SBenegaL

Tag: #thoughts

  • JamalaBad Fort

    Jamalabad fort also called GadiKal kote (more polular amongst the locals) is a old ruins of a fort located off Beltangadi. This fort is around 10 kms from Beltangadi town. The fort is atop a hill, and the trek is all about getting to the peak of the hill.

    We were four people for this trip/trek. It was the first time Anand Pai had decided to try himself for a trek. The other two people for the trek/trip were Naveen and Kotresh. Naveen was an experienced campaigner while Kotresh was a novice not his first trip/trek though.
    We started off as usual from our beloved college (Which is ideally located for a lot of treks) early after “jugad” of 2 bikes.. We left early from college at around 5:45 am with the intension of reaching BeltangaDi for our morning breakfast. Our usual route for treks near BeltangaDi was via HaleangaDi, and then the route to go to MooduBidre then to BeltangaDi. It is a route though some winding roads some nice scenery.. not much of traffic, mostly though villages. A pleasant ride through the road will take us to the main town. Some places the road gets bad due to heavy rains but still a nice journey.

    We reached BeltangaDi around 730 am then had our Tiffin in a hotel – I think the name is “Hotel Samatha” then spent around 1 hr there with some food packing, some fruit juice.. and then back we were on the bikes to continue our journey.

    The fort is around a drive of 20 min or even less, from the town of BeltangaDi. We reach the base of the hill where we have to pay a minimum amount of Rs 30/- to the forest dept who are maintaining the fort… maintain I don’t know what is there to maintain!!!!
    Well the trek is more of a climb on steps rather than any serious climb. The total number of steps is around 1000, but you won’t realize all the steps you just think its ruins or its just rock. Humm… leave that aside… all that matters is the climb.

    The climb starts off with some well maintained steps, and then we slowly start climbing steeper and steeper domains. We see a rock face after some time; we get a nice view of the Kudremukh mountain range from this open rock face. We took some rest here. Anand who was doing his first trek was almost worn out and was making it very slowly this early. Kotresh was also in a similar state. We had some lemons along with us, just gave one each to Anand and Kotresh (Lemons help us conserve our energy…. I don’t know what exactly it does). Kotresh having received the lemon and tasting it was on his feet and running to the top!!! You now know what energy it gives ha ha!!! He did not stop till he reached the peak. After some rest here we enter into a shrub laden region where we just climb following on some foot trails that were left by earlier trekkers. This trail follows though some fort walls, we have to look carefully to realize these things. Some places the rock walls are on the edge of this hill.. you can peep down and you see some place nearly 500ft deep.. If you have vertigo be careful this is just the starting point for you, there are many more to come down the lane. Just don’t worry about the taking pics for now… you will have many more nice spots to take on the peak. Continue on the trail it opens up into another set of steps.. which will take you to the peak. The height of these individual steps is much more than you can expect. On one side you have the rock surface of the fort while on the other you have nothing except a small cut out of the same rock surface… well you see on to you left in the climb and you will have your vertigo no doubt. It’s just that thrilling to go out there. Just imagine what if I slip!! Oh it’s going to be a fall of nearly 900ft to the base of the hill… That thought is surely going to come.

    The specialty of this hill is its isolated from other ranges stands tall and dominant even from a distance. It gives a good view of all the villages in the surrounding. This is the reason why Tippu would have like to build his fort on such a strategic location. On once side you see the Western Ghats, on another you see the vast plains of South Canara. It’s a very panoramic view.

    Continue on with this steps and you will get into the “fort palace” I think this what it is. At the peak you have a small shelter I think served as the palace for Tippu. You also find a have a small pond…guess for storing water from the rains for the palace in olden days.. You can’t get water from the pains no doubt about it. You have an antenna I don’t know which service provider it belongs to… nice thing to have at the top. We had been to this fort just a few days after the rainy season… so the grass had grown to be tall and it was really hard to find any path to look around the fort. We just had some open space and shorter grass at a place so it was mostly there that we spent our time.

