Awesome view, awful coffee and other things about Chalakudy

Upair has finally gotten into the "having fun" mood and on Sunday we went to Chalakudy. For those of you who are clueless (which is ok 'coz this list could include people FROM Kerala too, so those who are not from here, don't feel bad about your poor Geography.... but those from Kerala who don't know where and what Chalakudy is- how did you every pass 10th? On second thoughts, don't tell me!), let Prof. Ida enlighten you:
Chalakudy has the most beautiful waterfalls in the history of humanity as witnessed by Ida- because Ida has not seen too many waterfalls, or too much of humanity’s history, for that matter...

It is just vast stretches of beautiful, Jurassic Park-isque roads, leading to the most spectacular view ever...The weather was just perfect- the sort when it is just about to rain, but it doesn’t…you know the sort of feeling you get when you feel you are full but then you see ice-cream and think that you can mange to squeeze it in and you do and you feel all happy that you did not throw up… And then you notice that your figure hugging dress has gone really tight and then you have to hold your tummy in so that nobody notices how full you are, but you are, in reality, so full that everyone notices anyway?.... well, the clouds looked full in a similar way- as if they were trying to hold their tummy in and were really smug about the last cone of ice-cream they got to have…except that for clouds it will have to be water drops and not ice-cream, but I guess you guessed that already, even though you are clueless about Geography…Lovely roads...can't you just imagine

Dinos round the corner??

And it had just rained before and so all the trees had been scrubbed clean and looked fresh and green, as only plants can (if we were to look green, we would look like a terminally ill patient…not that I mean to offend terminally ill patients or I mean to imply that they are green…ah, you get my drift…)
And as we progressed, we could see whole line-up of monkeys, at this point I should be pointing out the similarities between Upair and a monkey, but I will resist the temptation…We stopped at a place that offered a clear view of the Athirappilly falls (called Athirampally falls in Malayalam…somehow, the English always managed to skip or modify the names of our places!) It was just wonderful…. glorious milky white water was frothing down the rocks and sending up vapours that made the whole scene look ethereal…did I say milky white? Well, actually one side of the water looked VERY dirty and this set Upair and me thinking as to what could be the reason…Upair, as usual, with his fascination for the macabre thought that there must be some dead body up there and all the blood was making the water dirty…

Athirappilly falls

If you can't read the red letters- they say "DIRTY WATER" in "adult" Ida scribble

We saw others at the spot drinking tea/coffee and felt that that was exactly what we should do…there is something about drinking coffee, when it is cold and you have this lovely scenery (even if tainted with a dead body’s blood) that just can’t be expressed in words…it is like eating popcorn during movies…so anyway, there was this small shack right behind us and we got ourselves coffee. And sipped it all ready to breathe out in sheer ecstasy, but AAH! YUCK!!! it was the worst coffee I have ever had- including the coffee I make, and that is really saying something- it had tiny blobs of milk-like-paper-like thingies that were impossible to swallow…if you ever go down there, my advice- DO NOT drink coffee from the shack/shop.
This minor incident forgotten, we were on the road again, more beautiful roads, more monkeys…we stopped in-between to take snaps of the roads and Upair’s car ‘coz that is his first wife … as we got out I saw this teeny-little trickle of water, a baby waterfall, which I named “Upair and Ida Waterfall”, of course I did not tell Upair this, ‘coz he would not understand it…

Upair's first love- the car!
"Upair and Ida Baby Waterfalls"

Wooow, this post is becoming long, so lemme shorten this- there were 2 other beautiful waterfalls- Charpa and Vazhachal. Vazhachal is as famous as Athirappilly and Charpa is just a small little fall that got a name because it was in the right area!
There are some water theme parks en route too, and they’ve advertised massively, so they are difficult to miss…. we didn’t go there, so no comments.

Charpa Falls

Well, that brings us to the end of the journey…downhill was uneventful, except for Upair getting over-excited with the beautifully curving roads and driving as if he was playing a video-game and me finally throwing up…but what the hell, it was all worth it! And the dinner Upair got me made up for it in a big way- more about that later.

Ta-ta for now and take care…