Trip To Tenkasi and Kutrallam

TENKASI AND KUTRALLAM TRIP

Hi friends, i like to share my experience about my trip to Tenkasi city and Kutrallam… I like to call Tenkasi as a city of Green and Nature. Wherever u see, whole place looks very natural and greenish.

Short information why this city got name as Tenkasi:

As u all know in North India, there is a city named KASI where people take a holy dip in the water with the belief that they can get rid of all the sins that they had committed in their lives. A king in South India planned to build a temple where South India people can have holy dip and wash their sin. He did special prayers(puja), finally God appeared and asked him to build a statue in a city (don’t know the exact place) and bring it to a destined place before a particular time. But that king failed to bring that statue to appropriate place at time. The statue was able to reach Tenkasi, so that king build the temple there and named that city as TENKASI. (TEN means South in Tamil language). One local guy said me this story when i discussed the history of the temple with him. As the statue didn’t reached the place at time, this temple and place is not famous like Kasi. Tenkasi is also famous for Drizzling at the month of May-August.


Day 1: 9-Jan-09 (Friday)

On Friday evening, me , my cousin and his friend started from Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT). We started our journey around 6pm . We planned to go by train or some private bus service but as it was Friday we cant able to book ticket in those. So we had to go by government bus. Had a worst experience in that. Due to very poor maintenance of that bus, the speed is not crossing more than 60-70km. Normal travel time to reach Tenkasi from Chennai is 10 hours, but that bus takes nearly 13 hours.

Day 2: 10-Jan-09 (Saturday)

Finally we reached Tenkasi at 7am. There my uncle was waiting to pick us. We were very much tried because of uncomfortable travel, so thought to have a bath. But uncle advised not to take bath in home. He took us to Kutrallam which is very much near to Tenkasi. It was some 20- 30 min travel, by car.

While nearing Kutrallam falls we can feel the cool breeze.In Kutrallam many falls are there like new kutrallam falls, old kutrallam falls, five falls.

We went to old Kutrallam falls, few massage center was there. Don’t miss to take massage there. Two types of massage available, one is ordinary oil massage and another is oorala kattai massage. if you are new to massage prefer ordinary oil massage, since oorala kattai massage they will massage us using wooden stick, so it may pain at starting. My uncle advised us to go for ordinary massage.

Wow!!!! excellent massage, after taking that massage, drowsiness and tiredness went just like that.

We prepared to take bath in Kutrallam falls. Am going first time to that place. Am so excited to take bath in that falls. It feels like am standing under ice water shower. Water was too chill. We enjoyed our shower there.

Later my uncle took us to the top of mountain. As he was a local guy, he knows every place there. We climbed to certain level of that mountain, the way is bit dangerous.

This place(in picture) looks like small swimming pool but this is natural one. We enjoyed lot there. No crowd disturbance or any kind of disturbance. In that water lot of small fishes were there. You can't stand more than 5 min in water, those fish would keep on biting us.

After enjoying there, uncle gave treat to us in four star hotel. We had stomach full lunch. We took rest for sometime and at evening ,
he took us to a shooting spot where many movies like Anniyan movie (Randakka song) was filmed, took some snaps there. That place is surrounded with green farm lands, really nice to see those kind of place. Pleasant air and lot more.

For dinner he took us to a place called border, it’s a nice place don’t miss to taste food in those hotels, parotta cost 5 rupee each. 5 to 8 people used to keep on preparing those parotta’s. Three kinds of side dish were available and all types of non veg stuff were also available. Even many local people wont prepare dinner in their home , they will get from these hotel.
Don’t miss these hotels. Cheap and best in taste.

Day 3: 11-Jan-09 (Sunday)

This day is a very special day in my trip. Basically i love to travel in forest and like to see wild animals in forest than in zoo.

After had our breakfast in nearby hotel, we went to a dam which is located in tiger reserve area. Actually that dam was build in-between the mountains(at the top),the mountains will be spread-out continuously.

At the top of the mountain a bowl-like structure was formed by nature and many falls originated at the top of these mountains. Water from different falls got stored there. In one side there is gap, through which water will drain out. So to save water, government build the dam, naturally water will stake there like lake but to increase the water level, the dam was build. If you see the picture, you will get a idea how the dam is situated.

