Aralam: The Green Cover of North Malabar

     

      To an average malayali, Aralam is a land of controversies. The political controversies related to the tribal land issues made this beautiful place a controversial one, and now this issue takes the form of an epic protest as 'Nilpu Samaram' by some tribal organizations But aralam has another face of beauty and fragility, to a crazy jungle traveller, this is a land of promise. A biodiversity hot spot in western ghat . With an area 55 km2 this is the northernmost wildlife sanctuary of Kerala.

The forest distribution of aralam consists of Evergreen and Dry deciduous forests and the highest peak here is Katti betta.

 

    Aralam is famous for its birds and butterfly diversity, it is a butterfly and birdwatcher's delight, the birds like Malabar pied hornbill,Grey hornbill,Paradise flycatcher,Malabar trogon variety species of thrushes, flycatchers are a common sighting here.

                          The rare butterfly species like Papilio helenus, Papilio budha, Idea malabarica, Melanitis phedima, Mycalesis anaxias, Cyrestis thyodamas, Kallima were sighted here during the annual butterfly surveys.
 
        Aralam has a very good habitat of slender loris,  which IUCN Categorised as endangered

Every forests has its own river, they wet them ,fertilise them and hosting a variety of its species, the entire forest has a a deep bond with the river flowing through them. Aralam too has its own river, Cheenkannippuzha is the fertilizer and the guardian of aralam forest, a hanging bridge over the cheenkannippuzha connecting aralam with valayamchal area and thus to the more urbanised area of iritty and kannur.

A trek valayachal to ambalappara and bath in cheenkannippuzha will be a rejuvenating expereience to the traveller

Best Season: October - May

Emergency Details:
Wildlife Warden Valayanchal
Phone: 0490 2413160

For more information about KANNUR: [*00012960click here*]

Transport Terminals: Nearest City: Peravoor

Location: 35 km from Thalasserry and 60 km from Kannur town
One can reach the Aralam sanctuary by road from Thalasseri (45 kms) and Kannur (45kms).

How to Reach: Nearest Railway Station: Thalasserry, about 35 km
Nearest Airport: Karipur International Airport, Kozhikode about 71 km from Thalasserry town

Destination Vagamon

 

      It was a holiday morning,i prefer to stay at my cottage. My wish was to keep sleeping as long as in the morning without any interruption. But my mobile phone opposed this, it ranged early in the morning to interrupt my sleep. It was vinod at the end, “I will be there soon, Let's have a trip today ,be get ready quick“ he told, I really woke up then from the laziness of sleep, just because i am always crazy with the trips, no matter which the destination is.

Then all on a sudden, i got ready just before vinod arrives with his Hero Honda CD100, the destination not yet decided, we just decided to go ahead.... While riding the bike without any aim, we held a talk together, our destination decided as Vagamon .We need to turn the bike as we were on the opposite direction to 

 Vagamon route.

                             

We set the route through Ettumanur- Pala to raeach Erattupetta, from there deviate to Theekoy, where the hairpins just starting. The Old CD100 was still in a good condition, the curvy hairpins and steeps poses not a threat to him. While heading up to the hill, the climate is changing every moment, the mist is everywhere,the deep trench in one side of the road shows the fierce face of the beauty, we are not at all equipped to have a bike ride through such a kind of situation , we even dont have a sweater or a cap to defend the extreme climate condition, we both shivering with utter cold. We desperately need to have some hot tea to move on and eagerly looking sideways to find a tea shop,but in vain . The misty wind inching towards us from toe to head,the driving become a herculian task, but still keep going. To our solace, an old board is seen, inscribing “TEA SHOP” in an unattractive manner. The two glasses of hot tea and snacks was really a heavenly one to us, the shop keeper told it is the coldest and worst climate in recent times , he wondered about we are travelling in an old bike without any pre requirements.After gaining some energy we keep moving.

I was eager to see the famous green meadows , which came in to mind while thinking about vagamon, if you have a google image search under the term “vagamon” the most of the result will be the images of meadows. After a while the big hairpins were over, the climate slowly bettering , the meadows are now visible. The meadow is the trade mark of vagamon, it look like the famous microsoft windows meadow wallpaper. 

