The third day of the journey had just ended and was more of a starter ... a 10 km journey by foot and by every means a far more "comfortable" journey .. and i ve given enuf explanation of the comforts in my previous post... The night was colder than usual and the fatigue was aggrevating the discomfort .. al that i needed for the moment was a plate of food and a place to sleep ...
I was given two options .. either to have a porridge made out of steamed rice or to take dry and cold parathas with gram dal curry .. being to lazy and tired to chew .. i had opted for the porridge .. initially .. i was having great dilemmas of having it coz i ve not had it evr in my life and was imagining a plate of sticky gooey thick paste of porridge made in a greasy vessel with nothin to stimulate the taste buds and wud make u feel sick after having it ... But once i got to hav it .. piping hot and to top it with a nice lime pickle .. i was feelin home .. wow .. at that time .. i cudnt hav asked 4 more .. and the best part was .. it was so affordable .. i felt like plungin into round 2 ..
Suddenly i was then kindled by thought of al the delicious delicacies that my mom had made me .. and was missing it badly .. though it was only a cpl of days of separation .. it looked like it was months .. that talks of the tons of luxury i ve had, esp in terms of food .. both in terms of quality and quantity .. A big time wake up call ..
The next day morning was the most refreshing da ... after a nice walk it was teh best doze i had after a long long time .. after discharing my daily duties .. i commenced my journey for the day ... The target was to reach Pamba .. te foothill of Neelimalai .. the place wer the Sannidhanam was located .. and it was a staggering 36 km long route filled with crude rocks and hilly terrain.. wen i thought abt it ... i was feeling uneasy .. but things wer very diff then ..
Another important thing was the road side shops that v can c al over the place .. Literally the place was a Tiger reserve .. a natural habitat for elephants, tigers and other denizens of the deep .. though there is very minimal statistics suggesting human attacks ... its an uncanny feelin tht somethin may crawl up and stand infront of u... face to face ..
if it wernt for the innumerable shops al the way to Pamba, ppl vil find it next to impossible to cruise along. The shops are a nice business proposition and for the staggering crowd that sweeps the place .. they can expect a very nice profit margin..
With the fall of the evening we were jus a few kilometers away frm the place tht we wer abt to stay in Pamba .. After passing the toughest peak of em al- The Karimalai ascent and descent .. v reached te penultimate spot called the Periyanaivattam .. a place regarded to be frequented by the Elephas Maximus -better knwn as the Elephant ... v wer lucky enuf not to c ne ..
The place though has the name quite assosiated with the pachyderm, the road that it offered was pretty petite .. the road was not more than a cpl of feet wide .. to add more spice .. either side of the road was profused with rain trees, herbs and shrubs so dense that it was getting gloomy as early as 17.30 hrs ... and one wrong step n u can earn urself a one way ticket into the deep dense jungles of kerala .. wer no man has dared to go INTENSIONALLY .. but if u silently observe .. u can listen to the whispers of the flowing Pamba river, 50 ft beneath ...
slowly inching my way to glory.. i reached the place wer v wer abt to stay for the nite and it was like the last step that u c in the olympics .. the historical final step that marks the end of the longest journey that i ve taken in one single day to bring relief and contempt tht u hav FINALLY reached the place .. A feeling that can never hav a substitute .. a feeling of accomplishment ..
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