SBenegaL

Category: Travel

  • Anadka Falls – 3 (KadamaGundi Falls)


    God has his own plans…. Man is just an instrument to his game… 

    What began with just an over enthusiastic attempt to go on a trek; turned out to be full of surprises. 
    I had not been on a trek for over an year now – I was craving for one since the last trek to kudremukh around Sept 2011, the one to Chuchi falls was less of a trek and more of a family trip. This time I was determined to climb up the “Ettinabhuja”, which we missed the last time after our team had climbed the Amedikal. 
    After a few calls and facebook chats, our team of 5 – Vasudendra, Arun, Shweta and Sahana was ready to get to Ettinabhuja. Though the team was formed more than a month ago, my repeated attempts to reach our guide turned futile – our first attempt to get the guide wasnt successful due to some personal problems, the second guide wasnt reachable given that the landline connections near Shishila are unreliable.  
    After a brief consultation with the team – a couple of days before the trek, it was decided that we would go ahead with the trek and take our chance once we reach Shishila. The tickets to Dharmastala were booked – the plan was to freshen up here, and then possibly take a jeep drive from here to Shishila directly. 
    It was around 5:45 AM when we reached Dharmastala, and we wasted no time in getting freshened up in the bus-stand. We then moved to the Hotel there to finish our breakfast and got our food packed for the trek. We next ventured on to find our vehicle to reach the base-camp of Shishila. 

    The first plan was to hire a jeep/auto from Dharmastala to Shishila – this would be a bit costly and would be around Rs 600 /- We then decided to go to Kokkada and take a jeep from there (this we thought at least, would be a bit more affordable) We hired a service jeep for around Rs 350/- to Shishila. 
    When we reached our guide’s home, we were in for a rude shock! The trekking from Shishila to Ettinabhuja was closed for over an year! There was a naxal problem and the forest guards were very reluctant to let anyone to climb from here. There was no way we would be allowed to reach the peak from here. 
    We got into a deliberation immediately to decide on the next trek point, none of us wanted to return without a trek. After some time we decided to quickly move on to reaching Dedupe and go to the Hanadka Falls. We did ask some of the localites at Shishila if they had information about the feasibility of getting to Dedupe and likelihood of being permitted to go to the falls. We were able to get an affirmative on the permission and decided to move on towards the Dedupe.

    Though I did think philosophically that – “Man Proposes, God Disposes”,
    there is really nothing that we realize what God has actually disposed
    until we try the next option. This means, one has to apply oneself to the situation and think about what to do next – what is the next best situation that I could go in for?

    I was going to Dedupe the third time and so to some extent I wasn’t very willing to go on this, but I knew it would be the first for the others excepting Arun. I decide it would be nice to see the falls again and if time permits be able to explore anything new.

    We returned in the same jeep (just that we had some more people along this time) to Kokkada, and were luck enough to quickly get the bus to Dharmastala. This was like reaching back to square one and a couple of hours spent without any real use. A short wait at Dharmastala and we got our bus to Ujire.

    At Ujire, we checked with the ticket counter to see if we would be able get any bus immediately, being a day earlier to the elections we werent very convinced of having a bus to our destination (it is relatively remote here). We stood waiting on the road towards Kotigehara – where we could climb the bus to Dedupe. Seeing a jeeps about there, we thought of trying the option of reaching Dedupe via the jeep. We found one in no time we found one that had initially planned to have its last stop as Kajoor; however having seen five of us in the team he decided to move ahead to Dedupe.We were lucky here and went along.

    I spoke with the driver on the way and he also mentioned about the Ermayee falls close by – I was immediately enthused by the possibility of exploring another falls and so let Arun know about it. We decided to first finish Dedupe and then if time permits (which I felt we would definitely be able to manage) we would return to visit Ermayee.

