Hello everyone! Hope you are doing well :)
I had a great and amazing experience when I trekked to Pothigai hills/Agastiyar Koodam in the western ghats of southern India. So I thought of sharing with you my experience, in this blog.
I hope you will enjoy reading this blog and will get the feel of visiting there :)
(Agastiyar koodam’s peak, seen from the base camp - The saint’s(Agastiyar) face can be seen here)
How we planned our trek
My office trekking group plans trekking events throughout the year. Agastiyar Koodam is one of the mandatory places we visit and covid gave us a tough situation during our trek. It’s the first time I am visiting the Pothigai hills and it’s one of the great experiences I had in my life!
We started our journey from Chennai on April 30th, as we are doing WFH I boarded along with my fellow mates in Trichy and picked few others in Madurai.
We reached Trivandrum in the early hours and all the four Innova’s which we booked were waiting there to take us to Bonacaud. Bonacaud is the starting point of the trek, where we will be given instructions and allotted guides for our crew.
Bonacaud has all the basic amenities like drinking water and toilets. We had our refreshments here and ate breakfast, which we packed already. My suggestion would be to have sweeter items in your breakfast as we will walk a lot in the morning, so this avoids the heartburn feeling when you climb.
Trek Plan
- On the 1st day morning, start the trek from Bonacaud check post station and reach the Athirumala base camp within the evening and spend the night there in the dormitory.
- On the 2nd day early morning, start the climb to Agastiyar peak and visit the Agastiyar shrine within 11 AM and start climbing down before 1 PM and reach the base camp within the evening, again spend the second day-night in the base camp dormitory.
- On the 3rd day morning, start the descending trek and reach the Bonacaud check post station before evening.
** Food in the base camp is taken care of by the guides and we need to just provide groceries.
What you need to pack
- Take only limited things with you, don't pack heavy. Have a sleeping bag or a light blanket two or three pairs of shorts and t-shirts are more than enough.
- Have glucose, chocolates & snacks, Dettol, coconut oil, first aid kit, torch lights, salt, odomous, toothbrush, small water bottle, salt, and tobacco powder (No chemicals are allowed even soaps, so keep in mind)
- Tobacco, Dettol, coconut oil, salt helps in avoiding leech bites.
- Always pack the items in paper and avoid plastics. (plastics are not usually allowed)
- Always pack lightly, as we need to climb and walk around 20 km on the first day, it will make us very much tired.
- Slipper (useful in base camp) and a small bag (this bag helps a lot during the next day's climb)
- Sticks will be available somewhere in the check post, take them along with you. It will be very much useful in the slippery paths.
- We need to bring our food groceries for a day's food (mostly for dinner, breakfast, lunch). All the grocery items will be taken to base camp by the guides and they will also cook food.
(Before starting the trek and the green building is the forest check post office)
Walking through the dense forest of Western ghats
Actually, we started the trek within the dense forest, the moment we cross Bonacaud’s check post office, we dwell inside a deep forest with huge tall trees, where sunlight feels hard to hit the ground.
The forest is well-preserved and we have to be very cautious while walking, as most of the time we will walk over dried leaves. Initially, it looked super easy and after an hour of walk, we felt the toughness. The path will be kind of steep and sloppy way fully covered with dense and tall trees.
Guides/guards took our groceries and lead us through the dense forest, we will be following them and they will explain things as we pass through interesting places.
After few yards of walking, we are blessed with a small forest temple. We prayed to have a safe and good trek, also we can consider this as the official starting point of our journey. Almost every 2 km we can see small springs or waterfalls with fresh pure water, so refilling our water bottles is not a hard thing, so avoid carrying multiple ones with you.
(One of my mates trying to give a pose for the pic)
The beauty of Pothigai hills is its terrain, mostly it will be plain with ups and downs. Trek won’t be that much hard like Veliyangiri or Sathuragiri trek, because water is scarce in those areas.
After walking for around 3 hours we will reach Vazhapindiyar, a fantastic waterfall. We took a cool bath here, which was very much refreshing.
Be prepared for bathing in the middle while you trek, and don't miss this fantastic opportunity
This place also has many big flat rocks and it's a perfect spot to have lunch and recharge yourself as this is a heavenly place. Even you can take a small nap here.
The next phase of our trek covers grasslands and plains, where you can’t find a tree for shades. When you reach the falls, it will be almost noon time so my advice would be to either take a 1 or 2-hour rest here or just don’t mind the sun and walk slowly.
Grasslands will be there for around 2 to 4 km, I just took small rest and proceeded walking through the grasslands. It is a beautiful place surrounded by greenish, colorful, magnificent Western ghats.
(Fellow mates walking through the grasslands, look how much sunny it is)
While walking there I fell in love with this dense forest and I stood there for around 30 mins and felt amazed by the calmness of the nature, as I was walking here alone for most of the grassland area.