As i already said, dam is in top of the mountain, we have to travel to top by car, van, bus etc. We went by car, when we reach that mountain we should report to the forest officers there. They said that it was dangerous place and asked us whether we would like to continue our journey. If we still like to continue our journey, they will get details about our gang and will ask to fill some form, which contains that we are solely responsible for any damage that happens in our trip. After we signed that form, officers advised not to hear audio songs and not to make noise - why they advised us is for two reasons. One is, animals may get frightened so that, it will be like someone comes to our home and disturb us. Another reason is, animals may attack us. And they also asked us not to get down from the car. Since, the way to the dam is filled with Cheetah, Deer, Elephants, etc.I was very much excited after hearing these conditions and i started to pray to see atleast one animal. And I was lucky, while we traveling we saw herd of deers very near to our car.Before us many kids came in van, after seeing the deers they stopped the bus and got excited and they started to shout and left the van to see the deer in close up. As they make noise, deers start to move inside the forest. Then we continued our journey and reached the dam.

Now we have to cross the dam to reach the other side of the dam. Because there only PANATHIRTHAM FALLS is located, there is a boat house. We hired a boat from there and started to cross the dam,
oops i forgot to say one thing, this dam is filled with crocodiles so wanna be careful. Few forest officers asked us to drop them in other side, while traveling we get some information about the place.
Some details gave by those officers were

• There are few small villages, cheetah attacked about four persons. But, Thank God, None died all managed to escape somehow.
• We asked them where tigers will be found, they said at top of the falls.
  Tigers were there and they going to check how many tigers are there and gonna check any illegal things happening in forest like that.
• It’s a big forest, so tiger wont come most of the times near to the falls, in drought season it will come near to the falls to drink water.
• If forest officers came to know that tiger is roaming near to the falls, they will stop the tourist to visit that forest. They mostly know when tiger will come there. So no problem most of the time until we have bad luck
• They said crocodile will rarely cross our way (actually we crossing their way) so no problem in that too but we want to be more careful not to play in boat or stand or peep our hands in water.

We reached other side, boatman gave one hour time to return from there. We walked about 500 meters then we reached the falls near to the falls. Some forest officers where there to guide and help us. Forest officers who came with us prepares to climb the mountain and we prepared to take a shower in that falls.
Wow!!! its nice scenery, water is more chill than i experienced in Kutrallam. We took nice bath, actually at side of the falls only we can take shower, you cant stand more than a minute there since water fell with much force. There were fixed iron pipes, by holding it we have to take shower. It was nice experience, this water will finally reach the dam. Before reaching the dam, a floor like thing is formed, from falls the water will hit the floor and then will reach the dam. Due to the force of water, holes were formed in that rock but you may not aware of it if you see from the top. Forest officers said this thing to us.

While taking shower one thing i cant understand how fungi is forming over the pipe and in the ground, since water is falling with huge force. Due to those fungus, it will be slippery, we have to be careful while taking bath, if we slipped that’s it we will directly hit on the rock and sometime will get jammed in some hole in that rock. After hearing this i never left the pipe.
Finally, we enjoyed the shower and finished it safely. While returning from the falls, one family was traveling. In that boat a girl was riding the boat. After seeing that we asked our boat man to give us a chance to ride the boat. We thanked that girl by waving our hands for giving this idea. Our boatman too gave chance for us to ride it. He teaches us how to ride it. Its little bit tough to ride it.

From the dam, big pipes were connected, that pipe goes till bottom of the hill. they using this pipe to generate electricity.
While returning we saw a pair of peacock. Again am lucky.

We reached the bottom, from there my uncle took us to Papanasam,
it’s a river like place, water coming from different places of the mountain will reach this river, many people who is not interested to go at top of the mountain will take bath here. Local peoples were also there. You may think that we already took shower top of the hill but why we need to spend time here, but this one is completely different experience, in-between the river they build a wall about 4 feet, so it will be like swimming pool. so you can spend more time there. Here we played lot and took snaps in different style. After finishing the enjoyment, we returned to uncle home.
It’s a very special day in my trip.



Day 4: 12-Jan-09 ( Monday )

Today we have to leave Tenkasi, this time we booked ticket in private bus. So no problem. But got bus by 5 pm. So my uncle planned to take us to another falls MANALAARU which is located in Kerala border. We reached that place, but unfortunately there was no water in that falls. We returned and took shower in Kutrallam five falls and took some rest at my uncle home and by evening we started our journey to Chennai.