Koodalkadavu and Kuruvadweep - Near Payyampally

==>More Photos from Kuruvadweep

During last weekend (11th and 12th June 2005) I visited Payyampally with my cousin Jose Abins. We went on a walk towards “Koodalkadavu” which is a meeting point of two rivers. The word “Koodalkadavu” in Malayalam means meeting point of rivers. The two rivers are named as river “Mananthavady” and river “Panamaram”, since the two rivers flow through Panamaram and Mananthavady which are small towns in Wayanad. The two rivers meet together and flow with the name “Kabani” river. The river separates into 5 small rivers, 2 kilometers away from Koodalkadavu and joins together after 3 more kilometers. The land in between forms an island called “Kuruvadweep”. “Dweep” means an island in Malayalam.

Abins and me went for a walk towards Koodalkadavu on Saturday evening (around 4- 0 clock.) Koodalkadavu is 2 kilometers away from my house and Kuruvadweep is 4 kilometers away from my home. Abins took his camera along with him. We spent half an hour one the bank of the river. Then crossed the river and reached the forest which is on the other side of the river. We walked through the forest for a while and reached the place called “Dasanakkara”. Dasanakkara is a small junction were roads from Panamaram, Mananthavady, Payyampally, and Pulpally meets. We had coffee from the near by shop and walked back towards our home in Payyampally.

We were not able to visit Kuruvadweep because then we won't reach back home before darkness. Kuruvadweep is full of small streams and thick forest. A very beautiful land! Very rarely we can see alligators in the water and monkeys. Kuruvadweep is one of the main tourist attractions of Wayanad. Below are few snaps from the location.

Click on the Images to get enlarged view

WikiMapia link of Koodalkadavu

Update on 2nd Feb 2007
In the above picture you can see the two rivers – Manathavady River and Panamaram River joining together to form the Koodalkadavu. The two bridges which is clearly visible connects Payyampally and Cherukattoor, then Cherukattoor and Pulpally. The distance to Pulpally is reduced to 15 kilometers from 35 kilometers after these two bridges were established.

WikiMapia link of Kuruvadweep

Update on 2nd Feb 2007
In the above picture you can see the Kabani River splitting into two and joining together after a while to create the wonderful 950 acres island – Kuruvadweep. There after you can see the joined river flowing towards the North East corner towards Karnataka.

Beautiful Flowers From My Home Garden

Here are few snaps of flowers from the garden at my home in Payyampally. I took these snaps during my home visit with my cousin- Jose Abins; during last week-end. (12th June 2005). The monsoon was about to start. After the baking heat of summer, there were not many flowers in the garden. Even then my mother, brother and his wife made the plants survive the summer.

Click on the thumbnails to view the enlarged picture.

Nature at its Best - Wayanad

Let me describe two wonderful events I have witnessed during my trekking in the hills of Wayanad. These events are at the best when we watch them live. The description may not give the real feeling which I experienced.

When I reached the top of the hill it was almost 3:00 pm. I can see rain clouds in one side of the hill and the other side was clear atmosphere. As time neared 4:00 pm, I was able to see cluster of clouds touching the sides of a tall nearby mountain. Now I am standing at a higher altitude than the clouds. The wind increased and it started to rain. But it was not raining in the top of the hill where I am standing. It is raining from the clouds below me to the valley. It was a wonderful experience. I watched the scene half an hour. It was the most beautiful natural scene I have ever scene.

The next scene was of a falcon standing still in the air. The bird was bout 10 meters high from the top most part of the hill. The wind was blowing from the valley below to the top of the hill in a slanting direction. So the king of the birds was able to just stand still in the air, a few meters above my head, watching me and the valley below. Relative to the wind it is flying down against wind direction, but relative to the hill the bird is perfectly standing still without flapping the wings or moving any part of the body. I thought that it might be watching for prey below in the valley, since the falcons do have telescopic view by which they can view very small things like a worm moving on the ground below from a very high altitude.

Some times I have a feeling like all lands of our mother earth are explored by us or our ancestors, and now we don’t have a chance to discover something new. But, in the silence of nature, there are still a lot of things undiscovered, left for us to discover and enjoy.

Learn to Tolerate - Swami Vivekananda

During his speech in Chicago, back in 1983, Swami Vivekananda shared his wonderful ideas about religions and the tolerance that we should practice in our life. People who believe in any particular religion generally will have the feeling that what they believe and worship is the right and all others are doing sin against god. He asked us whether we interpret the children's behavior as sins! We are grown up and behave and think in many better ways than a kid can. Does this mean that the kids are not doing well? According to Vivekananda, religions always aim to reach perfection. When believers of a particular religion possess better practices, they should not blame other religions. And blaming others is not a sign of growth. It shows that we are immature. We should be able to tolerate.

I would like to extend his thought not only to religious belief, but to my whole life. If we watch carefully, we can see a lot of intolerance in our daily life activities. Suppose you are walking through a busy street and if anyone accidentally hit you. How do you behave then? Most of the victims will curse the other one, or make a scene or at least stare each other for a while. But nobody thinks that the next time it may be he/her who will be in the other side. Just think of a guy or gal who got his/her vehicle turned off while trying to get out off traffic. The vehicles behind the victim will immediately start blowing their horns like anything which creates an irritating scene. It is like they believe the will be able to remove the vehicle or who ever creates the obstruction in front, by blowing horns! The final result will be like the poor victim will be more frantic and in hurry he/she takes more time to get the vehicle started and move forward.

India is a nation where a people who belongs to many religions exist. Day by day the frictions between different believers are increasing. It’s high time we should practice tolerance. And I believe that we should practice tolerance towards others from these very small incidences, which may last for only a few seconds or minutes in our life. A small drop of water creates the ocean. We won't be able to tolerate other religions unless we are able to tolerate this kind of small incidence.

Swami Vivekanada's Chicago Speech - Part I
Swami Vivekanada's Chicago Speech - Part II