    A 45 minutes journey with the Jeep, we reached Dedupe from where we had to begin our trek to Anadka Falls. At Dedupe, there is also a Panchayat Office, besides which there is a board that points to the direction of “Kadamagundi Falls”. This is the other name for Anadka Falls. We checked with the Panchayat office about the permission to reach the falls. One of the person in the Panchayat office was kind enough to call the person (Mr Raju) in charge of collecting the names etc of the trekkers who go to visit the falls – he wasn’t in the Forest Guard office and so asked us to write down the names at a small shop on the route to the falls. 



    Thanking the individual for the help, we decided to move ahead and register our names at the shop. The shop owner is Mr Vasantha with whom we wrote down the names and deposited the entry fees before moving further. He also asked us to call the Forest officer(whose number he gave) to ensure that he know we have actually got the permission. He asked us to return before 6 PM in the evening. Thanking him, we continued our journey head.


    The hot sun and the humid climate was making it tough for us to get going smoothly. The dusty Jeep Track only made me feel worse. The perspiration levels were pretty high – I feel the sweat drip from my cheek and my T-shirt completely wet, and with the sun right above our heads our energy was draining pretty quickly. I remember having seen a bit more forest on my earlier treks to the falls – this time I could see few plantations coming up. The forest department too was looking to get its area fenced. 

    After trekking for a little more than an hour we reached the house of Mrs Savitri Marathe. On my earlier trek, Thyagraja Marathe had got me here – so with a brief introduction she allowed us to move through her plantations to the falls. Another 15 minutes trek, we spotted the falls – this enthused the team and we quickly reached the base of the falls. 

    Arun and Vasu were quick to get to having a bath at the falls. I in my usual style decided to rest on one of the rocks and take a short nap. Sahana and Shweta too were busy trying to enjoy the shallow pond that the falls had created. 


    In the earlier trek, my team and I had explored a couple of cascades of the falls above the visible one, this time I wasn’t very enthused about trying it again an so just waited for the others to return to the stone for lunch. In my minds window, I waded through the memories of earlier trek and was comparing it. I had visited the falls three times and at all different points of the day – the first one was very early, while the second one was late in the evening – this time it was mid noon. The falls looked so different each time – the kind of birds that sun varies so did the intensity of leaf colors! Nature – you are just a beautiful director, painter composer – simply an all-rounder. 


    After spending over an hour and half at the falls and having our lunch, decided to trek back. We filled in our water bottles and some how Sahana wasn’t convinced that the water was good enough so she put the water back. We decided to fill the water bottles at the Marathe Home. 

    The local community of around 10 houses uses the water from this falls for their drinking and irrigation purpose. They have pipe that detours some water a bit drown-stream from the falls to their home. This is the primary source of drinking and most of other water requirements of this community.


    As we resumed the journey back, Sahana who was leading the trek was very happy to move through the plantations and would have almost lead us to another home if not for some route correction. We returned to the Marathe home – spoke with Mrs Savithir, filled water in our bottles and after a break of 30 minutes decided to trek to Dedupe.


    By this time, I could sense that the team had lost most of the steam and asking for a trek to Ermayee might be futile. We just walked our way back towards Dedupe – the hot sun had just gotten hotter. We reached Mr Vasanth’s store after an hour of trek and when we did come there he was off for lunch. A bit further from there was some shade and a bridge where we all sat down drinking some water. We knew for sure that some soda would have helped and so patiently waited till he returned. 


    Around 10 minutes of waiting and we found him walk back into the store, we ran in to check if there was something that could quench our thirst – we gobbled up a few Mango juices and felt a bit relieved as his stock of Soda was all over. We thanked him and continued our journey to the main street where we could catch the bus from. 


    We could see a public bus that carried the election duty officials to the village school for the election duty the next day. The Chief Election Officer (CEO) was extremely active this year and we had not just read about crores of Rupees being caught at various check posts – a week earlier when we were driving back from our hometown of Udupi to Bangalore we had multiple points where checking was in progress. The CEO seems to have really done a good work this year.


