TREK OF SOLITUDE : Agastyamala ...

It all started with a plan to an adventure ,to be born with a thing to do reckless things (things that people would say "are u crazy is always  been my thing " ) but like all folks have never been to a trek once but was longing to do one for a long period.

This has been my plan since i reached Kerala. Plan was to travel from ernakulam to trivandrum landing at the trivandrum central station by night . I left the ernakulam station in venad express which reach trivandrum around 8 in the night. Plans to take up a room and keep my luggage and roam around had to be  cancelled as the dorm rooms were all full cause of the sabarimala season . I had to take up this trip in the month of January . The trekking season only stays till may and i couldn't wait any longer due to lack of leaves.  After reaching the  Trivandrum station, went an enquired about the 1st bus to bonacaud from where the trek begins . The bus was at 6 am hence i have 8 hours to spare , had my dinner and went in a waiting to have some sleep as there was no rooms . Time went by as i slept for some time .  It was morning soon .

I got  inside the bus and took my tickets. I met a guy who had been to agasthyakoodam before ,i was eager to know the stories . He started explaining how it was in 1980 and how dangerous the route are and how he once escaped some wild elephants. He went on  about the lush flora and fauna and also the beauty it holds within .i was excited as well as afraid now but i guess now there is no turning back now .
It took almost two hours to reach bonacaud . The travel had lot of hairpin bends and road quality ,not commendable ,but i was impressed by the skill of the driver that handles the bus .I could see steep slopes just inches away from my window. One wrong turn i guess that will end atrip for us all . The driver seemed confident so does the passengers hence no fear and panic .I reached bonacaud by 7 30 am ,the adventure awaits . Its a 3 days trek but with a little extra work it can be completed in 2 days . The guide told me that one athlete completed it in  over a day ,one thing that i am not gonna attempt .

 During the walk to bonacaud checkpost 

i met with Alen, on the way to the checkpoint . Painter ,philosopher and older than me and good knowledge of mythology and an artist ,i and him became good friends , so much for the trip of solitude .He has been to agastya mala (agasthyakoodam) many times before and is in love with the place and used to come here when he was studying in trivandrum arts college back in the 1980 s .

9

                                                 To start the trek  

We both had to walk a kilometer to the check post from  bonacaud bus stop . The place is scarcely populated but lush in vegitation . There is remains of  old british tea  estate, remains of its buildings , all of this can be seen on the way to the Bonacaud checkpost . There are small tribal settlements on the way .  

  There is clear path to the checkpost ,through the estate which crosses a stream on the way .

There are nice sheds that provides us with a food on the away to the trek when we  arrive at the checkpost, apparently the menu is vegetarian as there are pilgrims too with us  . In the first day we are to pass a distance of 18 km passing through the forest to reach the base camp  where we can settle for the night, to start the ascend the next day .

Alen to me seemed like quite person . On our talks he says about respecting the rules of the forest and how we are supposed to behave "we are supposed to blend in ,not stand out in the woods ". Maybe it was because i was talking too much . 

 The people taking the trek were catergorised into groups and each group was to walk together so that we dont loose our way .

I lost Alen in the beginning of the journey itself as the group left without me because i had some nature calls . The next group was waiting for me when i came after a short session of personal time . I guess the solitude is back and i have to travel alone as my company has already left .

 Contradictory to the thought i met two guys of my age,  also first timers to the trek . The two are fast and are determined to make the trek as fast as possible . I guess i will have to catch up to them ,they were so fast that i met Alen in an hour after i left the checkpoint . Maybe because he wasn't in a hurry and was slowly moving with the crowd taking photos for sketching and his art work he was gonna exhibit a month from now in France. The crowd was big now ,it was 4 of us and we ,moved in slow pace  now .

LEGEND

The place is cold in the hot summers ,the breeze is supposed to be medicinal and it is also a pilgrim place . The misty mountain's got its name from the sage Agastya who climbed the mountains to meditate . Sage Agastya is supposed to be the one who invented kalaripayattu (martial arts of kerala) to keep the animals away from his home . There is a temple of him as the deity on the top of the agasthyamalai and hence all the pilgrims . Some of them were looked like aghoris (barely clothed) . Since sage agastya was a divotee of siva , it makes sense that he have all this aghori saints visiting .

