I ushered in the new year in the middle of a jungle, with the sky for a roof, in the good company of a good many creaky trees, lots of undergrowth, two smoldering campfires, and a bunch of slightly-scared-and-totally-exhausted comrades, with no clue how far from civilization we all were.
The plan was to trek from Kodaikanal (or Berijam, about 25km from Kodaikanal) to Munnar (or Top Station, about 30km from Munnar), a total distance of about 50km, over two days. We were to take the Escape Road, the road that the British built during the Second World War, as a means to get to Calicut and sail away in case the Japanese invaded India from the east (oddly enough, the only place I could find this gem of a tidbit on the net (and more on Kodai) was, of all places, the transcript of a WorldSpace radio programme on Sai Baba). This road is no longer maintained and though overgrown with undergrowth (hee hee), we thought we should be able to follow it coolly. I'd poked around on the net and found one blog that had an excruciatingly detailed appendix describing the route to be followed for this trek.
The plan was to trek from Kodaikanal (or Berijam, about 25km from Kodaikanal) to Munnar (or Top Station, about 30km from Munnar), a total distance of about 50km, over two days. We were to take the Escape Road, the road that the British built during the Second World War, as a means to get to Calicut and sail away in case the Japanese invaded India from the east (oddly enough, the only place I could find this gem of a tidbit on the net (and more on Kodai) was, of all places, the transcript of a WorldSpace radio programme on Sai Baba). This road is no longer maintained and though overgrown with undergrowth (hee hee), we thought we should be able to follow it coolly. I'd poked around on the net and found one blog that had an excruciatingly detailed appendix describing the route to be followed for this trek.