    Once we reached the main street, we found another shop that was opened and we asked if we could get some soda/soft drink that could make us feel better. The hot sun had almost dehydrated us completely. We were lucky to find the soft drinks and were more than pleased to gulp them. We then asked about the next bus to Ujire. This was to be at around 4PM. We still had an hour of time to spend sitting – we looked around and found a bus-stand and also another shop which was closed. We decided to rest in the verandah of the shop while Vasu decided to sleep peacefully in the Bus-stop. Around 3:40 we found the bus coming into Dedupe and thats when we decided to get up and get ready for return.We had a few glasses of packed Brinda Juice which was just too good for us and also helped satisfy the thirst.


    We got into the bus to Ujire and before we could realize all of us were fast asleep. We woke up just in time for the Ujire Stop and got down. A short discussion about what next and we decided to go to Kottegehara for the famous “Neerdose”. We waited for around 15 minutes when we got a bus to Bellary – an hour and half of journey we reached Kottigehara. 


    Vasu and Arun were in a great hurry to rush to the hotel and before we knew what was happening – they were making their choice of hotel. We went into Hotel Anil and ordered Neerdose – I am not sure how many plates of these did we really eat, but it was worth a memory :).

    An enquirer on the bus timing got us to know that there was a bus at 10:30 PM from Moodigere, it was just around 6:30 PM now and we had to keep ourselves occupied till such time.


    Vasu being a well known author in Kannada had fans all over the state – we asked him what we could do next. He knew Mrs Rajeshwari Tejaswi – wife of Late Poorna Chandra Tejaswi (He is son of the renowned Kannada literate KuVemPu), and suggested we could have a visit to their home. We all were gun-go with the plan and immediately jumped it to move on.


    We caught the next bus to Moodigere and after a short walk in the completely dark roads of Moodigere with a single torch! we reached the home of Mr Tejaswi. The next hour and half that we spent at the home was amazing – Mrs Tejaswi detailed out her experiences, the time at Moodigere, we saw the various prizes conferred on Mr Tejaswi and to top it some of the amazing collection of flora that was there in their garden.


    We thanked Mrs Tejaswi for the hospitality and decided to walk back to the handpost. The bus-stand was around couple of Kilometers from the hand post and we hired an auto to the town. After a wait of around an hour discussing various issues from politics to literature to cricket to music and many more, we were extremely happy to see the bus arrive in time. 


    We quickly jumped into the bus, blocked our seat and silently waited for the return journey to begin to Bangalore. As I closed my eyes, the days happenings unfolded in my minds eye. The amazing change of plans, the almost serendipity of getting to visit a great author’s home, but with one sadness of not having been able to check on the new falls I got to know off. 


    It was an awesome trek, and I loved the company of my mates – Arun, Vasu, Sahana and Shweta for this trek – thank you all for making it so wonderful.

  • Exploring Uncertainty and Unknown – Conquering My Fear


    [I do not intend to talk about the general phenomenon in this blog; this is only sharing a few experiences which helped me conquer my inherent fear in unknown places. I hope this could encourage people sitting on the fence to move on, and not be paralyzed by the internal fears they cultivate.]

    I love working in an uncertain environment – I have realized, it keeps me awake. Yes, when in an uncertain territory it requires us to be alert – possibly the best state anyone could be. May be you do not agree, but being one who loves to learn and finds motivated with the insights gained by these experiences I would say I enjoy uncertainty.

    It is not once but numerous times – though my treks and escapades from the city that I have found I enjoy this state of alertness arising out of facing uncertainty. My experiences are not just in the forests where I got lost, but even while in an urban jungle; not just in India also in the unknown country of USA. Though not exhaustive, these I believe definitely are worth sharing.

    I prefer public transport to travel during by escapades originating from cities, but on exploratory treks I would prefer either a private vehicle or shared vehicle some last mile exploration. I have already shared quite a few of these trek experiences and wouldn’t talk about them here but would suggest the readers check in on these trek blogs.

