Friday, September 30, 2005

About Wayanad, My Native District

Wayanad, the land of mountains and paddy fields blessed with natural wonders is one of the unexplored places of beauty. Wayanad district is situated in Northern Kerala, where Deccan plateau begins. Some believes that the name 'Wayanad' probably originated from two Malayalam words "Wayal" which means paddy field and "Nadu" which means land. So Wayanad means the land of paddy fields, in fact there are lot of paddy fields in Wayanad in between the hills and mountains. Geographically the western part of Wayanad touches the Western-ghats and the other parts is the edge of Deccan plateau. State boundary of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil-Nadu meets in Muthanga, a place covered with dense forest and wild animals; the Eastern border if Wayanad.

Wayanad can be reached from the districts Kozhikode, Kannur, Malappuram, Mysore and Ooty. The distance to Wayanad from these places is about 100kms. Nearest airport is Karippur. No railway lines touches Wayanad. So industrial development has not yet happened in Wayanad, which in turn helped in protecting her Natural beauty. People outside the state, especially from the IT capital Bangalore and other places like Chennai select Wayanad as the place for a two or three day tour and trekking.

People from other districts of Kerala consider Wayanad as an undeveloped place where Tribal people leads an ancient and undeveloped form of life. But I have seen a lot values among the people who belongs to various tribes whom are unique by their way of life and skills they possess. The tribal people who live in small communities under a head (His title is “Moopan”.) have their own rules, for maintaining peace and leading an un-interrupted social life. Each of these tribal communities does have their own language, but lacks written form. Some of these languages do have a close resemblance with Kannada, the language of Karnataka. Regardless of the perception of others, they have strong awareness of the rest of the world, strong views on politics, and other happenings around world. But people outside their community don’t know anything about them and they don’t interfere much with the rest of the world, so their uniqueness is preserved.

Chances of tourism in Wayanad are a lot. The tea estates surrounded by mountains with rich greeneries and covered by clouds makes Wayanad a heavenly place. Chembra peak is one of the main attractions of tourists. Chembra peak, surrounded by tea estates have a small lake at the top. Some of the places worth for visiting are Pookot Lake near Vythiri, the curved road through mountains which reaches Kozhikode, Kuruvadweep; an island formed by the a river spreading into two and joining together forming a land of 900 acres of rich vegetation, Muthanga; a wild life sanctuary where we can see a variety of animals like elephant, bison, deer, pea-cock, wild boar and many other. Edakkal cave is an ideal place for trekking and site seeing. The ancient wall paintings inside the caves are wonderful. Soochippara and Meenmutti waterfalls and the tea estates near these locations make the place unique.

A lot of other places of Wayanad still remain unexplored. The climate of Wayanad adds to the beauty. The temperature remains always below 30 degree, so life is easy. The best place for me to live is always Wayanad. The more places I visited the more I loved Wayanad, making me to think of going back to Wayanad again and again. The most beautiful days in my life or those while I lived in Wayanad.

14 comments:

  1. Hi I came by thru' prabhas blog
    really beautiful pics in all ur blogs.
    U r one hell of a nature lover. I too want to travel a lot I think I will do that someday
    Keep posting!!!
    & with pics too...
    Chao

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  2. Hi Sughee, thanks a lot for visiting my blog and for the comments.

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  3. Comeon you can post without pics too
    Busy I guess??

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  4. Now ur blog can be used as a tourist map :) --

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  5. I always had a crack in Wayanad, I told my wife this morning, if I am (ever) rich enough, I will get a piece of land in Wayanad, some where near the hills, so that I can enjoy my retirement (miles to go before I sleep). Hope no industries and no more people pollute that place.
    John

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  6. It sounds beautiful. And I love coming here and looking when you post pictures!

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  7. Hi, i went thru ur blog and every word speaks true of Wynad. it is my mother's native district.
    i have a piece of land at Kakavayal and i plan to build a house there, my desire intensified after reading ur blog and seeing the potos..
    keep adding more potos !!!

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  8. Hey, that is a beautiful decision to build a home at Wayanad. I am having land in Wayanad which I inherited from my Parents, but I too wish to buy some more land and build a house other than my inherited one. It is a dream, which I do not know when will it be true.

    All the best.

    Thanks for visiting my blog and writing comments, please visit again.

    --Deepu George V

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  9. just came thru your blog while planning for a wayanad outing, was lil disappointed to find no photos..have you made a separate gallery for that?

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  10. Dear Anonymous Reader,

    Actually you haven't gone through teh right side bar links. Other wise you could have found lot of photos.

    In the right side menu bar, Click on the links listed under Wayanad. You can find lots of photos, if you want to see further, click on the label named "Wayanad" shown in the bottom of any of those above links and you will see all the related posts.

    --Deepu George V

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  11. Hi Deepu, h ru? wht u doing nw?. I am Fazil from Calicut, nw am from Doha-Qatar. I need some details and pictures of 'Cloud's End' guest house in Chempra,Meppadi,Wynad.
    Please find about that. Am also finded, but didnt get to me....please u can help me
    Thank You.

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  12. Hi Fazil,

    I am not in Wayanad now, I won't be able to get the pictures you asked.
    Thanks for visiting.

    --Deepu George V

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  13. Can you help me get more information about the tribes of wayanad please?
    My email id is jhinuk.cchowdhury@gmail.com

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    1. Jhinuk,

      I do not have any good information about the tribes of Wayanad.
      Sorry that I am not able to help you.

      --Deepu George V

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