Tada, 12th April

after that coimbatore trip with a friend, i started searching for new places to go and ways to go to those places. after googling a little, this is what i came accross SA chennai trekking group. after reading about their past treks and the experiences they had, i couldnt resist into being part of their treks. next trek was on 12th april and i got an invitation to join the trek because i had registered on the website. i was really excited as it would be my first trek ever. peter the chief organizer for most of the treks called me up to confirm the evening before about the pickup points and to check if i had any transport.
next day woke up 0400 in the morning got ready and i was at my pickup point at 0505. i was picked up by peter's scorpio at exactly 0515 as he had told me. after that we picked up few more people on the way and then stopped at koyembedu bus terminus for a few minutes meeting few other members who had come to join us for the trek on bikes and a car. not wasting much time we started heading towards tada which is about 60 kms from koyembedu bus terminus. after reaching we had breakfast consisting of idli dosa vada etc. and also we packed our lunch from the same place, about 40 idlis i think. the place where we were going to trek was still about 20 kms from tada town. the waterfall is actually known as uballamudugam falls. theres a checkpost before the parking area. apart from parking cost we also had to pay for camera. which was Rs.50 for each camera . the checkpost is just a tiny hut in the middle of no where. and we couldnt really figure out why they were charging us for cameras, probably with so little crowd coming in they ran out of ways to make money.the road from the checkpost to the parking is filled with rocks and in some places with deep sands and makes it very difficult for bikes and small cars to go through. amongst the two cars one was a santro and so we parked it near the checkpost. after reaching the parking place we parked the vehicles we distributed water bottles, and lunch which we had bought in tada when we stopped for breakfast. after that we started walking towards a path up hill. on the way we had to cross beautiful streams of crystal clear water. and at another place there was a beautiful pool deep enough to swim (but not deep enough to drown) and we spent almost an hour playing in water in the pool. after that we started climbing upstream throught the stream jumping over large rocks and finally reached a bigger deeper pool and a waterfall on top. very few people climb till the top as it takes almost an hour and half to climb till the top and requires quite a lot of energy to keep jumping over rocks and looking for way to keep going up, as there is no proper path to go up. on the waterfall at the top we had lunch and spent lots of time taking snaps. at the top there were also lots of monkeys who managed to steal few of our snacks packets and coolly opened and ate it all by themselves.

after having lunch and water we started climbing down. took us another 2 hours to come down and by 1700 we had reached the bottom at the parking place. on the way back we stopped in tada to quench our thirsts with some juice and cold drinks, and kept driving back to chennai. reached chennai at around 0800 after getting stuck in traffic while entering chennai. and so here it was my first trekking experience with a trekking group. i jus wish i had googled it earlier so not to have missed earlier treks to beautiful places where they have been before. but i'm pretty sure i'm not gonna miss future treks if i'm in chennai.

do visit www.ChennaiTrekkers.org for more info and registering yourself on the site and becoming part of the coolest trekking group in chennai.


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Coimbatore Trip

Day 1





after our (saurav and me) train arrived in coimbatore station first thing we did was start looking for a hotel room to stay in. took a bus to gandhipuram bus station. mine being in first time in coimbatore, i just went where saurav took me. he had been here a few times before so he knew the main places here. i was just here for fun, just because i couldnt find another place in the state :p. after asking a few places in gandhipuram, we came back to station again and then found a cheap hotel nearby,costing just rs.252 per day, with a double bed. after we took bath, saurav (the one who did have some work here) went out, and after sleeping for an hour even i went to a place called maradhamailai which is a small temple on top of a hill. whole thing took about two or three hours and after that i was back in hotel with saurav and his friend, and we three slept and talked till evening, and then when we started feeling hungry we went out roaming in the market place chat (bhel puri, pani puri etc..) and ice-creams.

Day 2





Watched a hindi movie (Race) with saurav and his friend. after that saurav, puneet and me went to a beautiful dam near a place called pollachi. the name of the dam is Aliyar dam and is located beside tall hills with a beautiful view of the hills behind the huge water reservoir created by the dam.

Day 3





Went to another dam called malampuzha dam, near palakkadu in kerela about two and half hours from coimbatore, with saurav and puneet's friends. We went there by train to palakkadu and the train journey itself was very entertaining with tracks right through dense forests and in between hills. the dam was also quite tall with beautiful garden for people to enjoy on the dry side of the dam. theres also a small ropeway which takes you over the garden, which we didnt go in 'cause it was too short and none of us were interested to go. after that we visited a small snake park near the dam, which was also quite interesting with atleast twenty to thirty species of snakes. scariest thing was watching more than 6 huge pythons on every branch of a single tree, which thankfully for us, was caged from all sides. in the evening we three took a train back to chennai.
coimbatore really is very beautiful and surrounded by beautiful hills and greenery all around. you will only keep looking for your camera no matter which road you take to any direction. there are many waterfalls as well as many dams nearby, just few hours from the city and there are buses to take you anywhere. even the most popular hill station in the south india, Ooty, is only about 3 hours by road from coimbatore. hopefully i'll come back again to explorer this part of tamil nadu very soon again.