    The escapade from an Indian City – Mumbai to Shirdi:
    I feel quite a few of you reading this wouldn’t find it really a escapade, given that there are a lot of buses that travel between these cities. Following is a short narrative which gets me to call this an escapade –

    I am a Bangalorean, who possibly has spent most of my life in here itself – a cozy city that makes you fall I love with it! Yes I have spent my childhood here when the city wasn’t congested with the traffic and was lot greener. I would reserve the discussion on how the city has changed for the future; and only highlight that I had not grown familiar with any other city!!! Yes my bad – but it is ok to accept it and go ahead that think about it.

    It was the first time I had come to Mumbai for my internship at a Start-up. I was staying at the IIT-Powai campus a few minutes from the Vikroli station. I did a quick Google check and decided to plunge on this journey – it wasn’t that I had an internal awakening, but during one of the sales calls that I was attempting and traveling through the city locals that I found a couple of co-passengers conversing about the recent trip to Shirdi – a place or religious significance to we Indians.

    At the spark of a moment, I decided to trip to this place with the only constraint of using the public transport all through. A few queries to the localities and the Google search got me to realize I could expect buses from Dadar in Mumbai.

    I moved on a Friday night to Dadar and caught a late night bus to Shirdi. Before I could wake up I was as at Shirdi in the wee hours of Saturday. I hadn’t booked any guest house or hotels to stay and sneaked into a small hotel backyard and completed my morning chores. I then visited the temple, by 10 am I was out of the temple and didn’t want to return to Mumbai the same day – I turned my head and found some small shared taxis shouting they would go to a place called – Shani Singnapur. I decided this would be excited and went along. A couple of hours of journey and I was at the place, visited the temple there too and by 2 pm I had nothing to do again! I decided to take the shared cab back to Shirdi and then take a call. I reached Shirdi and found a few cabs going towards an industrial town called Nasik. I decided to take this and figure out a place where I could spend the night. I reached Nasik around 6pm – here I was in a completely different town with no clue of where to go. I found a government guest house and try my luck there – there were no rooms!!! I asked an employee to suggest if he knew any guest house and instead of guiding me to one – he asked me to wait, and said he would accompany me!

    I wasn’t quite sure what to expect next – an unknown city, a stranger willing to help; but haven’t I read a few newspaper articles that talked about travelers being looted? Lurking I this fear, I followed him … Around 20 minutes later he took me to a “shady” looking guest house – ensured I had a place/shared room for the night and then said – “come with me I will show you some good shopping spots!”. By this time – I has mentally accepted any result and just believed I would get the night through.

    I had on an earlier trek lost lulu route and gained crucial insights of the triviality of human life! But this experience was something different… What was I to expect next?

    This stranger takes me to a store – a resin vendor store and says. These are Nasik special, take as many as you want before you leave – I need Rs 30 for my drink tonight. It would be a compensation for the help I provided you with. I for some time had all sorts of thoughts running around I my mind and this is how it is to end?

    “Life is like a box of cookies, you never know which one you would get” said a learned person – it sounded so true. This experience got me to also realize the importance of trust – Both in people and in GOD.

    I moved around the town, checking on the places to visit and the departure time of the buses from the station.  I followed this up with dinner, but there I had to spend the night in an unknown guesthouse room with unknown strangers? Well I didn’t know if it was “safe”, I just decided to sleep and worry about what happens later.

    He while day of fatigue got me in no time and I was snoring to glory – willing to accept the reality and not lose sleep over it. And lo I woke up on the alarm at 4 am, completed my daily chores and was ready for another day of exploring the uncertainty of life.

    I caught the 6am bus to Triambakeshar – another place of religious significance – This also happens to be the birth place of river Godavari (I didn’t know this before I reached there!). I took the trek to the peak close to the temple and returned from there to visit the temple. After the sacred Darshan of the Lord Shiva who is the deity of the temple I decided to get back to Nasik and check out the mythological place of Panchavati. It is believed that the incarnation of Lord Vishnu – Ram, along with his consort Seetha and brother Lakshman had stayed at this village.

