SBenegaL

Tag: #thoughts

  • Amedikal

    It had been a long time almost 3 months since my last trek with friends to Kodachadri. I just got a bit off track with some preparations for the interviews and group discussion. Now that it was all over I was eager to get on a trek.
    My last trek with RHM was a very memorable one… Thanks to the co-ordination and their goal. This time RHM was arranging a trek to Amedikal, near Shisila. some 20 odd Kms from Dharmasthala.
    The trek was on the 28th and 29th of April. Arun and Dean had tried reaching to the Amedikal peak some time the year before but the weather was a bit bad for them to continue and reach the peak, so this time they had come up with a group to reach to the peak.
    As usual the assembly point of the RHM group was the KSRTC bus stand enquiry counter. Eight of us assembled for the journey to Dharmathala. From where we would reach Shishila and then on to the trek.
    The eight members of the trek were was follows; Arun, Dean, Vasudhendra, Lohit, Praveen, Smitha, Harish and myself. Arun and Dean were the organisers, Harish was my classmate in school; others were all new to me. Vasudhendra, is a well known author in Kannada, and it was an experience meeting a person like him. Another person Mr. Hegde was to join us in Dharmasthala. The speciality of this group, it had three journalist – Arun, Harish and Hegde; in it.
    We set out from Bangalore at 10:30pm on the 27th of April, to Dharmasthala. After a long journey form Bangalore – thanks to some technical problem the bus had and a road jam in the ghat section we reached Dharmasthala quite late at around 6:00 am. We finished our morning ablutions and were joined by Mr Hegde to get on with the breakfast.
    Once we completed the breakfast we were on with our journey to Shishila. We booked a jeep from Dharmasthala that would take us to the small village of Shishila. Shishila is known for its temple of “Shishileshwara”. In the journey from Dharmasthala to Shishila, it was a random discussion on variety of topics so as to break our inhibitions and get to know about the other personality that all of us possess.
    On reaching Shishila we had a brief intro given about the trek by Arun, and the plan we had for the 2 days. We followed this with an informal introduction about ourselves. Its then that we got to know each other a bit more well. Arun distributed the “emergency food” that was to be used only when we needed it the most. We then booked a jeep to home which would then be our base camp. We asked for a guide and got a very helpful guide – “BalaKrishna”, to guide us on the trek. All of us dumped our bags atop the jeep and sat along to the house where we planned to rest. It was another 20 minutes journey that would take us to the “home” – yes, that’s exactly the feeling all of us got interacting with the house members and the care they took about us. We reached the home, and rested for about 25 minute when “Balu” joined, to guide us to the peak.
    All the 9 of us started on the trek; Balu was on the lead… and followed by us…. He took us on a small foot trial into the forest. Smitha started having some problems and could not keep pace with us, so Arun stood back trying to get her along, but she was finding it very difficult finally, Arun decided that it is better to take her back and so asked the group to move along and took her back home.
    The rest of us – 7 in number and Balu totally 8 continued on the journey. The train slowly got more demanding on us. There was a constantly increasing elevation that would make the trek a bit tougher. We were carrying along our food and water, the luggage felt like an ever increasing one. It took all of us some time to warm up and continue. The humidity was high and all of us were drenched from head to toe in no time. Balu was as fit as ever, we were just amazed at his strength and stamina… From his expression I could read … oh man they find even this so difficult!!! Well he was just too good for us.
    The journey was through a forest cover, the forest had high humidity and was draining out a lot of the fluid through perspiration. Dean and Vasu had an encounter with a pit-viper, and thanks to Arun who was there at the right moment to help them out. Arun spotted it up first and then stopped Vasu from stepping over it. We were waiting for Dean and Vasu a bit further (most of us might have missed it by oversight.) A bit further I found spider that was posing for a snap, took a snap of this big spider and continued further. After about an hours journey we took a small break, and were refueling our-self with liquid. There were a huge scourge of mosquitoes, and were behind each one of us. We competed the break and resumed the journey with renewed spirit. On the right side of the path now we did not have much vegetation covering us and we could see the famous “Ettina Bhuja” (meaning the shoulder of ox) at a distance. From here onwards till the peak we could spot this huge mountain all along the trek course.
    A small distance further we spotted the peak of Amedikal. This was the first time we spotted this on the trek route since we started off from the base. The trek had been in the canopy of the forest, so we had not been exposed to the sun till now, this was the fist opening that we found. The Amedikal was just too beautiful to look at. We for an instant thought we could now reach the peak from there in around an hour and a half. Looking at the rate we walked, Balu with his expertise in the region told us at this rate you will only get back home at 7:30pm. Yes, it was around 745 that we reached the home that day, what an estimation man!! too good ah!
    After this open space we went into a small forest cover, where we had a small water store and we refilled our cans to carry on further. Just a walk of around 10 min from this point I spotted a “green garden snake”. Four of us, watched the snake with apt attention, it was an amazing sight to watch this snake make its move. It just climbed and climbed, we just could not believe it could climb so high on the plants given its lean body. I was just too good.
    We continued further after having the snake show, now we were getting closer to the peak. The sun was a bit too harsh on us during this part of the day. Now we were into the open zone, not much vegetation and no shade excepting some trees here and there. All of us began to feel the heat and strain. Now we were almost at the foot of the Amedikal peak and it was just getting even tougher. We had trekked nearly 3 hours to reach the base of the Peak. The climb was slow for all of us, but Balu did not even show a hint of fatigue, he was just too good (No doubt I became his fan!!!).
    The hot scorching sun had drained a lot out of me, the winds were blowing along the surface of the mountain, some times a cloud or two would give a small shade to these mountains. I could see the natural processes of creation of sod from stone there.
    A small time after the accent began I chose to sit for some time. The blowing winds was enough to push me to slumber, I did get driven off by the winds into the sleepy would a couple of times when I was resting to rejuvenate myself.All of us rested for a while at different places on the way up to get boosted often to continue the upward trek. It was the hardest terk I had done till date, the sun was virtually eating my energy. The previous hardest trek I had done was to climb the KumaraParvatha from the Somavarpet side.
    This stone mountain was, more open and taller to scale. The height and the distance to be covered were making the trek even more demanding. This combined with our lack of regular preparation for something like this was making the trek look more massive than it might just be. Balu lead us to a shady shelter were we rested to take up our lunch. I had been nearly a 4 hour trek till now and all of us were just too hungry to wait. Once we reached there we immediately opened the pack of pooris, and Chitranna that we had carried along. We rested here for around 45 minutes, kept our bags to carry them along when we returned. We carried along only a few water-bottles that would help us quench our thirst on the way to the peak. Balu spotted a wild jackfruit tree and within a flash was down with the fruit for us. We decided to take take time to have a taste of it on the way back.
    We asked Balu what might be the history behind the name of the peak being Amedikal, the told us that in the local language – tulu, Dikel means stove. So that’s how the name AmeDikal comes to be. We see 3 stones atop the peak; it looks like a stove in the village kitchens.
    We advanced towards the peak, and came found a panoramic view once we found our-self out of the forest cover into the open. Another 10 minutes trek from here we reached the peak from were we found our-self atop the world. The view was just too splendid. We rested at the peak for 30 min before we set back. We tried various poses for our camera, and jumped from one stone to another with Balu’s guidance for the whole process. On the way to the peak we climbed a few stones which made the view look very scary. All of us crossed a few tough points, thanks to the expert assistance of Balu, we were able to experience the thrill of such a climb.
    After the photo shoot at the peak we began the return. It was almost a journey of 5 hours for us to the peak, and we set out to the base at 4:30pm.
    We all started off back to the base with Balu again leading from the front. We got down form the peak and reached the shady region, were we had rested for lunch prior to continuing our journey to the peak. Balu got the Jack-fruit and opened it up for us, all of us were up eating the fruit. We enjoyed the fruit and resumed our journey to the base. On the way back the small grass that grew all over the place was very misleading and if it was not for Balu. The grass had grown so symmetrically that we could not find a well defined path back. We continued on under the guidance of Balu to reach the base.
    The light was getting dark and we were gearing up for a night trek. We got out our torches. We took about an hour to reach to the base of the Amedikal peak. We then started on our route back. Slowly but steadily we continued on the trek, and reached the base camp after a trek of 2 and half hours from the peak.
    One of the memorable incidents on the way back was Dean asking us all of a sudden to switch off all the torches, and maintain absolute silence… we were expecting something very curious… and asked him what was the matter. Dean replied….”Enjoy the silence”… and lo all others were on him for this attempt… All of us being tiered just wanted to reach home now… not enjoy the silence.
    Once we reached the home all of us wanted to get to the river nearby and wash off the fatigue. Sunil, the home boy with a lot of enthusiasm took all of us to the river. We spent about an hour before we decided to wind off to sleep. Harish and I slept on the platform that was there near the home, Lohit on a bench, Smitha inside the home and the remaining people in the space that was available in front of the home.
    The hard trek of the day was enough for us to send us dozing off in not time. We woke up early in the morning only to appreciate how well the villagers are used to the saying “Early bird gets the worm”. All day long I was to learn a lot of things about this rustic life… the originality of the life and learn to appreciate it.
    Balu returned to check with us the day’s plans. We initially had thought of reaching “Ettina Bhuja” and Moodigere from there, then to Dharmasthala, but the previous day’s trek had taken its toll on us and we knew all of us could not complete the trek in the sate we were. Balu too suggested the same… so we decided to just keep the second day simple and searched for a place to recline and spend a good amount of time in the river there.
    So that decided we began our trek to the place around a kilometer and half from the home. On the way we spotted a few children peeping out, Sunil was all enthu calling them out to join us to the place. The walk through the mud road was a pleasant one. We had stream criss-crossing the mud road occasionally other times it just flowed silently along the route. We found a wild fruit all along the way till we reached the river, I just threw them to the side of the road… just that the child in me felt like doing it.
    We reached the river and walked upstream to reach a dam that had been built by the locals to harvest the water of the “Kapila” also called “Sudhe” by the locals. Balu just warned about a deep “Gundi” some distance away and let us get into the water. 5 of us got down into the water and had a play there, while the remaining were busy thowing stones into the silent river water and counting the bounce, some times just picking snaps and other times attempting some gimmicks.
    We could spot the Ettina bhuja occasionally but the clouds would hamper our sight of the peak. There is dense bamboo vegetation, Sunil was making a mention that there are elephants down the valley and this location just seemed to be too ideal a place for the huge animal. The serene water of the river, dammed to make it look more beautiful, bamboo vegetation, The mountains and the forest covered slopes that make the scene very picturesque.
    After about an hour and half that we spent in the river we decided to get back to the home. We visited some Deity that had been placed on an altar beside the river, may be it holds a high esteem and has a local folk-lore associated with it. I am not sure about it. After picking up snaps of this we set out on our way back to the home. I was busy clicking pics on the way back and Sunil was even more enthusiastic to try his hand at photography. All of us reached the home and waited for the lunch to be served.
    We cought up into individual discussions on various topics and, it was quite an enlightening experience for me. I got to know a lot of different dimensions to a lot of things. The topics of the discussion from songs, singers, movie review to author/poet styles and the kind. Having a research journalist like Harish along with an established author like Vasudhendra in the group was a great experience. Arun & dean with their wast experience in the trekking domain kept me latched to their discussion most of the time.
    After our lunch we decided to visit the temple of Shishileshwara on the way back to Dharmasthala. Balu called up a Jeep from Shishila to the place and we got it. After bidding the family that had taken such a good care about us, we dumped our luggage on the roof of the jeep and set out on the way to the temple. In about 25 minutes we reached the temple.

