Tadagala - N/36, Sept 19-20, 2009

Fill up four liters of water into bottles before reading this::LOL
Formalities:

Thanks to

• Commander Sujai is a real confident dude and congratulations for organizing his first    trek so well.
• Chandra for giving me a good company while going to buy tickets. He is a first time trekker and he got a real stamina. He never complained. He deserves an Oscar for his natural acting when the forest guard is shooting questions on us.
• Everyone (including me) who made all travel arrangements, food arrangements and fun arrangements.
• Indian Railways for building a very good coach which we all turned into Zoo, dance floors, singing stage etc.
• Everyone by name for making trek so much interesting and special than my previous treks.
• Two distant torch lights which made all of us so silent and slipped us into sleep. Thanks to the sliding campsite which always tried to keep most of us awake all the night.

Heading to Varadayapalem:

Like all my previous treks, my fifth one, a three day difficult+ as it was named, also started with much anxiety and enthusiasm. You go 5,10 or 25 treks with CTC,I can assure that you 6th 11th and 26th trek wont be a "yet another trek".Everytime you meet new people, have more fun, hit different trails, swim in different pools making every trip(trek) of yours special. Thanks to the coolest gang in which we are all in.
Starting from Chennai is all the same like any other CTC treks.Tidel Park, Guindy and the final one at Nathan Cafe; CMBT.And from here the story takes so many twists and turns. So let’s go into and see what happened after this. We all reached CMBT on time.Introductions..Hugging people whom we already know...shaking hands...cracking jokes. sharing trekking experience. is going on... but unusually for long time...why???The qualis which dropped all the guys from guindy to CMBT is missing with all the food stuff inside. I asked Mohan and Ananth "where is the qualis??”Ananth said "interesting question" and asked the same to Sujai and Naveen who are busy with GPS inside the tempo van. They said he went to collect the papers and permit for the vehicle. The driver came back and I thought 'we will all start now’. So I got into the Car feeling very sleepy. 

We started; I have Sujai, Bijju, and Naveen with me and suddenly our vehicle took a diversion to Naveens house. There is some problem with GPS it seems .Naveen and Sujai went inside while me and Bijju talked for more than an hour sitting in the car. They both came out instructing driver to go to Adyar.When I got up I am somewhere and I could see only a Tea Wala on the other lane of the road. I hardly opened my eyes to see all the three sipping a tea there. They loaded the GPS file into the device I think. I too joined them for a tea. Finally we started towards our destination. After sipping a tea I came out of my sleepy mood and its other guys turn to sleep. After hitting the highway the car driver also took his turn to sleep. I immediately woke up Naveen and said ‘Boss the driver is sleeping”. Poor guys they all woke up and started taking something till we reached the other guys.

The Trek Begins

After our Qualis reached Varadyapalem I saw different gangs there, some at the tea shop, some sleeping in the tempo vans, some on its top, and others in the bustand.I joined the teashop gang. Mohan, Saravanan and some other guys already sipped their tea. We all went on a walk into the village just to kill time until the Bangalore folks join us. We came back to the tea shop again after roaming for sometime. By the time we reached the tea shop hot Vada (made in Andhra) is ready for use which suddenly made me feel hungry. Attacking one vada after the other I filled my stomach with a great satisfaction. We sat in the bustand for some more time chit-chating.Oh! Now it’s already 6.30 and the B'lore guys not joined us yet. So where are they? No! We are not waiting for them anymore. Again the two tempos and one qualis headed into the forest. Vehicles took a leave after all the bags, food stuff are unloaded near the checkpost.Food is stuffed into the backpacks making them very heavier, our journey into the 'Tadagala' begins.

Re-Discovering Tada Fort

Beautiful mountains welcoming us through a good laid road, we all proceeded towards the dam, the iron bridge and a small stream where we all filled our bottles. Going forward we took a diversion onto the adjacent mountain. The real trek begins here. Slowly all the guys moved onto the mountain. Because I didn’t sleep well in the night I felt very drowsy, every now and then I kept my backpack down and sipped some water. After a 15 mins walk upwards we reached a point from where it will be difficult to carry our backpacks. After a short break there, we left our backpacks and started climbing further. We split into two gangs and took two different paths to conquer the fort. After some difficult rock climbing’s finally we all reached the top of the mountain where there are some rocks arranged to look like a wall. Tada fort, it is. We all posed for some group photos rested there for some time and came back to our. Walking downwards for a sometime took us to the temple. The entire path is very thorny and so many pierced into my skin. Where are the Bangalore guys by the way??

The Rain and the slippery path

The plan is this...We take some rest under the big tree near the temple. Reach the falls, climbing its top and reach the paradise pool by night. Cook there and start towards Nagala the next morning.Ofcourse with four liters of water in the bottles.B’lore guys joined us here. We started walking to the falls after having our lunch along with the monkey’s there. I took a nap which is very refreshing for me. Then after passing through the big boulders and rocks we reached a very big pool. After all the trekkers reached the big pool we found no way to reach the other end. So we took a different path to reach the paradise pool. We started to hike the mountain the other way .Thanks to the guys who ran in front and made us a path .Now the worse part starts. It started raining. The already slippery mountain became more slippery. Loose rocks falling behind…shouting careful… careful…being completely wet, we some how slowly managed to climb the dense thorny forest. Resting on a cliff someone said change the name of the trek to DOA.

The night trek and the two torch lights

Hmm! this part is the most interesting part. Bored of killing us from morning to evening both sun and the rainy clouds slowly escaped into dark. Now we are alone in the slowly getting dark deep forest. I love night trekking because its all about fun fun and only fun.30-40 torchlight’s dancing, taking utter care of every single step we take, climbing up, sliding down carefully....ha...I really love it man!

