A Rejuvenating trek to Vellingiri!!

Hello All,

It’s been ages since my previous post, missed writing travelogues of a few treks in between including the once-in-a-lifetime Himalayan trek done during Sep' 12. Finally decided to put my keyboard to good use for a change instead of the daily rigmarole of sending e-mails, reports and all the mundane stuff at office.

A part of the group that scaled the mountain

My last trek was to witness the Karthigai deepam atop Tiruvannamalai Hill on Dec 1, 2012 along with Palani and friends. Though Tiruvannamalai holds a special place in our hearts, we were on the lookout for a different trek experience and after weeks of discussion, we finalized our next trek to Vellingiri Hills near Coimbatore. Thanks to Palani’ s initiative, a group of 24 people (the usual suspects - Surya, Venkat included) from various IT MNCs decided to do it on the week ending Apr 6, 2013. Making arrangements for all of them is definitely no mean task and a big clap to PHIRABBU for booking the tickets (grappling with IRCTC to book a single ticket can be painful as we all know!) and organizing the journey. 

Tasty Padhaneer served on Palm leaves

So on the 5^th of April, the group of 22 people boarded the Mangalore express to Coimbatore. Though this train takes a circuitous route to Coimbatore (via Trichy, Karur) it gave us ample time to sleep and recharge ourselves for the arduous trek ahead. (Though, I must admit the fag end of the journey became a bit boring due to the slow trundle of our train). We reached Coimbatore at 11:00 AM and met Palani who joined us from the railway station. After a few purchases for the trek, we left the station for Isha Yoga center at 11:30 AM. I quickly jumped into the front seat of Palani’s Car to enjoy the A/c, which was a welcome relief from the heat outside (Yes, Coimbatore equally hot as Chennai in April itself, talk about Global warming and its effects!!!). With the help of Google maps and me as a navigator, Palani skillfully negotiated the narrow by lanes of the busy Coimbatore market without putting a scratch on his car. At a point it became so narrow, that we were wondering if we were going the right way (Surya, was constantly reminding me of my earlier fiasco with Google maps and how it went horribly wrong!). Thankfully no such surprises and we joined the Perur main road.

On the way to Isha Yoga center, we stopped beside an Asian Palmyra palm farm (rhyming, eh!?) to have a taste of Padhaneer. To put it in layman terms, Palm shoot is cut and the juice is traditionally collected in a hanging earthen pot. The juice so collected before morning is called Padhaneer. This along with Nungu (Palm sprouts) was served to us in a vessel made out of Palm leaves. Boy, oh boy, I was initially apprehensive about drinking it, but after the initial gulp, I was asking for more. It was refreshing and delicious and I haven’t tasted anything like this before! At Rs 20, it was quite cheap too. With some help from our wiki friends, I found out that it has nutritional value too.  After a healthy and worthwhile dose of Padhaneer, we reached Isha yoga center by 2:00 PM. 

At the base of Vellingiri Hills

We headed straight for the shower room and then went for a dip in the Theerthakund. The water was really cold and it literally sent a shiver down my spine. Theerthakund has 3 mercury lingas which are supposed to create a tremendous sense of spiritual receptivity in a person.  We were really tired and  after a bath in the cold water and a dip, I definitely felt refreshed, whether spiritually or not, it did relax our nerves! Had a quick bite at the canteen and reached Poondi, the village at the foothills of Vellingiri by 5:00 PM. After dumping our entire luggage in Palani’s car, and packing only the essential stuff, we worshipped Arulmigu Velliangiri Andavar and started our trek by 5:45 PM. There were some stories of Wild Pachyderms and bear attacking the trekkers, but thankfully the locals assured that since this was a regular season time, we wouldn’t have to be worried about getting injured by animals. (As if doing the trek alone wasn’t enough, we needed these thrills too, eh?!)

Altimeter reading at the start of ascent of 1st Hill

Vellingiri, or Then Kailyam (South Kailash) is a series of 7 hills representing the seven chakras (energy centres) in the human body. From a geographical point of view, Vellingiri Hill is on a ridge overlooking the Manjampatti valley. The 7^th hill is at an altitude of 6000 ft. I cross checked my watch reading at the base of the first hill and found it to be 1860 ft!! Doing the math, my heart sank a bit as we had to ascend a relative vertical displacement of 4140 ft. (Numbers can sometimes scare you a lot!!) The entire trail to the top was around 7 kms as per the stats, so we had a quite a bit of walking to do. 