    Shishila got it name from the temple here. The deity here is Shishileshwara. This temple is beside the river kapila. A lot of folklore may be associated with this temple and the river. There are a lot of fishes in the water here. They are a feast for the eyes to watch. The devotees get along with them rice and puri to feed them (you can get them at the rice and poori in the temple premises itself in case you have not got it.)
    Some time back there was a very bad accident that caused the death of a numerable number of these fishes; some one had poisoned the fishes to increase their fish catch or something like it. In memory of this incident a memorial with the sculpture of fish has been erected near the temple. The fisheries department has also banned any fishing or the sort in the 2 km radius of the temple.
    The last bus from Shishila towards Dharmasthala was at 4:30pm, we thought it might be at 4:00pm and reached the stand half an hour early. We climbed the bus that was right on time and we climbed it with all our big bags and stuff. We reached Dhar
    masthala at 6:00pm, went to the temple after having our evening tiffin. We returned to the bus-stop waiting for our bus, it was destined to leave at 10:30 pm. We reached Bangalore in the wee hours to get back to work, after a couple of days of hard trek all of us got back to work, and our routine.

  • The Green Route – Sakleshpura Railway Line trek

    It has been a long time since I have trekked on this route… almost 2 yrs. I shall try recollecting as much as I can and write down… I don’t recall the exact date of this trek, but just remember the month – Dec, 2005.
    It was just after our last exam of the 7th sem, that we chose to go on this trek. I had a function the day after the trek so wanted to do just 1 day trek, while others wanted to complete a two day one. PJ had just been to this trek around 3 weeks before and had shared the snaps and the route info with us.
    We got a printout of the route, some shopping followed to purchase the food items and stuff. We had enough for store for two days. We set out from our college to the Mangalore KSRTC bus-stand and wanted to reach Donigal.
    We climbed a semi-luxury bus. The seats were rather empty, so it was more than a semi-luxury for us…. some of us stretched ourselves to occupy the full seats and enjoy the luxury of Sleeper coach!!!
    Well after about some 4 hours journey we reached the famous “Picnic” hotel. It was a cold winter night, and in the ghat section it made the cold even chiller. We immediately reached out for a cup of coffee at the road side tea-stall, besides the Picnic. In the cold night we I could see a busy vendor showing off his prowess in swinging the tea/coffee from a tumbler into a bigger container and then back… The passing buses would stop beside the tea stall; the drivers would resume their driving after a cup of tea.
    We were about 9 people in number on this trek. Some first timers some experienced… a nice mix. We had PJ’s blog of the trek with us… and took that as our reference. We asked the tea vendor for directions to the rail station (Donigal Railway station). This was to be our starting point. The blog told us, we had to walk back by the road about 2kms to find a temple.

    We set out form the hotel, with torches in our hand and flashing it up all along the road, we moved towards the destination… a bridge to be more specific from where we could get to the station. We waked around a couple of kms from the hotel and spotted another small hotel beside the road… we continued on the road side to reach a small falls… we got down to feel how the water was in there – shivering cold… eee….

    We then resumed our walk by the road side… we just took note of the distance we had covered, it was around 4 kms so we thought we might have lost the critical turn, it would be better we ask for some guidance… so we walked back to the small hotel that we had noticed. There was no power in there, just some candle light and we got in to have our second cup of tea/coffee.

    He told us that we were on the right track, just that you had to go a bit further from the point were we decided to return, we took a break of around half an hour here and then decided to continue our search, we got to a small temple first after retracing along the highway. We just went a bit further as directed by the hotel owner and we got a mud road, we continued on but that road seemed to go to an estate, so we got back to the temple and two of us decided that we would go a bit further, check if we had some way to reach the rail track a bit further down the road.. We got a bit further spotted an asphalted road that would take us to the railway track, we got back to inform the others,… All of us got back to the road and decided to have a small nap before we would continue the trek early morning the next day.

    At around 5:30 am, just waited for the light to improve, so that we could start off on the trek. We started off at around 6:15 when the light was sufficiently good so that we could spot the rails clearly. A small distance ahead we came across the first bridge, it was my first experience crossing a bridge, I think I had a small problem with heights so chose to cross them slowly and cautiously. Once we crossed the bridge, I gained in confidence and then rest of the journey was not much of the problem. We got down in to the stream that flowed below the bridge, did freshen up a bit; then we got back to the track. We continued on the rail road, some time later, we found the sun making its presence for the day. We were quick to click a couple of pictures and then continued on the track. It was a very nice experience with the morning due just subsiding, the sunlight cutting through the mountains and then getting to the rail track, occasionally spotting other trekkers, who were in a hurry to finish the trek.

