To Mother Nature's Lap...A Trek to Tada Falls...

Well….how do I begin….It often happens that when you plan something to more than a certain extent, you build some expectations around it and when finally you are there, you feel let down…as your expectations were much higher than what it actually turned out to be. We had done our share of planning for this trek to Tada falls…For the uninitiated, this is situated near the Tamil Nadu- Andhra Pradesh border, in the district of Nellore…It is about 80 km from Chennai and is a piece of the world that commercialization has seemingly forgotten or overlooked…..So as I said we had done our share of planning for this trek….meticulously go through every blog written about treks to Tada, try to forsee any eventualities that might occur, etc…what we were not able to do was get an idea about how the whole thing is going to be….thats the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. When we finally walked the path, it was beyond our wildest expectations...one of the best saturdays in my life...The call of the wild was heard and heeded to...and back we went into the embrace of mother nature...

We had planned a 5.30 A.M start from Chennai. It should be said that our planning was a success because we were on our way by 5.50 A.M. Our gang consisted of 7 people…Seven is supposed to be a very powerful number in the world of Magic..thats why Lord Voldemort wanted to have seven horcruxes and all…anyway…I am drifting from the topic…7 people, 4 boys and 3 girls. Selwyn, Vinayan, Vimal, Aswini, Nandita, Vibitha and myself. One thing bothering us when we started was the tax for crossing the border of which we had read about in the blogs….I’ll come to that in a moment. Our first photo opportunity was the Oneness University.

The Construction of this University is something worth looking at. It reminds you of palaces of the old…We spent some time there clicking photos and were soon on our way. Then came the border crossing….our fears proved to be unfounded as we just had to pay a toll of Rs.15 and move on…We reached the town of Tada by somewhere around 7.30. Hunger pangs were striking most of us…some of us are used to having pretty heavy breakfasts…so they were on the lookout for a hotel…finally we got into what seemed like the last hotel available…Had our breakfast…Iddly for some and Puri for others….We hadn’t lost our way yet, thanks to the blogs and the local support…but after breakfast, we took a wrong turn somewhere and added about 4-5 km to our total distance…the mistake was soon rectified and we were on our way ( the right one this time..). Tada to Varadiahpalayam and from there to the falls…with locals willing to offer help throughout the way, it was quite easy. Then the going began to get tough….So finally we decided to get down and start our trek in earnest.

We had done our homework and knew that we need to walk for about 3 km before reaching a waypoint in the form of a Shiva Temple. We were in no hurry at all. So we took our time. At the first sight of flowing water, some of us could not resist it and had to get their feet wet…aah..what the hell…time for some more photos

Finally we were able to get everyone out of there and continue on our way. The first phase of the trek is actually climbing up a hill…we took a break when we reached the top of the hill. We sat there for sometime taking in the raw beauty of nature. Soon it was time to start marching again. Now the journey was downhill. At the bottom of the hill we came to a stream with an Idol nearby (which we nicknamed Indian Idol). This could be called Base camp 2 (Atleast that was what they called it in the Blogs). Another stream to cross and after a fruitless effort to keep my shoes dry, I crossed the stream.

After another short break, we were again on our way. Finally we reached the last point on the path that was the Shiva Temple. Thereon, there was no clear path to the falls. It was all about charting your own course. The best thing to do is go upstream…or you can also follow the litter…cross the stream..climb the boulders and keep walking until you reach a situation where you can see the falls and a seemingly insurmountable rock formation. This was our greatest challenge….It is almost impossible to scale this thing unless you are an expert trekker or you have friends….I was the one who had most difficulty climbing this..and took what looked to be a nasty fall attempting this climb…But as always in life…in tough situations, there are friends to see you through…and finally I was there on top. I had hardly laid down and there came the next problem…cramps…My leg muscles were cursing me for making the work so hard without any kind of an advance warning…A bit of flexing and a lot of Amritanjan did the trick. In the mean time Vinayan managed to strike a rapport with one of the bees nearby and was rewarded with a sting at the back of his head...I had taken a fall and Vinayan had a sting to his credit. Little did we know that Selwin was planning to better both of us...the final tally was Vinayan: 1 sting, Venu: 1fall, Selwin: 1 fall and 1 sting. As there was nothing to see on the top, we climbed back down..which was surprisingly easy and it was time to give meaning to all the effort…to take a shower under the Tada falls….Pristine ice cool water falling on top of your head…the feeling of being embraced by mother nature…that few minutes spent under the falls made it all worth it.

A few minutes under the fall, a few more minutes to take it all in and we decided to start our return journey as the falls were a bit too crowded for comfort. It seemed we had chosen a very popular day for this trek as wherever there was any water to be found, there was also some company that we could really do without. So we continued our journey back in search of some peace and quiet where we could spend some time in the water. This was found only at BC2. There we stayed for about an hour. On the return journey, one main agenda was to see if Aswini had fallen down...it was more of a question of when rather than if. She had taken to falling to such an extent that we were thinking of changing the name from Tada falls to Aswini falls...But as someone said "Its not about how many times you fall...its about how many times you get up..." To her credit, she was on her feet after each fall in no time...

And finally it was time to bid adieu to this beautiful place. We made our way back to where our vehicle was parked..singing songs all the way and having a great time. Once we got into the van and the return journey started, it was time for some fierce Antakshari. In the end, as always, we showed why boys are better , beating the girls 2-0. All in all, this was a fabulous experience with whole lot of fun and a little discomfort. But after all, as someone has said, “Adventure is discomfort recollected in comfort…”