We reached Coimbatore well after the scheduled arrival time, and were desperate to cleanse ourselves of Doraiswamy's blessings ( The bus, just in case you missed the pun ). After wandering around a bit, we chanced upon a pretty good hotel, where we did what had to be done before gorging ourselves on a sumptuous buffet breakfast. Surprisingly the price of Rs.125 was well below our expectations, in stark contrast to the quality of food. We called for a cab, who agreed to drop us to Calicut for Rs.3000. En route, we spoke with the cab owner and fixed Rs.3700 in all for a direct drop to Wayanad, since the our travel agent in Wayanad was asking for a hefty sum of 3K for pickup from Calicut.
We reached Calicut and picked up our mysterious passenger, after a bit of hide and seek. There was some serious mallu chat between the true Keralites, and I was harassed for my unfamiliarity with the nuances of their language. It drizzled a bit and we stopped at a T shop for some palam poori and chayaa. We moved on, and as we descended upon Meenangadi, the clouds looked ominous and we were hoping to reach our furnished stay before the rain gods obliged. We were given a very friendly welcome by our travel agent ( who were very young and soft spoken as well ), and soon after we settled our coimbatore cab driver his due.
Harris cheta, the travel agent, drove us in his maruti zen ( which was to be our sight seeing vehicle ) through a dense patch of greenery which had no real path leading to the house. It was dark and was kind of spooky ( if you had seen the blair witch project, you would know what I am talking about ). The house was more of a bungalow, but was infested with bugs of all sizes and shapes - the windows were left open for some fresh air. Harris then introduced us to his relatives who were the caretakers of this magnificent house and were also neighbours. This introduction was re-assuring and to show our gratitude, we ordered a rather royal dinner.
Ibnu, one of the co-owners of the travel agency, showed us the possible sight seeing places. We requested that we didnt want to squeeze in too many places during our short stay, and instead preferred to spend some quality time at the few places we were going to see. So we finally settled for :
1. A drive through Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary
2. Kuruva Dweep
3. Edukkal Caves
4. Pookode Lake
And few other places...