    We continued at our own pace and reached the first common rest place of trekkers, it was beside an old junction room if I am right, A stream flows wide at this point and it looks too neat…think there was some construction work as well at that point of time. We decided to continue a bit further, we notices a net covering the slope of the mountain… typically done to prevent the mud slide down to the track during rains, on the opposite side it was a boulder that was cut through to make the rail line. We tried our hand on some Spiderman like stunts, and then picked up a few snaps of the place. We continued on the track further, we got to meet the first tunnel… this was one of the smallest tunnels that we would get along the trek. Just after the 1st tunnel we get an opening, we have a small opening in the thick bush cover on the right side, we had been informed by PJ that in between the 2nd and third tunnel we could spot a falls, and may be we could get down to the falls immediately after the first tunnel. Through the small opening we got down and reached the stream, a small walk upstream from the point we reached the falls, it was a nice one to visit, not many people come down to watch this falls, so its neat…. Some of us got down to have some fun in the water, while I decided to take a nap on the rock side… after an hour of rest we decided to continue on the trek… we completed our breakfast at the same point and then got back to the rail road…

    Then there was nothing much along the route, it was more of a repetition of the scenic beauty. I for one felt bored by the same repetitive… it was more of the stoned track the killed my interest, I had not got along shoes and was trekking with my leather sandals so it was making it all the more painful. Well all that aside…

    We continued on the journey after the first tunnel….a couple of tunnels and then we were again on some nice clear railroad… Think that spot might have been used for filming some time. Just a bit further and then we decided to take a break again, this time to do some good photography, a neat job by some of our team members… and then we continued on the trek… A nice trek along the railroad with the stream flowing along side… the birds singing their morning raga’s to entertain the trekkers, I felt like paradise in those morning hours… We continued on the trek, initially it was nice to take note of a lot of scenery, along side the track, some nice cool breeze, the walk through the dark tunnels and then back on to the rail road occasionally encounter a bridge over some stream, It began to bore me after some time… The sun increasing the heat was just adding to the already bore trek (personally).

    We continued on the same lines and the only enjoying part for me was the small falls all along the route… it was around 11am when we decided to take a small rest along the road, that’s when we heard the rail blow a horn; We were surprised to hear it, as it was unexpected. As the horn got closer, we were on the on look with high curiosity, it turned out to be a goods train to transport the rail roads for the gauge widening that was being done… The train passed bye and we crossed another bridge, we decided to take a break for our lunch here. An hours break and then we decided to continue the trek. Our team slowly started to feel the heat and we broke down into groups, I was in the lead and in a bit of hurry coz I had to reach Udupi by 8:30pm.

    We all gathered just before a huge repair site along the route, I transferred the food packets to the group which I had carried till then on my back and just collected some chocolates and a water can to continue ahead….

    From now on it was a lone trek for me at my own pace, I was quick when I felt like and moderate when I felt tired, the only point that was in my mind was reaching Edakumeri at the earliest. My deadline for it was 4pm.

    Along the route, I encountered the first longest bridge, It was more that 400 mts in length and much taller than the others that I had seen earlier, I could spot a lot of trekkers along the route, who had broken up to have their lunch and enjoy some time in the stream, I just stood there to pick up a few snaps and then continued on with my journey, it was quite nice doin this part of the trek all alone, I could devout as much time as I wanted where I wanted. A bit further I got to be in the longest tunnel of the journey to Edakumeri, all along the tunnel it was pitch dark, could not see the other end of it, water dripped through the roof of the tunnel. Bats would occasionally fly across, the tunnel was almost empty and I could hear my footsteps and the echo that it generated… All I had was a torch that was to take me through the dark tunnel. Just as I crossed a couple more tunnels, I met the train driver who was busy getting the rails down beside the track to get them replaced. I asked the distance to Edakumeri station… he told it would take at least an hour to reach there, its around 4 kms from there, It was already around 3:20 and I wanted to reach Edakumeri at the earliest. I decided I would not waste time picking snaps and just concentrate on walking quicker to the station. Another 30 min of walk and I found a small stream, may be a falls, just met a an old guy here and enquired about Edakumeri, he told its jut five minutes away, this got more enthusiasm into me to get to the station…

    Edakumeri station is an old station… I could spot an old radio station may be used to get information from else where about the trains reaching on time, some problems and things like that… I just sat down for about 5 minutes, before asking directions to reach the NH.

    Some one showed me a small mud path down the forest and told me, you will find a stream, cross over the stream and you will reach a road, just go by the road and then u will reach another river… cross it and you will get to the NH. I followed the direction and reached the small stream in no time, reached the mud road, it was nice fun, I got meet this road at a bifurcation, one going uphill and the other down hill, I chose the down hill one… just that I could spot some shoe trails on the sod, It was nice guess but a right one… around 10min down an I could spot the river and the NH beside it. I found a couple of trekkers who were crossing over the river – KempuHole.

    I too joined them in crossing over… they were to reach Bangalore, and me to get back to Udupi. I waited for a bus but got to know that there was no bus-stand there and had to go to Gundia to catch one… I was heart broken at the thought that I had to go walking another 10 kms to reach the Gundia stop. I kept waving to passers by just in case some kind soul would give me a drop, my persistence paid off, A mo-bike driver stopped for me and asked my were about and enquired where I had to go… having ascertained that I was no naxal or some thing like it he told me he would drop me to Dharmasthala. I heaved a sigh or relief. He took me to Dharmasthala in an hour from the spot where I had stopped him, God bless the kind soulJ.

    From Dharmasthala I caught a bus to Beltangadi, then another one from Beltangadi to Karkal, it was around 7pm and had a nice nap in these buses, my bus to Udupi was at 7:25 having missed the earlier one by 5 min, It took around an hour to reach Udupi, and I had a nice nap in it as wellJ. Finally I had reached Udupi,

    It was real experience truing to keep up the time… will remember it for a long time to come no doubt about it.