Don’t be so relaxed about the grasslands, this grassy area (muttidichan-theri) will throw us a few hard sloppy steep muddy terrain in between, and they are super slippery. Sticks, which we brought with us will help here a lot.
Also, this is a perfect spot for elephants, bison, and bear, so don’t walk alone for a long time here.
(Trail going through the grasslands, and half-visible Agastiyar peak in the back, think about wandering through this dense forest area :) )
The plains will lead us again to the dense forest. As we walked under direct sunlight for around 4 km, this will be a great relief. We took a break here and started walking through the tall trees.
(This may look like a good spot but all the guys who are sitting there got good leech bites, I got escaped as I was taking this pic)
Reaching the base camp, Athirumala
While creeping inside this dense forest, it looked like we are not walking in the right direction as the terrain looked fresh and there are no signs of any possible way available. My mates got panicked because it looked like we missed the rest of our crew and also the sun begins to set.
Some of my crewmates discussed to halt here to look out for any guides or our buddies, but it's been dawn time and it will become dark in few hours, so we decided to walk and try to look out for the right way.
Thankfully, after walking around an hour, we got the correct path, as we reached the areas with human traces.
(Wild jack fruit and its tree)
From here it will be around 3 km to the base camp. We started the trek by 10 am in the morning reached the plains at noon and reached base camp at 5 pm.
(Athirumala, the base camp and my fellow mate - organizer)
Few mates reached the base camp before us and they prepared our sleeping spot in the base camp. Once reaching there had a hot ginger tee, a super refreshing drink, and started discussing their trekking experience and funny things.
But frankly, everybody was waiting for the dinner :)
While we were discussing funny things, all the guides turned into super chefs and started preparing dinner for us. From the base camp, we can see a clear view of the great Agastiyar’s peak.
Definitely, you will get goosebumps when you think how am I going to reach the top? and those guys who went there already will make a lot of noises about their past experiences and that will fly many butterflies in your mind
But seriously, the next day trek will test you a lot. It will be a different terrain, where we need to climb most of the time and you will enjoy this phase for sure.
There is a small canal flowing in the backside of the base camp, you can also have a bath there, but it will be extremely cold, and don’t roam there alone. You can get a great view of Agastiyar peak from there too!
During the evening, if it is a clear sky we can witness the golden face of the Saint Agastiyar in the peak, and the peak will shine in golden colors while the sunsets.
Agastiyar koodam is also called Southern Kailash, as you can see many resemblances between them.
(Pothigai hills shining in golden color during the sunset)
At around 7 pm we had a hot dinner with sambar and rice. Even the hot rice and sambar looked precious to me :)
After dinner, we waited to see an injured bison, who visits everyday night to eat the food wastages. But we were able to see only its blinking eyes, as it was pitch dark.
The base camp sleeping cottages were well maintained with steel roofs and built with stones, they can withstand extreme rain easily. But will get extremely cold during the night and a blanket/sleeping bag is a must thing to have on your list.
Also, water is not scarce in the base camp, I heard within few yards there is a stream flowing down and the base camp has a direct water connection to this stream. But unfortunately, the bison do some nasty things and they hinder the water connection. But guides will take care of this situation, they have to walk towards the stream to fix the issue.
Base camp is maintained well by forest officials, and normally caretakers will stay here throughout the year, even when people are not allowed to trek. They provided us plastic sleeping spreads, which is a first come first serve one. The dormitory is well maintained and we have to sleep on the floor, sometimes if you are extremely lucky you get accompanied by few leeches in your bed!
Yeah, we saw few leeches crawling around us only in the morning.
At night time, the base camp is not well lit. Only the corners of the camp and kitchen have solar-powered lamps, the other areas will be in the pitch dark even the bathrooms and toilet. So a torchlight is a much-needed one here.
Make use of the slippers when you roam around the base camp.
During the evening time, we got chased by a group of yellow jacket monster wasps and one of the guides told us like this place is a home for many wasp breeds.
Climbing the Agastiyar peak - 2nd-day trek
Started the next day's trek at 6.30 am in the morning, this is the important phase of the trek and this is going to be tough. Base camp has good amenities, well-built bathrooms with a good water supply, which is directly connected to the nearby stream.
(Agastiyar peak seen from the base camp, we need to climb peak’s top to visit Agastiyar’s shrine)
We packed breakfast, lunch and started climbing. Guides instructed all the needed details and where we need to be careful and also accompanied us.
This part of the trek will be hard, so just leave out unnecessary things in the cottage and carry only food and water bottles in a simple bag!
There will be a place where you can get few points of mobile network and this place has many bamboos, be careful when you cross this area as you can see many elephants footprints and dungs. You can also see the base camp from here, it will look like a small blue-colored box.
