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Kuntala Falls

Well, I think this is my 15th trip with friends, after covering so many places in South India. I was planning for few a months to visit a fantastic, hidden nature and we finally ended here at "Kuntala". Thanks to Vivek and Nandha.
We 4 guys (Myself, Arun, Vivek, Nandha) left Hyderabad on 20 August evening after 2 hrs delay in our plan due to car service, minor accident by a share-auto, petrol, snacks, ATM etc. The climate was just awesome that added more enthusiasm to the trip.

We caught the Nagpur highway at around 6 P.M. The 4 lane road was pretty good with no much traffic for nearly 100 KM, followed by a 2 lane road with little traffic. We stopped by a roadside Dhaba for dinner, where the food was really delicious. We managed to reach a place called "Nirmal", a small town, 40 KM before the falls. As we know there are no other places to stay by, we halted there in a decent hotel.
Next day we left the hotel and back in the car by 9.30 AM. We headed up towards a place called "Neredigonda". This stretch is truly amazing. Greeneries on both side of the road with drizzle made us to feel like heaven.  

Believe me, there are some beautiful sceneries on this way, which i have never heard of or known. The very first thing that came to my mind was "How did we miss this place for so many days?"

We could see lot of monkeys, cows, butterflies that added more color to the trip. Had late breakfast in Neredigonda, again on a roadside Dhaba. With 15 more KM to reach, it seems that this is the only place near to Kuntala for food.


The way from Neredigonda to Kuntala is a single road, with BT cotton fields on both sides. After traveling 10 KM, we saw a small village with few hundreds of people living, who totally depend on agriculture and fishing. A temple on the roadside is the first temple i have seen which is completely in RED.


The next 5 Km stretch to Kuntala is like a disconnected place. After passing through mountains and a dense forest, we finally reached the top of the hill - Kuntala. No big crowd of vehicles unlike any other falls. There are exactly 408 steps to get down from top of the hill, which looks as if we are entering into a deep jungle. The sound of the falls on the background keep increases when you go down.

There's the beauty. Water lushing out from two corners of a big rock - looks like two big white eyes of the mountain. When we go nearby, we understood that it is very dangerous and water current was also high. 


We are advised not to reach near the falls, as no one knows how or when the water flow rises up. The height of the falls is around 45 meters, but it look like 100 meters or so. 

We could not reach to the other side of the falls (Right Eye) and i think its impossible to reach, as the depth is around 250 meters.

After spending couple of hours, we decided to stay in the government guest house, which is the only building close to the falls. Spoke with the local watchman over there, paid money for booking, we all were really excited about the stay, which is a stone throw to  the falls :) We went back to the same Dhaba for lunch before heading to a nearby "Pochera" falls. Surprisingly, there was not even a single person in this place. 

Had a good time there, took rest under shades for a while. Remembering we got to reach the guest house before 6, we started purchasing required things like tortoise, candles, match boxes along with dinner. We managed to come back only at 7 PM, but there were more surprises waiting for us.

1. This place was completely dark, except little moon light
2. The guest house was used very long back
3. No power connection in guest house
4. Full of dust and home to lizards and other insects

The watchman who came with us, told that he knows an electrician in the nearby village who can fix the power connection. That sounded good, two of us along with the watchman went back to the village in searching of that good man. 

We waited, waited waited and waited, they haven't turned up. I tried reaching their mobile, but no tower :) Not knowing what to do, we almost spent more than an hour in the dark. At last, we started walking back to the nearby village as we were clueless about those guys. The road was damn dark and no sign of car. After walking a KM, we realized that it was a bad idea to walk :-) Also we remembered that all the animals in that forest come out only in the night time :) The worst part was we did not carry a torch or match box to help ourselves. Everything was left in the car.

Thank god, we saw the car light in few minutes before we were frozen. The watchman scold us badly, told us that there are lot of "BEARS" roaming in the nights :-) As the electrician could not fix it, we were back to the guest house and decided to stay in the Veranda with the help of candles. 

The real enjoyment started - We connected the laptop and speakers to the car and started dancing with full volume :) There was no one to stop us at the top of the hill. We enjoyed like mad till midnight with falls playing original  background score :) Slept off at 3 AM with no candles, fearing for BEAR and other animals. At around 4 AM, there was a sound of some animal eating bones. Luckily, no Bear, just a forest dog :-)

Got up early next day, took bath in the falls and left the place. We came back through another route, covering Basar, a small town with a Saraswathi temple. Reached back Hyderabad for a lovely dinner, after starving for 2 days :) 


Worth visiting this place once but not suggest to stay there like us :) 
Wait for our next trip, that comes shortly with more adventurous :) 

Thanks for reading.

1 comment:

Hopeful Indian said...

Nice adventure dude :) The falls seem very inviting!