  • Mulliangiri – 2

    I had other trek plans, but did not find company as all others quit at the last minute. I asked Rajesh if I could join them at the last minute. Fortunately I could get in with them. It would be my second trek to Mulliangiri.
    I met up with Rajesh and co. for the trek at the KSRTC bus stand. We got a small intro about each other before we got into the bus. Once in the bus, we started interacting with each other and then went on to sleep. The bus was to ChickMagalore. We reached ChikMagalore at around 4:30am. I recalled that the first bus was at 7:00 a.m. (from the last experience) and told it would be better searching for an alternate mode. We had our coffee at the hotel in the Bus Stand and then finished our morning wash there.
    We then set out in search of a mode of transport, some suggested taking auto’s to the place… but all of us wanted to go together, so we searched for a Jeep or a Sumo. We finally got one, and after some discussion over the price, the driver agreed to drop us at the “SarpaHadi entrance.”
    We unloaded our luggage… just looked around and then after some 15 min started our trek from the Sarpahadi. This time over the climate was much better. We started some time after the sun rise and it was a nice time to begin with. Once on serpentile route to the peak… take most of the turns to the left than the right this will take you to the peak more easily. We did loose our route for some time but then we got back to the main foot trail that would take us to the peak. We climbed slowly but steadily.
    As we trekked to higher altitudes, the view got panoramic; we could spot villages in the distance when clouds did not cover them up. Just a bit higher and we found the milk white clouds came in to speak with the mountains; it looked like a sea of milk. We were fortunate enough to be above the clouds so it was clearly visible for us. The sun was just above these clouds as well – it was like the sun had opened the door of the cloudy house and just come out to do his days duty. This view is sure to make anyone happy – a really good one.
    As we continued our uphill trek we found the rain clouds gathering nearby. We reached the peak in about 1 hours climb. The rain clouds were making the winds chillier. Some of us were a bit quicker than other and so we reached a small shelter where we waited for the others behind.. All of us got together and then we continued again till we reached the “Nandi temple” We took some food there and then continued till we reached the caves – yes caves just below the temple at the peak.
    The last time I had been to the peak I did not attempt entering deep into the cave, this time I had company and so decided to explore them. We split our self into 2 teams and went exploring with torches in our hand. One of the caves is deeper while the other one is not all that deep. We found bats in there. We picked up some snaps there. The caves had patterns of sediments that had gathered in over the years. They looked really beautiful. For a moment I felt I had seen then patterns of Jupiter there, they were so similar in look.
    After the cave expedition we got out to have our breakfast. We find water in the temple premise so we can use this place to wash our selves… but its going to be very cold out here. One of our companions Raghavendra had brought chapattis with him, and we were busy eating them. We got our FM mobile hand set and we could here the FM channels from Bangalore… in fact more clearly than we can hear in Bangalore. We took some time off before we continued.
    We resumed the trek after a break of about 1 hour. The clouds got denser now, but not yet like the last time I had been to this peak. The course was the same; we wanted to reach the road, as I had done this trek earlier… I could guide them on the correct path. I remembered the place where we had faltered the last time and so could easily trek the correct route. We got down from the peak and walked through the small flowery plants. There plants were purple in color and bloom once in twelve years, we were very happy to get a sight of the vast mountains in the surrounding all of whose peaks were covered with these flowers. We stood in between these flowers and picked up some real nice snaps and then continued on our trek.
    We reached the Vivekananda Statue View point at around 12 noon. We took a brek here and looked at the awesome surrounding view. All of us decided to continue on to BabaBudangiri (DattaPeetha) form here.
    Now comes the most exciting part of this trek for me, we had heavy luggage along so when we hat to get into the bus that was bound to the BabaBudan Peak, we had trouble getting in… We chose to get over the top of the bus and enjoy this ride. All of us got over the bus with the entire luggage. It was a first time for all of us and it was just so thrilling.
    The winding roads, the view we could get of the valley, the far off peaks, and the people on the way, the turns the bus used to make on the winding roads all this increased the excitement of being on the top of the bus. We almost fell off the roof at some of the curves but it was still some excitement in all that.
    Around 30 min of roof top journey from the bus and we reached BabaBudanGiri. BabaBudan was instrumental in getting the coffee seeds to this coffee land -> great work man!!! Well now this is a controversial place… This place is held sacred by both Hindus and Muslims so generally there is tension that prevails during the functions… When we reached this place there were some preparations for “Datta Male” functions.
    We reached this pace some and had our lunch packed at a small hotel there, and carried on our trek futher. From this place we decided to go to a nearby falls – “Manikya Dhara”. We decided to trek till the falls, and may be spend the night there and trek the next day to “Kemmangundi”. Well but as God would have it, he decided to make the weather bad. It started raining really heavily and we decided to cancel the trek to “Kemmangundi” and get back home.
    We had carried along the tents to pitch for the night as well and erected them, but then all that went a waste. We had to pack up. We had pitched the tent beside a tree, and a lake… The bad weather just made the look very beautiful; it’s been a memorable scene. I think the lake had some special significance, a lot of devotes used to come there and dropping something in to the lake and then leaving it… We had our lunch besides this lake and then some of us went further to look at the “ManikyaDhara Falls” from the lake. When we reached there we were struck by the changes that had been done to this Natural falls.
    All the naturalness of this beautiful falls seems to have been lost, there are steps built to get to the base of the falls, some sort of reservoirs to hold the water that falls so that people can have a bath there – Another surprising custom I found there was that, the dress in which you wet yourself at the falls is thrown out into the deep abyss that is in front of the falls. I don’t get the point as to how these clothes get disposed? Are they burnt are they left as it is? I don’t know… I some what was not happy with this setting. We have a small view point on the way to the falls from were we can actually get a nice view, but unfortunately due to bad view we could not sight anything. The place has been commercialized a lot – a lot of shops, a lot of plastic all around…. don’t feel comfortable some how.
    We got some water filled front he waterfalls and started on our way back, we reached the camp that we planned and then decided we would get back. We reached the BabaBudan stop in at around 5:15pm. The bus started at 5:30 pm and we reached ChikMagalore in about
    an hour and a quarter.
    Surprisingly the climate of this town was normal, when compared to the bad weather of the BudaGiri Peak… Well it may be due to the altitude. We rested in ChikMagalore for our dinner and then set back to Bangalore….
    This was a memorable trek for me considering the But roof ride, the climate change that occurs, the cloud and sun view that I got in the morning, The serene lake – beside which we camped for some time… really an everlasting memory.

  • ArasinaGundi

    Arsinagundi Falls – In kannada Arsina means “Turmeric” Gundi means “Ditch”. I came to realize why this falls is called “ArsinaGundi” or rather “The ditch of Turmeric (a color that is a mix of orange and yellow)” only after reaching the falls. The water falls from a height of nearly 50 ft and make a small pond there. This is a west facing falls, so when the sun gets past the afternoon mark, we can definitely expect the rays to spilt and form rainbows all around the pond. Every different angle will make the view look different, the colors that are seen will vary, but the most prominent of the colors that we can find there is in the “YOR – Yellow, Orange, Red” region of the spectrum that’s the reason for the name… Nice isn’t it?
    Well I was on this trek as a plan for the next trek that I was organizing to Kodachadri in Jan. My cousin and I were the only two people on the trek. We set out from our native place… some 10km from Udupi at 645 a.m. We reached Udupi and then caught a bus that would take us to Kundaapura. We reached Kundaapura at 8:15 and waited for a bus to the famous temple town of Kollur. The journey to Kollur was around an hour (a bit more) from Kundaapura. Once in Kollur we decided to catch a bus to – “Kodachadri cross” from Kollur. This is around 10 km from Kollur.
    Kodachadri cross is an entry point of a trekking route – to the Kodachadri Peak. We got down at the Kodachadri cross and then started the trek towards the “Mallu” hotel (hotel Santosh) on the way to the peak. It took around 45 minutes for us to reach the Hotel. We had some coffee and “Puttu” at the hotel and asked the route to “ArsinagunDi.” He gave us directions but not everything registered in my brain so asked him if we could get a guide… He asked to enquire with one of the people assisting him there and then go ahead.
    We spoke with the two people working there and one of them agreed to come along with us. He took us into the forest, I am sure that if just has taken the directions and moved on my own I would have got lost. He guided us for some 45 min into the forest and told us.. not to take any deviation and then you will get a route that will take you to the falls. We thanked him and paid a small amount to him and then continued on.
    We trekked for another 1 hr on the route he directed us and then we got a small board indicating a route to the “ArsinaGundi falls”. We took that route and some 20 minutes on the route and into the forest we reached the falls. Both of us were just too pleased to see the falls, our fatigue disappeared immediately. We were tired but the very sight of the falls was enough for us to forget all that… I went about taking some snaps while my cousin stood there enjoying the beauty of the falls.
    We had brought some food from our home, we sat bu the falls, washed our hand and then continued on.. to the route that takes us to Kodachadri. We set out on this route and an hours trek though the forest we reached the asphalted road connecting Shimoga and Kodachadri.
    This point is some 1.5 kms from Kollur temple. We reached Kollur at around 5:00pm. The last bus to Udupi was at 5:30-5:45pm.
    We took that bus to Udupi and reached at 8:45. It was a nice trek; both of us had seen one of the best falls in our life. Every time I recall about this trek it fills my heart with happiness.
    The falls is worth a visit, please keep the place free of plastic and non-degradable covers; this will keep the place worth a visit…. for a long time to come.

  • Seetha Falls, Agumbe, Barakan View Point

    I am always on the look out for falls. The last time I visited Seetha falls, I had seen a narrow stream making a falls far off. I wished I could know more about it. I went back to hostel and did a small research to find out that the small falls was called Barkana fall.
    As usual we set out from college in 3 bikes; we set out early aroung 6:00 A.M. from the college and reached Karkala, then we took a route from Karkala that would take us to Hebri. We reached Hebri at around 7:30 am. We had out breakfast in a hotel near the bus stand and then packed some food to be taken up for the trek.
    We set out from Hebri toward Someshwara, on the way we get a place called SeethaNadi – (The place is named after the river (Nadi in kannada means River) – Seetha that flows past this place). We see an Arch on the right side, thatz the route that you have to take… It’s around 10kms from here and we reach a bridge, you can cross the bridge in a 2 wheeler but not a four wheeler. We crossed this one and then reached the falls.
    The falls was as usual at its best, dropping from a height of some 60 feet and making a very nice falls. It has a large lake in front of it, nice cold water in it, and a nice place to rest and have a chilling bath. You can swim here, but make sure you are good at swimming….
    I took a small break from the group and wandered into the wilderness nearby… to look if I can find the origin of the falls… I only found a level above the falls and then came back.
    We set out from the falls at around 12 noon, had our lunch at a bus stand that had a borewell nearby. After having our lunch we decide to go to the Agumbe and then to Barkana. We reached Agumbe and got the permission from the police station to enter into the forest – There is a naxal problem in these areas and its needed that we inform the police about any activity that we find in the forest.
    Having acquired the permission we set out on the bikes towards the Barkan, around 3 Km into the forest and we reach the Barkana View Point… I cherish the memories of this view point – the view of the lush greenary, the wild vegetation, the sea far way, the surrounding mountains, the barkana falls at a distance… All this makes it more special than the Agumbe View Point. I wish I make the Narsimha Parvatha Trek some time that will take me through the barkana falls… Am waiting… let me see if I can do it some time.
    We spent nearly an hour at the view point and then got back to Agumbe. We had our tiffin there and then went to the view point to wait for the sunset. We had a splendid sunset – one of the memorable ones in my life… We got down Agumbe and then back to College via Hebri, Karkala, Padubidre… We had our dinner at the very famous “Sonu Dhaba” and then got back to hostel.
    Personally I feel not all that exciting trip except for the time spent at – Barkana, Seetha Falls, and the Agumbe Sunset….