    After the tour of Panchavati, I decided it was time to get back towards Mumbai and rest the night out before I could get back to work the next day.

    While there were a few buses which could take one to Mumbai, none were available around 2 pm when I left the town of Nasik, so I decided to use take the bus that could take me to the last station of the Mumbai local on the central line!

    Wow that sounded awesome! Right I go, when I reach the station – I looked at the map and decided to visit another place – Titwada which is famous for its temple of Lord Ganesha. I didn’t know if I would have a second chance to do this visit and for what Ever reason and possibility I decided to visit the place – in 45 minutes I was done and ready to get back to Vikroli.

    Having reached the Vikroli station at 5:30 PM and took an auto-rickshaw. As I reclined on the couch – I relived this experience. Definitely it was a lovely experience, balancing on the fence of uncertainty and safety. This gave me the confidence in my ability to explore completely unknown locations

    Following this, I haven’t tried any major escapades per say in India owing to the time bound nature of the work that I do, however I have tried to innovate my travel route to have some adventure with uncertainty yet complete the task taken up in time.

    Possibly there was something the first escapade would have been the only one if I hadn’t tried this on the recent travel to Berkeley.

    Second escapade:
    Berkeley to San
    Jose

    “Silicon Valley” the name is almost synonymous to innovation and a highly thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. San Jose is part of this ecosystem and houses a lot of companies working on cutting edge technology.

    The valley also has a bay – San Francisco Bay, which opens up into on the Northern side. The mouth of the San Francisco bay has the monumental Golden Gate Bridge, which in itself is a symbol of engineering excellence. Being on the west coast of the USA, the bay opens up into Pacific Ocean.

    The Silicon Valley being on the southern side of the San Francisco bay is also called as the South bay area.

    Berkeley is a city known for it open culture, in fact there are possibly representations of all cultures here! The University of California, Berkeley is an institute of international repute and attracts the best of the students from across the world.

    I was in Berkeley for a brief period of 1 week and didn’t want to miss catching up with some of my friends who stayed at San Jose; however commuting to the southern city wouldn’t be easy without being able to drive in your own car! I was in here for a short while and the taxis would be costly mode to travel – lo here comes public transport for the saving!

    I prefer trains to buses when it comes to traveling in unknown journeys – they reduce the uncertainty and also could give you an option of easy retracting in case you aren’t successful; but the complexity increases with the buses and the one ways etc making it chaotic for a newbie like me. Compounding the problem would be me not carrying a cell phone!!!

    A frantic Googling attempt gave me a simple clue of how I could reach San Jose from Berkeley using the BART and Caltrain. I was now venturing out on a trip which I knew wasn’t very risky, but lack of s constant mode of communication could be crucial.

    I took the BART to reach Millbrae and used the attempt to learn a lot about the stations on the way – the cost is extremely reasonable ($4.8 – now don’t get in the exchange rate shock in here – this is a completely different economy here!

    I exchanged to the Caltrain at the Millbrae station, however given that I has just missed a train – I had to wait for nearly an hour here. There were people who were dressed differently at the station – each almost in a very different style of his/her own – carrying the baggage of imagination and the news that creates stereotypes, to be frank wasn’t very comfortable with the variety I saw here.

    45 minutes of waiting got me into the train that had its last destination as San Jose – I was remember, I didn’t have to change any more buses in here.  There was rather not much of an excitement until reached the destination.

    Wow! I land up in this station which looks like a film shot from the early 1990’s and with very few people! I had to make a call and so looked out for some change – I went to the vendor who I guess spoke Spanish. I asked if could get some change and got a reply which was incomprehensible!  She probably was saying – I cannot give you a change unless you purchase something. I decided instead to try my luck with a few denominations and surprisingly, this worked for me.

