I am now recycling through some trips i made back home. This trip is to the Mennmutti waterfalls near Trivandrum. I made this trip along with ILP (TCS’s version of a paid holiday) classmates during our stay there.
myself, karthick, arun and rahul had come along in this trip just because Meenmutti was part of the itinerary . Though for most of the class the trip was to go to the top of a certain mountain (i cant seem to recollect the name) since they had heard stories from someone, that the mountain top was awesome. Even with arun’s local knowledge, we could not convince the class that the top had nothing to it. Having reached the top and happy to see the dejected classmates, we used the moment and hurried the class to get back to the van, so that we could spend more time at Meenmutti. Previous batches had warned us about the difficulty and risk involved in trekking towards the falls, and expectedly it only heightened our desire to make this trip.
With a whining himesh reshamiya in the background, seated on the stairs next to the door. A cool wind blowing and a light drizzle falling in my face, looking into the western ghats in full post-monsoon glory. The driver is negotiating the hair pin bends, as we are heading down the hill, towards Meenmutti. karthick joins me at the door and we start talking about the wind blowing in our face (its an abstract topic to talk about, but we somehow manage to start these kind of topics), as we prep ourselves about the trek towards the falls in the middle of the rain forest.
We stopped at the security check post and stuffed ourselves with whatever we could find at the so called restaurant. For me this restaurant was more like a fountain providing elixir, considering how hungry i was. The clouds opened up, and after some heckling from all, we were able to herd the class towards the check post and had a guide escort us from there on. The guide was a freebie, considering that there had been previous treks to the falls and beyond that did not end as expected. With the guide leading us through the clearing in the forest. me, arun, rahul and karthick were chit chatting and the jokes we were cracking was getting the people around us into good spirits. Approaching the narrow tracks, we split. arun headed up front to give company to the guide, rahul and karthick took the middle, while i stayed back and was egging the slow walkers ahead.
Gushing water, Rain dripping on to the leaves, and the Sounds of the forest.
Bliss.
Within a space of 500 meters we had moved from sparse rain forest to inclines with gradually increasing number of steep slopes. We approached the stream which was turning into a torrent because of the rain pouring incessantly up stream. Along with the guide, me, arun and karthick got into the stream to and got our foot holding across the growing stream. Slowly the class crossed over and with a few comical moments we were on the other side. Into the dense forest, back we went and snaking through the routes we reached the base of the falls.
All that rain, meant the Meenmutti falls was in full blast with roaring water falling on the pond below. We did not bother to enter the pond as the guide warned us that it been raining for close to 6 hours up stream and a lot of water had collected at the top, and he was not confident of the stones holding up the water much longer in the upper reaches of the falls. Most of the class was busy snapping photos with the waterfall as the background. we along with the guide ventured into the sides of the pond, had a look around and got back to lead the pack back.
On the way back. In the calmer areas of the stream, we decided to take a dip. The dip in the cold water gave a good shake down for the body, and it seemed to refresh my whole body. Still dripping wet, we dressed up and headed back to the van and from there back to the hostel.
