Thellikal Nights

Day 7 - 3rd Oct, 2009
After few hours of sleep in the machan, we all got ready by 7:00AM, ate the remaining bread, jam, banannas, etc. We trekked few kms ahead of the machan to chcek out the animals. Unfortunately, we didn't see any. We started walking back to parambikulam village. That was 5 kms. We reached parambikullam village, refreshed ourself, ate lunch, packed curd rice for the dinner at thellikal nights, boarded the bus around 1:00PM, reached parivari pallam. from there we need to trek 8 kms to reach thellikal nights stay. It started raining as soon as we got down from the bus. we put our rain coats on, started walking. Sunshine had an head ache, gave the local balm, which we bought at the eco centre shop. Luckily, there were no leeches on this trail.

On the way, murugesh found some guava trees, plucked lot of guavas. Then found a amla tree, plucked few amlas. It was nice walking in the forest when it is drizzling. We reached the Panthera den, near the thellikal vayal around 4:30PM. We ate one pack of curd rice with pickle. Bliss took some mind map notes about the treks, Moon light slept a bit. Sunshine and Wanderer were resting themselves after the walk. Babu and Murugesh brought some water from the pond near by to the kitchen and prepared the black tea. Drank the black tea. Archillies and Bridget went for a walk till the pond and came back. Babu and Murugesh shared lot of wild stories that they came across. Once, Babu met with an elephant and it started chasing him. Somehow he ran off and escaped from the elephant, reached his home, and didn't go to work for the next few days it seems. So many stories like that. Archillies was tired and went for a short nap. Bliss and Moon light listened to all the stories.

Suddenly Babu observed that a sambar deer is being hunted by a team of wild dogs. Moon light, Bliss went and saw that with the guides. In few minutes, all the wild dogs cleared off the sambar deer. Archillies got up around 7:00PM. All ate the dinner, went out, saw few sambar deers, malabar squirrel, etc. It was pitch dark, we went back to panthera den, chit chatted for a while and went to sleep early, as we need to walk 8 kms to reach the bus stop to catch the bus at 7:00AM in the morning. We got up at 5:00AM, all got ready quickly, let the place, walked briskly in the morning, took some short cuts, reached the bus stop on time. After few minutes, bus came there, we got into bus, reached parambikulam village, directly went to the hotel, ate breakfast :)

You can read more about our parambikulam experience from the main blog entry on the parambikulam trek blog entry .

Full Moon Cencus

Day 6 - 2nd Oct, 2009
We vacated salim ali centre around 2:30PM and headed to Full Moon Census. From salim Ali centre, Full moon census is 5 Kms away. Our guide said we should not reach early, because animals won't come after smelling our presence and alos we should not reach late, because animals will go away if they see us coming. So, we planned to reach around 4:30-5:00 and started accordingly.

After 5 days in forest covering almost 70Kms, our stamina improved a lot. Covering 5 Kms and all is a easy task now. We never felt tired, we were at a good pace. Not much of leeches on this trial. We saw few sambar dears at some distance. We crossed couple of vayals, grass land. Saw few Bisons and sambar deers at a distance. We reached our tree top machan after around 4:45. Bliss, Sunshine went up. To adress nature's call, Archilles and Moon light walked few metres away from the tree top machan. Saw a herd of sambar deers at a very close distance. Almost 25 to 30 sambar deers. After sensing us, all ran away in different directions and after sometime, gathered again and went inside the forest trees.As the machan is occupied very rarely, It was dirty all over the place. One big rat and few bats were inside. Our Guide cleaned the machan and set all the rat and bats away.

We ate some snacks and played few rounds of card games. We ate chappattis, bread, jam, boiled eggs, bannanas, etc as dinner. After dinner time was 9:00PM. We made some shifts to be awake and watch out for the animals. Bliss wanted to stay awake the whole night. Archillies and Moon light were on the last shift, which starts from 2AM. So, both went to sleep. Bliss, and Sunshine were on the first shift, 9:00PM to 11:00PM. Bridget didn't get sleep in machan because of bat's smell. Bridget also accompanied the first shift folks. They identified a sambar deer. All went and saw. After 11:00PM, Sunshine went to sleep. Bliss, Wanderer, and Bridget were observing the animals. Around 00:30 hrs, some one woke up Archillies and Moon light saying "Bear, Bear". They spoted a bear. All woke up and saw the bear. It was right beneath the machan. We used the bright-light torch, brought by the guide, and saw the bear. Because of the disturbance, it went back to the trees. It was raining whole night. Because of that, none of the animals came to the grass land, stayed inside the forest.
Moon light went to sleep. Archillies could not get sleep after that. Started observing animals. Around 2:00AM, Bliss, Wanderer went to sleep. Bridget went to sleep around 2:30AM. Archillies woke up Moonlight around 3:00AM and went to sleep. Didn't observe any more animals. But felt some movements beneath the machan. Not sure, what was the animal.

Near to that machan, there is a rock stone. Elephants normally come there and rub its body on that rock stone it seems. Because of that rock, that place is named as "Anakkal", meaning Elephant's rock.

You can read more about our parambikulam experience from the main blog entry on the parambikulam trek blog entry .