Waterfall ,,,that's what we had heard ,yes there was a steam running across the path . The stream is not in its full potential but is having plenty of water and its chilled . its comes all the way from up the hill (agastya mala). we took a dip in the cold water and filled us some for the way ahead . The water is pure and crystal clear something i haven't seen in a long time (given our rivers a far from being saved
) . We left the stream and moved ahead. By mid day we were ahead of the rest of the people, as were relentlessly moving without halting but odd thing was that we werent feeling tired . The climate was cold and comfortable. This is the advantage of nature around .

Alen and his sketching

Stream with crystal water

One of the water fall 

We then crossed two more streams ,i was just imagining how they are in rainy season as they had plenty of water in summer like this . The next phase of journey had an unusual guest,the bare footer ,the man who dare to walk the agasthyamalai without the shoes ,Rahul  . When i asked why he is doing this ,"its all for the sake of experience" was his reply, though i can see the pain in his eyes i appreciate his non budging attitude .
Later on Alen started explaining about the wild animals that are present in the area ,the area has tigers and elephants . This made one of our teammates very cautious ,he started hearing noises every now and then but thankfully was just reptiles and hen (though i have never seen one like this in my life).For some moments though we were all holding our breaths ,by the time it was afternoon we reached biggest of the waterfalls and decided to have our food here . I took a dip in the cold water ,and was very hungry after the shower . We had food , changed our attire and went along to the thick part of the forest, now the light started to dim and the way narrower and a lot more cooler than the places that we were travelling .
Its gonna get dark very fast,i guess we have about four hours of sunlight left and we needed to move fast . We have no idea how far we have to go as all of us except Alen are first timers and Alen hadn't been here for along time .

 Half an hour to this journey we reached the mountainous region . Alen said the areas were supposed to find "bears" we were on alert but this being an off season trek the chances are less . Even if we do we cant defend us with sticks and a knife the only option are to climb trees or to outrun it (which may not be possible ) so i chose the climbing and moved ahead .

The grass lands (bear land)

On the way the group split up into two ,me and Alen on the slower path and the rest in the faster pace moved ahead . We both took some photographs and walked slowly down the up and down the slopes .  Now we can see agasthyamala in a distance . Alen started to tell about the mythology of the place and i being fairly interested listened carefully the entire story. Alen told me the story about the places, the kingdoms that occupied it ,the traditions they followed . He is well versed will all things in and around the place .When i asked him ,whether he believed in mythology he said "it doesn't matter i believe or not ,its an evidence that there were people that had skills which were beyond other people at the same time period ,they had higher conscience , believing in such entities help him to be more curious and active in exploring and go in search , that's what he love about the belief, not the genuinity of the truth .
He told me that he stays in France and had keen interest in architecture as he explores many building there and that made me more interested as i am an architectural student  at that time, that random talks gave me an artists perspective of the architecture .
"A building is a piece of art inside and outside" that's what he told me
I guess i will have to make sense out of the words .
Then came the hills and steep slopes ,my body wasn't pulling anymore . It was hard to climb, after a long and slow climb from my part we reached the top of the hill , rest and water was the only thing that came to mind . All these years has caused me a load to carry around with me which was obviously the contribution of the fast food and life style .

Then came the forest of silence .

The only thing that can be heard are the footsteps and the crickets or may be birds i could not clearly identify them . Alen told me that this was the favourite part of the forest for him and its the absolute silence that he like about the place .It was getting dark and and i was growing concerned , forest is not a place of safety in the dark .
"the camp is not far"
The words of wisdom .Alen then went on taking the photos and i was sitting and enjoying the solitude that i wasn't getting for a long period of time . We then walked to reach a place which had two roads one leading to camp and the other to agastya mala , in the junction there was a murthi of local diety . we went ahead and reached the camp , royal arrival , our beds were already booked by Vinu and Yedu and dinner order was also ready .tired but glad i made it went to the sheds where we were supposed to sleep and put my bag and came to have tea and snacks , "nicest tea of my life "!

Bath ,dinner,after dinner i was watching the agasthyamalai in the dark the peak, early sleep to have a early start, we have to have an early start to reach Agastya mala by morning .

