Looking to go on a vacation? Here's why Wayanad could be the perfect retreat for you

Wayanad encompasses a rural world of almost edible lushness where glistening green paddy fields, coconut groves, banana and pineapple orchards, spice plantations and fields of ginger are interspersed with tropical rain forests

Silence and a dense mist pooled around us. The fragrance of the forest was almost an assault on our senses. We were in a tree house, 40 ft above the ground, built between two jackfruit trees at Pepper Trail, a resort in Wayanad, in the northeast of the skinny southern Indian state of Kerala. As the tentative rays of the sun filtered through the mist, the branches of the trees were clearly visible and resembled the fingers of a gnarled hand. Birds began to trill softly, then joyously; it was astounding beauty renewed at every sunrise while the world slept.
We could never get enough of it - of being one with nature in the lush green canopy of trees (including 1,200 totem-pole-like jackfruit trees) where monkeys swung from branch to branch and birds as bright as a child's painting flitted. The gorgeous long-tailed paradise flycatcher, golden oriole, racket-tailed drongo. Many of the over 300 species of birds spotted in the resort made for an avian spectacle each morning.
Within our spacious tree house too, with a wood endeck and en suite facilities, the thick, rough trunk of a jackfruit tree projected through the bedroom and the forest seemed to embrace us like an obsessive lover.
On our first morning, we explored a part of the 200-acre coffee, tea and spice plantation (dating back to the 1800s) and a 20-acre plot that brimmed with medicinal plants grown and nurtured by the owner, Anand Jayan's grandfather, P. Balram Kurup. Thanks to his efforts, the plantation is home to the most extensive range of flora in Wayanad and unfurls like a green carpet on the edge of lush paddy fields and pastures where cattle graze placidly.
We walked down red earth paths that snaked through the plantation which had trimmed tea bushes on one side and coffee, shaded by soaring silver oaks, on the other. Canoeing on a water body, green with the reflection of the surrounding plantation and fringed by trees that seemed to bend and whisper ancient secrets to the limpid waters, was a supremely relaxing experience.
After a couple of hours of walking, we arrived at the edge of the plantation. In the distance, rose green mountains that marked the border with neighbouring Tamil Nadu. A tribal temple, festooned with flowers, stood in a clearing, dedicated, not surprisingly, to forest gods. In a nearby tribal home, the temple priest and his wife welcomed us into their home with gummy smiles. Their faces were a collage of a million wrinkles and their eyes were dim. But they posed willingly for photographs. It was a world so far removed from our own that delving deeper would have been an intrusion.
In Wayanad, time seems to stop, shift and go into reverse; it is a rural world of almost edible lushness where glistening green paddy fields, coconut groves, banana and pineapple orchards, areca nut and spice plantations and fields of ginger are interspersed with tropical rain forests. Neat homes, painted in pastel shades, miniscule churches, temples and mosques that seem to exist in complete amity, spring organically from the landscape.
The following day, we spent time bird-watching on the wide deck of our wood-panelled tree house. often curling up with a book in the many cosy nooks on the property, listening to the forest breathe and sigh and, later, retired for an afternoon nap on the capacious four-poster in our tree house. Late afternoon, we hopped into the owner's 27-year-old open Jeep and headed for the intriguingly named town of Sultan Bathery.
Located just a 15-minute's drive from Pepper Trail, Sultan Bathery is the largest town in Wayanad and owes its name to the erstwhile ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan. Tipu, after his invasion of Malabar, dumped his ammunition in the 13th century Jain temple there and that's how the town - Sultan Battery - got its name. It was later corrupted to Sultan Bathery. The Jain temple, which still exudes an air of solidity, is worth exploring as a piece of living history. It assumed an aura of intrigue when our guide whispered that a tunnel, large enough to accommodate a rider and his horse, used to run underground from there up to Mysore, as a potential escape route!
After our sightseeing forays, we would savour lunches in the open-sided Pavilion at Pepper Trail and candle-lit dinners of authentic Keralan fare, rustled up by the talented Mani. Indeed, many guests have tried to spirit him away to their homes and some have even proposed marriage just so they can savour his delicacies forever!
To work off the substantial meals, we trekked up to Chembra Peak early one morning, the highest in the Wayanad hills, slipping and sliding but gamely pushing on. We explored the Eddakal caves, which involved a 45-minute hike and whose rock engravings are said to date back 6,000 years. We gave the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary a miss in favour of revelling in the delicious sense of seclusion that Pepper Trail affords its guests.
We spent our last two days at Pepper Trail in the Mackenzie Suite of the utterly charming, 140-year-old colonial bungalow that was bought by Anand's grandfather from the friend of the original owner, the pioneer
Scottish planter, Colin Auley Mackenzie.
Lovingly restored and kitted out with antique furniture like sturdy, high four-poster beds which we climbed up via a foot stool, capacious armchairs and cosy nooks, the bungalow with its wood floor boards and
panelling was draped in an ineffable aura of old-world romance. On our last night, we thought we heard soft footfalls on the wraparound verandah outside our bedroom. Was Mackenzie on the prowl to see if all was well in his earthly paradise? The next morning, as birds sang joyously outside, we dismissed the footfalls as the sound of the wind soughing through the trees. And plunged into nature's embrace once more.
 
wknd@khaleejtimes.com