The Hindu Business Line : A forest holiday

The forest is not a quiet place... the gentle-to-heavy rustling of leaves every time a breeze whips up and the bird and insect calls can make quite a racket.

Hills, tea-estates and streams add to the beauty of Valparai.

After a couple of heritage trips it was time to do something different, and we decided to go to Valparai in Tamil Nadu.

Zeroing in on Valparai wasn't as much trouble as finding more information about it and making arrangements for the trip. We only knew it was a vast "tea" station and that it was somewhere near Coimbatore.

As Valparai has only a couple of decent hotels, it is better to stay with someone you know or book accommodation at the Anamalai's club or one of the many guesthouses dotting the hills and forests around Valparai. Luckily we got accommodation in one of the best places in Valparai — a more than century-old house, made completely of wood — seemingly in the middle of a forest, but, in reality, only a couple of km away from the main road and less than 10 km from the Valparai town.

Coimbatore is the nearest airport, the nearest major railhead, and also the nearest "mini-metro". This is a convenient place to start your journey, unless you happen to be in the vicinity of the Palani area, in which case Pollachi is a better idea. Take a bus to Pollachi, which is just an hour or only 40 km away, from Coimbatore.

From Pollachi, there are buses to Valparai at short intervals and though the distance is a measly 64 km, it takes more than three hours to get there. On the way, you'll see the Aliyar project, which must have been a a great picnic spot in its heyday.

You can break journey at the Monkey Falls. But decide on it before you buy your tickets to Valparai. The forest department has a warped sense of humour. It sells tickets for the entry to the falls somewhere near Aliyar and not near the falls!

If you plan this break, you need to get off at the forest department check-post to buy your tickets. You have to then take another bus or walk the three-km distance to the falls.

Though we decided to go to the falls on our return, it's advisable to do it on the onward journey. When you get off the bus at the Monkey Falls, you discover why it's called so... and find hordes of veryfriendly monkeys. They are not scared of human beings, but you'd do well to guard any foodstuff you might be carrying.

The falls don't look breathtaking or beautiful; they are just "falls" — water falling and splashing about, gently. But the place is kept clean and the water is not very rough, but quite chill even at mid-day.

We found that after just a couple of minutes in the water, the soles of our feet were smooth and clean. You won't need soap or shampoo here, that's for sure. But, be careful of the slippery rocks that you have to tread on get to the water — wear footwear with good grip, and make sure you don't get them wet.

After this spot, when you continue the journey to Valparai, the road, which is very broad with gentle grades till the Monkey Falls, suddenly becomes very narrow and steep after a bend past the falls. The drive is a tough one with 40 steep, hairpin bends. While the drive is a pleasant one in terms of temperature, it is quite a slow roller-coaster ride, in terms of experience. Our journey was enlivened by a continuing feud between a gentle but tenacious bus conductor and a cantankerous traveller.

Watch out for the statue of G. A. Carver Marsh (the pioneer who discovered the Valparai area) near the NEPC tea garden, from where you will get a beautiful view of the mountains around Valparai.

We reached our destination at 1 p.m, and where we had expected a village, we were left gaping at a huge open gate with just the name of the estate.

Most estates that dot the route to Valparai are like this — a wide-open gate with the name of the estate (and sometimes not even that, just a terse "private road - no entry") with no security or people about.

We walked through the gate apprehensively andcontinued doing so for about a kilometre, before we found a couple of sheds, an office and some houses. We walked to a house and rang the bell, and a man gave us terse instructions to walk up the mountainside for half-an-hour or take the estate road that would take us an hour. We took the first option.

For the first time, we realised that not all of Valparai was just tea estates and there was quite a bit of forest; and the forest can be a very noisy and frightening place indeed. In just five minutes up the forest, it seemed as though we had lost all human contact. The slightest breeze seemed to stir up the forest enough to make a racket, and we were very disinclined to take a break up the mountain path. After about 15 minutes, we came up on an office building and after a 15-minute break for some water and biscuits, we reached the Wood House in short time after a short run-around, as the house could be spotted but not the gate!

Lunch was a basic but tasty affair. Guests all over Valparai are treated in the same friendly but firm way — order right so that you don't waste any food. Rice with two side dishes and gravy and rasam for lunch; chapattis with two side dishes and rice and gravy for dinner; coffee or tea with an egg in the morning and coffee or tea with snacks in the evening are standard, if you are staying at a guesthouse.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we finished lunch, but the estate manager's offer of a tour of the estate shot our plans for a siesta. When on such tours, it's advisable to wear comfortable jeans and shoes and to always carry a windcheater and cap with you.

The lion-tailed macaque.

Take care that you don't venture out into any estate without remembering the turns you took, because there are many roads that fork out every 200-250 metres and within no time at all, you will find yourself alone in the midst of an ocean of tea. You can always use the field numbers as guides. That evening, we saw one of the largest groups of wild lion-tailed macaques, an endangered species of monkey. They are easy enough to trace as they have regular habits — they have a specific routine, a certain route and some favourite trees where they hang out. And they are very noisy. The problem is in getting them to stay put once they are aware that you are around.

They were familiar with the two estate managers and they were quite satisfied when we stayed put about 50 metres away for about 10 minutes or so. They were rather quiet during this period and after they became comfortable, reverted to their noisy bickering. A lion-tailed macaque clearing a 50-foot span between trees is a sight to behold. It will also bring your heart to your mouth, because they don't seem to calculate or measure or anything like that; there's just a look followed by a wild swing. Later we hired a cab and set off to the town, which has one main road with a couple of thoroughfares criss-crossing it. This road has a bus station at one end, a few shops, a bakery and a petrol bunk.We were glad we were staying at an estate and not at a hotel in town.

Once the sun goes down, things change. All the lush green takes on grey shades, and the forest is not a quiet place. First of all, there is the gentle-to-heavy rustling of leaves every time a breeze whips up. Then, there are the bird calls and insect calls that sound pretty loud inside a forest.

We enjoyed this different kind of racket for some time, maybe an hour, and after that it got to us: what if an angry bison or a bull elephant ran into the house? It will splinter, because it is just made of wood, we thought. Only sleep provided respite from such awful thoughts.

Pictures by Bijoy Ghosh

(To be continued)

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