    The place is really nice and am sure is a paradise for photographers in case you want some real nice views. Guess the sunset would just be too good. But you have to have nice lights to get down. Early morning gives another nice view with the Sun rise behind the Western Ghats… all this will only make any photographer happy. The Clouds generally kiss this hill and that would give some more nice scenes for them. The white clouds that try to scale the Kudhremukh peak also are a sight to watch. Just too many snaps to click with your camera….. I love it.

    We spent some time at the peak, we had taken nearly 1 and a half hour to climb it… it can be much faster if you have people who have the stamina to climb it in one go. Anand Pai considered this an achievement, this is the first time he had done something like that and still remembers it to this day. He was all high the whole day. We took another 45 min to get down and were at the base of the hill.

    We had completed a nice trek a memorable one for the photographer in me.. I will go back at least for the photos…. Don’t miss it if you are a photographer.
    With all these in memory we set back to college.. it was a fun day out for we four. We came back to our hostels and had a nice nap.. the day’s trek/trip was over and now it was in our memories that all this remains.. Cherish it when I think about it.. Just cherish it……

  • Trip to Karkala, Sita falls, Vonakeabbi falls and Agumbe

    Trip to Karkala, Sita falls, Vonakeabbi falls and Agumbe

    This was a unique trip with the 3rd years pleading the second years to come to the trip with a lot of members giving a lot of insensible reasons. We had booked a mini bus for the trip as the numbers were less. We were around 24 members without even a single girl.

    The planned takeoff of the trip was at 5:45, in which case we would have got a good sunrise at Karkala. Unfortunately, the day being Shivarathri we had to wait for two members (almost infinitely) for about 1 hour and finally began the journey without them at 6:45 am. We then set out towards Karkala on the way we saw the sunrising near the bridge at Mulky. We reached Karkala around 7:50. We visited the Gommateshwara Statue there, picked some snaps had a nice view of the Western
    Ghats     and surrounding villages. We then had our breakfast at Sagar Hotel.

    We left Karkala around 9:00 towards our next destination viz Sita falls(Koodluthirtha). We had to take a deviation from the Hebri Someshwara road and from here go around 8kms to the last house before the falls. A large bus would have made us walk around 12kms up and down but the minibus left us having to walk only 2kms up and down. Just before getting into the forest to walk through Sita falls we see a splendid falls far away in the forest(ie not our destination). We walked through the forest and reached Sita falls in 20 minutes. The water there was shivering cold and all the members had a dip in the water and played in it. People enjoyed for around 45 minutes in the water and then started walking back reluctantly. It was around 12:00pm when we reached the bus.

    We then went to a small hotel were we had booked our lunch before itself(a day earlier). It was around 1:15pm when we reached the hotel. We had our lunch there and few of us went around Hebri drinking cool drinks, eating sweet pan etc. Then we started moving to Someshwara for our next destination from where we had to trek to Vonakeabbi falls (relatively new falls to NITK considering we were the second team to visit this, this is a very popular destination for trips now). The falls is around 3kms into the forest from Someshwara. We asked for a guide from a shop near the temple who would lead us to the falls. We started our trip from here at 3pm with strict guidelines to everyone who was coming along who walked back from where ever he was at 4pm (so that we do not miss the sunset scenery from Agumbe). The trek to the falls was a real tiring one with people having to climb steep hills of around 60 degree(approx) from the ground level. While climbing we met a few trek enthusiasts who had taken a full day for the trek. We continued our trek and a few of us lost our way in between while few others decided against climbing (seeing the steepness) and the remaining reaching the stream. We get a very beautiful first glance of this falls which is along the Udupi Chickmagalur border from here. Then we started climbing, walking through the rocks along the stream to reach the base of this divine falls(gives you the divine happiness). Again we reached here in various groups depending on speed. It was around 4:15pm by then. We started walking back after taking a few snaps towards our bus. We reached our bus around 5:10pm.

