We again broke our journey near Gundlupet to have breakfast. Next halt was at Bandipur to watch few monkeys cross the road. We could not sight any other animals. The forest grew thicker as we approached Kerala (Muthanga wildlife sanctuary), and the roads got better ;). I was telling SP that if something goes wrong with the car, then we gals are going to sit inside and he has to push the car. And he said “No way; I’m going to halt where ever the car stops and picnic over there itself”. Something was waiting for him in next few hours :)
We visited Banasurasagar Dam on our way to Vythiri. We crossed Vythiri and proceeded towards Lakkidi thinking our cottage was situated near Lakkidi. This place gets second highest rainfall in India after Chirapunji. On our way to Lakkidi, the ghat was covered with think fog and the visibility was low. The place looked heavenly with water trickling down the huge black rock on one side of the road and a deep valley on the other side.
We decided to stop for few minutes. All of us got down and were looking down the valley, when my car began to roll down the slope! SP saw it first as he was driving all that while and he tried stopping it from the front. I heard his scream, and looked back, the car was on it way down the road and SP was running in front of it! What a scene it was! There was a Maruti Zen some 20 feet away and any moment my car would bang into it! I didn’t know whether I should join SP (made no sense as I was sure our combined effort could not stop the car) or try something else. “Think quickly” I said to myself. Then I went running and tried to bend through the front window of the car to apply the hand break. The SLR hanging around my neck was coming in way and I had to keep pace with the car. I was afraid SP would get smashed between our car and the Zen. I was just praying he would move to the side, which he eventually did. Finally, I managed to apply the hand break and shift the gear to 1st gear. The car touched the Zen and came to a halt. Thank God there was no damage whatsoever. SP and I were completely shocked with the incident and took some time to recover. We still burst out laughing thinking about this incident. We continued our journey down the ghat and later found that we were heading in a wrong direction. Our cottage was in Vythiri itself! We had to drive back to Vythiri in the rain. All of us were starving by the time we reached our cottage.
The cottage was cozy and well furnished. We instantly liked it. It was also environment friendly. It made up for all the hours we had lost finding the resort. The drawing room opened up to a balcony that overlooked a stream. It was lush green all around the cottage. By the time we freshened up the food had arrived. It was authentic Kerala food! Hmm.. my mouth 
still waters thinking about that food. The non-veggies always get a better deal in food than the veggies! That’s the price we veggies pay for being non-violent :(. We later slept for few hours and woke up only after LK started screaming! She was trying to wake us up for nearly an hour :). We had tea and hot pakodas. We later went on a short walk into the forest. Four of us were sitting in the forest lost into our own thoughts. I was thinking why our lives are not in tune with the nature? Why do we feel peaceful when we are surrounded by unspoilt nature? What do we want to achieve in this life? Why can’t we easily overcome the setbacks in our life?We were back in our resort with an additional small company, a firefly. LK (303 ranking) was trying to answer why the fly glows at night. The explanation can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly. The entire resort was filled with the loud croaking sound of the frogs, they were trying to beat LK's screeches :)
We ordered food and got back to our cottage. The starters arrived first and we were having it while chatting in the balcony. LK was in full form, she zapped us all when she said "Rohini.. he is .... ". SP used to get high when we used to take his trip and used to say "If u are all happy, then I'm happy". What a philosophy in life! Lady on wheels... GS was busy walking.. walking and walking.. so we named her Jonnie Walker........ Keep walking :). We had an awesome time and laughed so much that we stopped feeling the burden of life! Finally we had our dinner and were in our beds by midnight. SP wanted to watch TV, but after LK's strict warning (she claims it to be a humble request), he switched off the TV.
The next day we visited the Pookot lake which was filled with water lilies. We started off to Bangalore at 5pm. On the way back we stopped at Muthanga for tea and then at Kamat Lokaruchi for dinner. The quality of Kamat Lokaruchi has decreased over the years. Moreover, my car got a dent when it was parked there :(. We reached Bangalore past 1am and were off to work the next day. Overall Wayanad is a very beautiful heavenly place and true to its name Kerala is God's own country.
Places to visit at Wayanad though we did not cover all of them :
Banasurasagar dam
Soojipara falls
Pookot lake
Kuruva islands
Chembra peak
Edakkal caves
