Saturday
0300 hrs
Alarm ringing
You must be wondering "What the… f*** made him to set an alarm at 3 AM on a Saturday morning???"
Well the answer is CTC!!!
It was my first trek with these crazy people who call themselves The Chennai Trekking Club.
Thanks to my Canadian friends Alex and Deborah who talked me into Mountain Biking in Sikkim and my amateur photographic skills I had developed an interest in nature's beauty and some adventure.
It came to this when I came across a poster put up by CTC in the college about "Save Tada" I was wondering what was TADA? After a few hits on the keyboard and a few clicks with the mouse I came to know that Tada is a popular picnic and trekking location just 2 hrs from Chennai.
The CTC was planning to clean up the place from the pollution and restore the beauty of the place. After going through the group's website and their really super photographs I couldn’t resist myself from joining their group.
2 weeks later I got a mail from Peter, one of the founders of the group that he is planning a 2 day Moderate + trek to Tada on Nov 6-7 and promised it would be fun.
So I registered for the trek which was to start on a Saturday morning at 3 AM.
I woke up to find that many guys in the hostel were still awake..music was loud.. I could hear the taunts of Age of Empires.. after all it was a weekend. After packing my Gear for the trek I started off towards Tidel park. 15 mins on the road and it started raining. Peter picked us up at Tidel park in his Scorpio and we headed off towards Koyambedu, Nathans café. The rain had increased and the state of the roads in the city was awful. 10 of us decided to dump our stuff in Peter's Scorpio and take a bus to Tada.
The fun started even before we reached Tada. The bus had given up on us.. after a few failed attempts by us and the driver to get it running we shifted to another bus. Upon reaching Varadaiyah Palayam we took a shared auto to the base camp and met the other guys with Peter.Food and other stuff were distributed. With our back packs really packed with noodles, rusk, jams squeezes, ketchup, cookies and water we started off along the jeep trail which the British had laid to reach the source of the Tada Falls.
The trail was rocky initially and as we gained altitude the vegetation had taken over it and the path became slippery. After some time we reached the cliff top from where we could get the first view of the falls. But the morning fog and the mist rising from the falls blocked the view. We could just hear the water falling on the rocks. Then we climber higher and reached a fortification of the British.. a wall built by stones.. here we had breakfast.. Rusk and Jam.. and before we could even think of some rest we could here Peter saying Hop Hop.. Lets move.. We climbed.
Then we reached another view point...a rock at the edge of the 200m cliff.. the fog and the rain were a bit merciful and allowed us a magnificent view of the Tada falls.. We could clearly see the majestic falls.. its white waters falling down and flowing through the valley. There was more water in the falls than usual due to the rains.
Then we moved onto the source of the falls which was about 10 mins away. First we took photographs, then washed our feet and then one by one we jumped into the cold water.
The stream formed a few small falls of about 5-10 feet before the 200 m fall.
It was at the top of these small falls that we dived, swam, posed for photographs, relaxed and stayed at peace with the world for about an hour. Lunch followed… Apple, rusk, energy bars and orange flavoured glucose in mountain water…
After a break like that everyone was just ready for the next part of the trek. We crossed the stream and then climbed up the other mountain where we found another fortified stone wall. We had another complete view of the Tada falls from a rock protruding out of the cliff, but this time on the opposite side of the valley. The rain had picked up full pace and even the wind was strong now. Peter told us that we will be climbing down the hill.. but it was not so easy..
We were at the top of a cliff with a vertical drop of 100 m.. not knowing this we were going around in circles at the same place trying to find a way down… Peter's GPS tracker said the destination was right ahead.. but we couldn’t figure out a way down.. we then walked … not down .. not up.. but forward.. along the circumference of the steep hill.. and after about 30 min we could recognise the trail which was usually taken by trekkers..
The journey down was quite bumpy.. every now and then we could hear someone from the group slipping, stones rolling down. Peter, Baskar and me were at the front of the group and after some time couldn’t hear the others. We then waited, shouted, kept quiet to hear the rest of the group.. but there was no other sound other than the falls and the monkeys. Peter went back to find the others while me and baskar waited. Time passed and the light was fading.. Peter returned with the group and told us that a guy had cramps in his legs and couldn’t walk. After we regrouped we climbed further down and reached flat surface.
The GPS said the temple which was where the road started was 500 m right ahead of us. But we could not get to it as there was a stream in between. It was dark and after some failed attempts to get to the temple we realised we were lost. Then Peter crossed the stream and we followed. The water was cold and was hip high with a strong current. We had to hold hands to balance ourselves. By the time we reached the other end Peter was gone and we had no idea where he went. We shouted and waited.. the flashlights helped us and we were looking for a signal from him. Afetr 5 mins he flashed his light and shouted that he had found the way out.. he was right in front of us but we dint know how he got there.. the vegetation was thick.. and there were thorns.. we fought our way through the thorny bushes.. and finally came onto the jeep trail with cuts and bruises..
We reached the temple and few of us took a bath in the stream there. Then we walked back to the place where Peter had parked his Scorpio. We ate some more apples and changed to dry clothes. The rain had reduced. We agreed that we should get back to the city as we cannot camp in the night there due to lack of firewood…. But there was one small problem… we were a group of 16.. and the village where we could get transport was about 15 km away. It was pitch dark. As usual Peter came up with a very good in fact a crazy solution.. 16 people..one Scorpio… Don’t think its possible?? Well it is.. atleast for CTCians…. 3 in the front.. 4 in the back.. 2 guys with their torsos popping out of the windows.. remaining were hanging onto the roof rails of the Scorpio with their feet on the footboard. Half way through and the rain hit back.. with people hanging from the car and their shirts off.. the villagers thought it was some movie scene as we entered Varadaiyah Palayam..
We had dinner in a small hotel..8 egg dosas, 120 idlis and 8 double omelettes. The hotel guy ran out of chutney and sambhar.. Then we started the journey back to Chennai. 6 guys with Peter started off in his Scorpio while the others took the bus back to Koyambedu. A hot water bath and a good night sleep was a perfect ending for a more than a perfect weekend… Will remember my first fun filled adventurous trek and the crazy CTCians for a very long time…