    I met the fee friends at San Jose and returned to Berkeley. There wasn’t anything very exciting about this, but this experience gave me a lot more confidence in exploring the unchartered territory of life.

    It is not uncommon for us to be trapped in fear. Each one of us is gambling with one fear or the other. Some are frightened of losing their reputation, while others are frightened of taking risk. One could easily look back and realize, each one of us have one fear or the other that we engage with and attempt to outdo.

  • Sharavati valley trek -1

    Route:
    Banglore -> Shimoga -> Sagara -> VageVaddi -> Basavanabaayi -> Padu beedu -> Belli gundi -> Godanagundi -> Padubeedu -> Jog -> Sagara -> Shimoga -> Bangalore

    An awesome experience with people from different countries on the trek, a couple of people from Germany, Malta and people from different parts of the country itself – the locals, the bangaloreans, and the hydrabadis… all this was only to start off – we never realised when we got along to be a good team….For some this wes the first experience with leeches, for others a differnt terrain to trek…a nice mix of treks experiences for all of us.

    I met up Mr Sampath on orkut, and was impressed by the trek pictures that were uploaded there… we shared some comments and then I decided to go on a trek to this awesome place, unperturbed by human habitation, still virgin forest… I had been waiting for a good break in my course during which I wanted to do this trek.

    After a hectic schedule of exams and submission I decided I would join Sampath and group on the trek. Sampath had arranged a Tempo Traveller(TT) for us to get to the destination at the earliest, and save some time and use that effectively in trekking and getting to feel the nature…

    The TT was parked at the railway station parking at Majestic, and it began its jouney at 10:30 pm, we picked up people on the way and started our jouney. A small break for Vinay to get his dinner packed and we moved further. As we crossed nelamangala, the rain God decided to shower his blessing on us and there was a constant down pour all along the journey.

    The TT went slowly, partially due to the heavy rains and partially due to the bad roads, we reached kargal, a place some distance off Sagara at 745 am, where we got along with the 3 trekkers who had caught their bus to get to this place. The had come form Hydrabad the earlier night and had stayed in the hotel-lodge, visited Jog falls and had been waiting for us till then.

    Day 1:

    We had our first cup of tea at kargal, and then moved ahead towards vagevaDDi. The drive from kargal to VageVaDDi was around 45 minutes by the TT and we could see some lush green vegetation, some back waters of the lingan makki dam and so on. I caught up with some sleep in this 45 minutes as well.

    We were to reach VagevaDDi at 830am, but given the bad roads and the weather we could only reach by 930. Mr Narayan was waiting there with the breakfast for us. He, Shridhar, and Mr Dharma were to be our guide cum cook for the next two days. They had prepared some akki rotti, badnekai chatni, and liquid jaggarey; they also cut a papaya for us; this spot were we had our breakfast was a nice place. The villagers had make a lake, which was to serve as the source of water for the fields, when the rains had died down – there had been no rains in the area for almost 10 days prior to our visit; for a moment I thought – “does this mean that most of the falls we visit wouldnt have water?’”

    Just as everyone completed the breakfast we had a stand up meeting lead by Sampath to brief about the trek we were to begin, the route we were to follow, and some basic directions. Narayan was to lead the way for us and we would also have Shridhar to guide us along during the trek. We began our trek – I could see dence forest at a distance…my mind was already ready to move towards the direction, felt like running towards the lush green forest cover there and didnt want to spend too much time on the jeep route that we had begun.

    My excitement was all put to a pause mode when, Sampath told me that there was a jeep route till Basavanbaayi. As we went from the green land into a more tree covered area; I found some company who looked very familiar…Yes!!! the leeches. “Ah! finally some fun this way” I thought… I would run through the dead and fallen leaves, the leeches would climb up and after some time I would halt to toss the climbing leeches off my shoes and socks… this was fun…after around 30 minutes walk from the starting point we reached the temple – Basavana baayi.