    We had a small tea break before resuming our trip to Agumbe sunset point. On reaching Agumbe sunset point we were greeted by clouds covering the sun, monkeys and few other tourists. It was 6:00pm by then. The journey atop the Agumbe ghats is itself an experience. We get around 14 hairpin curves along while climbing. We get a breath taking view of Vonakeabbi falls(the one just visited) from 2 points along the road. On the other side all along the road we get a splendid view of the plains of Udupi district covered with a majority of forests and paddy fields. The clouds covering the Sun seem to have decided not to let us have a view of the sun setting. So we waited for around 15 minutes and then started moving down in the bus. Just as we had negotiated the second hair pin curve from the top, the sun came out of the clouds. All of us started shouting and asking the bus driver to stop the bus, who agreed reluctantly. He stopped a little further after the third hair pin curve. We got down took snaps had a view of the sun setting down and then got back into the bus to resume our journey back to the college. We had our dinner at Sonu dhaba and returned to college at 9.30pm.

    The amazing part of this trip was time maintenance.

    The enjoyment was as usual with Antakshari, Cassette Player, dances.

  • Kumaraparvatha

    KumaraParvatha affectionately and passionately called by trekkers as KP, is one of the most common trekking spots. This is one of the tallest peaks in Karnataka and towers at around 4000 ft above sea level. This peak is on the border of two very beautiful districts of Karnataka namely – South Canara and Coorg. So this peak can be scaled from either side… the Kukke side or the Coorg – Somavarpet side. We chose the Somavarpet side to climb and the Kukke side to getdown.

    We were a group of 5 trekkers – Naveen, Purusha, Siddu, Muddu and myself; we managed to make it a one day trek.

    We set out from college on to do this trek on Friday night from Mangalore. We caught a bus that would take us to Somavarpet.. We reached Somavarpet quite early 6:45am.. ditch the details here. We had a local bus that takes ut to a village that is around 45 min from Somavarpet, it was scheduled to leave at 7:15am we just did some quick breakfast and then a purchase of fruits before we boarded the bus.

    After we complete a 45 min journey, we reach a small village from where we have to start our trek. I don’t recall the name of the Village now!! Well some distance form here we had met a stream this is the “KumaraDhara”. This stream has its origin in the Kumara Parvatha. During our trek a bridge was under construction…, we had to take a make shift bridge to cross over. Then there is a wide mud road which takes you over to another village. It is from this village that we get to see the KumaraParvatha for the first time.

    Joys walk through the paddy fields and we were near a temple. We just took a break here and then continued on our trek. It was very sunny and a walk in the dusty mud road was killing our interest… after a small distance covered in this way we get to see a forest check post. This is the where we enter into the actual trek. We have to pay some nominal amount as entry fee for the trek route. The route after this is through dense forest and is a real fun to trek. There are tall shady trees all along. No noise, all that you hear is just the chirping of birds and sometime the wind. I am sure in rainy season there would be a lot of leeches here.
    Some trek through the forest and a few steep climbs we will come to a good sight seeing spot were we can hang on for some time and have nice pictures taken, we did exactly that. Continue on further from here and another climb we will come to a nice spot, a good resting place. You will find some cement seats and some sort of shelter here. You can take a small nap in case you want to here. Continue on the same trail, you will reach a small falls (I was completely dried when we went, so we could not appreciate it much) . A little further and then you can see a deviation. One way is pointed toward the Heggademane while the other is toward Pushpagiri (KP) peak. We did not want to waste any time any were and wished we reached the peak as early as possible, so we chose the route towards the peak. A small distance from this diversion we get to see a steep climb, its rock surface and I am sure it’s hard to climb if you don’t have good grip, not undoable though. Just wait for a small time and look around, you have a very nice view for yourself. The peak is not all that far from here and so you can spend as much time as you want to take the snaps. Once this session is over you can continue with the trek, just a small trek through the short shrubs again and you will be at the peak, some sign boards to indicate the direction, one indicating towars Kukke and the other towars Somavarpet.
    We reached the peak ar around 12 noon!!! oh what a time to reach the peak, no shade over there, jus a few temples, some stone heap, and a flag. When we reached the peak, we met a family that had trekked from the Kukke side, and were planning to get down from the Somavarpet side. They had a small kid think it was around 1yr old, carring it on the back was its mother, her husband was there along, there was another person .. he seemed to be their giude and was carrying all the luggage of tents and stuff for trekking. It was an ispiration for us to see this family; they had even brought their little kid for this trek!!! After some enquiries and hai/bye stuff we parted ways.
    We spent some time picking snaps and looking at the view around. We were also searching for a suitable spot for our lunch that we had carried. We spent around half an hour at the peak and the continued to descend on from the Kukke side. We received the information from the family that there was a small stream of water a lil further on the other side.. it was not too good to drink but could be used for other purpose in case you needed it. We were searching for this spot and found it in no time. We just sat there in the shade for some time, had our food and took a nap for 30 min. It was a nice sleep that we had, not much of a problem at all. We set out from the spot at around 2:15 pm.We continued on our trek, now slowly the sun was moving west and was really nice to see the distant villages and the route that we would follow to go to kukke.

