A trip to Pollachi

Our trip to Pollachi was not all that uneventful, despite our bad choice of season. Our challenges started right from planning. Thanks to Raja and Praveena, they did intense googling and meticulous inquiry over phone about places to be visited. They had also booked a room in Hotel Vinayaka for Saturday morning, which was required to get ready to set out on our tour the first day we arrived in at Pollachi (on 23-Mar-2013). We were fortunate that the hotel did not demand extra payment though we were four of us using a single room. I wonder if the hotel would do a similar favour to anyone else in future.

Kannan was the first one to reach Pollachi and to the hotel. He had come from Chennai by bus. Raja, Praveena and myself went from Bangalore. I had a ticket in Kurla express till Coimbatore and I utilized it as a cost saving measure, else I would have gone with the other two. 

I got down at Tiruppur Junction at around 5:40 am and boarded a government mofussil bus to Pollachi at 6:00 pm from Tiruppur old bus stand. Conductor said that the journey would take roughly 1 hr and 45 mins. It actually took a little less than that. I reached Pollachi bus stand at 7:40 am. Kannan asked me to come by an auto to the hotel. I inquired people there about the distance to the hotel and found it to be 1.5 kms. I decided to walk finding the distance ideal for a morning (even more ideal for my wallet :) , autos in TN are expensive). I could reach hotel in about 10 mins. 

Kannan was waiting with the room key, he had reached 30 mins back and was waiting for the room to be cleaned. Raja and Praveena arrived after 10 mins after I reached the hotel room. They came by a non-ac sleeper bus and had engaged an auto to the hotel. We got ready one by one, charged our phones and digicams. With his belly bigger than other three of us, we had the reason to call Kannan, 'Lord Ganesh'. We had a grand start with a photo of our 'Ganesh'.

Thanks to my friend Janani, who gave the contact number of her cousin brother Vinod, who helped us by arranging taxi for our travel. Driver Moorthy was waiting outside the hotel with his Tavera. We left the hotel by 9 am, had a satisfying breakfast at Amuthasurabhi hotel and started to our first place - Aanamalai Maasaani Amman temple. 

Here we start the day 1...

Aanamalai Maasani Amman temple:

The drive to the temple was enjoyable as the road was well laid and there were trees on either sides of the road that made the road scenic.

There was very little crowd in the temple fortunately that day. The temple has the deity of Goddess Amman in her lying position, a position not so common with the Goddess in other temples. Another specialty of the temple is that there is a small deity of Goddess, to which people apply chilly-salt-other ingredients paste, ground with the grinding stone present near the deity of the Goddess, praying to her to punish people who had betrayed them, to relieve their kin from a disease incurable, so on... It is also said and followed that, once their prayers have been fulfilled by the Goddess, she is to be made to bath (performed abhishekam) with curd and milk. (Please check with pujari in the temple for the correct details on performing the chilly-salt-other ingredient abhishegam). 

There is a small river / canal to the left side of the temple which will be full of fresh moving water during winter and rainy season (July end through November), that would be ideal for a good river bath. We could not enjoy it because of our bad choice of season.
 
From Maasani Amman temple, we set out for the Top Slip and Parambikkulam. 

 

Top Slip and Parambikkulam:

The drive over the road was smooth till the foot hills of Top Slip. From the entrance of Top Slip, a 12 km journey to the up hill of Top Slip was a horrible experience. Driver kept cursing the poorly laid / maintained roads as he drove. The dry season added to woes of poorly maintained roads, making the journey extremely slow and unenjoyable. 

[ghat area on the way to up hills of Top Slip, posing great vulnerability to forest fire due to the dry weather of the summer season]

We chose not to go to Parambikkulam, as people are accepted for safari in batches of 15 persons in the forest department vehicles, which means people have to wait indefinitely till a group of 15 is formed. There is no assurance that people of same group can travel all together. Also we were told by the driver that, wild animals could be hardly seen, citing the dry weather of the season. Moreover we needed to cover Thirumoorthy hills the same day. So we just took some photographs.

This is the best remains of the 12 km ghat road from downhill to uphill of Top Slip.

Praveena and Raja

Thirumoorthy Hills:

Thirumoorthy hills is about 35 to 40 km drive from Aanamalai towards Udumalpet. On the way to Thirumoorthy hills from Top Slip, we were shown the farm of Actor Manivannan. 

We missed the scenic sight of the Thirumoorthy dam in the dry weather. Driver said that there is no trace of any water in any dam or falls, be it the Monkey falls or the Tiger falls or any of the dams in the locality. Thirumoorthy dam was no exception.

