photo-causeway: September 2012

18 September, 2012

Panorama

This is a try to create a panorama. the view is from the bridge across Veli lake Thiruvananthapuram. This panorama has been created by joining 6 small pictures. Click on the photo to view it bigger. Hope you can zoom it up to your screen level without getting blurred.

Tea Gardens Of Valpara

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The Tea Gardens of Valpara has a special attractive beauty. You will never get bored of watching them. It is like a green carpet under shivering trees. Looking at the photos will not give you even one thousandth of the real feelings, but still please watch these photos adjusting your room temperature to 16 degree...

To know more about Valpara and to travel through the ghats click here

Via Valpara ghats through dens fog

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Do you know Valpara?

A beautiful place at Kerala Thamilnadu border. Aaliyar dam at the bottom, dense forest at the hill slop, beautiful tea garden on the top and misty scenes all the way.... It would be a passion for any nature lovers to travel through this wonderful land at least once in their life.

The ghats... ie. the mountain pass (CHURAM) is on the way to Pollachi from Valpara. That is the route we have selected for our today's trip.

How to reach Valpara?

Take Athirappalli(where we have a beautiful water fall) road from Chalakkudi (a place in NH47) and take Pollachi road from Athirappalli. It will be around 50 KM from Athirappalli to Valpara. And in that distance we will be going through Sholayar reserved forest. It is a really enjoyable way. zigzaged road with a lot of pits. If you are lucky you can see Elephants, dears, different verities of monkeys, birds and even leopards if you are more lucky. Vehicles are not allowed through forest after 5pm. So if you have a plan to visit Athirapplli falls also, go directly to Valpara and come back to see the falls.[if you have any plan to go through Pollachi, then just go after visiting Athirappalli falls any how don't miss it]

OK. lets start our journey through the ghats, are you ready??

This is the first hair pin bend of the ghats. We have to cross 40 of such bends. What we see in the background is the Aaliyaar dam. If you want you can go till there. There is a small maintained park over there. I will be waiting here looking at the wide and wast reservoir till then.

This is the view of the dam. The park is at the side where you can see a small light.

How so you like the road towards the hill?

see how other vehicles are trekking towards us. we were there just a couple of minutes ago.

Reaching the sky level. you can see sky looking Down also

Lets merge in to the romance of sky with the greenery

Can see 5-10 meters, Just the color of mist after that

Any one will enjoy the scenes at the top. No can resist stopping their vehicles. The beautiful tea gardens..

can you believe that this picture is takes at 2:30 pm?

click here for more photos of this tea garden

We don't have enough time.. come lets go back to Aathirappalli

Waterfalls in the mid-forest

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Ones when I was traveling through the "Chinnar wild life sanctuary" a sound of waterfalls awoke my ears. Then I started searching in between the blue hills which are covered by mist even in the mid-day.

look.. it is there

Its more than a couple of kilometers away from here fore sure. Wont be possible to go there this time. Lets just take some photographs and go.

again I blame my camera.. I need to by at least an entry level DSLR as soon as possible.

see... its coming towards us

do you here the sound of a turbulent flow?

and at the end it will also reach the Arabian see

Do you like to take a bath in the waterfalls? click here

Waterfalls at the hilly nook

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Only 45 minutes driving from Thrissur town and then trekking for the same duration.. that will take you to this beautiful waterfall. But the second half is a little dangorous Follow the road through Anjeri, Putthoor from Thrissur.

oops I forgot to tell the name of this place... This is Marottichal

This falls will be at the height of its beauty immediately after monsoon.. We have just finished monsoon right? Then why cant we go there today? are you ready???

here it starts.. slowly.. we will go to the other side of the fall to see the fall better.

falls down down down.... My small p&s camera is not capable of capturing the full beauty

then it falls down.. I wish if that tree is not there

let's have an angled look :P

Come down.. we will see from there.. Oh! some of our companions are already there

This is the place, from where it comes

Oh My God.. Mind blowing... I didn't expect this much when seeing from the top

Can see both the hills from here

Come on.. let's go closer

see it.. I am really shivering

Take a bath.. then no shivering at all... [just frozen :P]

Its getting dark.. we can go for now. bye bye

want to see waterfalls in the mid-forest? click here

Come Let's Have Some Food

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These are the dishes from my native. (Vadakara of Kerala). These are pure homely food for homely people and you will not get these type of foods in any restaurants. Let me introduce these items for you, thinking you are seeing it for the first time.(parcel order are not accepted :P)

The first one - the big tyres- my favorite called "ottu pathal". Pathal is a common word for these type of dishes made from grainted rice. The word "ottu" has come from the utensil use to prepare this item. There is no other ingredients in it other than rice and is not so hard as it looks.

Second at the left had side is "attippathal". Atti means layes. It will have 6-8 layers of rice which sandwiches spicy non-vegetarian stuff prepared with coconut and onion. A real mouth watering food item.

Third in the blue plate is "Kunji pathal". Kunji means tiny. You can see that it is a micro version among these pathals. It is backed from steam and will be mixed with a liquid prepared with coconut, turmeric, curry leaves etc.

The other two are curries, one in the front side is chicken with homely cultivated pepper and other spices. The other one is fish with row coconut fluid. I think the last one -fish fry- is a common dish and not to be introdused

I hope you enjoyed the treat. have it stomach full.

Sunset view through a hole

Found a European walking in Malayali Dressings at MG Road Trissur

A typical village view of kerala

It is because of the dedication of these people we see around the world. they are actually seeing for us. I dedicate by blog to these Gentle Peoples among us