    We moved on slowly though the huge stretch of the mountains, looking back sometimes at the Peak, some times at the path we followed to reach the peak. I looked at the vast stretch of the mountain… and just got lost in some philosophical thought. After a small trek this way, we reach a nice water source, generally called “Mantapa” by a lot of people. There is a small pond near by that stores water. It’s a nice place to rest. You will get very nice photographs from this place.
    We continued our trek and the
    n reached the forest check post on the other side; some distance away you have the famous “Battara Mane”… a nice resting place for the trekkers. We had some tea here and then continued our trek to Kukke. It was a nice time to do the descend trek. We just wanted to reach Kukke before it was late and hence did a hurried trek. It was though winding path and dense forest, high huminidity would sack all the energy that we have. We continued on with the trek and finally reached Kukke at 5:30pm.
    We then caught a bus to GunDia then to Mangalore and finally reached college in the last bus to Surathkal. It was a memorable trek for us. Wish I make a more planned and leisurely trek to this place some time again to spend the night at the peak.
    For Photographer it’s a very nice place to pick a lot of snaps. I bet the towering KP has a lot in store for the SunRise and sun-set. It’s definitely worth spending one cold night at the peak.

  • Mulliangiri – 1

    I had been starving for a trek since long. After having completed my college it had been a boring affair, with just routine stuff of office work. I needed to be out of Bangalore and relax in some cool and serene environment, out of the noise.
    It was some time after the rains and I thought of a trek to Mulliangiri, I had heard a lot about this place from a lot of people so decided to try it out. There were only three people on this trek. Gopi, Vinay and Me. Vinay was on his second trek and this was the first with me. Gopi was one of my usual compnion during college days. He was one among us in the trek in which we lost our way.
    All three of us met up at the KSRTC bus stand and then boarded a bus to get to ChikMagalore. The Mulliangiri peak is not far away from the bus stand. We landed in Chickmagalore in the wee hours of the morning… it was around 4:30am. We had cup of hot coffee (coffee in coffeeland) from the local shop there, and enquired about the route to Mulliangiri. We came to know that there was a bus which would leave at 7:00am. We enquired for any alternate transport… the suggestion was Autos… but we did not feel like taking any. We decided to wait.
    We did our morning ablutions and then had some breakfast at a local hotel. We then decided to have a tour of the locality and just made a small morning walk.
    We found a bus ready to go to Bababudangiri via Mulliangiri. We did not want to loose any seat that would be available. The time was approximately 6:30am. We took our seats and waited for something to happen… ha ha… nope for the bus to move. I had a small nap, when I woke up the time was 7:30am. I then realised that this bus would leave at 7:45am. At 7:45am the bus set… as we looked at the beauty of this awesome place with the chilling weather… we found a lot of people climb the bus and in no time the bus was completely jam packed. We asked the conductor to let us know where to get down… and when the stop came… it was real tough getting down.
    Some time after getting down, we started off with our trek. The trek is more of a uphill walk on a path that is followed so frequently by trekkers. The only problem that we had was… it was very cloudy. We could not see anything beyond one meter. It was our experience of “Walking through the Clouds”. The route we chose to climb is called “Sarpahadi” – meaning Snake Path. The whole path is serpentine… winding till we reach the peak. Remember, when ever there is a fork prefer the left over the right. It’s a nice trek. I was not very tiring as all this was done in the clouds. Some times we would get the wind blow away the clouds to give us a very beautiful view of the valley. We continued our uphill trek and reached the “Nandi” temple that is below a tree. We just waited here for some time to pick individual snaps and then moved on. Just before we reach the temple a small deviation will take us to two caves. We did not waste time to probe into the caves too deep. We just went till we could and came back with the snaps.
    We entered the temple premise, had our breakfast there… called as many people as we could to tell them “I am on the tallest peak in Karnataka”. We rested for around the temple and then continued our trek. We asked the directions towards Bababudangiri, and then tried following it. We just lost the way while trying to search our way. The clouds were getting denser and we did not want to risk taking the wrong foot. So we went back to the temple and asked for guidance till we come to a route without ambiguity. The guide was kind enough to help us till we came to the correct route, then he returned back. We continued on the track and reached a nice view point. We could get down to the road easily from this spot. The clouds slowly started clearing out.
    We sat viewing and clicking the entire nice and serene environment. We spent nearly 45 minutes doing this. There was a Vivekananda statue nearby and some cement benches. We rested having our lunch there. We could also spot a old telephone exchange and a check post nearby. All these were posing for our photos. After some rest at the spot we decided to continue our trek back to Chikmagalore.
    We waited for some bus, or some jeep that would take us to Chickmagalore, we could not find any there and then finally we decided to walk down the road in that direction and climb any vehicle that could take us to Chikmagalore. We walked for nearly 1 hr when a jeep came down that way. The jeep owner was kind enough to drop us till Chikmagalore. We reached Chikmagalore at 4:30pm, got into the bus to Banglore. All along the route I was thinking of the beautiful day I had… what an experience! Cherish it for life – the memories, the temple, the cave, the winding path, the guide, the walk through the clouds, the sight seeing spot, and finally the walk back…

