Everyday I started my day with checking e-mails in office. One day morning I saw an e-mail about a trekking trip planned and invitation for joining it. It was from our HR department and the trekking was part of an yearly outbound program. I gave my consent to join the trip immediately because I liked the outdoor trips. This trip will be more interesting because this trekking will be inside a forest area in Kallar region which is 45 kms from Trivandrum city. Kallar is famous for clear flowing water over round stones and water falls in its path.
The trip postponed twice because of rainfall and it was not advisable to visit kallar during rainy days due to the possibility of sudden rise in water level. Finally on a sunny Saturday we started our trip to kallar for trekking. We reached the destination by 9:30 am and our guides were waiting there to start the trip. Three young guides were there to guide us, a group of 30 people.
The trip postponed twice because of rainfall and it was not advisable to visit kallar during rainy days due to the possibility of sudden rise in water level. Finally on a sunny Saturday we started our trip to kallar for trekking. We reached the destination by 9:30 am and our guides were waiting there to start the trip. Three young guides were there to guide us, a group of 30 people.
Guides took over the leadership and started giving initial instructions. They announced that we are going to enter a forest area and wild animals like Elephant, Bear, Snakes etc may be there in that area. They gave instructions what to do if we see any of these wild animals there. Most of us laughed after hearing this instructions because a team of 30 young people were ready to take any adventure inside the forest. There was a 20 minutes walk to enter into the water flow region in kallar. Our guides had arranged some interesting games like treasure hunt to help us to move forward without any issues.
We never felt that we are moving inside a forest because everyone was busy in finding their team's treasure. In next 30 minutes we reached the real kallar where water was flowing smoothly. Now the path forward is full of water and smooth stones. It was difficult to walk over smooth stones because it was too slippery however we managed to move forward as a team. The path was becoming more and more narrow and kallar was becoming more beautiful for eyes. It was a scary experience to hike through narrow slippery paths and sometimes our guides helped us to walk forward.
We reached a place surrounded by big long stones and it seems I reached a new world altogether. "We will be taking our lunch here". One guide announced. So I can spend sometime there before moving forward. The sound of flowing water helped me to relax and take some rest. After lunch the last stage of our trekking started and it was the most difficult but mind blowing experience. We need to hike through vertical rocks to reach the next destination. Initially I wonder whether we can climb it without ropes but our guides supported us and we managed to climb it without ropes. But in the next destination they were waiting with ropes to give us an experience of trekking using ropes.
It was only 3:30 pm but inside the forest we feel like 5:30 pm because sunlight was fading. Our guides told it is the time to go out of that place and reach near our buses because it will be difficult to find the way out in the dark. Finally we reached near our bus by 6:30 pm.
