Travelogue - A Trip to Wayanad - Day 2 - Edakkal Caves with the Nakkal Boys

Day 2 - The Beginning

Well, day one was bad enough, so we thought the other days would be better. On Day 2, we had exciting plans and were not going to let anything stupid spoil our plans.

Starting off, the biggest problem in our gang is the few mokka boys who won't sleep and were waking everyone else up, just because they were unable to, as early as 6 am. Though myself and Senthil had locked our room and slept precisely because these guys (especially Sura and Daddu) won't let others sleep, there they were again, banging on our doors.

Misty Mornings

They were excited, it seems, because there was a lot of 'mist' outside. Well, you are at a hill station and what else you expect in the morning? Peh.. :/ I tried taking a few snaps in the mist, but I was too sleepy to set a proper ISO or focus, so it came like crap.

Crap Pic # 1

Crap Pic # 2

Complimentary Breakfast

Among the other expected things were the complimentary breakfast, which was exciting because: a. It was Complimentary; b. It was supposed to be authentic home-made. We finally succeeded in waking up Kumar by 8 am and forced him to go and request the aunty who is the manager of the homestay for breakfast, because yesterday, Kumar had established himself as someone who knows Malayalam (well, at least a little). But he used 'madhi' so often in his words that we had kept his nickname as Madhi since then. (For example, "Breakfast madhi", "ready aa madhi" :D).

Anyways, by 8:30 AM, the aunty had provided steaming hot puttus with kadala curry. While the puttus proved a little inadequate for all those fellows who had not eaten the previous night due to depression over the JD incident, we made them all eat the leftover Chapathis from the previous night. Karma.. :P

The Edakkal Caves

We were however more excited about visiting the Edakkal Caves and the Kuruvadeep island that day which was supposed to be the highlight now that falls and wildlife park were closed for visitors. Firstly, Edakkal comes from 'Idai Kal', which in Tamil translates to 'In Between Stone'. The theory is that, ancient Tamil people of the age 500 BC were living in these caves which was formed due to the one rock that is stuck between (and hence the name) two cliffs leaving a large space below it. 

The Edakkal of the Edakkal Caves Viewed From Bottom Up

As someone very interested in history, I was eager to go there and check out the place for myself. The route to the Edakkal caves was a good one hour drive from our room and we were still reminiscing the sad fate of the now infamous JD bottle. Our driver was kind enough to drop us near the entrance of the pathway winding upwards to the Edakkal caves. As we saw, the other drivers were not so kind enough and the other tourists were walking an additional one kilometre than what we did.

The Tiring Climb

While we did go up though, we realized that it was still a steep climb. The pathway was at least 3 kilometres before we reached the actual cave entrance and most of the boys had gotten tired by then.

Boys Dragging Themselves Along as Sura clicks from the other side

The next highlight was Madhi alias Kumar who was giving every type of pose from a full squat to a Mann Karate pose. I had found the ideal model to improve my photography skills: he would pose and I would snap, in the process keep learning how to take better pics. But the problem was that this was clearly pissing everyone else off. We were just not keeping pace with the others. After the Monk hurled a few expletives at us, we quietly followed the rest of the gang.

Finally by the time we reached the entrance for the caves, most of the guys were tired and exhausted.

Say Hello to Edakkal Caves

Those good people responsible for the caves to be the way it is now..

While they sat over to rest with a bottle of water near the entrance, I could note that the entrance to the caves was very well made and it looked as a pretty cool setting.

The caves are welcoming you..

Perilous Path

There are a lot of rocks that have been cut to form staircases and there are some tricky pathways. Don't take the elderly or those with low stamina to this place, they may find it a tedious climb. There are also some really narrow steps to climb with no railings, so it is advisable to be careful here.

It can get dark in those caves..

Told You These Caves Are Tricky..

Breathtaking Views

After climbing for about twenty minutes there was a steep stair way which lead to some breathtaking views from the top. I changed to the 55-250 long zoom lens and the images came with better quality, but still not as good as Sura's.

A Verrry Long Zoom - My Cam

There's a good reason why Sura is a better photographer than me, as you will see below:

A Very Long Zoom From Sura - A Better Photographer

And finally, we entered the Edakkal part.

You need climb down this part to reach the Edakkal Cave

Inside The Cave

Though it wasn't as huge as it's build up, the place was very well maintained and the government appointed guide explained us kindly about the significance of the place. It seems the place was inhabited by Tamils some 2500 years back and they had carved some inscriptions including those of the sun, people and tools. There was also a fascinating inscription starting with "Pala puli.." written in Tamil on the wall. The guide told us that it was about a man called 'Nandhu' who had killed many tigers and had them as food in the caves.

Can you see the "Pala Puli" written at the center?

While it did sound interesting, I had found it hard to believe that the script would actually be 2500 years old, since at that time, rounded Tamil alphabets were used and the words used here look more like the contemporary Tamil, that is presently used. So, was the guide wrong? I don't know. Would be great if someone could explain..

The Race to The Front Seat

And then we came out and realized that we had to go back that entire stretch of four kilometres by walk. What Madhi alias Kumar was doing very well was to rush to the car first every time, so that he can sit next to the driver. It was an Innova that we were travelling in, so the seven of us were seated 1 + 3 + 3. Since all of us are medium to heavily built, sitting at the back seat was no pleasant experience. This time, though, the Monk had other plans.

As Madhi was posing for one more pic, the Monk gave a run for the entrance. After giving two or three casual poses, Madi realized the conspiracy and started running too. The Monk had a head start and reached the car first, and we all had nice fun poking at Madhi.

