I really don't know how I end up in all these midnight adventures. I never plan any of these, neither do my friends, but it just happens. This was an incident which happened a few years back in a place called Munnar in Kerala, India.
Munnar is a hill station in the state of Kerala in India. It is known for its greenery, tea plantations and exotic species of flora and fauna in its wild sanctuaries and forests. It is known as the Gateway to the hills. This place is actually quite cheap unlike the other hill stations in India which are a bit overly priced. I had gone there with a bunch of friends, this was a team outing arranged by the company and all these friends were my team mates.
Our hotel where we were staying was just outside the town. One side of our hotel was a valley and on the opposite side there was a hill. The view from the hotel was spectacular. The first thing that caught my eye when I saw this hill was a really old church in the middle of the hill and really huge trees surrounding it. We had reached the hotel in the morning and we had to get ready and have our breakfast quickly to start off the tour to go around Munnar and see places. I finished my breakfast and came back to my room and while I was waiting for the others to finish their breakfast and get ready I had decided to go to the church on that hill and quickly say my prayers and come back (It was a Sunday). There was very narrow pathway to go up to the church. Once I reached up there the church was really nice. It was built a 100 years ago. So, I went in offered my prayers and came out and the view from that church was really amazing. I could see the whole of Munnar town and also the valley and tea estates on the other side. This church was just half way through the hill, and the uphill above the church were only huge trees which would have each been at least 100 years old. When I walked up a bit to have closer look at these huge trees I realized that amidst these trees was the grave yard.
I came back to join my friends who were ready to head out. It was a long day visiting lots of places and a lot trekking to do. We had some amazing authentic Kerala food for lunch (At least it tasted well because we were so tired and hungry). This was where Sumanth had ordered for noodles which was served to him only after we all finished our food (may be the cook was searching for the recipe) and when it finally arrived it actually looked like upma (spicy rice pudding)...Who would order for Chinese food in a rural village of Kerala where authentic Kerala food is served? Well that's Sumanth for you...And we were back to our sightseeing tour. After the long day of sightseeing we reached the hotel in the night. We decided to have dinner in some restaurant in the town. This time nobody cared what the other person was ordering, we just started eating what was kept on the table. We were too tired to talk as well, we were just busy eating. Once we were done with dinner few of us decided to walk and the remaining drove down to the hotel. It was easily a 20-30 min walk to the hotel. We had to come out of the town and cross a hill to reach our hotel.
After about 5 min of walking we had almost come out of the town center and it was getting really quite. The time was close to 23.00 hrs. We were 6 of us who were walking. There were 2 guys walking in front of us, then it was me and another guy, and behind us there were 2 of them. After about 10 min of walking we realized that there were no more street lights. We were just walking in the moon light, and just because I am referring to the moon light do not mean it was romantic, firstly I was walking with a guy and it was really cold. Now there was absolute silence, we could hear the sound of the cold breeze, our footsteps and I could hear the whispers of the guys who were following us. Couldn’t make out what they were talking about though, but they were having some serious discussions. I just stayed focused on the road and wanted to go back to the hotel to crash on the bed. We reached the hotel and by then we were hungry again, luckily we had packed some food from the restaurant anticipating we would feel hungry after a long walk. Just when we were about to eat we realized the guys who were walking behind me did not reach the hotel. We thought we would wait for them for some time before we started eating. We waited nearly 15 min and there was no sign of them. We had multiple rooms booked in that hotel, so we thought that they must have gone to some other room to spend some time, we were too hungry by now, and we just started eating the food.
Ok rewind and playback for introduction of characters - The two guys who were missing was Samad and Biju, these were guys walking behind me whose whispers I could hear. The guy who was walking along with me was Ashok. And the guys who were walking ahead of me were Sumanth and Sridhar.
Sridhar finished his share of the food fast and while we were still eating he took the initiative to check in the other rooms to see in which room Samad and Biju were in. I guess we had 4 rooms on the ground floor and one room right above our room. Sridhar went to check in all the rooms on the ground floor but in all the rooms the lights were off and everybody were fast asleep. So there was no chance those would were in the ground floor. The only room left out to check was the room above ours. There was light in that room, so it was a clear indication that the guys were awake and most probably those 2 are in that room. Sridhar just decided to yell out Biju's name to see if he responds and yelled...Biju...!! And that was it. The moment Sridhar yelled Biju's name the light in that room went off. Sridhar a bit confused walked into our room and told us about what just happened. We were a bit shocked and now we all had decided to go and look for the duo.
