hello and welcome to the edges of earth, my name is brock.
today i'm on the outskirts of madurai, india. this town especially has a very large mountain called elephant hill.
it's actually behind me. see if i can turn.
you probably can't see. it's behind me up there.
but first i'm going to grab breakfast and then go for a hike. apparently it should take
maybe a little over an hour to get to the top.
so i do the same thing every time. i go walking for far too long and i skip breakfast.
so i found the entry point which is behind me.
but now i have to find breakfast, even though i passed like 25 breakfast stalls.
so it's really bright. i found breakfast.
the mountain... i have a beautiful mountain view in front of me as i'm eating.
i got this. this is what?
donut in english...what you call it...?
Vadai. It's a Vadai.
anyway it's like onions. onions. deep-fried onion bread, maybe.
i don't know. it's really soft. really good.
and then i got three omelets. i always eat omelettes.
so i just finished breakfast. i found the entry point again and now i'm going to the top.
so i talked to the guy and, apparently last week, people are banned from hiking to the top of this mountain.
no joke crazy. i said, well, "why? why did they ban it?"
because i seen a thousand photos on the internet of people climbing to the top.
because he said people kept climbing to the top and jumping off and committing suicide.
so they banned... they banned the mountain like a week ago. and within two minutes of
walking up another guy bumped into me. and he says yeah just be careful because this
is an area with a lot of smuggling. people might think that you are going up to take
their drugs that are planted up here.
i'm not joking. so crazy.
i got to make sure i don't pick someone else's marijuana.
the only thing that scares me are the spiders.
i see spider webs that are so big, i feel like if a small bird flew inside them, i think
the spider would eat the bird! these webs are big!
you probably cannot see but there's a spider somewhere here in the middle of that web.
it goes all the way to the top and it wraps around over here.
this web is huge. the spider is about that big around.
got to be careful along these edges.
some of these places have no railings. it's amazing though.
god, everywhere i go, every corner i take, it's just so amazing! these rock formations
remind me of a place called Sedona, Arizona.
they're very tall, rounded rocks. I don't know how to describe it...but super cool!
well, i'm definitely glad i brought my walking shoes today, rather than my flip-flops.
i thought maybe i could do this with my flip-flops.
but this would be a bit...a bit difficult.
oh god i have to strategize.
luckily i feel.. i feel my shoes are gripping really, really well. so that's good.
i don't feel any slippy... slipperiness or anything. so that's good news.
a lot of writing. i don't really know what it says, other than 'vj boys' and 'juli'.
various carvings. god it's so cool.
i'm not sure how to go to the top from here. though. it looks like it gets really really dangerous here.
definitely not...definitely not. and possible. but very sketchy.
i might ...i might call it quits here. i'm not sure.
let me look around over here. this is creepy.
yeah you can see it's pretty steep.
yeah it's hard to see in the camera, but once i get to this area, the only spot would be
right there... to kind of jump. and i'm definitely not gonna risk that.
so i think the end is here.
could i get to the top? probably.
but i did that once in arizona... i will never do that again! i thought i was going to die!
so i think this is high enough.
i just remembered while looking on google last night, this whole rock from where i started...
you can't see.... from here, all the way behind me, as far as you can go that way.. it's just
one long rock. and it's about two kilometers long.
so if i would have started on the other end and walked, i probably could have got to the
top here.
so that might be a thing for the future.
i don't know, maybe i'll do it today.
no. it's too much.
Can you able to walk and balance?
oh, i can do that! i'm just.. i see no ending over here.
oh my god you have more cur you have more courage than me and i'm i'm pretty daring. I also have fear.
wow, this is frightening! this is crazy! this is like... if you if you slip, you are... you are done!
Don't think about it.
i know.
okay. and they made little steps here. yeah.
wow, you can go to the top! all right so now we're literally climbing like this.
oh, this is epic! this ...mom close your eyes!
this is... this is one of the sketchiest things i've ever done, i think.
so a man has brought me all the way over here.
i would have never in a million years come to this area without him, because none of
these trails are marked. there's no arrows. he just kind of knows how to go places.
so here we are sitting in this windy cave.
i don't know if you can see.. yeah.
don't fall! down there is like a serious drop off and... we're.. you can't see very well,
but this angle this angle is like super steep.
so i'm a little nervous, and it takes a lot to make me nervous.
i've done some crazy stuff.
but i must say, i... my heart rate is 10% higher than normal.
right where we're standing, there's like a cave. and this man says that he has been inside before.
he's actually slept inside.
he's told me that there's no mountain lions...so i should be okay. but i sure would have
a heart attack if a mountain lion came out.