  • Kodachadri – 1

    Kodachadri the famous peak near the auspicious temple of Mukambika Kollur, is a frequent trek destination.
    This was my first trek of the year 2006. The time was around January 15, 2006. We were group of 9 people on this trek. Most of us were software professionals from different companies in Bangalore. We did not know each other closely before the trek, the trek got all of us close together.

    We met up the KSRTC bus stand, but as it was a holiday season we could not get any seat to go to Shimoga. Finally we got a private bus which was going to Shimoga and all of us climbed in. We reached Shimoga quite early at 5:30am. We finished our morning ablutions and then went in search of a Hotel to have our breakfast. It took around half an hour before we compelted our breakfast and then wait for the bus. We went in search of the information regarding the bus that would take us to Kodachadri, the information we for was the bus would leave in another half an hour; it was around 6:45am. The bus came a bit before scheduled time and we occupied our seat. We chose seats of our own choise as we were early to climb it and not many commuters were communting. A short while after the bus started off at around 7:15am, most of us dozed off. The travel time would be around 3hrs to take us to the point were we wanted to start off our trek. On the way we get some other stops from were we can start off – Sampekatte, Nittoor and Kalkutika are the stops. We chose to start from “Kodachadri Cross” as most of them call it… I am not sure about the actual name of this place.

    It was around 10:45 when we reached this place. Once we alighted from the bus we did some fastening of the shoe lace and stuff, to start off with the trek. The route was a mud road that would lead us to the Mallu hotel – “Hotel Santosh”. From the starting point to the hotel its walk along the mud road, through the forest. You get to see dense forest at some placed, the light hardly reaches the ground, at some other places it is open space – the vegetation is not uniformly spread out. A walk of 45 min to 1 hour (depending on the speed of the group) we reach the famous Mallu hotel – the famous recipe of “Puttu”. We took some snaps on the way, and now it was time to continue clicking, in front of the hotel there is a school, and a huge play ground. You can stand in the play ground and look all over to find a lot of mountains and nice scenery – a rustic life to be picturised in case.

    We spent around one hour at the hotel before we resumed our trek. Till now the trek was on a mud road, now it would be a uphill trek. There was a small path formed out of the trails of the earlier trekkers and water during rainy season. Well this initial stretch is through the forest area, so it’s not very hectic to climb. After a brief trek uphill we come to an open grassy area on the hill. This opening gives a splendid view of the mountain ranges and the lush green vegetation; a photographer can quickly be in action here.

