Topslip & Parambikulam

June 28, 2005

Already one weekend has passed since my friends(Abraham,Karthik,Anand & Siva) and I had been to Parambikulam and I guess its high time I decided to blog about it So here goes.

Our original plan was to visit Kotagiri (near Ooty) but due to unforeseen circumstances (it was more like Karthik dropped out at the last minute as he had to attend office) we had to drop it. We then decided to visit Topslip as none of us had been there before though we had heard much about that place. Moreover, it was only around 80 kms from Coimbatore(Cbe). At last, we left Cbe sometime around 12.00 noon and the journey was uneventful till we reached Pollachi (40 kms from Cbe). We picked up another friend of ours from Pollachi (Siva) and proceeded towards Topslip with gusto (as always)

Topslip is located within the “Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary” and so there was a checkpost just before the ghat road started. We had to complete certain formalities at the check post and they let us through after they were convinced that we hadn’t come there to smuggle sandalwood or indulge in poaching The route from that point was really scenic and the road was much better when compared to the one we had driven through during our last trip to Valparai. Though, we were expecting an elephant (and a tiger or two) , we only encountered a few wild pigs, a peacock and a peahen. We reached Topslip sometime in the afternoon and checked out the rest house(from the outside) , glass house and the sole museum out there.

Then it was time to reach Parambikulam. Parambikulam is actually located in kerala and the road leads to a dam. The route from Topslip to Parambikulam was even more breathtaking (see snaps). After stopping at one more check post (this time it was a kerala check post), it turned out that we had to take one guide with us. The guide spoke(in tamil with a heavy malayalam accent ) about the sanctuary in general as well as the animals that could be sighted there if we were lucky enough. As it turned out, we weren’t too lucky as it was daytime and we sighted nothing but wild pigs (again !)

We were running short of time as we had to get back to topslip before 6.30 in the evening or end up staying there. So we couldn’t see the famed Kannimara tree, which incidentally is the largest tree in Asia (we didn’t have time to take a detour). After witnessing some fantastic driving skills once again by our trusted driver (Abe’s gonna kill me after reading this), we reached Topslip around 6.00 pm. Had tea there and we started to proceed towards the initial checkpost when we sighted a bison just metres away from us. It was an awesome sight and it was way too huge ! You can find a snap of the same bison up close and personal here

Finally it was time to go home and we reached Cbe around 9.00 pm. It was a memorable trip indeed and makes me wanna go there again sometime in the near future.

You can find some more pics here, here and here.

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