Ebbanad - I
My love affair with the forests started sometime back in the early 90’s. I was in high-school than and used to frequently visit my grandmother. In those days she used to stay with my aunt in ‘Sandoz’ colony situated in Thane district, about 1 -2 hrs drive from the hustle of Mumbai. Their apartment complex was situated amongst the backdrop of lush green forest land. I still remember starring outside at the jungle, from the balcony, and wondering how much fun it would be to take a walk through the trees, wandering aimlessly like the wild animals. A decade and half later, the desire that was kindled back than continues to burn in me. No wonder than that I readily accepted my roommate G’s invitation to join his group on a trek through the Nilgiri forests in Tamil Nadu.
(PS: When I first started writing my blog, I couldn’t think of anyone better than my ex-roommate ‘N’ to read and comment on my writing. One of the things he advised me was – not to mention names explicitly in the blog. Finally I have decided to take his advice. Hence you will find me referring to people only with their initials)
I knew only 3 -4 of the 13 members that were to make the trek before hand. But I guessed that none of them were superstitious, because they had all agreed on choosing ‘Friday the 13th’ to be our day of departure!! The whole trip was organized and supervised by KT, who had appointed PM to book the cottages, SR to be in charge of the finances and SG to be in charge of the food and supplies during the journey. The trip for me started when the tempo traveller picked us up sometime before midnight and we started our journey to Ooty via Mysore. I couldn’t sleep the first night in the vehicle, partly because my dear friend SG ensured that I was constantly irritated from behind for the first half of the night and than by our driver L who played a CD, consisting of hit songs from some super flop movies of the late 90’s, through the night.
We reached Ooty sometime at 6:30am and were escorted to a house where we had to freshen up. The house was built sometime in 1948 and belonged to a friend of our main contact there ‘Pr’. While the rest of the gang was eagerly waiting for their turn to get clean, I fondly remember finding an old transistor radio from the 70’s, which I managed to tune to some frequency in the MW band. It gave me great pleasure to hear the sound flow from that antique piece, despite the fact that I couldn’t understand a single word of what that man, in the radio, was saying in Tamil. Finally at around 9am, after some helpings of breakfast, we left for Ebbanad, which was to be our main destination. We were joined by our guide ‘Sh’ who gave us a whole plethora of valid information along the way, which I tried to note down to the best of my ability.
The Nilgiris or ‘Blue Mountains’ form the southern part of the might Western Ghats in India. They are spread across the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and partly Karnataka. The original inhabitants of the Nilgiris’ were the people of the Toda community. They inhabited the mountains in communion with smaller tribes like the Bagada and the Jenukurumba. While the Todas mainly relied on farming, the Jenukurumba tribe, who resided deep in the forests, made a living out of honey.
These mountains are quite renowned for the eucalyptus trees. However, we were told that these trees tend to suck out extra water from the fertile soil and hence restrict the growth of other vegetation in the area. Recently, the Tamil Nadu government has passed a law to stop planting more eucalyptus trees and encouraged floriculture and farming of other vegetables which are helpful for the environment and the civilization. Another interesting fact that we got to learn was that the famous tea plantations did not exist since the beginning. Tea plantations were started by the British in 1850’s when they first came to the area, owing to the ideal climatic conditions. It was than that they renamed the place as Ootacamund or Ooty and made this a holiday destination of their choice.
Coming back to the trip, our vehicle took us to Ebbanad, through the village and upto a point after which the journey had to be trekked on foot. A yellow coloured jeep aptly names as ‘Forest Dancer’ was waiting to take our heavy luggage to our forest hut. As we loaded our stuff in the jeep, our guide Sh prepared some salt water which we had to rub all over our shoes and legs to reduce the effect of leeches sticking onto us and sucking our blood. I picked up my little bag pack which contained two bottles of water, my jacket and some medicines as we began our trek to our first destination – Beermukhu Temple.
I had learnt on my previous two trekking expeditions that the first stretch is always the most difficult. No wonder that I was almost fully exhausted by the first 200 steps. I was amongst the first to reach the foothills of the temple from where the steps began, but by now most of the guys had overtaken me, while the rest who were even more exhausted lagged behind. During the last phase of the climb, SR gave me company, as we stopped some 6 – 7 times before finally making it to the summit. We rested a while till the rest of the pack made the trek. After offering our prayers to lord Shiva at the temple, our guide lead us to the other end from where we could walk a small distance across a few more hills and get a 360degree view of the surrounding valley. All of us made that trip and the view we got was absolutely heavenly. As some photographs were being clicked, a cloud swept across us giving us the feeling of being “Above the Clouds”!!! It was almost as if time stood still at that hill top and we couldn’t but help stand there and admire the beauty that surrounded us.
