The worst thing about corporate life is that you don’t get holidays and by mistake if you get then those holidays are not sufficient to plan any trip. After a long wait, we planned this trip and successfully executed it. Although it was a weekend trip, we enjoyed it and had a great experience. Also gave us great motivation to travel, so that next time we would not be afraid of getting fired for traveling a lot. We went to Vagamon and did a 2-day-3-night trip.
Vagamon is a tiny hill station located on the western ghats in Idukki district of Kerala. The hill station is set on the valleys at an altitude of 1,100 meters above sea level. The place is prominent for its favorable and cool climate and beautiful green meadows and it also comes in the list of “50 most attractive places to visit in India” listed by National Geographic Traveler. The best thing about this place is that it remains isolated from the tourists. If one wants to spend a quality time on an attractive destination by getting a nature’s touch then Vagamon is a go for you. And what to say about its climate, according to my experience one can literally touch, stay, eat clouds meaning you will be in the clouds almost all the time.
Table of Contents
Day 1
Our trip started from Chennai, all assembled and left from Karapakkam bus stop via fastrack booked cab at 8.00 pm and reached Perungalathur bus stand at around 9.30 pm. We had our dinner there at Aakash Hotel, then boarded the reserved sleeper bus from there itself and left for Theni at around 10.00 pm.
Day 2
We reached Theni at 6.30 am and arrived at hotel Shree Deiva. Our rooms were already booked there, so we quickly checked in, took some rest, bathed, and got ready by 10.30 am. After having breakfast, we departed for Vagamon by a hired minibus at 12.00 pm. Reached Vagamon at 2.00 pm amidst doing some photography, sightseeing etc. Before reaching our farm house we went down to wander in some huge pine forest there. We played games and did a small trekking there followed by some photo shoots in the woods. Green Meadows, our booked farm house, in between the green valleys from where you could only see the lush green mountains and clouds and nothing else. We had our lunch made by the authentic Kerala chefs. After finishing our lunch we got ready for trekking at 3.30 pm.
During trekking, we targeted every hill we could see from our farm house and mounted it. We played a game called ‘point & mount’ in which we had to close our eyes and take rounds by pointing our finger and on which hill our finger stopped, we had to climb that hill. Apart from all this, we did various other activities, explored the tea gardens and royal tea estates, went to the wild grass despite the risk of getting caught by leeches. Also tasted some wild guavas plunging on the trees.
After 2 hours of roaming on the hills everyone got tired, so we thought of getting back to our farm house. While we were coming back, we saw that there were clusters of clouds waiting for us to add real fun to our trip. We were on the top of a hill and we saw clouds approaching us and in a few minutes the clouds entrapped us and we were all in the clouds with mist all around. The experience was just so mesmerizing that one cannot express it in words. We had a lot of fun in the clouds, played there, did so many photo shoots, selfies in the mist and then got back to our farm house around 6.30 pm. After getting back, there were our evening snacks waiting for us. We were already famished till then. After having snacks, we got into our rooms for some rest. It was so cold till then that there was no need to switch on the fans, rather we were all enclosed in the cozy blankets kept there. At around 9.00 pm , the great Kerala chefs called us for dinner. Later we played a sequence (a game of cards) on the balcony of our farm house. It was so fun to play in that drizzling atmosphere, having goose bumps from the chilling temperature and being surrounded by the beautiful green meadows. We played till 2 hrs and then got back to sleep.
Day 3
Woke up by the knock on the door, saying “wake up and get ready, we are going to thekkady”. We got up somehow by 7:00 am and got ready in an hour. We had breakfast there and got all set by 10.00 am as we had to check out before 10.00 from green meadows. We hired the same minibus that we took from theni but the plan got changed in between as someone told us that there is nothing to see in thekkady, so we stopped at some adventurous place where it was written that kayaking, paragliding and other adventure sports are done here. The adrenaline rushed through everyone’s body and we got in there but alas, due to cloudy weather there they stopped those activities for that day. After hearing this, we got turned down but we did not leave because the view there was so captivating that no one can control himself to fall in love with it. So we decided to spend our time there.
After some time, it started raining, we got into our bus, danced there in the middle of the road like crazy and departed for a waterfall to have a bath in an adventurous way. We bathed there, got so many bruises, but in the end everyone got out of their water phobia. The water there was so chilled and deep that we were literally shivering and floating in the water holding the rocks as there was no base beneath the water where we could place our foot. We came back from there around 3.00 pm and decided to have lunch in a restaurant. After having lunch, I did some shopping, bought some home made chocolates and reached back to theni around 7.00 pm at the same hotel. We boarded the bus from there for Chennai at 8:30 pm after having dinner in the hotel.
Day 4
Reached Chennai at 5:00 am, boarded cabs there to reach our respective flats.
