honey hunters

Honey hunters

location : Chinnar kuth, Mankulam 

Honey is sweet, but the process of getting the honey down from the tall trees is a labourious, risky and most dangerous job i have ever seen

The group of 4 Muthuvan community is from Urulanthanni, saw them in the morning, with machetes, and they cut few big & thinner bamboo reeds 

Thicker ones are spliced and they began to make wooden nails, which is used to climb the trees, this nails are connected with thinner bamboo reeds so that the can climb the trees with ease

After 7 pm they started with the nailing work, the process was stopped because of the light from the moon was a hindrance. In pitch black at about 2.30am still hearing the noise of the wooden hammer hitting the nails, bamboo torches, slightly lit to ward of the bees was taken up

Collecting honey combs are done by 2 persons, one with a gunny bag on a long bamboo pole will hold this below the comb, supporting team on the ground with torch will guide them , and the other person with a pole will pull down the honey comb to the gunny bag, stings are common and they are not bothered about this

A this was a job entirely under darkness no videos

After collecting the comb the team will extract the honey, filter and store, got about 10 litres, took the same to Anakulam, but didn't got any buyers so returned to Mankulam

The cheeni tree had 4 bee hives 1st one was taken on day 1 and without any sleep these guys again made nails for the 2nd day collected honey combs from 2 more hives the last one was left behind as it was small, this ended at 5.30 am, so a 48 hours job without any sleep

 

Meesapulimala

 Day 1

Meesapulimala was a dream location, only accessible thru KFDC packages, 1 day trek 2 base camp, 3 Sky villa 4 Rhodo mansion, lot of groups are running camps @ Rs 3600 for base camp, a facebook / whatsapp post announced a budget rate @ Rs 3000 , i.e KFDC trek fee + jeep fare 

Base camp is with 15 - 20 tents shared by 2 persons, food : evening tea & biscuits, dinner cappathi, ghee rice and chicken curry, breakfast bread n jam, lunch veg meals

Our group was a team of 12 reported at Munnar jeep stand, took the jeeps and moved to KFDC office to collect the pass moved thru the Silent valley tea estates, reported at the first check post, stopped at Silent valley shooting location with accasia trees with a background of hills , spend some time there, this is the last place to get any things you need, had tea and a baji from the lone tea shop.

A 1 hour ride takes us to the base camp, beautiful landscaped place , a wooden hut, a steam of water, hikers was coming in batches , about 60 people were there for the hike

Our tents were a bit far from the main tents, 3 man tents ,4 common toilets was also nearby

Camp fire were lit for the big group, we have also a camp fire very near to our tents, informed the KFDC officer that it may be lit when it gets dark/ after dinner.

 A small introduction of hikers and stories of past hikes, one persons love for travel was very interesting, going for international trips without the informing family, with help of Jio international SIM. A posh karshakan aka farmer, traveller, expressed his true love towards travel with an advice, go see places, nothing can stop you, you have to overcome all barriers, loved his tag line ' small trips, a couple of drinks with friends, even a holy smoke by any chance ', most of them were 50+, after dinner campfire was lit, antakshari in 2 groups had a gr8 time , fun, laughter, and tears, smoke from the camp fire, back to tents a chilly sleep inside the sleping bags temperature was about 10 c

Day 2 

Jeeps will be ready for viewing the sunrise , so alarms at 4.15, after morning rituals, breakfast of bead n butter. 5.15am started the off road ride, a 5km ride to Rhodo mansion from there we have to climb the steep hill to see the sunrise, took about 20 minutes to reach the top all waiting for golden rays, the wind was lashing and struggled to get got shots, but got some nice pics, a clear sky we saw most of the peaks Chokramudi, Anamudi, Kolukkumala, Elapetty and some unknown moutain ranges, Anayirangal dam, in a distance saw Idukki dam, upto 7am all had a nice time enjoying the 360 ° views

Meesapulimala is the 8th moutain so 7 to go not so hard climbs, the hiking paths were easy , open area dotted with carribean pine, planted earlier, now culled as it's hampering the growth of shola vegetation and some red rhodohendron flowers, a beautiful stream crossing, most of them filled their water bottles here, occcassional stops at available shades which was hard to find, got chocolates, peanuts, cashew & dates to boost our energy.  

A way back was a different and short reached Rhodo mansion by about 11.30 off road back to base camp, had lunch waited for our group so the first jeep can move back to Munnar, said bye to all, reached Munnar by 13.45pm KSRTC bus to Aluva