 

A few feet up the steps of the first hill, I was breathing heavily and realized how much I had to catch up on my physical fitness. Slowly I pulled myself up the hill leaving the group behind to soak in a bit of the natural surroundings. The never ending flight of steps finally led up to the end of first hill at the shrine of Velli Vinayagar. I quickly had a sip of water and after catching my breath, started my ascent up the second hill. 

The Never ending steps on the 2nd Hill

The second hill had steps which were equally steep but the forest was getting dense. With twilight setting in, the shrill sounds of various insects, the odd screech of an owl and a few rustling leaves were enough to give me the jitters. I realized going alone wasn’t a bright idea and saw an elderly man in late 50s up ahead. I quickly caught up to him and started a casual chat to get rid of the creepiness I had going alone in the forest. I am sure he welcomed it too. He was panting and sweating quite heavily and I enquired him as to why he was undergoing such physical strain at this age. He dismissed it with an air of nonchalance and put me in my place saying that he had already trekked 10 times earlier on this hill and that his faith in the Lord pulls him through every time on the annual affair. Having been humbled by this chat, I wondered if I could do the same thing at his age and admired at his courage of doing this alone. We reached the end of 2^nd hill and filled our bottles with water from the natural spring (Pambatti sunai). 

Darkness had set in by now and I realized going alone would be foolish and waited for a few of my friends from the group to catch up. The elderly man bid me goodbye and went ahead. After 15 mins of waiting beside a rock, Surya and Narasimhan from our group caught up with me. We turned on our torches and slowly made our way up the 3^rd hill. Darkness, I realized can be our ally sometimes as it narrows down your vision to the steps ahead and you don’t realize the sheer scale of the task ahead as the silhouettes of the peaks merge into the black sky. Treading slowly and carefully, we reached Kai thatti sunai (As per the locals, clapping your hands, makes the water flow faster, though I realized it wasn’t a wise idea to disturb the creatures around by clapping!) and quietly slipped past.

Sunrise as seen from the Peak

The 4th and 5th hills were a bit easy with the sandy terrain and gentle slope. We stopped by a shop and had few snacks and some fresh lime juice at the end of 5th hill. We were told by the shopkeeper that at the end of 5th hill, there is an oval shaped rock which is known as Bheema's Kali urundai. However, in the pitch darkness, all the rocks seem to be oval shaped (pun intended!) and I couldn't really make out!  Not to dampen the shopkeeper's enthusiasm, I nodded at having identified the rock :)

Mist covering Vellingiri Hills

At the ascent of the 6th Hill, my altimeter reading in the watch showed 4800 ft, which provided a sense of comfort since we had to do only 1200 ft more, (False sense of security!), but after a point we realized we had to again go downhill which added to our misery. Luckily we reached the Aandi sunai and refreshed ourselves before the final ascent of 7th Hill.

Climbing the last leg was really tiring as we were already sapped of our energy and our legs being trained to the gentler slopes of 4th, 5th and 6th hills, refused to budge.  We had to take a break every 100 ft and catch our breaths and start again. Dragging our legs and straining every bit of muscle in the lower half (sometimes we had to walk on all fours!!), we reached the top at 10:20 PM. 

We worshipped the Syawambhu Lingam and thanked the lord profusely for keeping us safe and prayed for an equally uneventful descent. At 6000 ft, it was quite cold and windy and finding a place to sleep was challenge at 18 degree celsius. We finally came upon a precariously perched boulder with a small gap beneath it which was enough to catch some sleep. 

The 7th Hill

Lying down and watching the star studded sky with the odd meteor streaking along and with some fireflies for company, it was a truly memorable night to savour. Past midnight the rest of our gang caught up. I woke up and realized that there were too many people on the peak and the crowd started building up. However,  fatigue got the better of me and I went back to sleep and woke up by 6 am.

The peak was a stark contrast to the previous night and there were more than 500 people now at sunrise waiting to catch a glimpse of the lord. We offered our prayers and started our descent and reached the base at 10:00 AM. On the way back, we were treated to some stunning vistas of the early morning mist covering the hills which was truly breathtaking. 

Had a rejuvenating dip again at the Theerthakund and started our return journey to Chennai by Raptisagar express and signaled the end of a truly satisfying and memorable trip.