Rainy, Wet and Leechy Wayanad!

It was a long weekend and we had planned to drive down to Wayanad. Started pretty early in the morning and after a quick meeting with a friend's family for breakfast, set out towards Wayanad. The drive was quite smooth, though the road is quite narrow at some places after Mysore, there was very little traffic and enjoyed it. Loved the picturesque landscapes and stopped at a couple of places, where the villagers were harvesting the crops right on the road!

After Mysore, I had taken over the wheels and let the photographer do his job :). And to our luck we spotted this herd of tuskers including a baby. They were pretty close to the road in fact! We slowed down, took a few shots and started off.

As i always say, wherever we go, the rains follow and this trip was no exception! It started raining as soon as we entered Wayanad area and continued to, for most of the time, but it was pleasant too.

We had booked our stay in Green Magic resort in Vythiri. Vythiri is a beautiful place off the road and there is a high end resort too, by the same name around 3 kms from the main road. The place we had booked in is further up the hill some 4 kms further after the Vythiri resort. We were told to park our car in front of one of the houses off the main road and a jeep was to pick us up to the resort. The roads, or rather the path that lead to the resort was narrow, slippery due to continuous rains, but we felt we could have driven our car itself.

However, after about 3 kms, the road, if at all i can call it that, got too rocky, slippery and narrower. Add to it the up slope! No wonder we were taken by the jeep! There were places where a small bridge like thing was just wide enough for the two pairs of wheels to cross! It was indeed adventurous!

After a couple of heart gripping incidents, we reached the resort.

The resort was a simple looking row of cottages, overlooking a beautiful stream. The rooms were cozy, without electricity for most of the time, built in a rural style, has an open dining area, again off the stream. It is totally secluded from civilization. They do have another resort a km or so further, the other one we were told had more modern amenities, but we were here just for the nature, not for a TV or AC :)

The only sounds heard were that of the roaring stream below, pitter patters of continuous rain drops and some insects! It rained for most part of the two days and there were leeches all around. Well, do not freak out about leeches, all they do is suck some blood, and at max, you'll have some slight itching for some time! See this one on my hand, it's interesting how they get on to you and find a suitable place to suck blood! (Ok, here before it settled, i drew it off my hand, though :D)

The best part of the trip was we were the ONLY guests there on the second day! The other group that had checked in the previous day found it boring since it was raining and checked out earlier. And we had the whole resort to ourselves!! Sitting on the porch and watching the rains and eating some hot snacks prepared by the staff was all we had to do, and it was a total relaxation! Due to rains, there wasn't much of bird/butterfly activity, just watched these snails move around everywhere! (Not sure of the Id)

The bath had a glass wall and overlooked a beautiful little private garden!

There are also a couple of tree houses, which give a wonderful view of the thick canopy and wildlife view from very close.

The staff were good, though we had language problems! food was just ok, with little options, considering we are vegetarians. Also they gave us a good discount over the actual price, may be because it was off-season. Would love to go back there again, in a brighter season!

Note: We made this trip in Oct 2009, and writing it down now, when an acquaintance asked for info on Wayanad resort. Unfortunately we were not much into wildlife as much then, and due to rains we didn't do much other than relaxing!

On our return journey, we stopped at Pookot lake and then at Edakkal caves, both were crowded with people and didn't impress us!