Here comes the adventure! We now need to climb a very steep wall like rock of may be 25 feet. Some of the guys already reached the top and throwed a rope for pulling our backpacks up. We all sat where we are because instruction came to us saying that the rocks are very loose, so it’s possible only for one person to climb up at a time.Dipankar, Rajesh and me sat on a rock talking about the Kodai Munnar trek. The three day picnic flashed into my mind...the thought of fresh carrots there made my mouth watering. A shout brought me back to Tadagala again. Now it’s my turn to climb. I knotted my bag with the rope and started hiking.Ya! The rocks are very loose, but it’s not a very difficult climb.
There is something wrong, doctor Ananth is very busy dressing someone’s wound!” who is it?" I thought. And focused my torch on to the person laying down. He he! Its Koustubh the unlucky guy. Head break. He was badly hurt on the forehead just above his right eye.(Got six stitches according to the latest news from Sujai.Very sorry about that dude).Ananth asked me for a band-aid. I reached my backpack to take out my first-aid kit. Opened it and handed over the plaster, the thing Ananth is actually looking for. He carefully dressed the wound. After everyone reached the top of the cliff our journey began towards the paradise pool which we are supposed reach for camping for the night. So walking for few more meters took us to a place which is not even good for sitting comfortably. Commander Sujai ordered everyone to sit in there while some of the guys will go and explore the path for the paradise pool. By the time I am conscious again (I donno when I fallen asleep)...Commander is explaining the further action plan. The water in the pool is very bad and there is no flowing stream near to it. We need atleast 4 litres of water to walk in the planned path. So we stay in the same place where we are now and reach Tada the next morning and from there we go to Nagalapuram on bus(May be he like to call it 'Tadagala' only).Then we reach the picnic pool and magic pool and go back to Chennai.

Are you crazy? I thought Going to Nagala and covering the N35 trail again in less than two days. Impossible, I am going home I thought. Moreover a wound I got in N35 on my shoulder is severely hurting me resisting myself to carry my back pack. So I am one among the guys who said we will go back to Chennai when Sujai asked. Suddenly! We saw two torch lights moving towards us…off your lights …shouted commanders…some one yet did not off their lights…and everyone started shouting Arpitha off your lights…Arpitha off your lights…and still we felt the torchlight’s moving towards us. What the hell is going on yaar! Thousands of thoughts whrilling in our minds. Some said they were Naxalites, Bullshit I thought no way! Some said its forest officers...Naveen is against it, this forest guards are not really bothered about caring the forest. Some said they are gun man and what if they start shooting at us…..Slowly the crowd became silent and slipped into deep sleep. The place in which I am sleeping very slanting and I am sliding down along with my sleeping mat and bag.Naveen slept besides me and we kept talking all the night. But very early in the morning we both went in to deep sleep with no idea of what happened last night.
Descending the next morning

Next morning the plans completely changed and the commander took back the Nagalapuram attacking plan. We are all going to back Chennai. Folding up sleeping mats and bags stuffing and tying to our backpacks we all started our descent. Now the plan is going down enjoy at the big pool till afternoon and cook, eat and go back.

After the easy descent me and the other Telugu guy Chandrababu was asked to get tickets for all 29 trekkers and for the four cameras. So we made a plan for getting them. Here it goes...We came this morning at 7'o clock and found no one at the check post. So all our guys went inside and we both were waiting at the dam for the tickets and will join them. Also never tell them that we are all from CTC.Picked a 500 note from Sujai and a with water bottle we started our journey back to the checkpost.With small breaks for filing water in between at the big tree, a small stream, the iron bridge, and at the dam we reached the check post in 1 hour 15 minutes. Very boring journey indeed. Only two walking in the hot sun for buying tickets worth just 2 rupees. I also joked to my pal saying that "Boss, I really regret for knowing Telugu".

We came to know that there is a theft in the morning at the parking lot; someone broke the car glass and stolen LCD TV monitor from that. We slowly started moving back to the falls again with more breaks in between this time. By the time we reached guys are busy with eating noodles, Barath and Rola roasting fish, some playing in the pools, some sleeping on the flat rocks. I took a quick bath in the nearby pool as my body is stinking of sweat. I changed myself into some good clothes had my lunch and took some rest. At 2.15PM we again we started our journey back to the check post. We waited at the big mango tree again and Naveen took down all the expenses. And after a few snaps we reached the parking lot. Hired some autos through a guy who is at the parking. We all walked till the check post again where some autos including the forest Truck Auto are waiting for us. All the guys who ran in the front managed to get into the open top truck. And all other guys packed into two other different autos headed towards Vardayapalem.

Hundred Monkeys in single Compartment

This journey ....I have no words guys…with no good sleep and food for two days…after trekking in a bit difficult terrain…after walking kilometers together…no one can expect a fun of that range…kudos guys for making the train journey the best train journey in my life. After all the financial settlements the initial plan was to get into whatever Chennai bus comes and reach the city by night. But the local people said that there are two trains to Chennai from Tada station. So we all reached Tada station in different autos and had great fun there until the train came.Sujai got nice bumps for the wonderful trek.Hmm…first we all got into two different compartments the in the next station we all got into one compartment where the real fun began. We started with Bum Sharads...then dancing…then to antyakshari…and we sang all together with instant made lyrics... till the Chennai station came. Thanks to every one for making it one more memorable trek.

Happy Trekking. May the smiles on your faces remain forever and ever.See you in more treks.

Written by: Aditya
Organized by: Sujai
Image Galleries: Bharat
Loganaathan
Posted by: Karthick Sundararajan