 |
| Hairpin bends, Viewpoints, Tea estates, Kids@Whispering falls resort,Sholayar dam |
As always, we ended up planning & booking a day before
the travel date. Since Ooty & Goa were completely booked, we decided on
Valparai (a place not commercialized yet). A new place to see :-). Total
distance from Bangalore to Valparai is about 450+ kms. So we planned to leave
for Valparai on Thursday evening and stop over at Coimbatore- about 108kms from
Valparai. Booked Comfort Hotel for Thursday night. Plan
was to start by 5pm but we ended up starting at 7pm and reached Comfort Hotel,
Coimbatore at about 1am. Good hospitality even at that hour of night and complimentary
breakfast for all 4. That’s all we needed.
Friday morning post breakfast we started our drive towards
Valparai. We were supposed to be booked at Whispering falls,
Valpari through www.makemytrip.com.
But Makemytrip folks goofed up and although had confirmed to us the
booking, they
had not intimated Whispering falls folks. After landing there at noon,
we were
stuck with no room to stay! When we reached out to Makemytrip team, they
took
close to 2.5 hrs to tell us that they were unable to find us any rooms
and all
they could get us is 1 star homestay which was about 2hrs drive away
from where we were :-S Now what!! So we went back to Whispering
Falls & the manager there- Nitin, helped us with finding another
homestay
very close to his place. Thanks to Nitin, we atleast had a room for
night that day. By
late evening we received a call from Nitin informing us that he would
have a
vacant room by next day. Happiness!!!! We could shift into his resort.
Since we
had lost most of our time, we decided do some sight seeing closeby, went
towards Palakkad road…nice views, tea estate to see. And around the time
of
sunset went to Sholayar dam and sat there until sunset. On our way to
Valparai
(from Coimbatore), we had crossed some more view points, like the View
point on
9th hairpin bend (there
are 40 hairpin bends totally), Aliyar
dam and Tiger Valley View Waterfall.
Saturday morning we decided to drive down to Athirapally falls. You need to cross
the Tamilnadu & Kerala checkpost and the catch is, the gates close at 6pm.
So wherever you go, if you want to get back to your resort, ensure you touch
the gates before 6pm. Tamilandu side of checkpost is friendly. Kerala side of
checkpost, very professional. Do their thorough check on each vehicle. A small
form gets filled by the inspector to check on what plastic items we are
carrying, like the number of waterbottles, any plastic plates, glass bottles
etc. Make sure you keep this form safe with you, as it gets checked near
Athirapally falls entrance & while on return too. Kerala side of this road
was beautiful. We had a long drive through full green forest, listening to
sounds of cricket & birds. Our first stop was at Thottapara View point, then Vazhachhal
falls & Sholayar Power. After
about 1.5hrs of driving we realized we were running out of fuel. The tank was
already showing ‘E’. Got to know from some locals that the only petrol bunk on
this side of the road was near Athirapally falls, which was another 15-20kms
away. About 10kms away from Athirapally
is this small town where we stopped over for lunch (Ponny’s hotel)- Appam &
kadala curry. Not hot, but tasty. Bang opposite this place was Boating center.
Since the clock was already hitting 2pm, we decided against boating and headed
towards fuel & Athirapally falls. Fuel station was hardly 200mtrs away from
falls entrance. It was a long walk down to Athirapally falls. We weren’t allowed
to touch water there, but the sight was just beautiful. Reminded me of Jog
falls in full flow. Getting back up was the difficult part in that hot sun.
Kids enjoyed their bit of adventure of trekking..as they called it :-D. Once
back up, the kids entered the water & played until it was time for us to
return. If we had had some more time to spare, we would have seen Monkey falls
too. But our aim was to be back at Kerala checkpost by 6pm, so we started back
by 4pm.
Just
when the kids were complaining that they had not seen
any animal in this trip, we braked hard. A herd of elephants crossing
the road, with one of them charging at a biker who was ahead of us. All
vehicles came to a standstill. The bikers who were ahead dropped their
bikes on
the road and ran back towards us as the elephant came charging at them.
Once
safe, all of us just waited for the elephants to move away and started
our
drive back. We were lucky to have reached back the border by 6pm.
Evening stay was
pleasant at Whispering falls. Kids enjoyed playing in the small
waterfall
inside the resort.
Sunday morning, morning cup of tea, some photographs,
breakfast & some chitchat and it was time for us to leave. After thanking
Nitin, we started back from Valparai at 11am and reached back home at 9pm.
The winding well tarred roads with greenery all through in
Valparai is worth the visit.
 |
| Sholayar Dam, Athirapally falls, Tea estates,Waterfall@Whispering falls, Silhouette of us, view from Ghat, Elephant attack,Windmills on the way |
 |
| Angry Elephant |
 |
| Selfie Time |
Comfort Hotel, Coimbatore:: You
will find Large clean bed to accommodate
4. AC room. Good hospitality. Complimentary breakfast.
Whispering falls,
Valpari:: This place offers nice large non AC room with 2 double beds.
There are just 7 rooms, so direct prior booking & confirmation would be better.
Food charges extra.
St.Josephs Homestay, Valparai:: This place has 2 large
rooms with 3 double beds & a toilet. Good for large family or perfect
for riders who want a place to rest & drive out. Basic accomodation.