The weather is not ideal for photography, inspite of this, i managed to have some shots.The sight of green tiny hills covering with green grass carpets with small valleys was really an unforgettable one, the mist added a mystic feel to it. Just away, a newly wedded couples posing for their videographer, to make intimate love scenes for wedding video, they are hugging and smiling, and look in to each other's eyes (to add some spices to the romantic scenes) according to the instructions of the videographer, definitely meadow is an ideal place for such kind of shoots. There hears a shout with some abusive words, a group of youngsters having their celebration oblivious about other tourists and their comforts, definitely, they are fuelled with alcohol.It is the curse of our tourist destinations, someone beleives it is a place to have drinks in open space, they rush in to the tourist places with a vehicle full of liquor, consuming it in open spaces, then theit performance starts... who cares of others and their privacy ? Just have their own celebration at maximum.

We left the place to have just a glance of the other places, the time is 4 pm, now the call of stomach began to feel, definitely, hungry becomes a big truth, we hopefully drove to vagamon town, vagamon is a small town, unlike the other town adjoining to the tourist places, vagamon town never have the face of a tourist town, it may be due to the travellers never tend to visit or shop from the town , they just byepass the town as it takes a deviation from they road between meadow and pine forest. The kappa (tapioca) and fish curry was really a delicious one, refreshed by the food and a hot tea, I was in a mood to take some snaps of the street, an old man was peeping through the half door of his house attracted me, that was my chance for a close portrait, i take some shots without disturbing him.

The climate become worst again, now it is 5.30 pm, it is dangerous to drive back in such a condition, we needed to stay there, vinod have some relatives at elappara, after making a call to someone he told me that arrangements have been made for a one night stay at elappara and moved on. Next day, at an early morning we returned from elappara, on the way made a quick visit to pine forest, we need to attend our office,so we were in a hurry, it has been raining, but not strong enough, i feel it is very nice to drive through a snowy rainy morning. We were planning a come back on another day to have a detailed trip and an early morning photo shoot, i bid a temporary goodbye to the kerala switzerland and promised we will be back again soon ....(definitely we made another visit after a few month, this time prathap joseph, our mutual friend and freelance photographer accompanied us )

Exploring Periyar from Thekkady

       

            It was 4.30 pm , when we board on a ksrtc bus to kumily from kottayam ksrtc bus station, conductor told us it will take more than 3.30 hrs to kumily and will reach on 8 pm , if things are going fine. I made a call to Mr.Rajesh, the forest guard, who promised to host us, and remind him about us. Me, with my friend,Prathap Joseph, a freelance photographer, were on our first trip to thekkady ,the anxiety leads us while the bus swirled in hairpins and vroomed in plains.

It was 8.30 pm , when we reached at kumily ksrtc station ,thekkady is just 4 kms away from here, we take an auto. Rajesh made all the arrangements , it was too cold and we take the advantage of a woollen sweater and slipped in to sleep as we need to wake up at early morning to have the advantage of early birds to catch the first worm.

               

We got up at 5 am , the rain added the intensity of cold and shivering, 2 glass of hot tea was a solace, having a bath in cold water was a really a hard thing. We got ready at 5.45 am , the vehicles filled with tourists made a long queue at the thekkady forest check post, the gate will only open at 6.30 am , we got permitted to enter before that,just because we were on foot and have the camera with us. The conditions were not in favour for photography, the light was too low , the heavy snow and rain make things too bad, yet this conditions has its own beauty. A 2 km walk (or drive if you have a vehicle) need to reach at the boat landing. Walking through the forest in a snowy morning was a good experience, there was a total silence,except the chirping of crickets and tweeting of some early birds, just feel it I was walking through the road of the heaven. 

Breaking this surrealistic mood, the horn of the vehicles heard, the gate had just opened and vehicles were in a hurry to reach as early as possible in the boat landing to get ticket for the first boat. In thekkady, the tourist's only heaven is to have a one hour boating in periyar, no other things attract him. We promised to have a trip in a special boat arranged by one of my friend, and it will take us to the far end of periyar tiger reserve, it will only start after 11 am, so we need not to hurry.