  • Tadiyandmol trek (Dec 9th and 10th, 2006)


    I have been trekking from a long time, but this trek has been first in a number of ways. Following are a few:

    • This is the first time I am blogging my experience.
    • Going on an organised trek and not as a solo trekker
    • My cooking food on the trek
    • An innovative plate used for having our tiffin (a huge banana leaf)

    I had heard a lot about the Tadiyandamol trek from my other trek friends, and was in a way craving to go. My last trek before the Tadiayandamol, was to Mulliangiri – back in September.

    This was the first organised trek that I had been to, Arun the person who runs RHM (Rambling Holiday Makers) was my “orkut” friend. This trek had been organised by RHM. We where 10 members for his trek – Arun, Subbu, Saravan, Venu, Srikanth, Shushruth, Praveen, Vinay, Satwik, and myself (Sachi) . We all had to met up on the 8th at the KSRTC, bus stand at 9:45.
    We all where from diffrent places from bangalore. All except Arun were Software Professional. Arun is a Jounalist, and an avid trekker.

    Trek Plan was as follows:
    travel from Bangalore to Virajpet, in KSRTC bus.
    Day 1:
    travel in a local bus from Virajpet to Kakabe (actually we have to get down around 1 km before the actual town of Kakabe)
    trek to base camp some 6km – on the way visit to a old palace.
    then trek to Madanadabbi near Tadiyandamol.
    trek back to base camp
    trek from base camp to Tadiyandamol trek.
    night trek back from Tadiyandamol peak to base camp
    Day 2.
    trek from Base camp to Kakabe
    travel to Chelvara Falls
    travel back to Virajpet
    travel back to Bangalore

    We all reached KSRTC bus stand at around 10 pm, completed our first round of introduction. We went to platform number 6. From here we got into the bus that was scheduled to leave at 10:30 pm. We all set out breaking the ice (most of us did not know about each other earlier.) and by the time the bus set out delayed by 15 min we where in our own deep discussion about our intrests and all those stuff, slowly we all slept.

    The bus reached Virajpet quite early (at 4:30a.m.) We all got our self settled in the KSRTC bus stand at Virajpet. Some of us dozed off for another session of sleep, before sunrise and we start off with the trek, others just held on to crack PJ’s make and then making calls back home. We also finished out daily chores before 6:30 am.

    We started off to have our morning tiffin, we went to a hotel some distance away; had our tiffin and browzed through a magazine that had some pics of the falls, and the trek that we where going to enjoy in the next 2 days. We had some Uppit (its a local version of pudding is it??)
    and Idli (the boiled rice cake), the taste was very nice one.

    Geared up we left the hotel to the juntion from where we get private bus that would take us to Kakabe. The journey is around 45 min to 1 hour, after which we reached a small bus stand. We have a distance diplay board that gives the distances from this bus stop to the near by major towns.

    With a fromal introduction before the start of the trek, and a set of “code of conduct” to be followed in the wild being given we began our trek. We were also given a packet of dates that would serve the purpose of “emergency food” in case we ran out of food and needed an instant release of energy. (Some people had completed this as any other food once they got it – and some also had a nice competition in nibling these away.)

    We started of on our actual trek from the bus-stop, out first stop was to be at a palace, some 3km from the start of our trek. We walked along slowly, and steadily watching the nature, its beauty that doesn’t seem to be present in busy cities. Just this clean and fresh air is enough to make us healthy. We had some photo sessions, some attempts to get the Spider web by me, with the new camera that I had purchased some days back turned out to be flop (I was just trying out the variour options so that I get to know my camera better. ) Vinay on the other hand never gave up, and photographed a spider in his Camera – good pic Vinay.

    This 3km trek was majorly though the road that passed through the coffee plantations that are so very abundant in this Coffee land of “Coorg” (also known as Kodagu). We reached the Palace, which had a school nearby. We found some school children waiting for their teacher there having fun. We entered into the palace, that was under maintenance at that time. We took some pics there and then moved on. I could hear a stream flow near the school, I dont think it was making some huge falls, but ya the sound quite audible from a distance.

    We started off further ahead after the palace, and trekked for about 3km more, before we reachd the forestguard’s house. There are 2 small streams that cross the road after the falls. After the second stream, a little uphill climb along the Jeep track will take us to a Y cross (One to the left, one going staight ahead, and the other the one we came). This junction is a nice sceninc spot. To go to the Tadiyandamol peak we have to take the left road, this is the same route that also takes us to the Forest guard’s home. The forest guard’s home was a small little cottage, which was built in the middle of some mixed varites of trees, I cant say it was just wild growth, around the house but it was nice vegetation near the house ( wish I could stay in such a house 🙂 ). We all rested for some 45 min at that place.

    We set out from the forestguard’s house to the Falls called Madanadabbi, this is around 20 min trek from the house. We went to the top of the falls, and tried descending as far as we could. We all stoped at the point where we could not descend further the falls. The falls, was a beautiful one. The point we stopped was the edge of the falls from where the falls made a fall of around 200ft (that is my wild guess). The surroungings were very scenic, we rested there for around 20 min, took photographic memories and then where back on the track to reach the forest guard’s house. After around 30 min we where at the house, waiting for our food to be ready, once ready we all where immediately at it :-). After food we took as small nap for aroung 15 min before we decided to keep all our belongings, in the spot where we would spend the night (Arun already had the informed, the forest guard & his family that we would be coming to stay at the small rooms that where there a little distance away from the forest guard’s house). We dumped our luggage here and then did some repacking of the materials that we would need for the trek to the Tadiyandamol peak (this was a 4km trek if I guess it right.) We filled in abundant water, as we knew that we would
    not get water as we neared the peak.

    We all set out slowly an steadily to the peak. The trek was initially via a jeep route, which later converged into a small foot trail. This then continued through some wild growth for a small distance, after which it opened up into a clear plateau. All along the side we (Vinay and me) would have some awesome scenary and where busy taking the pics.

    Ya, one funny part I would like to tell you. Before we started off on the trek we had decided that we would do a late evening-early night trek back to our base camp. We just wanted to ensure that we would not encounter elephant herd while we where returning, so we asked the lady in the forest guard’s home, if she had any information about the elepahant activity reported. There came a funny reply (excuse me if u loose some fun in the translation, but it was just unressistably funny :)) ) – “There are no elephants now, but there is a tiger, don’t worry it will run off if it sees you” [The fun!! do we city hunks look so dreaded??, well not actually, the tiger is a lone hunter and a shy animal. It generally plans its attack (the point is that if it attacked it would attack on the last being as far as possible.) ]. Srikanth was the last person while we where getting down from the trek and we would call his name to ensure that we was not carried away by the tiger :). Subbu was feeling bad that he could not look into the eyes of any tiger all through the trek. The moment the lady made the statement, Vinay was out with his typical “aBbba” and a peculiar face – oh what a moment!!.Thanks Tiger for all the fun.

    Till the open patch my intrest was mostly captivated by the serene and beautiful mountains to the right (on the way up), then slowly the scenic mountainic beauty, shifted to the left. We could hear a stream flow towards our left. There was a large boulder besides which some trekkers do pitch for the night. Its a nice place to camp as it has a natural water source near by.
    Just then we realised that we had a buffalo (domesticated one) staring at us (who are these, crazy ppl tresspassing my territory!!!! – that was the expression). We continued ahead cousiously, ensuring that we did not provoke it to attack us. It realized that we meant no harm to it and went ahead to join its heard.
    We continued out trek ahead, Venu and Satwik where begining to get tiered so we just slowed down our pace (myself and Vinay were at the end as we where trying to get some good photos at each location that we spotted.). At that moment, I dont exactly know why but I recalled some dialogues form a “Yakshagana”(the local folk dance drama of Karnataka) and started giving some entertainment to the group that was climbing. We were left behind by Srikanth, Subbu, Saravan, Praveen, Sushruth who did not wait to take many snaps as they wanted to reach the peak as early as possible, others were with us till then. Subbu, was fatigued by the steep climb that he had to do, so he dropped out from the first team and was waiting to join us, to continue.
    Once subbu joined us there was no dearth of PJ’s we would climb a few steps, wait crack some PJ, and then continue with enthu further. We slowly made it to the top. Srikanth and others were wating for us at the peak.

