more to life...: Paraman Kadavu Trek

After numerous cancellations and re-planning, this trek finally took shape on Feb 5-6, 2007. Ramanan had enticed us saying that we will be getting fish, tapioca, and chicken all prepared by the tribal people, and who knows we might even get country arrack freshly and specially prepared for us. We were all in cloud 9. We were even imagining a tribal dance. But all the shocks came later on. But we were too tired to feel disappointed at the end of it all.

We decided that we will leave to Valparai on bikes and from there trek to Paraman Kadavu. We left by 4 bikes (totally 8 of us) on Monday morning. The trip till Valparai was uneventful except for the sighting of a Nilgiri Thar (an endangered species native to this part of Western Ghats) at the 9th bend.

The plan was to reach Valparai by afternoon, have lunch, and then start trekking. We reached Valparai by lunch, bought provisions, had food, and then left to one Mr. Udayan's house. He is a factory officer in a tea factory there and he had arranged for a couple of tribals to guide us.

We started the trek around 3 p.m. We started from a place called Nallamudi. You had walk through a tea estate for about 1/2 km and then enter the forests. It was quite sunny that day and we were all baking inside our shirts. You have to cross a settlement called Sankaran Kudil which is half way between Paraman Kadavu (or Paraman Kudil) and Nallamudi, with Paraman Kadavu being downhill by the side of a river in Tamil Nadu - Kerala border. Sankaran Kudil is a settlement of around 50 families. Nothing of interest in Sankaran Kudil except a couple of hungry dogs which were looking at us dangerously. Luckily, for the dogs, nothing happened.

The trek was pretty exciting with glorious landscapes, thick forests, and dense growth of bamboo shoots. It takes around 3 hours to reach Paraman Kadavu. The tribals make it in about 1-1/2 hours. Some travel daily.

Paraman Kadavu is the last of the 3 settlements, the others being Sankaran Kudil and Kaadan Kudil. It has around 25 families, with the only source of income being agriculture consisting of cardamom, honey, tapioca, and paddy. People basically speak Tamil there, but it is quite different from the cities. They worship Murugan and their main function is Pongal.

We reached Paraman Kadavu around 6 p.m. tired and dirty, but we were excited as the tribal dance was lingering on our minds. In fact, we had already planned our moves. All those excitement turned to shock as we got nothing of the sort of reception we expected. We were seen as rude intruders into their village and none expect the village head came to see us. After some bargaining between him and our guides, and with us parting with some of our provisions, they agreed to accommodate us and also give some tapioca. By then, we knew that our tribal dance is never going to materialize.

They had arranged for us to stay in the solitary classroom there. After leaving our bags there, we left to the river which is around 1/2 km away. Oh God! What a time we had there. The water was cool and refreshing and we were there in the water for about an hour.

After that we returned to our classroom, and the cooks whom we were promised to us never turned up, and so we had to cook ourselves. But it turned out to be lot of fun at the end of it all. Finally, we had to suffice with chicken and tapioca. After a heavy dinner, one of the locals told we might spot animals near the river in the night. We armed ourselves with our jackets and torches and went to the river and sat for nearly an hour, but we saw nothing except mosquitoes.

The night went off peacefully and we left the next morning around 10 a.m. Before that we had a short tour of the settlement and also a visit to one of the tribals' house and the Murugan temple.

The way back was uneventful till Sankaran Kudil from where we had to take a detour through a different route, which turned out to be even more adventurous than the previous one, and we reached Valparai sweating and panting by 3 p.m.

All in all the trek was great and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Route: Coimbatore = Pollachi = Valparai = Nallamudi = Sankaran Kudil = Paraman Kadavu.

Expenses: Rs. 500/= per head including traveling, food, and guide expenses.