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Marottichal

I heard about this place before from my college friends. They had told me that its marvelous. After being there I could say that it is actually marvelous. One of the best waterfalls I have ever been to.

We wanted a break from the boring office works and dull Saturday/Sundays in Aluva. So we decided to go for an outing. A one day tour. Lots of places were under consideration. This was the place I suggested. Main reason is the opinion of my college friends. Second cos of the photos and review I got from a blog. I'm pasting the blog url as the first comment. Do visit the blog too as it would give you a fair idea about how to reach the place. Thanks to Sujith for his very helping description in the blog.

Previous day witnessed great liquor bash by Joseph Ettan. It was a bachelors party in account of his marriage which is suppose to take place on 23rd of August... I could get up early morning next day. But I doubted about others. Fortunately everybody got up.

We were planning to leave by 9. I got ready and went outside to take water, bread and jam for lunch(we are not gonna get anything there), and chips and all to eat on the way. We took trousers and bath towels anticipating a bath there. Started from Aluva at around 9.30AM. Decided to have breakfast on the way. On the way to Angamaly we put petrol of Rs.800 in the car. Saw a good hotel near Angamaly and decided to have breakfast there. Only thing available there at that time was idli and we were more than satisfied with the idli we ate from there.

After breakfast i felt little sleepy and took a nap. I think everybody did except Chris who drove the car. Thanks to him. He alone drove all the way to Marottichal and back, dear he couldn't sleep at all. Getting to the stupid roads near Chalakkudy which were under work we all got up. From Sujiths blog we knew that we need to keep in highway till we reach Kuttanellur Jn(കുട്ടനല്ലൂര്‍) in the Mannuthy Byepass. We should take a right turn from there and take the way to Puthur(പുത്തൂര്‍) - Mandamangalam(മാന്ദാമംഗലം) - Marottichal and go till we see a "Bank of India" sign board. Actually we were delighted to see a BOI branch at Marottichal as it was our salary a/c bank and there were not much branches in Ernakulam and Calicut. Reaching there ask anybody and they can show you the way to the falls.

We reached Marottichal at around 11AM. We need to park the vehicles on the road and walk to the falls. 1st fall, the Olakkayam Falls is just more than 5min from the road. There is provision to take a bath here, but we were planning for the big boy uphill or if not possible there to have a dip here itself when we reach back.

The big boy, the Ilanjippara Falls is 3.5km uphill. After some snaps at the Olakkayam Falls we decided to go uphill. Its a narrow forest path which will provide a good trekking experience for the first time trekkers. Experienced people don't bother... It was tough. We took lots of rests on the way. Even we thought of stopping this quest and to climb down. But at that time what came to my mind was a novel written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. If u folks have read the "100 years of solitude". When I was reading it I felt like it is a stupid novel, no chapters in it had any link with each other nor it was a continuous story. Actually I did decide to stop the book in between thinking why it was praised so much. But at that time I had no other books with me so I continued reading it. And was actually delighted to read the last chapter. The story was beautifully concluded in the last chapter linking all the chapters. And I expected the same in this case, a reward at the end. And it was true. Just look at the snapshot of the fall from the rock formation opposite to it.

We had our lunch from there. Bread and Jam. After lunch we went to have a bath in the falls. Its a refreshing experience. We took some photos and videos there. Watch the videos embedded below. From the time I saw the waterfall I have been thinking why this waterfall is not famous even though its so beautiful. It has been told in another blog that its dry without water in summer. That may be the reason.

By 2.40 we started descending. We were going faster. There were not much halts and rests as we did when we were climbing. So we reached down hill in 45 min. By 4PM we started our journey back to Aluva.