An ethereal feeling of having suddenly popped up on the outdoor ‘rolling meadows’ sets of a Bollywood movie is exactly how you feel atop the 1100m high Vagamon. Located on the border of the Idukki and Kottayam districts of Kerala, this less known vignette of the Western Ghats is dotted with postcard worthy hills, verdant valleys and mist shrouded rock cliffs. In the horizon, the Kurisumala, Murugan and Thangal Hills stand guard as long winding roads snake through well tended tea estates which envelope the landscape like a green carpet. 

The outdoor movie locales are constantly invoked as you gaze in any direction; rounded hills gently rise like the waves of a calm sea. The “Motta Kunnu” literally meaning ‘bald hill’, offers a tree-less, clear and undulating view for miles around. The plainly named “Pine Forest”, is instead a huge rectangular copse of pine trees snuck quietly behind the cottages of a resort. The narrow path which leads you into the thicket is no indicator of what lies in store, as you are transposed to land of tall, tapering trunks and spindly needles.

Ghosts too, form an eerie element of the Vagamon landscape. Local stories abound of lovelorn youngsters who jumped to their deaths from the many rocky precipices in the vicinity. Practically every rock cliff over-hanging a beautiful meadow or valley is called ‘Suicide Point’, but the picturesque vista which these points offer actually takes off the dark attraction of suicide, and jumping off with safe paragliding equipment makes more sense and thrill inducing.

Tea gardens and serene view points apart, Vagamon offers a peek into the workings of the divine. The earlier mentioned Kurisumala Hill is home to a Trappist monastery established by Belgian monks. The monks are unique in their Hindu-Buddhist style of prayer, clad in saffron tunics and offering mass while being seated on the floor cross-legged. They also manage a dairy that supplies hundreds of liters of milk to the region. The monastery houses beautiful gardens with colorful flowers and limpid ponds. During the monsoon the hills turn into a mélange of gushing rivulets, bubbling through thick undergrowth and over rocky precipices flowing into these ponds and other lakes that dot the ranges. 

As we take in the panorama we whistle out low in surprise. Surprisingly that’s what we have been doing all day - Vagamon makes you do that.