Trekking to Meesapulimalai

It was Emperor’s 100^th trek !! I am so happy to be part of this trek as I met around 120 likeminded souls in a single trek. It was announced on Jan 30th and I immediately applied for a moderate trek. This time it was announced as easy, moderate and difficult treks plus cycle and Bike trips. In between the time I had some confusion has to go or not. Finally all my other programs are postponed and I joined with the team. The place for the trek was kept secret to everyone and they are created some hype for the places by posting some wonderful photos. Someone said it was Kodaikanal and some other told that it was Wayanad. On 7^th February, I had reached the Park opposite to Koyambedu (Bus No.2) and I saw lot of known faces in that bus with some new faces. And the best part, not knowing the location where we were heading too, except for the Organisers.  But everybody was eager to wait for the place to come. After everyone reached, the bus started around 5.00 pm from CMBT. The other Bus started from Tidel Park (Bus No.1) has joined with us in Perungalathur.

The whole journey was indeed great with a whole lot of people getting bums (making fun out of that) and playing dumb charades, where most of the people joined in. In the midnight everybody fall asleep. By 6.00 am I woke up and saw bus has reached near Theni and I thought the place would not be Kodaikanal, so it will be Munnar. I’ve been there already so my excitement reduced a bit. We stopped in between somewhere near Theni to finish our morning duties and had tea in the local tea shop. The bus reached Kurangani base around 9.00am and the whole group was spilited as Easy, Moderate, Difficult and Cycle trek groups as decided earlier. Now my mind changed a bit and decided to go with easy trek peoples as I’ve been there already. Moreover I want to conquer the Meesapulimalai peak. If I go with moderate people I will be tired and cannot reach the Meesapulimalai peak. So my plan was first go with the easy trek people by car/Bus and from Kolukkumali I can trek to Meesapulimalai peak easily. I boarded a SUV (Vignesh’s car) and had a nice time with the people in that car. We reached near suryanelli and had our lunch and waited for the bus people to come.

Everyone reached there and boarded into jeep to reach Kolukkumalai. The road trail to Kollukumalai was a bumpy rock road and you will get a back pain sure, if you travel in the jeep. But we made the trip interesting by playing antakshari songs. We reached Kolukkumalai around 4.30pm and searching for my bag to wear the winter cloth. When we reached Kolukkumalai tea estate the sun’s influence on us slowly reduced and we started feeling the chill breeze hitting us gently. The Kolukkumalai tea estate was quite refreshing and the view from the camping site and adjoining areas were breathtaking. By the time some people are hiking towards Meesapulimalai before me, so I ran towards them to reach as already it was getting dark. In the middle of the trek, somebody before us told one elephant is there, so we stopped the trek for a while and taking photos by posing differently. We didn’t hear any confirmed news from our organizers about the elephant; we climbed down from that place with sad feelings. After that we heard it was not an elephant, some shadow of a tree. L While coming down we witnessed the exquisite sun set view from Kolukkumalai at the height of 7600 feet.
Buy WD My Passport Ultra 2.5 inch 1 TB External Hard Drive from Flipkart.com

We came back to the campsite and helped to prepare Dinner with others. The sun slowly started to rest for the day and almost all the trekkers reached the tea estate. It was emperor’s food preparation and also a 100^th trek, so many varieties of food was prepared. Gulabjamun, Bajji (ripe Banana, onion, potato, Chilli, Brinjal varities), Veg pulav, Chicken gravy, soya bean chunks gravy and onion raitha etc., are prepared for the dinner. On the other side campfire was started and some peoples are taking rest with nice hot bujji/snacks. Mean time cycle and bike trip team also reached the camp site. Everyone had a stomach full dinner and had a nice chat with campfire. Raja Anna (Munnar Jeep Driver and CTC’s favorite driver) prepared tents for us to sleep in the cold night. We are at 7600feet and the weather is around 10-15 degrees, we enjoyed that place a lot. I didn’t have any sleeping bag and I got only bedspread, so I entered into one of the tents to escape from the cold sleepless night. Then also I felt chillness inside the tent and spent the whole night without sound sleeping.

Next day morning we were woken up to the early morning chillness and to the melody of the birds to witness the pristine and beautiful morning views of the Kolukkumalai valley. We took some great group photos and had some good tea in the Kolukkumalai base camp.

Finally by 10.00am we boarded in jeeps and travelled down in the bumpy road again to reach Suryaneeli was still a great experience as I hanging on backside of the Jeep. The place around Munnar was astounding and wonderful with sprawling tea gardens and estates everywhere. We had brunch in Suryanelli after had a bath in nearby small stream. We boarded again in the bus and the bus dropped us in the Top station point where we have to get down by walk to the Kurangani base station. Now the time was 5.00pm so we have to reach the base fast before it was getting dark. Few of the fellow trekkers are travelled in the bus and around 60 peoples are ready to take the top station to Kurangini trail to reach the base hill station.

First I was struggling little to move fast and Prem & Shyam are pushing me to move fast, sometime later my pace was picked up as my heart beat was synced with my moves. Now I was feeling comfortable to walk down. In between we stopped at a pit shop in Kothagudi village (middle station) to have a sharbath(lemon soda). I know the trial route well and my pace was good, I started to climb down without accompanying the organizers. Few more joined with me and I reached the base station within 2 hours time and it was my best time. (my previous time to reach the base station was 4 hours). I feel happy for this and waited for the other trekkers to come.

By the time everyone reached the Kurangani village, it was already dark. We had few snack items which people carried with them and sat around for relaxing ourselves on the village road. We had an intro session there (as our bus will take some more time to reach that place to pick us) and came to know about the unknown faces. Our buses reached there to pick us by 9.30pm and before boarding it, we had our supper together on the road like village style.

The bus started towards Chennai by 10.30 pm and everyone felt happy to be the part of this wonderful Emperor’s 100^th trek. We thank the organizers for giving us a chance to be part of the great event. Finally the bus reached Chennai next day morning around 11.00am and everyone rushed to their work with cool memories. Hope to see everyone in the next trek soon!!