About a km from the entrance of the dam, is a famous temple of the trinity Gods, Bramha, Vishnu and Shivan. 

A sudden thought just struck me as I started this topic of Thirumoorthy hills, that this hill might have been originally named as "Thiri - Moorthy malai", the hill of the trinity Gods and could have later got "மருவி"fied to its current name. (what an idea BALAJI!!)

By the side of the temple is the stretch of the Thirumoorthy reservoir, barely visible but for a few pond formations. We did walk out to the centre of the otherwise inaccessible portion of the reservoir, had there been few heavy rains.

We had to go to Vaalpaarai the same day for the night stay. Driver showed the route to reach Actor Goundamani's house after traveling for a short while back to Pollachi from Thirumoorthi hills. 

We reached the hotel around 6:15 pm, checked out and started to Vaalpaarai at around 6:30 pm. 

On the way to Vaalpaarai from Pollachi is the famous Aazhiar dam. We could not visit it as it was already late. It was a small disappointment to me, as I was a little excited to see this bungalow where "Viswanathan velai vendum" song from the ever green full time comedy movie "Kaadhalikka neramillai" was shot. 

We were fortunate to see a unspotted and unstriped deer, that was of the size of a calf, on the way to Vaalpaarai, while were also enjoying the vaguely visible Aazhiar dam in the chill weather and mild moon light, as we drove. The deer managed to descend to the forest that lay by side of the road, on seeing our vehicle, that we could not take a photograph of it.

 

Rainfall cottage - Vaalpaarai:

Thanks once again to Raja and Praveena. Because of their sound planning, we were able to check in into the Rainfall resort cottage, located in 28th hairpin bend of the Vaalpaarai that consisted 48 hairpin bends totally. The cook and care taker of the cottage that we checked in, Veera, said that dinner would be served in half an hour. We played carom board till Veera called us for diner. The dinner was awesome with delicious kuruma for chapathis, cabbage fry (poriyal), rasam rice and curd rice. The freshness of the vegetables could be felt as we ate, a rare feeling almost impossible to get with vegetables sold in cities. After dinner, we played cards (rummy), not to give up the family tradition and slept later.

long hall

view of the cottage from the gate

Early morning the next day made an awesome time for enjoy the beauty of nature.

We had a nice breakfast. Even bread, dosas, idlis and radish sambar, well cooked can get you the feel of heavenly food. 
Our plan for the day was Vaalpaarai - Balaji temple, Athirappalli falls and Aazhiar falls if time permits. Time did not permit, so we visited only the former two.

Balaji Temple - Vaalpaarai:

Balaji Temple, Vaalpaarai is a privately owned temple. We had to park our vehicle about 3/4th of a km before the temple premise and walk to the temple. "Dei, photo edukkaadha daa", shouted the security of the temple disrespectfully with his irritating voice, but only after I took this photo.

We then started our journey to the Athirappalli falls, otherwise known as "punnagai mannan" falls, named after a famous Kamal Hasan's movie, that was praised by the film's director KB for Kamal's acting in it, which I was never able to appreciate. I only felt it to be overacting. I like Kamal's comedy movies like Tenali, Avvai Shanmukhi, Sathileelavathi, Pammal K Sammandham, Vasool Raaja, Panchathandhiram, Kaadhalaa Kaadhalaa and MMKR better than Kamal's movies like Hey Ram and movies likewise...

 

Athirappalli falls:

The roads that connected Vaalpaarai to Athirappalli falls was forest area. It looked a little greenish unlike Top Slip, as we entered Kerala. We were told that there were few small rains in that area few days back. We were also told that we could see bison or tiger or deer or bear if we were lucky enough. We only saw monkeys all through. We were not lucky enough :( .

We reached Athirappalli falls by 12:30 pm. The view of the falls from the view point was just mind blowing.

The bath at the designated area, about 1/4 of a km by the side of the falls, was truly a great joy, a satisfactory bath after a long time, after river bath at Sathyamangalam and after the bath at Kuttralam, Thenkasi.

We started by 2:30 pm back to our cottage, reaching it at 6:30 pm, time to hurry, grab a quick tea, set off to Pollachi. We had our dinner at Amuthasurabhi and hurried to board into KPN non-AC semi sleeper, set to leave Pollachi at 8:45 pm. Kannan boarded the bus to Chennai. Our trip thus came to an end.

Thank you God for this lovely trip!