THE DAY OF TREK

we are to cover a distance of 7 km to reach the top ,unlike the 1st day this trek is said to be vertical and most probably slow . We started at 6 30 in the morning and decided to reach the top of peak atleast by 10 am ,then only we would be able to return back and head for the BONACAUD CHECKPOST and reduce the 3 day trek to a two day trek ." AMBITIOUS " we are doubtful to reach the top and return back in time to head back to camp as the forest is not the same to travel at night and the only service available is our sense of direction which i am not ready to put to test at this kind of situation . We packed our breakfast and started towards  Agastyamala and reached the junction i heard a voice in the that broke the silence "selfie"

Selfie time "THE TEAM"

So we took one photo to mark the beginning of our trek and headed towards the Agasyamalai .

We reached the place with the deity and prayed for the safe journey and started out trek . The path passed through thick forest.  Not like before its hard for sunlight to pass through and its cold with all the rainforest atmosphere around .
 Rivers, streams we crossed ,rock formations filled with mosses and steep slopes . One fall the trek ends there , fortunate to have survived and glad that i have not slipped i reached top of the rock formation just to see another one then another . Sometime the trek was not steep , but sometimes had to climb vertical slopes with the help of ropes . It was thrilling and fearful at the same time . One thing the trek was not was tiring . The environment sustained us and provides us with all that is needed water ,cold ,breeze ,rain.
The way through the forest was steep and narrow ..just one person can pass through ..red soil wet with constant dripping water from the tress ,,,slippery muddy ,,,finally reaching the elephant grass area . It is called because the elephant will come through the area to feed . A local variety of bamboo was all around the place , we were asked to be cautious ,watch for any movement in grass ,its safe now but "its better safe than sorry "right !.We crossed the bamboo forest to reach the base of a mountain . This is real steep ..the only thing that led me to go ahead was that there were people climbing the mountain that can be seen from the bottom ..they were like tiny ants on a hill .

At the beginning of bamboo forest

We started climbing it , narrow path going to the top of the mountain. The walk started  unfolding to us a unique view of the top.

Cold and foggy was the climate ,,,this is called pongalapara,,,we decided to have our breakfast here and continue .now we have reached the foot hills of Agastya mala . Now on every step is on the sacred mountain and each step taking us closer to the top .

pongalapara1

pongalapara 2 :the stream

top of pongalapara :the stream in background (uphill)

Mythology time by Alen 

He told me that the tress at the top of the mountain was small and animals too were small because sage agastya was a small person and hence he cursed the tress and animals to be small . He also told me that there are reports of seeing small elephants in this area but nobody confirms .This is also cause of the same reason ,he tells .

short trees of agasthyamalai (the cursed ones)

We climbed the pongala para to see small tress all around the place .I was hoping to find small elephants too. To my surprise all the trees were 5 feet or 6 feet tall .Slowly i was dragging behind then pulled up my pace, then came the rocks that we had to use 4 of our limps (steep and no ropes )to climb and there was not one climb, it was 5 ,only two of them had ropes . Then came the mother of all climbs , vertical ropes were provided . The climbing of this reminded me of the rock climbing in movies but it was fun to see, pain to undergo . My hand was trembling once i reached half the way ,shear pain of all the climbs had left me with no strength at all ,while reaching the top i was literally dragging my self and one of the guys pulled me up to the top of the rock. The wind was high and it was cold and foggy . I sat there for several minutes ,the rest of the team went on climbing ,i watched them disappear into the fog on top ,and started to chimp myself following the people ,i was in the fog and out of it .the path wasn't clear then i saw yedu waving at me ,from the top . I hoped we reached the top i really hope so . That was the only thing in mind as i ascended towards him
"we made it bro" thats the only thing i heard ,i sat looking at the surroundings and at my watch it was 9 30 am not a thing can be seen . It was as i was in a floating rock in the clouds .

Floating rock on clouds (Agasthyamalai)

it was beautiful!
I was on the 2nd most highest point in kerala .
I made it to Agastya mala ..Agastyarkoodam ....
Return journey was another adventure . I can only say all ended well.
Vinu ,Yedu , Rahul ,Alen and me parted agreeing to meet at bonacaud every year at the same date
The tickets and pain in my body will remind me of the place for some time ,

And  MEMORIES will remain FOREVER !

The flag at the top of Agastya mala