As we left Mudhumumalai, it was starting to get dark. We knew that our next destination was Gundlupet, and from there we had to go to Sultan Bathery. It was around half an hour’s drive to Gundlupet. From there started our questioning spree. We started asking people how to go to Sultan Bathery. They would reply “Bathery yo…Neera po”.The route was really awesome and would have been a great drive if we had gone during the day time. We had to cross tea estates and the roads were nice and winding. And all along the moon was following. It was the next of day of a full moon and was really awesome. We reached, Bathery after an hour and a half drive. Till then we were thinking that Wayanad was place. Once we reached Bathery we asked, how to go to Wayanad and they say u r in Wayanad. Then we realized that Wayanad is a district which has a lot of small town. We had read about Vythri resorts. So we enquired about how to go there. We realized that we had to pass thru a place called Kalpetta, then came Vythri and then a town called Lakkidi, which all were within a 20 to 30 kms stretch. And the time was ticking away. It was around 8 in the night and we had no room booking, in fact we had to search for a place for the night.
We thought we will check one of the resorts. So on the way to Vythri we saw a nice decent hotel in Kalpetta, but we thought we go to resorts. We drove up to Vythri only to find that it was booked and that it was too expensive. Then people told us that there were two resorts in Lakkidi, drove up to Lakkidi to find that one was horrible. The other one was really good, but was around 3 kms inside the forest. My brother was really against taking me there alone during the night. So we decided to drive back to Kalpetta, and check into that Hotel we had checked. At last we checked in at around 10 30 and had dinner and crashed.
We got up and check out of the hotel at around 10 next morning. We found that there was some sanctuary on the other side of Kalpetta, near Manathavady and a couple of falls. So we decided to drive to Manathavady 50 kms from Kalpetta. It was such a disappointing drive. We passed the sanctuary and other tourist spots on the way, thinking that we will come back to those after seeing the Meenmutty falls, which is supposed to be very beautiful, only to realize that we were on the wrong route to the falls. Following the directions given, we reached back to Kalpetta, without seeing anything in Manathavady. But the drive was nice and scenic. We had to cross Kalpetta and take a deviation before reaching Vythri, and go around35 kms. We had to pass a town called Meppadi. On the way we saw deviations to Chembra peak, Soochipara Waterfalls, Soochipara Waterfalls, Kanthanpara Waterfalls. We thought we will come back to them after seeing Meenmutty as we had to come back in that way.
The way Meenmutty falls is simply awesome. We had to drive some 35 kms, through Tea estates. Winging roads along the tea estates, with green all around and absolute silence was really awesome. When we thought we have reached the falls, we were that we had to drive inside a coffee estate; we drove inside the estate and then came to know that we had to stop the car and walk down the forest for some 1km or so. Then we decided not to do that as my brother was apprehensive to take me alone, as there were hardly any people around. So we returned disappointed, but the only consolation was it was a beautiful drive though. We drove back the same drove back to Kalpetta, without stopping at any other falls. We came to Vythri and decided to go to Pookot Lake which was so much talked about. When we went there we found that it is indeed very beautiful with forest and trees around but it was a small lake which was not even of the size of our Ulsoor lake. From there we decided to drive to Kozhikode and planned to halt for the night. After the previous night circus of hunting for a place to stay, we decided we will check into a place early and crash early.
We started from Lakkidi at around 12.30. This stretch driving was simply awesome, as we had to drive down the Western Ghats to the sea level. We just entered the ghat section and we see that the whole the ghats are covered with mist, but the irony was that it was quite warm. It was truly a heavenly feeling to drive down the mountains with mist. We came down the ghats, and reached Kozhikode at around 4. Had some snacks. And I bugged my Bro that I go to some of the famous jewellery shops like Alukkas, Bheema’s. So we went to Bheema’s, and there we found that the owner of that place could speak Kannada. So my bro was busy asking him about places we could stay, while I was looking at jewellery. We came to know that round 25 kms from Kozhikode on the airport road, there was a beautiful resort called Kadavu. Before going there, we decided to drive along beach, as it were prohibited to venture into the beach, as it was just 2 days after Tsunami. We found that the beach was simple very dirty and it was stinking. Then we went to Kadavu resorts. It was truly a very beautiful place. It was on the bank of Chaliyar River. It was truly beautiful, but was again expensive due to Christmas season. So they suggested that we drive to Kannoor. That was another 2 hours drive. We were really tired and drained out. But we had no other option but to drive. So we started off from Kozhikode. We had just come out of Kozhikode and we saw a huge hoarding of a nice looking hotel. We passed it, and reversed back to hoarding. We kept staring at it for a few minutes, and we were wondering why they have not given where it is located. And to our surprise, it was just across the road. We laughed at our atupidity and checked into that hotel and had a relaxed evening, just lazing around watching TV and getting updated on the Tsunami issue.
