Manora,Vallanadu, Ariyankuppam, Vattaparai : The road comes to an end

In this final RLT, Soma Basu recalls the thrills and travails of exploring a hundred less-travelled roads

Historical heights

Manora 65 km from Thanjavur

Visited May 2004

I remember.The perilous journey to the tower across a tottering makeshift bridge with missing floorboards and shaky handrails.

Last week I wrote my 100th RLT (Kurangani) with a mind filled with mixed emotions. During four years of travelling across the Southern districts of Tamil Nadu and fringes of Kerala, I have realised travel writing is not easy. For, the sky will alway s be azure, rolling hills verdant and forests emerald. The vast emptiness of the pristine white sand on the beaches and the infinite blue sea is not easy to describe otherwise. But then the limited vocabulary was never a deterrent.

The objective always was to dig out exotic spots may be few knew about and fewer perhaps cared to visit. And now there can’t be a better moment, completion of hundred articles, to windup the column.

Several sweet and some not-so-pleasant memories will always remain etched. Poring over maps for hours and friendly suggestions even from strangers led me to several perfectly created places for the column such as the Cardamom Hills, Thengapattinam, Manora, Chunnambar, Valinokkam, Govindapperi, Kumbhavarutty, Kiliyur, Kuttikanam, Mannavannur, Ambanaad and many more.

Buck is beautiful

Vallanadu Black Buck Sanctuary 22 km from Tirunelveli

Visited June 2005

I remember. The thrill at spotting a black buck after a four-hour wait!

“Have you really been to all these places? Are they as beautiful as they look in your photographs?” From cynicism and suspicion to appreciation, they have all come my way and even earned me the nickname “RLT Soma”.

First encounter

What started as an innocuous decision about a travel column in November 2003 turned into quite a haul week after week over the years for the MetroPlus team. When I made my debut with Karaikudi’s majestic banglas, trepidation overshadowed enchantment. I was neither a travel writer nor a professional trekker and had no knowledge of Tamil (having come straight from Hindi heartland of Delhi). But all through I banked on my boss’s precious words: “Your personal experience will drive your narrative. What you see, smell, hear and taste will make your copy interesting.” To the best of my ability, wherever I went I tried to present the flavour of the area, many a times at the cost of aching and cramped legs, terrible back pain, a ravenously hungry stomach, several near misses of blinding my vision by some dangerously thorny branches and even slipping off wet rocks.

One of my most difficult treks was to Olakkay Aruvi water falls near Nagercoil. I began disastrously. While crossing a stream to enter the forest I tripped over a slippery rock much to my embarrassment. For me, my expensive digital camera was more precious and with some never-tried-before acrobatic skill I managed to hold it aloft like an Olympic flame. Several uphill walks left my pair of legs shaking like tottering stilts and each time I yearned to be tucked inside a rolling drum for the descend.

The Thenmala Eco-Toursim Centre on Madurai-Kollam Highway had me literally on the rope, not the road! I crawled across a rope from one bank of a pond to the other like a spiderwoman but was never sure whether I would survive to write the next RLT.

View from the tree-top

Chunammbar In Ariyankuppam near Cuddalore

Visited September 2006

I remember.The heady feeling at night in a tree-top house.

At Sittanavasal, I temporarily lost my bag to a chatter of prancing monkeys who pounced on me when I was climbing up to reach the Jain caves. I almost thought of lodging a police complaint when the simian brothers took pity and flung it back at me. But I dropped the catch and the bag hurtled down the very 150-odd steps that I had just managed to conquer huffing and puffing. I was back at step one to retrieve my bag.

Quitting reluctantly

I had ambitiously dreamt that all the trudging for the column would help me knock of several kilograms. Four years later, people still recommend a gym. I started, albeit, reluctantly. Today I quit yearning for more.

On these roads less travelled I met several well-meaning individuals, who volunteered information and entertained me with jokes, food and history. I met some forest caretakers more than once as they got transferred in these four years from one district to another. Some of them spoke a smattering of Hindi being ex-Army jawans and helped me to improve my knowledge of Tamil. These years have surely made me a better photographer, a keen bird watcher and much more knowledgeable about flora and fauna.

For a cool splash

Vattaparai: 15 km from Nagercoil

Visited: November 2007

I remember.The uncanny feeling it left. Anything could happen in this corridor that's teeming with wildlife.

The RLTs took me on smelly boat rides in Muthupet and Manakudy, rattling bus journeys to Manjolai, Thiruppodaimarudu and clattering taxis which broke down and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere for seven hours in Kanyakumari.

Bio-diversity

Whether it was experiencing a slice of bio-diversity from a close range or letting imagination run riot in fort ruins, or the romantic misty mountains and cascading water falls, the unusual swamp forests or the archaeological sites, each time it was an exciting and adventurous road that I refused to stray from even though it brought me dangerously close to elephants, bisons and bears. Various snorts and grunts kept pushing me deeper into the Saptur forest, and I had never been more scared. Mainly because my three-year-old son was with me. Unlike me, he was bereft of any tension, comfortably perched on the shoulder of a forest guard. My daughter’s first expedition with me was as a four-month-old in a basket to mist enveloped Addukam and Poolathur near Kodaikanal, where we almost lost our way back. Ever since she has accompanied me on almost every RLT.

All good things come to an end but I remain “not out” after a century. I owe a lot to scores of faceless and unknown readers who call, e-mail and write letters suggesting new and less-known places. I am only declaring my innings today. There are still many hidden spots in the State waiting to be explored.

Courtesy: http://www.hindu.com/mp/2008/01/28/stories/2008012851190300.htm