A Day In The Woods - Experience of a lifetime

After the heavy showers of the night, the morning welcomed us with some more rain. "The rain has not stopped at all from the time we are here" exclaimed someone. It din't surprise me as I have seen these rains all through my childhood and my teen days, but for someone from Bangalore, it would be a rare sight. I am usually very particular about my morning tea, but this morning, in the middle of this wilderness, I had to cut that thought of having a cup of tea. That means, only one way to avoid the chill, the mighty old Brandy. I was one of very few who were sipping Brandy early morning. Well yeah, it did make a difference as I wasn't going to waste my vacation sitting inside the lonely guest house waiting for the rains to stop to go out. I knew these rains, they wont stop. After a lot of brain storming on whether to make a tiny little walk into the forest or no, all agreed that the grandeur of western ghats should be enjoyed full on. For most, coming from Bangalore or mostly cities, climbing up the hill with leaches and heavy rain wasn't going to be an easy task. And the best part was the mist, it was so damn misty that you wont be able to see anything beyond a radius of may be only a meter. "Its gonna be fun" someone said but little did we know what was in store for a few of us. No one would have imagined in their deadliest of dreams what fun was lying ahead. After the intial photo sessions in the woods, as many gave up the idea of moving further ahead, I tookoff with a quick climb wanting to reach one of the peaks and well may be name one of the peaks after me, if it wasn't named already. I dint know, then, who followed me because of the thick mist around, but I could hear voices which meant I will have company if I got lost. Well, getting lost was not at all a possibility cause we wern't much deep into the woods and it would be easy to track our way back, or atleast that is what I thought. The fellows behind me were pretty much surprised about my speed through the woods and uphill. They thought I was little too fat for some trek. As for me, I have climbed a lot and ran through the forest during my childhood so my feet were moving with absolutely no effort. May be almost an hour into our journey, we were higher and into thicker forest. By then, I knew who all were in the quest for glory. We were 5 brave ones who decided we had to make it to one of the peaks, and well, I had to give up on my ambition of naming one after me. Anyways, we continued our journey. All through this, the guest housekeeper's dog kept following us and I jokingly said that the dog can guide us back in case we get lost. Even at this time, getting lost was still a joke, but we were still unaware of the destiny's joke that lay ahead. As we went higher, the mist was getting even thicker and there was no sign of the rain stopping. Obviously, we were totally soaked in rain, and slowly as the brandy effect was going down, I could feel the chill. That still wasn't the issue to be complained of as we enjoyed the lush green flora of the western ghats shining in rain. We were totally in a different world all together. It was a complete relaxation for our mind, body, and soul. Our eyes which were habituated to see vehicles and concrete in our routine life were tasting and enjoying every bit of nature around us. We kept climbing higher and higher searching for that one special peak which could be called a real good peak. I mean there were smaller ones, but as we reached one peak, the greed to climb another became more. Everyone walked through the woods and kept climbing like possessed souls in search of nirvana. Well, as we climbed higher, we could easily sense the oxygen levels going down, and finally, we decided to halt our climb and have a victory photo session. We congratulated each other for the accomplishment and decided to take some rest.


As soon as we started our journey back down, we realized it was not going to be an easy way down. The ground below us was pretty loose because of the heavy rains, so we had to be really careful to avoid slipping. The angle of slope was pretty steep as well, which meant a slip would set one rolling down the hill sure to result in some broken bones to be the least consequence. Gripping on the roots of the trees we made our climb down. While climbing up, we had to go around the peak and climb up because it was too steep to go straight up, so now on our way back, we had totally lost the sense of direction , and with that we dint know which way to go. Only thing we knew was we had to go down and somehow reach the bottom. Within half an hour of our way down, we knew we were LOST. We were lost in the jungle. For the first time, we sensed the true meaning of getting lost and started thinking of all the bad things that can happen to us. The fear of getting into deeper and thicker forest without any food or anything to drink, fear of being attacked by wild animals, fear of being attacked by naxals, all these feelings making our climb down still slower. We knew only one thing - go down and find the bottom of the hill before dusk.


The fear with uncertainities around us actually made the trek down more exciting. The comfort and that of safety was totally gone. For the first in my life, I was in a situation like this. Of course, I have trekked many a times, but those were all like the choreographed ones. We knew which way to enter and which way to move, but here, I was lost without an exit route. We kept moving down and every now and then we came across a dead end, a 90 degree slope down. In those cases, we had to go back up again and take a totally different path. The most exciting thing for me was crossing those tiny streams. The force of water was so strong that it can effortlessly take you with it, so we had to use some sort of support to cross it. Most of the times, we put a tree branch across and hold it and walk, but sometimes where the width of the stream was too wide, we all held hands and walked through. Team work at its best. The water level most of the time was above chest level and none of us knew swimming.


We continued our adventure and finally could sight some tiled roof houses at a distance, which meant we were near to the civilization and that means we were safe again. With the joy of reaching our destiny, I also felt sad that all the thrill and excitement was over, but nonetheless, it was an experience of a lifetime. It has been 2 years from the trip to Malaya Marutha Guest House, but the experience still stays fresh in the minds of all 5 of us. It was my tiny man versus wild moment. I must say we were lucky nothing bad happened to us, as just recently I read an article on newspaper that 4 guys from Bangalore gone in the woods for trek have not returned.


Going into the woods is a risky business for sure, but it was all worth the risk for the experience one can have.


You have any of experiences like this? You can share it in the comments below.