(PS: When I first started writing my blog, I couldn’t think of anyone better than my ex-roommate ‘N’ to read and comment on my writing. One of the things he advised me was – not to mention names explicitly in the blog. Finally I have decided to take his advice. Hence you will find me referring to people only with their initials)
I knew only 3 -4 of the 13 members that were to make the trek before hand. But I guessed that none of them were superstitious, because they had all agreed on choosing ‘Friday the 13th’ to be our day of departure!! The whole trip was organized and supervised by KT, who had appointed PM to book the cottages, SR to be in charge of the finances and SG to be in charge of the food and supplies during the journey. The trip for me started when the tempo traveller picked us up sometime before midnight and we started our journey to Ooty via Mysore. I couldn’t sleep the first night in the vehicle, partly because my dear friend SG ensured that I was constantly irritated from behind for the first half of the night and than by our driver L who played a CD, consisting of hit songs from some super flop movies of the late 90’s, through the night.
We reached Ooty sometime at 6:30am and were escorted to a house where we had to freshen up. The house was built sometime in 1948 and belonged to a friend of our main contact there ‘Pr’. While the rest of the gang was eagerly waiting for their turn to get clean, I fondly remember finding an old transistor radio from the 70’s, which I managed to tune to some frequency in the MW band. It gave me great pleasure to hear the sound flow from that antique piece, despite the fact that I couldn’t understand a single word of what that man, in the radio, was saying in Tamil. Finally at around 9am, after some helpings of breakfast, we left for Ebbanad, which was to be our main destination. We were joined by our guide ‘Sh’ who gave us a whole plethora of valid information along the way, which I tried to note down to the best of my ability.
The Nilgiris or ‘Blue Mountains’ form the southern part of the might Western Ghats in India. They are spread across the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and partly Karnataka. The original inhabitants of the Nilgiris’ were the people of the Toda community. They inhabited the mountains in communion with smaller tribes like the Bagada and the Jenukurumba. While the Todas mainly relied on farming, the Jenukurumba tribe, who resided deep in the forests, made a living out of honey.
These mountains are quite renowned for the eucalyptus trees. However, we were told that these trees tend to suck out extra water from the fertile soil and hence restrict the growth of other vegetation in the area. Recently, the Tamil Nadu government has passed a law to stop planting more eucalyptus trees and encouraged floriculture and farming of other vegetables which are helpful for the environment and the civilization. Another interesting fact that we got to learn was that the famous tea plantations did not exist since the beginning. Tea plantations were started by the British in 1850’s when they first came to the area, owing to the ideal climatic conditions. It was than that they renamed the place as Ootacamund or Ooty and made this a holiday destination of their choice.
Coming back to the trip, our vehicle took us to Ebbanad, through the village and upto a point after which the journey had to be trekked on foot. A yellow coloured jeep aptly names as ‘Forest Dancer’ was waiting to take our heavy luggage to our forest hut. As we loaded our stuff in the jeep, our guide Sh prepared some salt water which we had to rub all over our shoes and legs to reduce the effect of leeches sticking onto us and sucking our blood. I picked up my little bag pack which contained two bottles of water, my jacket and some medicines as we began our trek to our first destination – Beermukhu Temple.
I had learnt on my previous two trekking expeditions that the first stretch is always the most difficult. No wonder that I was almost fully exhausted by the first 200 steps. I was amongst the first to reach the foothills of the temple from where the steps began, but by now most of the guys had overtaken me, while the rest who were even more exhausted lagged behind. During the last phase of the climb, SR gave me company, as we stopped some 6 – 7 times before finally making it to the summit. We rested a while till the rest of the pack made the trek. After offering our prayers to lord Shiva at the temple, our guide lead us to the other end from where we could walk a small distance across a few more hills and get a 360degree view of the surrounding valley. All of us made that trip and the view we got was absolutely heavenly. As some photographs were being clicked, a cloud swept across us giving us the feeling of being “Above the Clouds”!!! It was almost as if time stood still at that hill top and we couldn’t but help stand there and admire the beauty that surrounded us.
(continued in Ebbanad - II)
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