    The opening then lead to a much steeper climb, but the view gets better all the while. You then move on the trails through the side of the valley. You can in fact listen to the stream flow at a distance. You can also spot the guest house from this path at a distance. That guest is going to be your destination; there is no way you can get lost as the trail is thick and clear. We rested a while in a small shadowy region before we continued again. A break of some 30 min here, and we were ready to proceed. We continued on, the trek after this was a routine one, not very difficult, a small distance later we were in the shade of the forest again. Once out of the forest you have a open space and a route which takes you to the left. Climb across the route and you will be in front of the old – Mookambika temple.

    We enquired for our stay and got a room for our self in the guest house. We dumped our luggage in the guest house and then had our lunch at the small hotel beside the temple. We were exhausted and went back to the GH to have a small nap before our evening sunset view. We slept for around 2 hours and decided to go to the peak, a 15min trek from the GH.

    We set out from the guest house at 5:00 pm so we decided to go to the “Agathya Teertha” and then via the “Ganesh Guha” to the peak. “Agathya Teertha” is a small stream that originates in here. I think it is the sound of this stream that we hear when we are on the trek route from Mallu hotel to the Guest house. We picked some snaps of the stream and then continued on to the “Ganesha Guha”. We just did some prayers and then continued on to the peak. I think we were left with some half an hour before sunset. So we took some snaps of the surrounding and the “Sarvajnya Peetha”. We then went on to another smaller peak a bit closer to the western side; we find a communication tower here. We went over to the peak and then took some nice snaps… it was real good view – the sun setting into the sea, the birds flying to their destination, the wind blowing, all making it a memorable experience.

    Once the sun set, we were on our way back. With our torches we reached the guest house in no time. We ordered the night dinner and then spent time chatting till it was ready. We were called once the dinner was ready, had our dinner and gave the order for the breakfast next day. All went on well and as planned the first day. No hiccups anywhere. We reclined in our room discussing the trek this far and the plans we had for the next day.

    Some of us got up early to have the sunrise captured in our camera, others wanted more time to wake up from the bed, and their sweet sleep. Those who woke up for the sunrise I am sure would have seen the best sunrise in their life. The far off mountains, the sun sun appearing as if from a deep slumber slowly to do his days duty. The small stores of water that were visible here and there were visible even in low light. We viewed this sunrise from the main peak, and not many people actually turn up this far to view it. A neat clear sunrise and then we went back to wake those in deep slumber and get done with our breakfast.

    All of us were ready, by 8:00 am and were on our trek. We had planned to visit Hitalmane falls, but unfortunately we lost the actual foot trail that would take us to the falls and ended up going on the mud road that the Jeeps use to get to the peak with some pilgrimages. When we started on this mud road we did not did not know what we were into. It would turn out later that this would be a flop in all means; still there was some excitement in this flop show.

    Having missed the foot trail we decide to go try the mud road and then reach the base of the falls. We reach the village from where we could go to the base of the falls. The locals directed us to the route, but then we took a wrong turn at some point and then we landed up in front of a huge mountain. I don’t know what instincts in us provoked us to try climbing this mountain. For us amature trekkers this was almost like the vertical limit. We tried reaching as high as possible, we reached a point from were we could not go any further and retraced our self back. It was just for fun that we did it. We returned back and told the villagers about our route and they then told us that we had missed the route. We rested beside the stream for some time…ate the food that we had brought along and then continued our trek.

    We resumed our trek along the road and after around 3 hrs we reached Nittoor. One thing that we learnt on the trek was not to ask the villagers how far is a place.. they invariable will tell it to be 1 mile or one km and you are stuck up if you believe they are right. You will have to understand that their concept of distance is all wrong, invariable wrong
    .

    We then reached Nittor and had a nice lunch there. We spent some time discussing the experience; we decided to make a Jeep to take us to Kollur. It was around evening sunset time when we reached Kollur. We just visited the temple and then went to the bus stand where we were waiting for our bus to Bangalore…
    Back we came to the same city, the same work, the lifestyle, the same boring routine…