Our trip to KUMBAVURUTI

Its three families who planned to enjoy the location this season.....mine, my friend ram and my brother's. As planned my brother set out from our native tuticorin( yah i can call that way as we have spent a quarter of a century there, but originally we belong to thanjai tharani) with his family... i joined him at tirunelveli before dawn, thanks to the coach we travelled from chennai which reached 1/2 hour before the scheduled reaching time.

I called my friend immediately who was on his visit to his not-so-native place, an hour drive from tenkasi, and was scheduled to join us at tenkasi.... thank god, they were already in their bus which took them to tenkasi, so everything was perfect i thought... we reached tenkasi and waited for their arrival, thanks to the driver of their vehicle, an hour journey was stretched to two...

But no complaints since the season was at its peak, we were greeted with drizzles..not the kind we get in chennai..... this was special...the famous, rare "Kuttrala charal ", where the droplets are felt but does’nt make you wet........incredible isn’t it…

As we were enjoying, my friend with his family reached the spot of meeting, and we set ourselves towards this very longed spot of KUMBAVURUTY. The lush green fields enroute really excited the kids as they were only used to concrete jungles.....the early morning mist, the smell of greenaries and water bodies charged us up with extra dose of Oxygen.

As the cab was meandering thru the narrow roads of Panpozhi ( Paimpozhil to be exact) the enchanting view of hillocks clad with snowy white cloud with green back drop of tropical rain forest and sat downhill the not-so-big reservoir "adavi nainar" , was a treat to watch ( not to mention the view of thirumalaikoil ), after all god has made all those stuff for us, thought the occupants of the tiny cab.

When we were immersed at those incredible sites, the cab has started the journey into the ghats, the first site to your left on the first hairpin bend, was the green carpet that extends upto tenkasi and the equi-spaced wind farm fans....ah really exhilarating

After three or four more bends into the jungle ( it really got darker ) we were stopped for the routine check by the foresters…they spoke Malayalam… yah u guessed it right…we have entered kerala, GOD’s OWN COUNTRY…

There was moment of glory awaiting us….god, a large  white plumy substance was heading towards with swirling wind… cloud cloud shouted the kids and yah it was the moment of truth…..we all were nothing but mesmerized, the tag “gods own country” proved to be very right…

Thanking our fortune we spent sometime, making our flashes busy and kids running around…. It was worth a time to be spent… a chat with guards about the location, revealed some fact about the peaks… a few meters up the hill can lead one, to a open grassland above the hill, where from, we may able to see wild inmates of the forest viz. Boars, deers, occasionally bears, even panthers , but advised not to do with that climate… oh what a miss we whined…

A five kilometer descent took us to the first exotic falls deep in the jungle… small but scenic….its “MANALARU”… a couple of kilometers drive again made us land near the place of our real interest KUMBAVURUTY”…. we unpacked our food packets and we were carrying…nice idlies with “onion chutny” and “milaga podi”( a powdered mixture of dal/red chillies/and some other ingredients, it’s not my expertise, after all)… we finished, started our trek a mile or more into the jungle, a couple of meters into the jungle u are invited by the well laid concrete, yes…. concrete pathway (it really hurts to see a concrete structure in a jungle right..) which leads us to the much awaited falls……after a ten minute walk we were hit by the sound of water gushing……its only a child’s play that everybody guessed it right…it was our dream destination… KUMBAVURUTY falls

lovely…exclaimed my first time co-travelers, yah it’s the third time for me….it was ten years back when I first visited this place as a rookie..that was a out –box-travel experience as we rode our two wheelers from tenkasi. That time the place was absolutely a jungle with virtually no body around…to reach the falls we have to walk along the banks of the river…sometimes in foot deep water..sometimes in rocky pebbles….that was an wonderful experience….

already disappointed with the concrete structure..there came another jolt…..a nicely laid steel hand rail leading us to the falls ….a sizeable whitish dirty brown froth floating in my favourite “Thadagam” (a pool of water )..where we use to dive when we were there before… to top it all there were few hundreds of people thronging under the snowy water…. And there was literally no place to stand….. alas!!!  I thought….One more place of adventure has lost its virginity to the mad crowd….

But for the first timers, there was nothing stopping them, they enjoyed their heart out…..

It was an incredible trip by any means breathing the fresh air and the green sorrunding and feeling the passing-cloud-experience was one of the great ones, but still there was some mixed feelings deep in my heart….

I called my brother, told him “bro ask your pals to find a new falls which is inaccessible to this mad weekend crowd” he acknowledged….

Enroute to Palaruvi (another great spot) a fruit vendor made me happy by saying that the place is sorrunded by 200 more unexplored waterfalls, which is a great news for nature and adventure seekers like me…expecting one more travel to this place this December…( told you we are already into our finding the new spot, hope to get it in 3 months time)