Valpaarai

Its been a long time since posted anything on the footloose, last weekend was too good and also has enough information to be posted on this post now about my last weekend getaway.

Valpaarai is one of the less explored hill station in tamilnadu... like anyother hill stations, valpaarai has its own mystique view of hills covered with mists, tea estates, meadows, valley and waterfalls and something which cannot be missed is the monkeys that welcome us on the way up and also the ones that bid farewell on the way down.

Valpaarai never ceased to impress me. It is full of tea estates and has a similar panaromic view of munnar.... but less crowded and quickly accessible from coimbatore. Yes it is close to 105 km drive from coimbatore and one can reach within 3.5 hours to the desired place.

Okay here is the list of some places that we visited in this trip.

On the way to valpaarai you will find this aaliyar dam and its park.... if there are little kids and if you are packing lunch from home, this is sure nice place for a pitstop.

after you start from the aliyar park, the next stop point would be the 9th hairpin bend (Lome's View). You can view the entire strech of water being reserved at the aliyaar water resorvoir

And then there is a place called attakatty which is on the way to valpaarai. this place looks like a normal office builiding but you can actually walk inside the bunglaow to see teh view point. This is totally different view of the valley and something you must not miss.

After all these nice view points, we finally reached the kavarkal tea estate. its a nice cozy(not real cozy but still :P) 3 bedroom bunglaow furnished to accomodate people along with a crew who cooked dinner, breakfast and lunch there...

It was getting dark and misty by the time we reached the place and we couldnt get a nice hold of how the estate actually looks like, but when we came out of the rooms in the morning this is what we could see... :D

there is lot of home vegetation in the estate, this is where we got all our vegetables for hte food... there is cabbage, carrot, radish, cauliflower, beetroot, beans, potatoes, tomatoes.. all kind of plans... and lot of jasmine plants...(now i know why they saw valpaarai is rich in flora and fauna)

Just imagine sipping tea right in front of this gardern early in the morning and deciding on what to cook for that day :)

beans plants

cauliflower and carrot plants

Next day morning.... after breakfast we went to the famous balaji temple and since photography is strictly prohibitted there, i couldnt post any photos of that place and from there we decided to goto another place called nallamudi poonjolai, this is an awesome place and must be seen by all folks who travel to valpaarai.

Nalla mudi poonjolai view point

an attempt to capture the place in a wide angle, by taking three shots and merging them in paint
adhi murugan temple at nallamudi poonjolai.
we just wanted to have a day out there nothing specific to visit as in a tourist agenda.... so the stay out there at the bunglaow really mattered rather than adding tourist spots to our trip.

Pullu mudu (Grass Meadow) this is a must see place again (strictly for adventurists) as the roads are rough and crawling with leeches and also Indragandhi wildlife sancturary - need permissions from forest office to visit this places. I will definitely visit again to this place.

Time to Go: Dont go during summer (May to June) Best time would be October to March

Where to stay: You get lot of estate bungalows to stay for. They typically charge Rs 7500 for a 3 bedroom cozy bunglaow but you need to negotiate on the money as much as you can before you stay there. There are also estates available at Rs 5ooo. And you get a tented house for 3000 in Indra gandhi wildlife sanctuary where activities like trekking, tusk ride, forest walk and food are included. When you go to valpaarai try staying in the tea estate bunglaows rather than stayin in hotels. Estates always give you a different and unique experience to be in.

What to wear: Ofcourse it is a hill station and has got a cooler climate, make sure to take your woolen clothing with you and if you are planning to trek, you know what you need to carry.