We signed off 2021 with the long pending Sabari Mala pilgrimage trip during the end of Dec 2021 and it was my 10th trip to Sabari Mala. There is a feel of new energy and enthusiasm after the Sabari pilgrimage trip.
We made the last trip during Dec 2018 and missed out on 2019 due to untimely passing away of our beloved Guru Swami and the year 2020 was eaten away by COVID threats. This time around in 2021, we ensured we will make it at any cost.
We brought this up now not to showcase the religious sentiments, but to highlight THE BEST PLACE I have visited till now. If you guess it is Sabari Mala, you are almost correct. Sabari Mala pilgrimage trip in itself is that you will start connecting with nature and the divinity it throws at you have an ever lasting impression.
But to be more accurate, the place is called Pulmedu which is an alternative path to Sabarimala Sannidhanam rather than the usual Pamba way. There are still many people from Kumily, Theni, Cumbum and nearby villages take this route as it is shorter to them in distance rather than going around the entire Periyar Tiger Reserve and reaching Pamba and then to Sannidhanam.
It was during our Sabari trip during Dec 2017, we reached the Sannidhanam through our usual Pamba way and while starting to descend from Sannidhanam after offering our prayers to Lord Aiyappan, I asked our Guru Swami about the Pulmedu route and he agreed to take the route after taking the approval from other pilgrims from our group. We immediately informed our driver friend about the change in our plan and asked him to come to Vandi Periyar and reach Sathram to wait for us. Our driver friend was waiting for us at Nilakal (22 KM away from Pamba). After our call he started to descend the mountain to reach Sathram via Vandiperiyar.
It was around 9AM, we started to walk towards Pulmedu, more to our surprise it was an uphill walk. Other pilgrims in the group were slightly hesitating now to take this route as we would have had a downhill walk if we had taken Pamba route from Sannidhanam. Somehow we made the other pilgrims agree to the new route and we kept doing uphill walk after providing our details with the forest officer as we were in the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Forest officials took the entry as they check whether all the pilgrims have exited by end of the day of the day at the exit at Sathram.
We kept on doing the uphill walking with some rest on and off as we were tired doing two consecutive uphill walk on the same day. The first uphill walk was from Pamba to Sannidhanam which we completed early morning the same day and now Pulmedu uphill walk was draining our energy. We could not find or hear anything on the way other than our heavy breathing sounds. Midway we found a small spring, where we ensured to fill up our water cans and proceeded our uphill walk. By the stroke of 1PM we reached the top of Pulmedu to witness the heaven filled up magnificent grasslands and we found some eateries managed by the forest department. Only menu we could get is Kappa and Kanji, but that was an elixir to us.
After our kappa and kanji, I checked with the forest officer for the rest of the walking route and he provided us the route but asked us to reach the Sathram before 5PM as there is threat of wild animals after the sun sets. As I was discussing the route with the forest officer, one of our member from the group lost his energy and fell down and forest officer requested us to stay back for 30 minutes to take rest and go. We started to visualize the vast grasslands with no one around it was an absolute beauty and the divine nature has excited us manifold again.
We kept walking through the vast grasslands with no one around us and we witnessed elephants dung all through the way. We also found small tanks filled with water to serve the thirst of wild animals. All of us with first time in forest witnessing all these made us walk with shiver and deep scariness and we watched out for smallest sound to alert ourselves. This continued until we reached the end of the grasslands where we found another check post kind of thing but no forest officer was around. It was already 5PM by the time there and not knowing the way from there we continued to descend with only Lord Aiyappan in our hearts.
We finally reached the Sathram with the downhill walk which was very scary and slippery from the end of the Pulmedu grasslands. It was around 6PM and our driver friend was rushing to us after seeing us.
The Pulmedu path is open only when the Sabarimala temple is open. So if at all you plan to visit, you must check the temple calendar to plan a trek. Also, as we encountered it is indeed a bit risky and one should not just rush to this path without proper guidance.
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