738 kms drive.....

It was 4:09am Saturday morning when I rode my pulsar into our office campus. I was actually late by 9 minutes as I was picking up Varun. I could see some energetic faces in the lights.

It was not before 4:30am everybody made their entry.But that was it, in few minutes we were driving out of Bangalore on Mysore road. Our cavalcade had 6 bikes and 1 car. It was after long time I gave so much freedom to my tyres. Early morning drive and initial enthusiasm of the trip was enough to take us to Mysore in less than 3 hours. Our first destination was Hotel Siddharth in center of quite Mysore city.Soon we stuffed ourselves with lots of south indian breakfast. I must say a filling break right enough to set our spirits high for next few hours. We started at around 8:30am from Mysore and in no time we were zooming on NH 212. Gundulpet which was 60 kms was our next stop as there was a deviation for Wayanad from there. We were all there by 10am and soon had coconut water. The last stretch to Wayanad was 55km from Gundulpet passing through Bandipur National Park and Muthunga Wildlife Sanctuary. We were welcomed by Elephants as we made our way through woods. Camera just didn't stopped clicking after this time. Kerala was just minutes away and we could notice a visible change in the quality of tar laid. By 11:30am, we were all there in Sultan Bathary or "Battery".

Luckily, we found a very decent veg restaurant there in Hotel Kalpakka. Happily, we had lunch there. Krishna and Lijo, two of the local boys on the trip booked an accomodation soon as all others waited outside Jain temple to open at 2pm. We were all there in front of the gate and it opened exactly on time. We made our entry into the temple compound. Structure was pretty old and not very magnificent like South Indian temples. We spend around half-an hour before we left for Edakkal Caves. Soon we made our way to caves through narrow typical "Kerala" style roads. We are damn tired as we reached the base. Ranjith decided not to accompany us to the caves as was tired and wanted to take rest. It was painful trek. We somehow managed to reach caves. But as they say all good things come with hardship and it proved true that late afternoon. It was an awesome time in those interlocking rocks and deep crevices. We had lots of soda water on the way back. Next item on our itinerary was Meenmutthy Falls. Around 6pm we were there on its base. It was getting darker and people were loosing initial enthusiasm of the trip. It was around 4-5 more kms of streneous journey. We decided to head back after some consensus. I must say it was correct as we soon found ourselves in green tea plantations. It was an amazing view from the top with fresh tea leaves covering all the hills. Sun was just coming down with all its glory. This was the last place, after that we headed our way back to Kalpetta, district headquarters of Wayanad where we had already booked our accomodation for the night.I was driving alone and lost way a bit. Still we were all there in the PPS tourist home by 8pm. Everybody got freshened soon after checking in. After some confusion, we decided to dine at a place very closeby. It was Hotel Kamelia. It was actually our mistake to be there after waiter gave cold response to our order. We waited waited and waited. Finally got some nans, rice and dal to stuff ourselves. We left the place without eating any gravy. It was a hopeless time. People slept after cursing each other with little or no food.

We decided to have a heavy breakfast next morning to make up for last night's dinner. Woodland was our destination. We hogged and hogged leaving not a penny from our 50 bucks paid for it. Reliance petrol bunk was our next stop. After some confusion,we headed our way for Kuruva Islands located in the north Wayanad. Initial drive was good. We stopped to see ruined Jain temple. Sun rose up with all its might. Sunscreen was our answer to it. Nonetheless, we boated our way to the islands.
Soon reached into this inhabitated territory well maintained by the Kerala government. People started loosening themselves with lots of benches and trees around. It was good 2 hours there before we felt like having something. Next few minutes were difficult as our drive was through bad narrow roads. Finally we found one Udupi hotel at a place. We had water and decent food there. Next was a dam in our schedule. It was again a superb 25 km drive but luck had all together different plans for us. 8 of us almost reached that dam. Soon we came to know that one of our friend had met with an accident. It was a shock for all of us as we headed back on that smooth and curvy path. We saw our notorious friend sitting with wounded hand and torn clothes. We decided to go back to Sultan Bathary as we had our rooms booked there for the night. It was 7pm we reached another tourist home. Few of us took rest and got freshened while others went to hospital to check our friend's bones.We had heavy dinner that night again in Hotal Kalpakka as people didn't wanted to take any chances. People went back and retired as few of us took "toddy" and played cards till sometime.

It was last day of our trip. People woke up bit late. We had wildlife sanctuary apart from the long drive back on the day's itinerary. We reached the sanctuary as planned and managed to see "some" wildlife. Anyways, nature powdered all of us. The return drive was nice and pleasant with last lunch break as "Pizza Corner" in Mysore.
Around 8pm, we reached garden city. We bid adieu after last round of photo session.

Check out exquisite collection of snaps at
(Courtesy - Lijo)