Western Ghats

I had a painful ‘near miss’ of the Western Ghats WHS in 2011 when I visited Ooty, saw the Nilgiri Hills and crossed the Ghats by bus from East to West; but I did not enter the core zone anywhere. While preparing for my 2024 India trip, it didn’t fit in either. These 39 parks and reserves are all so isolated. But at the end of my journey, while on the bus from Bangalore to Mysore for almost 4 hours, I tried Googling again to find an accessible location. I 'discovered' Mandalpatti Viewpoint inside the Pushpagiri Wildlife Sanctuary, reading stories about locals running ‘jeep safaris’ there (more offroading than safari). 

At this stage in my India trip (day 26) I wasn’t hesitant anymore about requesting a full-day trip out of town at the last minute. So at 8 am the next morning I was on the road again, towards the hill station of Madikeri. It’s a straight shot from Mysore, 120km on a decent road but with lots of speedbumps. We made it to the ‘Madikeri Jeep Stand’ in 2.5 hours. The Jeep Stand turned out to be well-coordinated by a drivers’ cooperative – with a fixed price on display of 2,500 rs per jeep for the 3-hour excursion.

The road to Mandalpatti Viewpoint requires a 4x4; in the beginning because the road goes steeply uphill, later on because there isn’t a road anymore, just rocks. I suspect that the Madikeri cooperative likes it just fine the way …

The Western Ghats are one of those intimidating natural WHSs to visit. With 39 locations scattered across a huge area of India, it's difficult enough to determine the geographical location of each location, let along whether it is accessible to visitors. After earlier considering Eravikulam National Park near the popular tourist spot of Munnar in Kerala, but then ruling it out as it's closed in January and February due to calving season, we decided to go with Silent Valley National Park, based on Nan's review.

There's actually a decent amount of information about Silent Valley NP online, thanks to its website and various reviews. However, when we tried to make a booking for a safari by email, we were told to call up! Of course it's a landline phone number that's not on WhatsApp, so a phone call was required. We also received no response when trying to book a driver through our Coimbatore Hotel - a common occurrence in southern India. 

Luckily, despite our misgivings, everything worked out. We visited as a day trip from Coimbatore, about 2 hours each way (even less early in the morning), only booking our 6am pick-up when we arrived at our hotel about 8pm the night before. We were told our safari departed at 8am, although it looked like some safaris departed later, and I'm not sure a booking was essential. Foreigners are pushed onto the safari jeep option, which is not too much more expensive for multiple people (2954 rupees …

After a few hours ride from Coimbatore to Silent Valley National Park, my driver dropped me off at the park entry. I think there were only a few tourists and I got my personal park ranger for the trip. This being remote India, prices were quite reasonable, both for the driver as well as the park ranger.

The park ranger took me into the National Park by jeep, acted as spotter and took me to the standard tourist stops including a view tower. The final stop of the tour was at a waterfall. The roads were rough; there is no way you can do this by normal car. Along the way we saw plenty of monkeys and other animals. We also found elephant tracks, but did not meet any.

What I liked about Silent Valley was its remoteness and space. Most of India, even areas that look remote, are not. You are hard pressed to find idle nature; Silent Valley is. Still, I was hard pressed to identify specific OUV. I have to admit, though, that animal watching is not my thing. I found the chats I had with my driver re living in India way more interesting.

Getting There

The first question you will have to answer is where? The Western Ghats stretch 1600km along western India from Pune all the way down to Kerala. Even if you have settled on the general area you want to visit, you will run into problems. I …

The Kaas plateau is a wonderful place indeed but protective measures need to be hiked if the area is to be preserved as a natural heritage. I have been visiting the plateau for the past few years and must say the place is paying badly for its increasing popularity. Although the forest department has taken some steps, they are woefully inadeqaute.

In 2013, the plateau was besieged by visitors, espeically over the weekends. The long row of vehicles caused traffic jams that led to vehicles staying put in one place for as long as 30 minutes (and i am not exaggerating). People trampled the meadows in their eagerness to take pictures, stepping on flowers to position themselves in the middle of the flowery patches.

The Kaas lake and its vicinity, home to some very small but rare plants, is a favorite spot for picnickers; the place is littered with plastic and glass shards.

Hoping that the forest department will take stricter measures to limit the number of visitors and ensure better protection of the flowers.

As a World Heritage enthusiast, it is a big shame to visit a site that is a World Heritage and does not know it is until a week later! In late October, my colleagues and I had a quick and short business meeting trip in Pune, India. The meetings were not good and end rather quickly. At first we planned to move to Mumbai, so that we could use a free day with a possibility to see two World Heritage sites in that city, but our Indian business partner did not want to pay Mumbai hotel price and persuade us to stay in Pune instead. One of their suggestions was to take us to see the flower valley which sounds quite interesting at least for my colleagues.

Next day morning, we were on a van out of Pune, the areas were still green even in the late monsoon season. We saw two lovely waterfalls, and many beautiful green mountains, the view was not a typical Indian at least in my opinion. The landscape with green grassland with cows reminded me of Sri Lanka! About two and a half hour we finally reached a flower valley, the view of area was lovely with many wide violet flowers full of the whole mountain. The location was not a valley at all but the flowers were located on the high plateau called Kaas. My colleagues told me that the view remind them Tuscany with much more untamed landscape, I could not agree more. …