              

It was the day of Diwali, the ticket counter for boating too crowded, 95 percent among them are North Indians, the chit chat in Hindi was everywhere, I thought I was in a North Indian Tourist Place. There is Two ticket counters there, run by Forest Department and KTDC both the counters are struggling to accommodate the crowd. The boats are equipped with necessary safety measures, the officials are vigilant not to repeat another disaster (thekkady boat disaster). The place is a haven for monkeys (Rhesus macaque), they are very familiar with humans and not at all afraid of us. They are fed up with the food items offered by tourists , the boards show that it is illegal to feed the monkeys ,but who cares of it ? The main diet of a monkey in thekkady consists packed foods and other fast food items offered by the tourists, if you are not ready to give it , the monkey will attack you to steal the food item, this is a menace to tourists as well as the monkeys as the changing lifestyle may badly affect their health.

          

We were in a hurry to shoot the moods and behaviour of our ancestral animal, while waiting for the boat to start, to our bad luck, we got informed that the boat has been cancelled due to some unexpected reasons and the trip is postponed to tomorrow. We spent that entire day by shooting monkeys, at the end of that day my 20 GB memory card and Prathap's 40 GB card filled the various ankles of the monkeys.

We decided to stay one more day, with the hope of getting a chance to exclusive boating trip wto the least explored areas of periyar river. Next day , to our luck, we get started at 11.30 am , we ensured our camera and accessories are in good condition to have our first wildlife experiment

 

We welcomed with an elephant herd consist of 8 big females and a calf , it was our first experience with wildlife, our camera become restless, we had as many as shots, but shooting from a moving boat was a difficult one, later I understand that this affect the quality of the image. That 5 hour boating was an unforgettable one, we blessed with the sighting of so many animal near the banks of periyar like a giant wild gaur, the antelope, spotted deer, wild boar and innumerable water birds etc.

Periyar preserves a large variety of biodiversity in its banks and the forest is a haven for huge number of wild animals, it is estimated that periyar forest have more than 1000 Tiger population according to a census, it is renowned for its wildlife and attracted the attention wildlife enthusiast worldwide. Unfortunately the this is the same river , the controversial Mullaperiyar water is flowing , how long the feeble dam will survive?if the dam collapsed, 75 lakh of human lives will be claimed, moreover this ,the periyar forest totally will disappear from the map , the countless wild animals including most endangered species will vanish, the life of the animals have equal importance as humanity’s , the right to live is theirs too, the world will only survive , if the humans, with animal co existed and the harmony is maintained. Dear Tamil brothers, this is not a political issue as your political leaders claimed.. this is the issue of our life... please let us live... as our Opposition leader VS says “Please don’t kill the people who have been providing water to you for 116 years “

Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary;"Amazon of the Poor"

       

         Located on the banks of the Vembanad Lake, the bird sanctuary is spread across 14 acres. The Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, an ornithologist's paradise is a favourite haunt of migratory birds like the siberian stork, egret, darter, heron etal...      

         This 14 acres of land is en forested with a vision to make this a miniature form of  the “ amazon rain forest “ you will feel it when you exploring through the core areas of the sanctuary, the giant tree and vegetations around this trees and the water body maintained and flowing through the entire sanctuary reminds us about the great amazon.

A well maintained butterfly park welcomes you at the entrance of the sanctuary 

     The fauna and flora of this artificially made sanctuary reminds the visitor about the amazon rain forest ... "it is the amazon at the door step"

             A well maintained water body  makes this sanctuary  wet and maintains air conditioned effect

              The water body is haven for some water snakes like this one, an "asiatic water snake" on duty at the stream

   The " Black Little Cormorant"and "herons" are a common bird sightings in the sanctuary

Best Time To Visit
The best time to bird watch is between June and August. To watch Migratory birds, November to February is the best time.


 How to reach?

• The nearest Airport is at Nedumbassery (72kms) and takes one and a half hours by road. 
• The nearest railway station is at Kottayam (16kms). Regular local and Express trains are available from here. 
• Kottayam is 16 kilometer from Kumarakom and both State highway and National Highway links it with the rest of the country.