Athirappally Waterfalls

Athirappally, have you heard the name of this wonderful place. No. Neither have I heard about this place till October 2 , 2006. We were on a pilgrimage tour of some important Temples around Trissur District in Kerala for a week from September 30, 2006. My daughter in law, Kamala, told us that one of her collegues in the office mentioned about a Waterfalls in Athirappally near Chalakkudi, which we should visit without fail. So we decided to visit this place. At Chalakkudi we had our lunch and learnt from the local people that Athirappally was only 30 Kms from that place. We drove towards Athirappally in Sholayar Ranges of Vazhachal Forests bordering Tamil Nadu. The road was uniformly good. The weather was friendly with clouds and cool winds. Since this was just after the rainy seson the forest was fresh and green. There was the smell of fresh vegetation every where. I was wondering where we have lost our natural sense of enjoying real beauty of nature. Living in the midst of bricks and concrete and rushing towards making money we have certainly lost all the treasures that nature had provided free to us.

On the way we came across some mountain monkeys obviously waiting for the food items thrown to them from the passing vehicles. We did not see any wild animals otherwise. There were different kinds of colourful birds perched on the trees, the names of which we could not find, since we live in the cities! Throughout the journey we heard the gurgling of Chalakkudi River down below in the valley.

Just about a Km from the Falls we saw the overall view of the Athirappalli waterfalls majestically falling 80 ft. down. The broad river which looks calm and peaceful falls down from the bluff creating a wonderful sight. But to enjoy the real beauty of the Falls we had to walk down 2 Kms in the bridle path to the place where the water falls ferociously creating a huge mist raising to half the height of the falls. My wife and I found very difficult to walk down on the wet and slippery stones on the bridle path due to age. But my two little grand daughters did it without much strain and they were enjoying the walk too. When we reached down to the river where the falling water had created a huge lake before flowing as a river, all of us were drenched fully by the fine water particles of thick mist, as though we had taken a bath. That is the same with all the people who had reached down. It was a marvelous sight to view the falls from down. The afternoon sun light had painted a rainbow on the huge mist created by the falling water, which something one should see to believe and enjoy.

Thanks to lack of publicity and commercialisation there were not much of crowd in this waterfalls.When we were there, even though it was a holiday there were about few hundred visitors, mostly school and college students. There were some Tea shops on the road sides in Athirappally selling hot tea and freshly made snacks and of course junk food. We had Tea which was good. On the way, I saw some hotels and guest houses coming up. I am told this place is catching up fast with cinema producers in south,as a favorite spot for shooting.

I request the visitors to my blog to take a holiday trip to this wonderful place, if they visit Kerala, it will be really a memorable visit.