Monsoon Magic road trip in May 2024:
Husband (76) and I, Sudha Mahalingam (73) are back home in Bangalore after a week-long road trip to the Nilgiris, viz. Coonoor and Silent Valley. I drove everywhere and back (hubby doesn't drive anymore). It was some 1100 kms on rainy, slippery and misty roads in the hills, chorused by cacophonous cicadas. And managed to film (with my Xiomi 14 phone with four Leica lenses gifted by S-1) some of this monsoon magic. This phone has relieved me of the burden of a heavy DSLR and its bazooka lenses.
We took the usual Bangalore - Mysore -Bandipur - Mudumali - Ooty - Coonoor road onward and were rewarded by a gorgeous downpour in Mudumalai. We stopped to have our tiffin carried from home - what joy to dine to the music of rimjhim. Have done this route at least half a dozen times in the last four years, but this one was sheer magic.
In Ooty, we were privileged to be invited to lunch with Dr. M.R.Srinivasan - the decorated nuclear scientist, former AEC Chairman among many other things, and Geetha Srinivasan, an environmental activist - such gracious hosts - at their heritage home.
While going, it was routine route, viz. Mysore - Nanjangud - Chamrajnagar - Bandipur - Mudumalai - Masinagudi - 36 hairpin bends to Ooty.
On the way back, Sathyamangalam had 27 hairpin bends.
From Coonoor, it was a five-hour drive to Silent Valley through some of the loneliest stretches of perfect macadam in this part of the world - Mettupalayam to Anakatti through Mannarkad - lambent green of farmlands, orchards and coconut groves all the way which soon gave way to dark and dense forests. The last 44 km in Kerala after Anakatti was mostly through rainforests. Silent Valley has successfully dodged the tentacles of omniscient google maps. Try Mannarkad or Mukkali.
Silent Valley is remote, primordial and silent because of the absence of cicadas. (cicadas can be very noisy and even menacing -we heard some rowdy and raucous ones in Lansdowne many years ago). Silent Valley shelters plenty of wildlife, but they keep away from prying human eyes. If you want to see lion-tailed macaques, go to Valparai. Go to Silent Valley just to experience nature. We stayed two nights outside the park in a resort and were entertained by an orchestra of insects all through the night.
Mount View Cottages in Mannarkad, 10 kms from SV gate is a great place to stay.
On the way back, I ditched the toll highway through Coimbatore to drive from Mettupalayam to Dhimbam through Sathyamangalam jungles (Veerappan territory) which brought me through Chamarajnagar to Maddur where we got on to Mysore road. The entire stretch was a beautiful road, well-paved and sparse traffic. Why would anyone want to travel by the expressway, I wonder, that too paying heavy tolls.
We were back home on 2024-05-26.
If you want to see my other road trips, click on https://footlooseindian.com/2018/07/30/road-rallies/
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