    Praveen who had joined as first time trekker, was not feeling too comfortable(I guess he had overworked himself during the climb.). He later told us that he used all his dates to reach there – he would move some 34 steps (he counted them literally), then eat a date, then continued. He says he doesn’t know how he made it back to the base. We could read he was completely exhausted.

    At the peak, the sun was not yet low, he was giving off a lot of heat – but the altitude seemed to have been cooling the heat. We found a few stones at the peak, which we used as shade, and had a quick nap. Arun was busy replying queries about the height of various mountains. He had the height displayed in his watch!!!.

    We all had a nice little nap, before we got up, and started munching the food that we had carried along to the peak. We made sure we did not leave back any plastic as would spoil the delicate balance that existed in the place. Just as we had completed our stock of food that we had carried along to the peak, We found another group of 3 trekkers who had come to camp at the peak. They where searching for a good place to pitch their tents, they asked us pointing to an open space that had been used by earlier team. We said we would return and not stay at the peak. We continued our wait for the sunset….

    Slowly, the sun started to descend, towards its home for the night. The temperature began to drop. At a distance we could spot some mist formation — thought for a moment, that we would not be able to see the sunset due to the mist. We just began taking pics of the distant mountains, which where looking much more beautiful now. As the sun move down, the yellow sun began changing into an orange ball, we tried a few “gimiks” with the Camera, – as though we would catch the him, eat the him… ha ha. (We are no Hanumans here)

    We took some very beautiful snaps of the sunset, then having made a camera copy of this beautiful sunset, we decided we would have to get as close as possible to the open plateau region before it would get completely dark. We decided Arun would lead the trek, and Srikanth would be the last person. I was just in front of Srikanth. We had decided that the any person must be able to see the Arun, or atleast his immediate front companion just in case the visibility became very bad due to the mist — we did not find any situatation like that.

    We got down the peak as quickly as possible, but not too fast. We were careful not ot injure ourselves on the way back. We had torches to be used on the way back. As we came down to the flat land (reminds me of the book “The world is Flat”), it was completely dark. At a distance we could some lights, may be some city in the distance. Srikanth and I made some wild guess about the city , then just ditched it. Immediately my attention shifted to the sky that had innumerable stars, being in a city like Bangalore the lights in the city would not let us see such a sky 🙁 . This will remain in the memories of all 10 of us for quiet sometime.

    We continued our trek down to the base camp, we did get confused for sometime, but some good memory helped us stay on the track. We finally reached the base camp. We already had the food ready with us . So having the night dinner was not a major issue.

    Arun wanted to make a camp fire, and enjoy ourself for some time. Praveen who was completely exhausted, and had his legs paining immediately got into his sleeping bag and dozed off. After Arun, Subbu made a gallant effort to light up the fire – gosh was not lighting up. I tried my hand along with Saravan’s assistance but could not make much good. The fire did burn for sometime but was not as we expected. We finally decided that we leave it aside and finish our dinner. We had our dinner, then a small round of Pj’s then went to sleep.

    Or base camp was a nice one. We had a sound sleep. Arun wanted some assistance to get the “2 min maggi noodles” to be cooked, I voulanteered. The two of us had real good time, cooking the noodles. It was the first time i had cooked using firewood — I will not forget the experience.. (the 2 min noodles had to have hot water which took more than 1 h
    our to boil, thanks to our in experience with fire wood cooking) Having the noodles ready, we wanted to get our tiffin as quickly as possible. Subbu’s presence of mind struck with an excellent idea of using the large plantain leaf that was readily available in the compound. The experience of sharing this large plantain leaf was a great and a memorable one, for all of us.

    Once done with the tiffin we all got ready to have our adventures for the day.

    Arun asked us we where ready for an exploration, for a lot of us it was the first time. Arun wanted to reach a falls called “Baliyedra” trekking from the base camp and then from there to the “Chelvara falls”. Arun would have taken us to the falls if he could have some assistance from the forest guard’s home, unfortunately for us the forestguard and his family had to go out to some other place.

    Arun took us for a trek into the wild, we where very excited. Arun was in the lead, and Srikanth as usual was to be the last person. We walked through the wild forest, till we reached the open side of the mountain. We could see the Tadiyandamol peak from there. Once in the open, we checked to see if any leeches had climbed on. For many of us it was the first time the leeches had bitten us. (Leeches, reminds me that Srikanth was plannig to tame a few. He loved the leeches, and the leeches loved him as well.)

    Then we took a right and started moving, there was no trail as such, just that we tried finding out or own way. As we moved ahead we realised that, we had made a mistake by taking the right at that junction. The right turn took us to the open place near the Tadiyandamol peak.

    We all quickly decided that we would choose to goback to Kakabe and from there tavel by local bus to “Cheyannane” (I may have got the spelling wrong, but its something similar…). At one point we did contemplate about going to Kannor in Kerala, then travel from there to Virajpet, it was ruled out as the village that we had to pass through would be completely blocked by the local function (I think it was Huttari).

    On the way back, I challenged Arun to test if he could hold a “dry grape” in his mouth, for the trek to Kakabe. It was a nice challenge- he could do it. Arun, Shushruth and myself reached Kakkabe first — actually we wanted to see if could reach before a stipulated time that we had set. It finally turned out that we could do it with much ease. We reched the small bus stand and waited for the others to turn up. We rested in the shade of the bus stand. In about half an hour we had all the people come. We had some small, food packets that we had packed, we had them.
    In a short while after our mini lunch, we found a bus that would take us to “Cheyyanane”. Praveen was completely exhausted, and opted to stay back. Arun did some emergency damage control and insted of trekking to the “Chelvara falls” we decided to go by the jeep.

    The jeep journey was exciting, infact Venu was always wanting to stand on the foot stand of the jeep. I calls it “Safari style Jeep Drive” haha this one was no safari drive, though the road was dusty, it was though coffee plantations.

    The driver dropped us to a place from where we could reach the falls. This beautiful falls is inside an estate. The main porition of the falls is around 20-25 feet in height. It forms a nice reservoir, that is very inviting to swim. Note, that the depth of this small reservoir that is formed is not uniform, and not advisible if you are not a good swimmer.
    I took photos of the falls in every possible angle (thatz the way it is called when you take a large number of photos!!! – water falls are my crush). We spent about 1 and half hour at the falls before we set back in the Jeep.

    We reached Cheyyanane, had our lunch in a small hotel there. We then went to the bus stand after our lunch. Sat there and waited for the bus that would take us to Virajpet. In the mean time we all exchanged our experiences about the trek. It was nice noting each others experiences in the trek.

    We waited a long time, finally we climbed the bus. It took around 45 min to reach Virajpet. We spent some time at the KSRTC bus stand, then had a good dinner at a hotel. We reached back to the bus stand and finally waited. Once the bus came in we all climbed. I sat beside Venu. I think I might have given him an over doze of some adventure that I had earlier (I had lost my route on a trek to Bandaje abbi, and had literally survived the night to reach out safely).
    Ok thatz all about this trek, will hit back with some old treks details the next time.

  • Kadambi, Sutanabbe(Hanumanagundi), Shringeri, Sirimane and Chatnamane falls

    Kadambi, Sutanabbe(Hanumanagundi), Shringeri, Sirimane and Chatnamane falls

    After Virasat-2004 we were all in a mood to enjoy and so planned a trip to Sirimane and Shringeri. The places for this trek were common spots for the class trips and so the population of our members was minimal. We were around 30 members.

    As usual we chose to start out around 6 am and left NITK in a luxury bus (2+1 seater). Our first destination after the breakfast was Hanumanagundi. We had our breakfast at a hotel in Padubidre were we spent around 45-50 minutes and then headed towards Hanumanagundi. We received the information that the falls would open at 9 am at the forest check post.