(Somewhere on the way to the Agastiyar peak)
Up to some extent springs and small waterfalls will be there so we can refill water easily, there will be a small lake which is called Southern Manasarovar/Thamaraikulam which is a sacred place and people used to have a bath here. This is the origin of the river Thamirabarani.
My tip would be to fill a water bottle with water from here and pack it for your family/friends. We can do this when we climb down. I believe this water is scarce and also has some kind of spirituality contained with it. So at least your friends/family can have it through our help. You will understand this once you visit this place.
Once we reach this lake we need to climb around a km into the forest and then we will reach the base of the Agastiyar peak. Also, keep in mind that from here we won’t have any water source available uphill, and keep your water bottles filled from the lake and this is important as you need to climb up and down only with this drinking water.
The real thrill starts from here, we need to climb the mountain using the ropes and the peak will be 45 degrees inclined with 3 segments to climb!
(One of the famous spots, they call the peak as 5 headed snake, and we can also see Manjolai estate)
Mostly while you climb here, fog will cover the way along with light drizzles. So just relax and watch out how people climb using the ropes and don’t try to climb parallelly within the same rope.
Be patient and plan with your crew like one rope one person at a time.
The peak is divided into three segments and each segment has two parallel running ropes. Guides will be instructing us how to climb using the rope and they also guide us where we need to keep the next step when we climb up or down.
(My crew descending from the first segment of the peak)
Not so tricky job, but have to be careful as there is no support and be prepared for wind and rainfall while climbing up or down.
As we went during the off-season time, we didn’t have a harsh climate throughout the trek. But normally it won’t be sunny as you see in the above picture. During the season time, it will be slippery with fog and drizzles covering our way. There are videos on youtube, in which people will be walking through rain and water flowing through their path.
Once reaching the top, relax well!
First, we will be blessed with a Lingam and to the left, we can see the great Saint Agathiyar statue surrounded by few small trees. Pray well and sometimes suddenly we can witness him in the form of Misty clouds, which comes from nowhere as it will be noontime.
(On top of the Agastiyar peak)
Guides won't allow us to stay there for long and we need to start climbing down before 1 pm as after this the place will be covered with mist and fog. As per the guide's instruction, we need to reach the base camp before the sunset.
Wondered why I didn’t put any pictures of the Agastiyar statue? because it is illegal to take a picture and post it on social media - instructed by guides!
But there are many pics available on the internet with a simple google search - please have a look!
Ganesh statue found on the way to Agastiyar peak. This is an exit point of another route, which starts from Tamilnadu. I am not sure whether it is allowed to climb through this way now, I heard there is one route that goes through the in-depth forest and had many wildlife incidents which require special forest permissions and no guides accompanies us from there.
In the olden day's people used to stay here overnight and sleep on the bare rocks nearby and offer rituals the next day morning - just think about the harsh climate during the night.
I didn’t have breakfast, as we left early from the base camp and we planned to have it somewhere while we climb. But unfortunately, it doesn’t happen as we didn’t stop anywhere for rest and kept on walking, after climbing down from the peak, we stopped for lunch and ate lunch nearby to this place.
I unpacked one food packet on a rock, so some animals can eat it, and ate the other one packed for lunch. We took around 30 mins of rest here and the fog was covering all over the place. So we started climbing down and it was a long nonstop walk for me.
We reached the base camp at 4 pm and people started discussing their experiences and also we discussed our next trek and its possibilities. Mates are extremely tired and everyone was waiting for the dinner which was a terrible sambar rice combo :( and tragic part is sambar was prepared with unmatching vegetables.
We humans always crave tasty food irrespective of the situation
At around 8 pm we slept, as everyone was very much tired. On the next day, guides cooked delicious chapatis and gravy for breakfast and they told us it is because to fuel our descending trek :) a happy start!
On the way down, again had a good bath in the waterfall and spent a good time there. During the overall trek, I drunk as much water I can, as the water flows through a lot of roots of trees, plants, and soil. It will be very clean and also has good medicinal values, you can’t get fresh spring water easily.
While climbing down, we missed the way and we took a shortcut which went into the dense forest, again we got confused about the path and after walking a while we found the correct path. So there are many instances you go on a different path and don’t panic when you do so.
Pothigai hills gave us a great experience of living with pure nature and a sacred place for a period of 3 days.
As heard from many people, once you visit this peak, you will always want to visit it again and again.
So I will visit this place anytime soon :)
Tips for your trek
- Prepare your mind and body well before the trek, and if possible train yourself before 3 months.
- Have good shoes or buy a new one.
- Cut your foot fingernails before the trip, believe you will suffer less.
- A light blanket and a simple bag to carry your items and first aid kits.
- Torchlight, raincoat(based on weather).
- Breathe the pure air and drink pure medicinal water as much as you can.
Thanks for reading :)
Satheesh
