A family mini adventure at Malenaadu waterfalls

Though I mentioned this as an adventure to a waterfall, this place is well known among locals. If you happen to visit one of the several home stays or resorts that have mushroomed in this area, you will be ferried to this place on Jeeps and all you have do is to just follow them. My story is about the experience of doing it on our own based on the directions given by locals!!

It was late afternoon when we (I, Chaya and Tanu) started to this waterfall. We followed using the general direction that was shared in public domain. On the way, we enquired with an auto guy about the route and whether our car could reach that point. He asked me the cross the bridge over a river and take the road to the right. “The new concrete road will take you all the way to the falls”, he said. That was promising.

We did see the concrete road. A small banner mentioned that the road was under construction and vehicles were not allowed. It looked like the construction people forgot to remove the banner after building the road. Typical Government attitude. I ignored and drove on the road. After few km, the concrete road ended and mud road started. I did not wanted to take my car on mud road and hence decided to park the car at the end of concrete road. The incident that occured in the morning when my car got stuck in slush (though I managed to pull it out without anyone’s help) was still in my mind!! 

The auto guy had mentioned that the concrete road will take to the waterfall. The area was deserted and I looked for signs of waterfall. There was none!! But then a Good Samaritan appeared in the form of another auto driver.  He said that the falls was still 1km further on mud road. He was going in that direction and he offered to drop us on the way which we gladly accepted.

We were dropped at a junction and the driver asked to walk for 200 meters and then a gate appears for waterfalls. It looked so easy and simple. We thanked him and started walking.

It was a pleasant day and we started walking with high energy. There was no sign of waterfall after 200 meters. Very soon 200 meter became a kilometre and I started doubting the direction given by auto driver. But few villagers who we met on the way told that we were in the right direction. Finally after about two km, we found a board mentioning the deviation to the falls. We expected the distance to be short but the road went continuously down to reach a tri junction.

As it normally happens in such situations, we took the wrong turn with no sign of waterfall. At one point of time, I decided to abandon the search and return back. But then another samaritan appeared but now in the form a local person. He gave the direction to the falls and he indicated that it was about 10 minutes walk. 

As rightly mentioned by the villager, we reached the front of a house with a gate!!  The way to the waterfalls goes to the private area and the owner asked me to pay money for entry. It did not look nice but I felt that when home stay owners are making huge amount of money by showing the waterfalls to tourists, there was no wrong the owner in demanding his share!! 

Very soon, we reached the waterfall. We had walked for nearly an hour. It was a small but beautiful waterfall. A small pool formed at the base was ideal for swimming. Few people were already in water. While Chaya and Tanu started playing in water, I spent some time taking photographs. We spent a good amount of time. 

We had to return back as the light was going down. I hoped to reach our car before it got dark. But the return journey was very slow. The energy that Tanu had while coming to the waterfall was missing. On top of that she put her leg in the slush which caused her lot of discomfort. We were convinced that we could not reach our car before dark. But then another samaritan appeared in the form of Jeep driver. Chaya and Tanu decided to try their luck for hitch hike. Luckily the driver stopped even though the jeep was running full. The people in the jeep also co-operated. I found the jeep journey more difficult than walking but it was quick. It was almost dark by the time we reached our car.

This is just to explain how villagers underestimate the distance. But it turned out well in the end as we had some nice experience at the end!!