    The Kudremukh range has a splendid view of the South Canara district while we were climbing the winding roads, till we reached S.K. Border where we have a sight seeing spot. We could not get down here as parking vehicles there was prohibited(you can always do if you have a 2 wheeler). We then took the path which leads us towards Kudremukh to go to Hanumanagundi. When we reached there we were early, so decided to go a little further (approx 7 km) from here where we had a road side falls namely Kadambi. Here no one got down to enjoy at the falls, all of us stood on the bridge picking up photos to keep this road side falls in memory for longer time. The bus in the mean time went a little further and came back having changed its direction. Kadambi falls is used by people for trick photography and few of us gave a try at it. Meanwhile, one of our members had got along with him a special invitee who was too hungry (leech). This leech is a parasite which sucks in blood and then slowly falls off, but its saliva prevents blood clot immediately and the person looses a lot more blood. Then after spending a total of 35 minutes here we got into the bus and went towards Hanumanagundi. The entry fee here is Rs 30/- per head. A few of us did not get down here as they had already seen the falls. The others got down here. The people who got down enjoyed themselves for about 45 minutes without realizing the leeches trying to feed on them and finally when they came up to the bus they had got along with them a lot of leeches. The people who remained back took a stroll of about 2 km down the road and reached a place with very good scenic beauty. They did not have a camera with them and hence could not get any snaps. The bus took off from Hanumanagundi at around 11 am and on the way back we tried taking the scenic snaps from within the bus. We reached Shringeri around 12:15 pm. We spent some time around Shringeri before we had our lunch at the temple. We were joined here by our guide who would lead a few of our interested members to a new falls (Chatnamane) for the NITK trek freaks. After having our lunch at the temple, we left Shringeri towards Kigga (around 10 km from here) from there we would trek 4.5 km to reach Sirimane falls. We reached Kigga around 2 pm and started our trek. When we reached Sirimane it was around 3:15 pm and a lot of batches came even later. Almost all of them got into the water to refresh themselves after this long and tiring trek. Few of us even tried climbing the steep walls of the falls to reach towards the top of this falls. Another family had also come in to enjoy the falls. We played along with the tiny kids who had come with them. Few of us had nasty falls trying various pranks and stunts. We had nice photography club member using a camera with improperly loaded photography film. This proved most of our stunts a waste of time. We took snaps before trekking back to the old temple at Kigga (of Ramayana fame). Some of us took a break with cool drinks, tender coconuts before getting all the members to climb the bus.

    Two of our members who had seen Sirimane earlier and interested in finding the new falls went along with the guide towards the Chatnamane falls (around 4 km from Sirimane). The remaining people enjoyed themselves at the Sirimane falls taking snaps, playing in water, fighting with leeches. The two members and their guide spent another 1 hour searching for the falls which they finally reached by great difficulty (thanks to the marshyness of the forest and almost a galaxy of leeches). They reached this new falls around 4:15 pm. This new falls is used by locals for their drinking water supply. The falls is about 1.5 times the height of Sirimane and is narrower than Sirimane by say 50%. They took snaps and started there trek backwards. We reached Kigga at about 5:45 pm with day light fading and a majority of the trip people being bitten by atleast 2-3 leeches. We then set on our journey backwards. Two of our members got down as one of them had to go to Bangalore and the other accompanied him to the bus stand. The remaining of us came back to Padubidre where we had our usual Sonu Dhaba dinner.

  • The Bandajje Abbi – a memorable experience

    The first time I saw this beautiful falls was from GadiKal fort. It looked beautiful and immediately generated an interest in me to go to the falls.
    This is beautiful falls, near BeltangaDi. The name “Bandajje Abbi” literally means Bandajje falls. This falls is some 4 km into the forest from the last house in Bandaje village. Its known for a lot of trekkers getting lost in the wilderness.
    I wanted to see the falls, so 4 of us – Gopi, Muddu, Naveen and I… set out on the 2 motor bikes from our college at an early hour – 6:00 am, of 26th Jan 2005, to be more precise. We made our journey from our college to Beltangadi via moodubidre, we had out morning Tiffin here. We then set to reach Bandajje once we finished our Tiffin. From Beltangadi we have to move to Ujire, from ther we have to go to a village called Mundaje, take a left turn here and then we go to Bandajje village.
    We reached Bandajje at around 9:30 am. We parked our bike at Mr Narayan Gouda’s home. He is a very nice person, gave us some necessary information to proceed. In case you can get a guide from his home there is nothing better than that. We could not get one so we proceeded to go to the falls on our own.
    Just some time after his home we get a deviation, most of the trekkers get lost in their route as they take a wrong deviation here, a assistance from the locals set us on the right path.
    We then thanked the person who came till the last house on the route and continued on in the direction shown. Its around 2 and half hours of trek to the falls, from this point. We started off on the trek expecting we would reach the falls in some 1 and half hours, we continued trekking though the forest we found a peaceful path, there was no disturbance, occasionally we could hear the sound of the waterfall… some birds singing all the way; thatz all we heard and nothing else.
    On the way to the falls we find a lot of small streams criss crossing our path. We don’t have to worry about these. Just continue walking further. We reached the main stream at 12 noon. We took some rest before we started some rock climbing along the stream to get as close to the falls as possible, we did this climbing for some 45 min then we reached a small distance away from the base of the falls. We could see the falls majestic an beautiful right in front of us. All except me had their bath in this stream that was flowing, form this falls on the opposite side we get a panoramic view of Beltangadi, GadaiKal fort and the surrounding areas. We savored this for a while, and then decided to take some rest before we would start trekking back.
    We started to trek back at 1:30 pm, after descending some distance we realized that, none of us recalled the route back to the village. What till then seemed to be an easy trek to do all of a sudden turned into a night mare. We spent some time searching to see if we could get some path in the forest, but when we turn back… it was like – “there is no path, how did we come here then? All the directions look the same”.
    After some time we decided that we can’t do it this way, let’s choose the opposite direction in which we came and expect we reach before dusk. We tried this, but then we only seemed to reach into the deeper part of the Jungle. I was now getting dark (thanks to the tall trees there is a lot of shade, but now the same trees where making our return almost impossible.)
    The other thing that was troubling us was our food reserves, expecting that we could make back by 2pm we had not got packed food along with us, we had 2 liters of water with us when we started back from the falls, but the humidity of the forest was just too high to contain the water within our body… So this was exhausted in no time.
    We realized in some time that it would be impossible to get out before dark, with all the resources we had – the mobile lights!!! (Ah what an alternative???). So we resigned to the fact that we had to spend our night in this dense forest. We came up with a contingency plan… we had to first find a place where we could rest for the night, then have a good sleep so that we could conserve our energy for the next day.
    After some small quest of half an hour, we reached a spot; which we thought was safe (don’t know if it was actually safe.); Gracious God! it was safe at least for that night. Now when I think back upon it.. I look at what all possibilities where there that night (snakes? poisonous scorpions, what about elephants? wild animals like tiger! leopards!!). Our survival that day was a pure chance – no doubts about that.
    It was a full moon that night; we all slept quite early that day 6:30 pm. I am sure we were so tiered that we had to rest; we went into deep slumber almost instantaneously. The location that was chose was a slope region, so we used to slide down and then rest on some plant’s root that was down there. I used to wake up when I hit the root then would realign my position, this continued on till morning 6:00 am.
    I was done with my sleep, and waiting for the other so wake up. I could hear a bird or some thing —> that blew a whistle very close to the way humans whistle. Slowly the sound got more distinct an clear; slowly all of us woke up; for some time all of us believed that, some one had come searching for us… thinking about this we started whistling back, to guide the sound in our direction, the sound came more close, got more clearer. Assuming it to be a human, we shouted out… Its then that we realized it was a bird (definitely non human!!!).
    We waited for some more time at the same place, just to ensure that we had sufficient light to move ahead. Around 7 am we had sufficient light to see around clearly. We not sat for some time and thought what was the option that we had to make it out of this forest maze!( ya a maze, thatz what it was almost – you know you have to get out, but don’t have the route, all sides you find only trees.).
    Naveen was an ace tree climber, we asked him to climb and look if he could spot any village in the distance… No result… So then we had to brainstorm again. We decide that we would go to the nearest peak and try searching for a village from there; once we spot it we would just go down in that direction… come what may!!! (ya, thatz important for us, we don’t want to confuse with the direction.)
    We trekked for some time towards the peak, and lo all of a sudden we hear a phone ring (ah!! at least now we have this hope!!! in case we get lost we can call for help from our friends back in college.). Well we wanted to put in our effort. Ones at the peak we spotted the Bandajje village – having seen it, we said to each other. We know we have the village in that direction, we just have to make sure we follow that direction so that we reach the village.
    We started walking down, some times running down in the slopes, some places we had minor ridges which we slid down, at other places we got down with some creepers that grew around, all the while ensuring that we maintained the direction of the village (we thought this was the only way of our immediate exit from the forest.)
    After 1 had half hour of such a trek down the ridges and slopes we spotted cow dung!! oh and many of them, we continued a little further and found a few foot-routes on the ground, still not worrying about the routes we just continued in the route that was in alignment with our direction.
    At 9:30 we reached a house beside the mud path – we asked them for water, they gave us water but ah!! What is this? We could not swallow even a single drop of water!! yes we had been without water for 7pm the earlier night, so our thoughts were all dry, making it difficult to gulp even water, still we were very thirsty. We just had some water, asked them for direction and then finally landed at Mr Gowda’s home at 10:30.
    We just had some rest and when we told them that we would leave now, they got us some idlis and tea. My thought was almost gone so could not eat many idli’s, but the tea – it was simply superb. I don’t know it was the
    way in which they prepared it or was it because we were damn hungry – It just tasted superb. I have never tasted a much better tea than that one till date.
    After this we, thanked them for all the food and place for parking and bid them adieu.
    We reached college at 1:00 pm. We had missed classes that day, but were happy we reached the hostel safe. After this we had a lot of queries from our friends, about our experience.
    Now when I look back on this incident, a mild shiver runs though my spine… I appreciate the guts we had, the cool head on the shoulders that we maintained, Its a lesson for life. I leant, “how ever sophisticated man might be, he is insignificant in front of nature”. – You just can’t deny this.

