Way to wayanad-2

• After breathing the forest air for 5 long hours I woke up at around 4’o clock to attend the nature’s call, so, I had to come down the tower, the surroundings were so dark and couldn’t figure out anything, I flashed the light into the bushes nearby. was able to see nothing, so went up to continue my sleep, actually, I didn’t feel like sleeping so sat down monitoring the surroundings took some shots in my handy-cam. Yawned, stretched, and tried waking up my friends by flashing lights on them…
  
  
  
  
  At 6 : 30 am , we prepared to leave the watch tower!. We took couple of snaps with the tribes and started our trekking .This particular morning was one of my favorite! at this hour,the forest was pretty polluted with assorted noises produced by the insects and birds!.. All my thoughts were to spot a tiger!. so , I squinted really hard at each and every bush adjoining the trekking path, which made me to lag behind others. After walking a few distance, away from the watch tower, I saw my friends excited over something, they were pointing at something on the ground.. I tip-toed as fast as I could, and the reason for the excitement was the discovery of the footmarks of elephants!!!..Previously,We were told by the tribes that an elephant was standing just nearer to the trench!. I initially didn’t believe them, as I was on constant vigilance except for the stint during my four hours of sleep, I thought the tribes were lying to aggravate our interests, now, these footmarks prove that the tribes were right, they have no reason to aggravate our interests.. so took a couple of shots of these foot marks in my cam.. There was also elephant dung, on the path, fresh and soddy!…so , with my head hung I retained the lag , with great difficulty I made my head to turn, left, right, and down, left , right and down…and again , I saw my friends excited. before I reached them , I discovered and identified the marks on the path, myself ..they belonged to that of the TIGER's or may be of the leopard’s.. These pug marks were fresh!. the wild-cat must’ve prowled along this path, the previous night!!..we continued the trekking further into the forest!. we rendered ourselves mute, as our talks might distract the animals!.... while walking, apart from the thoughts of ‘spotting a tiger’, I thought about various stories in and about jungle, it started off with topics such as Mowgli’s encounters and ended with poaching, and terrorists activities in the forests…I strongly condemn poaching and deforestation!, only because of these activities, I wasn’t able to have a glimpse of the animal I love the most!. after some good walking!,, we started to experiencing the heat of the morning sun on us…we took routes , which the guide suggested..we reached a particular point where, the borders of three states (Karnataka,Kerala and Tamil Nadu) meet.. this place is called as triangular point!. This forest is named as ‘Mudumalai’ in TamilNadu, ‘Bandipur’ in Karnataka and ‘Wayanad’ in Kerala…after taking a few snaps and shots of this place we headed further into the path…till this time we didn’t talk much..one of my friend , didn’t appreciate this morning hours to be spent walking, he felt so, because he was hungry!. So, couple of biscuit packets were opened and consumed!. we saw couple of jeeps along the paths, as the safari was open already, I cursed the jeeps for making loud noises, which diminished the chances of spotting animals.. the guide took a diversion , leading to another trekking path, which was undisturbed by the intrusions of the jeep.. While we were walking we crossed couple of watch towers…and suddenly we saw huge black mass!.. it is the great Indian elephant!! it was standing alone munching its morning meal!. It is a known fact that, elephants move in herds, I guessed that this elephant must be a mad-one, the herd must‘ve kept this elephant away, even the guide felt so… this elephant had a tusk! And was pitch black, the trunks weren’t spotted with pink dots, so it means that, the elephant is young.. we were comfortable distance while watching it, and we further moved away to avoid any dangerous encounters.. After this we didn’t see any animals. We reached the dormitory after trekking for three hours , we refreshed in the rooms, and started to Sulthan Bathery, our next schedule was to reach a place called ‘Edakkal caves’ which was four thousand years old and it was discovered by the british .. we reached ‘Sulthan Bathery’ at mid-day, we finished our lunch in a modest hotel , then, we boarded a bus to the ‘Edakkal l caves’ it was some 12kms away from Sulthan Bathery.. so, we reached there after 45mins..the place we were dropped is 1 km away from ‘Edakkal Caves’..we initially thought that, covering 1km is not a big deal, but, we found it pretty strenuous, as the path was very steep and drained a copious amount of energy!...
  
  Some pointers
  
  - There are two caves which are located at a height of 1000 m on Ambukutty Mala near Ambalavayal.
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  - The New Stone Age pictorical writings on the walls of these natural caves at Edakkal are evidence of the civilisation that existed in these regions in prehistorical times.
  
  - The caves can be accessed only by a 1 km trekking trial from Edakkal.Morning hours are the best time to visit the caves.Entry is permitted only up to 5pm only.
  
  - Inside, one finds ancient stone scripts, cave drawings and pictorial wall inscriptions of human and animal figures with peculiar head dresses, the swastik forms and symbols.
  - Archaeologists consider these as one of the earliest centres of human habitation. Similar straight line cave drawings (considered 7000 years old) have been found only in Stiriya in the European Alps and a few rocky places in Africa.
  
  - The drawings at Edakkal depict the human figures, stars, wheels, bows, knives, palm trees etc.
  
  After staying inside the caves for a while, we walked back to the bus stop, we boarded a bus to ‘Sulthan Bathery’…phew !!! we had enough of sulthan bathery, I felt ,even the sultan himself wouldn’t ‘ve visited the place this many times!...from there we boarded another bus to a place called ‘Mananthavady’ where we decided to spend the night in a hotel!. we reached the place after a travel of more than one hour! , we dined at a place called ‘Indian Coffee House’, which was one of the bad hotels , we had food.., we scouted for a place to spend the night!.. we found a hotel called’ Alaska’ just opposite to the bus depot!..we struck a good deal with it.. we took two rooms for two hundred rupees each!.. the rooms were new and really clean!. we were really surprised!. We took bath, washed some clothings and retired for the day!..