from the waters. So we decided to do things that wouldn’t get us wet. But somehow we managed to get wet…No no not by taking bath in the falls, we fell down with full style. We were clicking some snaps, while I was posing, Rukku was handling the camera. He asked me to go to the center of the falls so that he can take a better snap. I thought I was carefully keeping by feet, but just when I was about to position myself for the snap I felt something hit my head hard. Yeah I realized I fell down after hitting the hard rock. For few seconds I couldn’t even help myself getting up… There were couple of college students standing near by who gave their hands and saved me from sliding down. After standing up and coming back to normal state I was looking for this Rukku whom I thought would’ve started to come and see how I am doing. But I could see him standing at the same place and asking me to pose. I was like what the hell man? And went down to ask him if it was funny. But after I went down only I came to know that he had also fell down at the same instant when I fell down. In fact he had fell of a small cliff like thing and luckily he had his bag on the back which had saved his head hitting the ground and he was holding the camera up to save it too!! Thank god noting happened to the camera:) And then one guy came and told him, “enna sir photova indha angle laendha edukkaradhu…paarthu sir…” Ada paavingala naanga enna P.C.Sreeram-a, K.V.Anandh-a…edho memory stick ellam cheap-a irukkudhae nnu photo click panrom da…idhuvae film roll naa motha trip kkae naanga 40 photo dhaan da eduppom…If you closely observe the photo you can see the wet T-shirt…:)

After this incident my confidence with waters went really down and for the whole trip I was very hesitant towards stepping in to water, though most of the places we went were like falls, dams…After spending another hour there we decided to head straight to Tirumoorthy falls which we heard is another good falls around. So we went back to Azhiyar, had food there in some local shop and inquired about going to Tirumoorthy falls. We were told to take a bus to a intermediate place from where if we could take a bus which would go to Udumalaipettai then we could reach Tirumoorthy falls. We did the same and reached the fallls at around 3.30 types. We wasted some time in waiting for buses. Only after reaching the falls we realized that we should have come to Tirumoorthy in the morning and could have easily spent the whole day there. Just as a falls, it is only about climbing say about a KM up and reaching the top spot where there is one Panchalinga temple. And probably you can take bath here too. There were lots of sabarimala saamis who were coming back after the darshan. On the way they come here, take bath and head straight to home.

But what would make it interesting is taking the off route. Like you have steps to climb to the top, but you gotta just jump out of the parapet, step in to the hard rocks, and from there you can spend hours climbing here and there, taking the hard routes and some risks. We did things like that and there were no security guards around. So you can do anything that you would like to that makes sense to you. We did things like that and reached the top of the falls. It was definitely off season I guess otherwise there must be like a heavy gush of water from the falls. In such times these hard rocks would have been submerged in the waters. The pic is the end of the trek we did where we went down some big rocks to climb another big one…

There were only couple of buses running between this place and Pollachi it seems and we were told that if we were lucky we could get a bus at around 6.45 types. So we had to cut down the time to be spent there and got down like in 10 mins flat just to find a bus standing there and it was a bus to Pollachi. We just picked some cauliflower pakoda and went in to the bus and it starts just we sit down. We were totally happy as the first day itself went really well. Around 8.30 we were back in Pollachi and again it was Gowrishankar for dinner. We spoke to the lodge guys and told him that we need a cab to take us to Topslip the next day. He spoke to the travels guy he knew and said he has arranged for a Indica and it would come at 7 O clock itself and asked us to be ready. We were also told that only some 30 vehicles are allowed beyond Topslip and we gotta be quick in getting in there. We quite didn’t understand the funda but just made sure we went to sleep early. We were quite excited about the next day as we have heard a lot of Topslip…

After refreshing up at the lodge, we set out to visit the first place of our trip and got impressed with Gowri Shankar. If you know me well you would have guessed it right. Yes, that’s the hotel where we had our lunch 🙂 For Rs.40, they provided a very good lunch in a A/C hall which was very impressive. And then we boarded the bus to visit Azhiyar dam.

This place is about 45-50 mins travel from pollachi and this dam is the primary source of water for pollachi. There is a park at the entrance of the dam where kids can have a good time. And then you climb some 100 odd steps to go to the actual dam where you can see the storage. We could actually go only till a point in the dam after which it was closed for tourists. But some people who knew the PWD guys managed to use the influence and got in. We were talking to the watchman there for about 10 mins and 5 more mins he would have accepted some money to let us in. But we decided to move away as it was getting late. There was a boating option available which again we didn’t take. Instead we decided to walk down the dam structure and do a little trek in the surrounding forest kind of setup. It was pretty decent for the given amount of time we had. We clicked some snaps here and there and it was getting dark. So we decided to wind up for the day and board the next available bus.