  • Dondole and Alekan falls

    Dondole and Alekan falls

    This was the second time in our experience of three and a half years with Spicmacay and its trips that 7 girls had come for the trip. The second years after a successful Aradhana-05 where very enthusiastic to go for a trip.

    Trips are not just a means for enjoyment, they mean much more. Trips work essentially as a team building factor. It helps us understand each other in much informal way and removes out any misunderstandings. It helps the new members to understand the way the senior members coordinate (with each member taking up a special responsibility and performing it so as to make any event a success) among themselves be it interacting with people or searching for something new or even guiding people. Our main aim in organizing this trip was a better 2nd year and 3rd year interaction.

    The Aradhana josh of the second years made around 30-35 people raise their hands when initially the idea of the trip was proposed. This made us organize a second trip in the same academic year. When most of the ground work was done for the trip we found a much lower crowd, probably because of improper communication of the information among the second years. But we later had around 13 boys of second years coming up for the trip. Totally for the trip we were 37 people. Our initial plan was Kemmanagundi but due to administrative problems of the GB warden we had to change our destination to Dondole falls, Charmudighats and Alekan falls.

    We set out from our college at 5:45 am (amazingly with a delay of just 10 minutes). We had a long bus(54 seater, the one out of fashion) with a higly experienced aged driver not willing to go at a speed greater than 40kmph. We had planned our breakfast at Belthangady (at 7:30 am), but thanks to our driver we reached there at 8:15 am where we had breakfast at Hotel Samatha. In the meantime during our journey we were desperately trying to get the cassette player to work fine which finally came true in the hands of a psycho (electrical engineer). Then he was put into complete incharge of that 1942 modelled cassette player. After about one hour we set out towards Dondole falls, along the Ujire-Shimoga highway. At a place called Kakkinje we took a deviation and went in for about 12 km. The remaining approximately 8 km had to be trekked (could have also used a jeep which didn’t strike us initially). We set out on the trek which would last for about 2 hours before finally reaching the stream which made the falls. As soon as people found the water and a little falls sort of thing they started getting into the water and enjoying, till one of our senior member ran all the way and found the actual Dondole falls. Then the other members were lead till this falls via trechorously slippery rocks and sharp boulders. Some of our members were reluctant to go to the main falls considering the danger involved in moving over the rocks (thanks to some handsome suggestions by another member). But most of our members not just reached the falls but also went to its top. Few of our members had nasty falls along the way thanks to the high erosion by the fast currents of the stream during the rainy season. The falls is a splendid one if it was seen during early winter. One sad fact about the falls is that more than 80 percent of the water is deviated by the estate owners against the government rules to utilize it for their individual needs. We picked up snaps of the falls and its surroundings. It was around 12:30pm when we decided to walk back to our initial enjoyment spot where we planned to have our light snacks carried along. We rested after snacks for a while before a quick group photography session. Then decided to walk back and reached the bus it was around 3 pm after a long trek with the midday sun staring from above. When the last group reached the bus it was around 3:30pm. We set out from there without any further delay towards Charmadi. Charmadi range is one of the most scenic in the whole of the Western Ghats. We picked up snaps from the bus of these scenic spots all along the way. Our destination was basically the Alekhan falls. This is a road side falls. It was 4:45 pm when we reached the falls. The driver was very upset for having brought him this long. He was also not willing to let the members get down to the base of the falls, sighting the delay to get down the ghats as a reason. This brought in a difference of opinion between among the senior members and finally a few members (highly interested) got down to view the falls from its base. Finally when we set out from Alekhan it was 5:30 pm. We reached Charmadi at 6:15 pm when we took a small break for tea. We finally set out to Mulki at 6:45 pm. When we reached Bittu it was 8:30 pm.

    All along the way (though with initial delay) we enjoyed the trip, some of us cracking PJs, doing stunts, playing antakshari, overacting.

    The main motive of the trip namely, interaction between the meager count of the 3rd year members and the highly enthusiastic 2nd year members so as to let them function in a better manner during the next academic year was successful to about 80 percent (in a final year members perspective). We final years had a lot of interaction informally with the participating members.

  • Trip to Yana, Murudeshwara and Unchalli falls

    Trip to Yana, Murudeshwara and Unchalli falls

    We had this trip after Aradhana-03. We were very enthusiastic to go for a trip after working as a unit during Aradhana-03 to make it a memorable one.

    We began the trip to Yana around 2:30am in a luxury bus. We were around 30 people including 6 girls for the trip. This was our first trip with SPICMACAY (we were in the 2nd year at that time). We went to Murudeshwara at around 6:00am, our first destination which is an island in the Arabian Sea. It has beautiful temple and large Siva idol along with a few others. This island it has a road connecting it to the mainland and sea elsewhere. After spending about an hour here, around the temple clicking photos and enjoying the scenery. We left Murudeshwar around 7:00am – 7:15am towards Kumta, where we had our breakfast at the Kamat Hotel. We packed the food for out trip here and around 6 members stayed back to carry it when it was ready. The rest were guided to the bus stop from where they went towards Yana in a KSRTC bus which would take them to the point around 4km before Yana. The 6 people got the food packed and left to Yana in the same luxury bus, the bus being too big had to stop around 8kms before Yana. We had to then trek the remaining distance, which took around 2 hours. We reached the temple at Yana in various units depending on our speed. It was then around 11:45am. We went into the temple and the cave behind it.We could not shout around because of the wild bees around the temple. We then picked up snapshots while few others were told the story about the temple’s past. We had our lunch brought along by the food committee which was sufficient to satisfy a small part of our massive hunger.

    We took rest for around half an hour and then started walking back. All along the way we had a tiny stream of water flowing by the road. The nearest hospital was 30kms away so we had to be very careful in playing around. The walking back seem to be more tiring than the earlier one thanks to the sun above our head. Finally we walked back the 8kms (no KSRTC bus at this time) and reached the bus around 2:30pm. After a long walk we refreshed ourself at a small shop near the spot where our bus was parked. We finally left Yana around 3:00pm.

    Our next destination was the Unchalli falls(lushington falls) from here which was around 2 and a half hour journey from here. In the mean time some of us fell asleep after the long trek. We reached the falls around 5:45pm and so could not get down into the water, as it would take a lot of time and the place being isolated had to be left off early. We viewed the falls from the sight seeing spot near the falls, picked the snaps and left the falls unwilling to the bus. Then we came back to the bus and resumed our fun.

    We had our dinner at Kamat Restaurant in Sirsi at around 9:00pm. Resuming our journey after dinner we reached our College around 1:00am with some of us feeling uncomfortable due to the winding roads.

    We had enough fun in the entire bus journey. We were playing antakshari and dancing. We had some mimickries of Upendra, mimickries of some of our lecturers and some famous actors. We tried linking some couples and had fun of it. The josh was everywhere.