Salim Ali Centre

Day 5 - 1st Oct, 2009
After the Early morning safari, we ate the breakfast near the information centre, saw the displays at the exhibition centre, rested ourself below the trees near the information centre. We left around 12:30, reached parambikulam village, ate our lunch, refreshed a bit, took the neccessarry stuff for next couple of days to stay at Salim Ali centre and Full Moon Census. Initial plan was to get the material with us and someone will cook for us near salim ali centre. Unfortunately, some one passed away in parambikulam village and most of the people who stayed near salim ali centre came to parambikulam village. So, change of plan. For the next two days, We packed enough chappatis, tomato rice, curd rice, eggs, bread, jam, banannas, candles, etc.

Since Salim Ali centre is on the way to the cochin tramway trek and we already covered that trail, we didn't want to walk 10 Kms again on the same trail. We reached Salim Ali centre in the SUMO and we released the SUMO. Babu didn't come with us. He was there in parambikulam village to attend the rituals. New guide came with us.

We reached around 5:30. Guide cleaned the salim ali centre dormitory. That facility had Bamboo cart, very basic toilet, water arrangement for the toilet, no power. We off loaded our lugguage. Bliss went to river to take bath. Rest of us asked our guide to make the arrangement for fishing. We have already brought the fishing thread and the fishing needle from parambikulam village. We got three fishing rods, tried to catch some fish. We got some pull from the fish, but they are smart, ate the earthworm and went off. It started getting dark, we went back to salim ali centre. Ate our packed dinner. Went to sleep. It was raining whole night.

Next day, day 6, Got up around 8:00AM, it was still drizzling. We brushed, asked our guide to boil the eggs through some villagers who stayed near salim ali centre. We ate chappattis, eggs, bread, and jam. Bliss went outside, did some Kalipayattu practice, followed by Rain Yoga. Since we need to be awake on full moon census night, We rested ourself in salim ali centre. Babu reached salim ali centre around 12:00. We ate our lunch around 1:00PM, relaxed a bit, packed our stuff, vacated salim ali centre around 2:30PM and headed to Full Moon Census.

You can read more about our parambikulam experience from the main blog entry on the parambikulam trek blog entry .

Kari Mala Gopuram Trek

Day 4 - 30th Sept, 2009
Since this one is the toughest among all the parambikulam, we planned to start early. Informed our guide on the previous day to arrange the food parcel before 7:30AM.

We were all ready by 7:00AM, we ate our breakfast at lakshmi hotel, who charged at par with any normal hotel in bangalore. Our lunch parcel got delayed because of the morning breakfast rush in the hotel. We got our parcel around 8:30AM. Guide farooq replaced guide murugesh for this trek. By the time we reached the parambikulam dam, it was 9:00AM.


Karimala Gopuram trek starts from the dam. As our guide informed about the leech population in this trail, we had applied lot of dettol mixed with tobacco powder. Few, who didn't like the tobacco powder smell, applied only dettol. Babu made some nice sticks for us from the trees.
We started our trek. The trail is steepy from the beginning of the trek. We had to stop couple of minutes after every 10 minutes of climb. Too many Leeches all around. As soon as you slow down your pace or stop at some place,minimum 5 leeches claim on the foot. We were all busy in removing them as we walked. Bliss walked ahead of all of us.Wanderer and Moon Light were at the end. Bridget started counting the number of leeches she removed from her shoes. She got around 200 leeches altogether till she reached back the base.

As we walked very slowly on the steep, We reached the middle of the trial around 1:00PM, which was late as per our calculation. We all had our curd rice with yummy Ginger pickle. Took some rest.Since Wanderer was low on that day, Wanderer decided to stay at the rock and asked us to climb the peak and come back. Guide Babu stayed with her. We headed up after lunch break. Since we need to climb down before the sunset, we increased our pace. It was drizzling quite often. As we all had our rain coats on, we kept walking inside the ever green forest.

Last few kilometers there are no trees, But Lot of grass were there. Our guide said that elephants come here for this grass especially. We saw couple of marks which indicated that baby elephants palyed over the grass land. On the grass land, the trial is actually maintained by the elephants. We followed the elephant pug marks and climbed the steep by holding the grass, which gave very strong support. We saw a small black viper snake. Our guide used the stick to clear the grass, it went away. Since it was 2:30PM already, the last mile to the peak we didn't cover :(.






We relaxed on the grass land, had a nice view of the catchment area, clouds passed across us. Had the chocolates :), took lots of photos and some videos.
Then guide gave a signal to start otherwise we can't go back before sunset.We started climbing back. As always, Climbing down was easy, but the load goes to knees. We made small steps to avoid much of load on the knees. We came back to the rock, middle of the trial, where Wanderer and guide Babu were waiting for us. Took 10 minutes break, shown all the photos and videos. Left the rock, headed back to the dam. We saw swinging tree, we tried to swing like a tarzan... and then started walking down.
This time, Bliss was coming at the end. His policy is to be the first when you enter the forest and to be the last when you come out of the forest, to make the most of it :) We reached around 6:00PM. The SUMO that we arranged for the morning safari was there at the base. We took some snaps and went to the tiger hall in SUMO.

You can read more about our parambikulam experience from the main blog entry on the parambikulam trek blog entry .