wow! okay, it is really dark.
i don't see any bats looking at me...there's no guano. so cool!
wow
i'm on my way back down.
i just spoke to that man for about an hour.
we sat there and just kind of shared data back and forth about life in general, politics,
corporate monopolies... you name it. we talked about pretty much everything.
so, we parted ways. he went back down.
i did a live stream a second ago. and i really want to go to the top of the mountain.
can you see it? that. i want to go there.
but there's really no way to get to the top.
there's one little section you have to go under.... like the cave area that i was next to.
you have to go under. you have to crouch down.
you have to basically crawl... which is okay. but the feeling is not the same as here.
the ground is different it's slippery, like glass.
so many years of water going down over the...over the rocks, it has made it super smooth.
and so it was really slippery, even with my shoes.
he went barefoot and he said for him it's even slippery. and if you slip, i mean, you
die! you will fall to the ground and it is a long way down! so, no thank you! so anyway,
i didn't risk it. but i really want to go to the top to get a drone shot up there.
but i don't think it's gonna happen.
the possibility is to go down and around, and then up the other side.
but i'm not sure that's possible.
i will probably go have lunch, ask some people...see if that's possible.
maybe it is. maybe it isn't. i don't know. but let's go down and check it out!
all right so i've started to walk.
if you look closely, you can see the cave up there that i was in only about an hour ago.
yeah it's really high, like, you can see... if you fell, man, it is a long way down.
so i found a man-made quarry.
i'm kind of walking through the quarry right now.
the mountain is off to the side. again, i told you it's like two kilometers long from end to end.
i'm not sure if i'm gonna make it to the other end. it's pretty far. and the trails are kind of weird.
so i'm not sure. it's so quiet through here.
i think that, like, like a mountain lion is gonna come out and grab me. it's so peaceful.
so i've determined that i must have taken the wrong path because i'm stuck in the middle
of the quarry, and literally i'm trapped.
the only way i can get out is to go all the way back or..oh, i almost died! option B)
there's one small trail that crosses the river, and then you have to climb the rocks.
i watched two old men do it.
then i have to go through someone's property, and then i will go to the main street of this super small village here.
i'm tempted to do that, but i feel it's awkward.
this whole thing about trespassing in my mind.
i feel like i'm trespassing.
so i won't. but even though in india that's not really a thing.
it's like an american thing.
but sometimes it's hard to get that out of my head.
as i'm walking back to the main road from the quarry, i was stopped by a couple couple
teens who kind of wanted to know where i was from.
i told them that i was making a youtube video, so they wanted to see the channel.
and they wanted to be in the video. so they have a special message for you:
hi. hello. Subscribe Edges Of Earth Channel. Subscribe Edges Of Earth Channel. Subscribe.
Foreign. My name is "foreign".
Tamil?
English. Only English.
Friend..
In this area? No friends.
only me. one man.
daily walking.
Today, mountain.
You are India. I am America.
Hello! In. And. Madurai. welcome. welcome. welcome to madurai.
wow. they were kind enough to bring me over here.
i'm going to sit for a moment and drink some tea with an audience and look at the the mountain
that is, like, right in front of me.
it's almost on top of me.
how about this...
there's the tour.
so i just spent a lot of time speaking to the people over there at a small shop.
i had tea and biscuits because i could not find a restaurant here.
anyway, these children are really excited.
they're going to show me where they go swimming over here.
so maybe i'll go swimming in the quarry. i'm not sure.
hopefully there aren't any crocodiles. are there crocodiles? crocodiles?
Crocodiles, no. No crocodiles.
okay. because, those of you who have been following my channel for a while, you'll know
i had a weird incident in cambodia with crocodiles.
Welcome! Welcome! it's uh... okay no crocodiles.
they go swimming here.
looks pretty green.
I don't know...but I believe you! :)
I'm going to put my equipment away because I'm not going to film myself swim. but, we're gonna jump.
so i didn't end up going swimming.
they they just kept asking 10,000 questions. so, i don't know. that's it.
i'm now walking back to the bus stop. the bus stop is kind of up here.
so i'm gonna call it a day. it's like 3:30 or something like that, and i'm pretty much done.
i did a lot of walking today, up and down, left and right, in and out! so that's pretty much it.
i hope you enjoyed following along with me. today was awesome.
basically when you get outside of madurai, the beauty is amazing. there's so many cool places to visit.
and this is just one out of so many. so, anyway ...that's it.
i'm gonna call it a day.
thank you all for watching, and remember, your time is running out, start living! take care.