The next stop was supposed to be lunch but Prabhu had other plans. He wanted the driver to stop at some place providing authentic Palm Wine. The guys got 500 ml of it and finally had a taste of it. While it did have 4 insects floating around in it, which was a good complimentary addition for the 40 bucks that the guys paid for it. Ewww...

Lunch!

And as we travelled near Kuruwadeep, we reached a place in between which was a mess serving food like the earlier day.

The Place Of Our Lunch

Only difference is that it was a thatched hut with plastic leaves, instead of actual leaves. The food and variety was almost the same here.

Kerala Rice Again!

 Since Daddu was already a non-vegetarian convert, he had no problems starting with a Fish Fry this time.

Fish Curry Again

Fish Fry Again!!

Lunch went well and as everyone were unloading piss behind the trees after the heavy lunch, the evil that Sura was, started snapping everyone in that position from behind.

Nobody escapes Sura's viewfinder.. :P

I had known him too long to take a piss then, and waited till he was away in some corner to finally seek some relief. :P

Kuruva Island

And then, with expectations, we walked into Kuruwadeep. The entrance fee was 30 per person and that for cameras were 30 each. Just as we walked in, we could see some ducks and butterflies in the distance. Out went the cameras!

He was actually pretty far away; this was at maximum zoom..

And then came the fun part of the boating. The place being an island is not essentially literal. It's more like a piece of land surrounded on sides by a river, there's no sea here to make it an island.

The other side..

However, to reach the island, you need to be on the raft boat.

The raft boat carrying people to and from the island

Somehow, I didn't have a good feeling about the boat. Just as our boat arrived and we were to set sail, it started drizzling. Again, twice in two days, the weather changed from hot to cloudy to rainy in a matter of minutes. And we had to urgently place our cameras inside our camera bags. As the rains started lashing, the boys got a bit pensive of their phones and started putting it inside my camera bag - because I made the mistake of informing them that it is water resistant.

Snake on The Raft!

Just as this happened, there came a freaking water snake on our raft. Yes, the back end of the raft was partly submerged in water and a snake clearly came and scared the people. It came and got settled near the legs of Daddu; if it was anybody else, they would have shit their pants, but not Daddu; he cooly took his phone out and started snapping the snake below his legs.

Picture Courtesy - Daddu the Brave Guy

With a bit of fear, everyone waited for the other end of the island to come. Meanwhile the drizzle had picked up pace. It wasn't until we reached the northern end of the island after a walk of 20 minutes through some dense forest land, that the rain stopped.

The Paradise!

And the view was awesome!

Unfortunately took most good pics with people in it, so can't post here.. :/

There was a stream with a good water flow in it.

Looks like paradise, right? 

People were swimming and it was a big shock for people like Prabhu and Daddu who had actually bought shorts for the same purpose, but didn't bring it to this place. In fact, this place was only a last minute choice, so we actually didn't knew what we could or could not do here.

So, there was one choice: we could either remove our clothes, get into the river with our inners and take a bath and come back to the mainland with wet inners (!) or shut up and do nothing. Daddu was too thrilled to let this go. Even though nobody would give company, he had no hesitation removing his shirts and pants in a matter of seconds and diving into the stream.

Daddu the bathing beauty

As we made our way back, we captured some cool clicks on both sides of the island, the best of which should surely be this:

Nice, right?

And then after finally coming out of Kuruwadeep, it was around 5 PM and going anywhere was close to impossible. The boys decided to head to a Tea Shop since walking a good 5 kilometres there had drained everybody's battery.

While me and Kumar made into the tea shop, the others were busy shopping for more saraku in the saraku shop. Kumar was not interested to drink today, not sure why. So, well, after a bit of tea and snacks, we made our way back to the room.

Dinner and Movie..

I had taken my laptop so we could watch something at the night. I had bought an entire hard disk full of movies but nothing could make anyone happy. Daddu wanted some 'Hangover: Tamil Dubbed' version, Sura wanted horror, a couple of others guys wanted comedy movies and nobody reached a consensus. So, taking the laptop was a waste, except for Kumar who had transferred all his SLR pics onto his mobile everyday via the lap. :P

We eventually played a horror movie and Daddu got a bit scared. A few months back, the boys made an experiment with Ouija board, in the middle of which there was a power cut and lizzards falling on people's shoulders, which got Daddu scared out of his wits. While that story is for another day, ever since then Daddu has not been too comfortable with anything paranormal.

The Night Walk

So, after the dinner - and drinking for the other boys - was over, we decided to go on a night walk and decided to pull a prank on Daddu. The night walk started at around midnight and the boys were semi sleepy while walking on the by-pass road near our room.

Kumar with the blanket around him during the night walk

What made the location interesting was the presence of a cemetery close to our place of stay. That itself was enough to give chills to Daddu. So, while on our way back to our Homestay we suddenly pushed him to gate of the cemetery. His eyes lit up and there was pure rage on his face. With one push, he sent me and Sura back and ran to the opposite side of the cemetry.

Daddu's Personal Horror Story

While we came back to the room, Daddu explained the reason behind his fear for the paranormal. Apparently, it started way before the Ouija Board incident. There was some female figure that he used to see as a child in his newly built home. It turned out that a lady had committed suicide in the same well which was used for watering the construction of Daddu's home. While we were keeping poker faces trying not to laugh, there was pure terror on Daddu's face. :P

And by 1:30 AM, we all went to sleep after what was a tiring and pretty long day. The next day would turn out to be even cooler with boating and beach views. Part 3 coming up soon!

Thanks for reading. :)