    Most of the trekkers were busy getting the leeched off their shoes, some were already bleeding form the leech bites, some were jumping around not knowing what to do…They had applies eyucaliptus oil but that seems to have done little effect on the leeches. After completing this session of leech removal most of them set out to get to the falls.

    In the mean time Philip who was now excited watching Narayan catch frogs began trying his luck. Philip seems to have an ability to attract animals towards him, earlier in the day he had cows running behind him and following him where ever he went, now he was trying to catch the frogs. Narayan was an expert at it and could catch the frogs with great ease; every time philip was to catch a frog it would jump off or get deeper into the water making it hard to find them…

    Once all people were ready to get to the falls – actually to get to the place of fun and frolic for those who would like to get down in the falls for a shower. All those who had been bitten by the leeches took no time to get into the water and almost forgot that the were ever bitten by the leeches. We spent around 30 minutes at this falls and then got back to the temple to have our lunch.

    The lunch was too good, the jackfruit pappad, the saambaar…humm… I can smell and taste the food…really well prepared… just as some of them were appreciating the lunch, the leeches which had been thrown out of the shoes and from the legs began their assult again…they bit quite a few of them and again the panic struck in the minds of the people. Sampat gave strick directions to follow the route which narayan and shridhar would show and not to wander off. We were a group of 18 people and keeping the tab on all would be a humongous task.

    Just as we began the trek, shridhar leading from the front narayan in between and sampath towards the end. The leech count ouly increased as we began the trek upwards, the far off forest which I saw initially is where were trekking. We would walk some distance and then stand asking for salt and removing the leeches… while most of them were involved in removing the leeches, we had trekked for around an hour and had covered only a kilometer or just above it. Most of the team mates decided this wasnt what they were looking for.

    Just as we continuted the trek, shridhar showed a small hole which was dug by the bear… using he expertise he could also tell this was just some time before we came and was a younger bear. It wouldnt be far off form the place were walking on. We stood there to have a look and just as most of the people were on our way we continued further… after some time narayan gave a call asking us to stop; I could see exitement in his eyes he came and explained how he has spotted a dear which ran across at lighting speed bisecting our line of trekkers.

    Just as we continued our trek sampath could see the frustration on the face of the trekkers who didnt like the trek through the leech prone forest area. Sampath asked for the choise of path and most of the voted this time for a grassland with very few leeches. “So shall it be!!!” was the experession and we with shridhar leading the path walked towards the grassland to the left of the dense forest.

    We walked through the grasslands, picking snaps of the distant mountains, the streams, the water holes on the way etc. the landscape reminded me of Poorna Chandra Tejaswi’s description of this hunting experiences. Shridhar guided us to his brother’s house were we rested for some time and clicked the pictures of a some gaint butterfly which were around their home. After a break of around 45 minutes we resumed our trek/journey through the grassland. We walked through the bunds bordering the fields and took pics of the muddy fields, people working in them etc… it was real fun clicking the snaps all over the place… we con
    tinued our jounrney and took some rest at the vast grass land that was some distance away form the village and local inhabitation.

    Shridhar had gone ahead and got the groceries which we would carry along with us to the final resting spot of the day – the tribal’s house. We had some small games amoungst ourself here. Philip was busy trying to see if the Dogs can get him the frisbee that he throws at them…think he is still trying to train them [;)].

    We resumed our trek/walk through teh jeep route and finally reached the tribal’s home where we decided to rest for the night, the place is called PaDubeedu. Narayan was quick to get some dry wood that had fallen off in the forest…his ability to get the dry wood and that too quickly combustible ones is remarkable. Sampath was mentioning about the experience with narayan getting along the woods even in a very rainy climate and being able to get the wood which would keep them warm…. really a skill which I appreciate after the experice at tadiandmol trying to make a camp fire.