We were talking to the local tea shop guy enquiring about the bus timing. Actually we had to get a bus in front of the park. The bus which comes from pollachi drops people at the park and goes to one more stop further, takes a halt and starts again for the return journey to pollachi. The tea shop guy told us to board the bus when it drops people at the park itself, get a ticket till the next stop and then take the return ticket from there. We were actually thinking probably its too much to do such things and we could board the bus only when it returns. But then we just saw one bus coming fully loaded and we couldn’t even get inside. So we thoguht probably this guy is right and we crossed and were waiting for the bus from pollachi.

To our surprise, there was a huge crowd waiting there and we found that it is a practice there and we got to do the same. We got in to the next bus that came and found that the bus stopped in between to make sure every one got the ticket for that one extra stop. Imagine how much revenue govt would be making out of this concept. Anyways, we managed to get a seat till pollachi, got down at pollachi, bumped in to Gowri Shankar again, had a nice Chilli parota. We went to bed early around 9.45PM itself so that we could start early for the next day. We had planned to visit couple of falls the next day…

I had been planning for a trip down south for quite some time and my friend I.S(Arun) had been telling about doing a trip to Pollachi. Somehow it was always in planning stage and I.S left for the US during middle of the year. Thanks to the leave policy of my company, I can just carry forward 6 days of my annual leave, rest would lapse if not taken. So I told one of my close friend Rukku (Rukmangathan) that we would do a trip for about 10 days during the year end and had asked him to block leaves (he also has similar leave policy). We thought of doing trip to Goa, Karnataka and other places but we never sat together and planned anything. So I decided and told him we would do a south trip and land in pollachi and finish off at a friend’s wedding in Thrissur.

We just knew the landing point and the final destination and left out the in between part. We said we would plan it on the fly. So we just went ahead and booked tickets for Chennai – Coimbatore on 22nd night. I had visited CBT sometime in 1999 and at that time it took me 10hrs by bus. So I assumed it should be around the same travel time or probably improved by and hour or so. The bus timing was at 8.45 in Koyambedu bus terminus and the bus didnt get out of the terminus till 10.15. There was a damaged sewage line and the entire stretch was jammed.

We were sitting in the last but one row of the bus and the guy behind us was full time on the phone. Okka makka 8.45 kku kadalaya poda aaramichavan midnight thaandiyum neruthala…engalukka sema kadi..naangalae rendu pasanga porom..idhula ivan appa appo “illati..chumma dhaan sonnaen…yaendi chelllam serious-a eduthukkara…chi azhadha…” appadi appadi nnu sollitu irundhaan…pesattum…vaendam nnu sollala…bus la avan avan kadi la irukkanae..nammoloda volume kammi pannalamae oru yosanai vaendam…and more over after vizhuupuram the roads were very bad…some times we even had doubt if we were goin in a bus or a boat…full-a side ways la dance dhaan…idhukku naduvula indha dog-oda kadala vera…suthama thookam pochu…

Oru vahizya next day morning 10.15 kku we reached Coimbatore and at that time many hotels stopped serving breakfast too. We just went to the ever famous Arya Bhavan and had couple of left out Oothappams…and then pushed off to the Okkadam bus stand to get a bus to Pollachi…Coimbatore and Pollachi are well connected by road and there are lots of private buses running between. But the problem is there is too much of crowd. In fact people still use the old method of throwing handkerchiefs through the window to reserve seats and in fact we saw one guy sending his kid through the window and you should see the happiness in his face after the kid reached and sat in the seat…So we left couple of buses thinking that most of the crowd would have gone by and we could get some seat. Since it was a long weekend there was huge rush. So we restored to our ways of getting seats. Just push through the crowd and dont care about what they are yelling. Somehow Rukku managed to get two seats…the last two seats of the bus.

The speaker was on full volume with all kuthu songs and the driver never took his legs off the accelerator. My guess is he would have kept some stone:) In flat 50 mins he reached Pollachi and there was not even a single stop in between and he almost never changed gears or even slowed down. Rukku’s friend is from Pollachi and he has booked rooms for us. We went straight to the lodge and told that friend’s name and got a room. The lodge owner was telling about how Rajnikanth, Balachander and all had stayed in the lodge and its one of the biggest lodge in Pollachi. We got our keys and went straight to the room and wanted to see how the rooms are in the biggest lodge of Pollachi. The room though was quite ok (cos we would be staying only for 8hrs in the night) didnt even have a latch for the bathroom door. For the remaining three days the other person used to lock it from outside when some one is taking bath (We didnt want to take any kind of risks 😛 )

We got freshen up in an hour or so, had lunch and boarded the bus to visit the first place in our trip…