First we wanted to make sure they were not in the hotel, all rooms searched and we were sure they were not in any of the rooms. There was no possibility of them heading to the terrace of the hotel as the doors were locked. We now went up to the gate of the hotel, the road in front of the hotel was just a straight road, if we head right side we would head towards the town, and if we head left side we would head towards the valley / forest / tea estates. And the good part is there were no deviations on that road, so they should have gone one way or the other. Sumanth had initiated to walk towards the town and Ashok and Sridhar decided to walk towards the valley to see if they could find the duo. And I was waiting at the gate so that we don't miss them while they walk into the hotel. It was getting really cold now, and the time was 23.45 hrs. There was fog everywhere and the visibility was really poor. Just a couple of minutes and all the 3 disappeared in the fog in either directions and I was standing all alone on the middle of nowhere staring at the road. I was just trying to look at the end of the road hoping somebody would appear from the fog and hopefully it was one of our guys and not anything strange. There were hardly any lights. The only bright light i could see was a light which was focusing on the church, on the hill opposite to our hotel. It looked really nice in the amber light and the fog passing by the light. While I was looking at the church something struck my mind...!!
Knowing Samad and Biju, both of them were very adventurous type’s guys. They were quite bold as well and loved experimenting stuff. The thing what struck my mind was the grave yard which I saw in the morning. I just started feeling that the duo would have gone up to the church and then probably gone to visit the grave yard.
Ok now suddenly if you are thinking why didn’t we use our mobile phones and just find out where they were, this incident happened like 6 years back and there was absolutely no signal in the hill station. No network at all..!
Now while I was still waiting at the gate, Ashok and Sridhar came back and informed that they walked quite a bit but could not find them. Now I was surer that there was no chance they would have walked back to the town, the only place they could be is the grave yard. I told Ashok and Sridhar about grave yard above the church, and they were also convinced that they must have gone there. We were just thinking whether it is worthwhile going up the hill and looking for them. Just then really far off we could see someone walking towards us on the road towards the valley side. We decided to wait and see who it was and then decide if we want to go up on the hill. Luckily it was the duo. Both of them didn’t seem to have bothered about anything they were happily walking towards us. That is when Sumanth came running towards us from the town side of the road, he was all sweating because he ran and came.
We enquired with them where they had gone and they gave a simple answer saying "for a long walk.." , we had told them where all we went running looking for them and even had decided to walk up the hill to look for them in the grave yard. Immediately I could see a bulb glow next to Biju's head. He said "Grave yard...!” Then I said yea, I had gone in the morning while they were having breakfast to see the church and had seen a grave yard uphill. I explained to them how old the church was and all..and that was it, everybody wanted to go up the hill now. We decided to trek up the hill to the church and the trek up the hill further to see the grave yard and close to it.
There was absolute no light anywhere on that hill except for just one light which was focused church. It was past mid-night now... And here we were 6 guys walking up a hill. We reached the church somehow went around the church and everything seemed alright. Now the challenge was going uphill to the grave yard, even I didn’t know the path way to up and there was absolutely no light. All we could hear is the sound of the trees from the cold breeze. It was dark and it was foggy too...And there was no sign anybody anywhere close by. We then decided to walk up, and the hill up was so steep. We didn’t know where were heading but we were just walking up. Now when I looked down the church itself seemed so far off. We had trekked quite a bit into nowhere..That is when suddenly Sumanth tumbled over something and fell. We went to reach him and lifted him up. He had hit some kind of concrete, we tried to see what it was, and it was plain concrete slab, and on one side there was cross which was erected. hmmm... yea it was a grave. None of us spoke for a second; we just looked around to see if we had any visitors, or rather any hosts to receive us. Well we did not find any so now that we achieved the goal, we just wanted to rush back down. We were happy and everyone was smiling and came down to the church. There was like an edge of the hill where we could sit. From there we could almost see whole of Munnar. It was really nice because of the moon light we could see a bit of the valley and some lights here and there. We decided to sit down there and enjoy the beauty for a while, it was 1.00am now.
We sat there for close to an hour. The discussion started off with the movie "Blair Witch project"... (Watch it if you haven’t seen it) then each of us started telling their own version of different horror stories which we heard from either our old grandmothers or friends. We discussed almost all of the haunted house stories which we knew of. It was quite thrilling to discuss such horror stories sitting in the middle of the night close to a grave yard. By the time we were tired and exhausted of our stories it was 2.00 am; we decided to go down to the hotel and catch some sleep.
There were some more small interesting incidents which happened the same night...Few of them were...
- "Sumanth came running towards us from the town side of the road"... remember this line..There was a reason why Sumanth came back running.
- When the duo went for the walk they had witnessed something before they came back.
- When we came to the hotel that night, all of us witnessed something really creepy.
The other incidents to follow later... Ciao for now… :)