    Just as the sun set, and the camp fire took the lime light, we got into discussion and got to know each other better. Some of the trek enthusiasts were asking sampath & me about my trek experience, any encounters I had with wild animals, etc… we narrated our stories…just as we were into the discussion the dinner got ready and it was time for us to get to the bed.

    The hosts were kind enough to let us spend the night at their home. Shridhar and Dharma had cooked an awesome dinner with a local flavor to it. Ah! I need to mention this – the Germans viz Philip and Dominic were all fans of the tea, and were a all time sport to the tea that was prepared. Tea just too good – it remined me of the tea at Gowdar mane on the Bandaje abbi trek…

    We all slept quite early that night…ya early by all standards; I think it was jsut 930pm when we slept.

    Day 2

    We were to get up early finish the next day’s trek with relative ease. I woke up at 6:00 am when I could spot some brightness in the visinity. The atmosphere was relatively chilly and sampath and I got into discussion of the days plans. Shridhar and Dharma had got up early to help us have our breakfast.
    I brushed my teech with the the mango leaves which the host gave me, it was a nice experience. It makes the whole feel look more natural…more rustic in a sense. Just as every one were ready with the daily chores, we decided to continue on our trek for the day after the breakfast. The breakfast was a local special called kadubu and uppit. I liked it…so did many of our team members. Philip and Dominic were on the tea spree again….well only till the tea got over [:)]

    We started off to the view point, which is a 45 minutes trek from the base camp…it was panaromic view. At one corner I could spot the Murudreshwara island, at the other end I could see the batkal town. There was the Arabian see at the horizon…There wasnt much clouc cover and it was great to get some nice pics. After a bried photography session we began a small trk towards the BelligunDi falls view point.

    I was spell bound by the beauty of this falls. The backdrop of the falls has numerous mountain peaks, and dense forest cover. The water in the falls fell in only1 go from the top to the bottom. The vegetation around the falls was dense, I knew the whole trek was worth this one falls for me… I could have trekked any distance for this view…. I just am crazy of falls…

    Just as all the trek group gathered there, the cloud decided to take control and not give the view to all of us. the winds played their game in moving the cloud from right to left and then from left to right, but there was no sign of clearning up to give the view of this falls again.

    We decided to move ahead and spend some time at the Godana GunDi falls. Narayan lead the way till the falls, This time too we were through dense forest over and the leech prone area, but it seemed as though not many were really worried about the leeches now, they seemed to have accepted the reality of the leeches on the trek. We had real fun getting down the steep mountain to the base of the falls – slipping, skidding, jumping almost a stunt scene there…

    The falls was a very neat one, not too high, not too small, it was ideal to have a bath…I too had a bath in the falls…I generally dont like having a bath in the falls inbetween a trek primarily becoz I believe that it saps a lot of energy which would be helpful in trekking long distances…may be I am wrong but I still believe in it 🙂

    We had fun here, playing in the falls. The team from hydrabad had to leave early and so shridhar lead the 3 people to the tempo traveller which would take them to kargal from where they would be able to go to Hydbad…

    Narayan took us to the top of the first level and no sooner had I taken a couple of snaps, it started raining. We were quick to get back to the path which leads us to the base camp. Another 30 minutes and we were at the base camp. We had an awesome lunch thanks once again to the cooking team….

    We left the base camp, a walk for around 45 minuted down the jeep track, some photoshoots, some discussion with Sampth on his new water sports facility near honnemardu and we were on the main road, and then in the TT which would take us back to bangalore

    We dicided to have a glimse of the world famous Jog Falls, but as our luck would have it… it was all misty, we could spot the traces of one of the 4 units, it was very hazy; and that didnt help. We got back into the TT and were on our way back to bangalore.

    We reached Blore at 330 am, and went on our ways back home…

    An awesome trek… will get back for more falls and more treks some time…

    Some of the pics are at this link
    http://picasaweb.google.com/sachidananda.bs/SharavathiValley1#