The journey is my home.

Hampi

2009-08-29T21:02:00.006+05:30

This is my third visit to Hampi in the past one year. The place has some charm which makes me go there so often (or is it the Mango Tree?)

A UNESCO world heritage site, these ruins of the Vijayanagar empire are located about 15 kms from Hospet, and on the banks of the river Thungabhadra.

Buses are easily available to Hospet, or even Hampi, from Bangalore. There are train services from Bangalore to Hospet too.

Important places in Hampi:
Virupaksha temple
KaDalekaaLu Ganesha
SaasivekaaLu Ganesha
Lakshmi Narsimha temple
The Queen's bath
Mahanavami Dibba
Stepped tank (inside the Mahanavami Dibba)
The Lotus Mahal and the elephant's stable (inside the Zanana enclosure)
Hazarama temple complex
Prasanna Virupaksha temple
Courtesan street
Mathunga hills
Vitthala temple complex and the stone chariot inside it.
Last, but definitely not the least, the Mango Tree!

There are other important/nice places but I've only listed the ones I remember.

The team: Jitha, Kid, Naveen, Vyasa, Shailendra and yours truly.

Some photos:

The lotus mahal

The stepped tank

Inside the Hazararam temple

The famous stone chariot

The mango tree! What a place to relax..

More photos are here and here.

Thus continues the quest...

Nadumale

2009-08-08T21:45:00.001+05:30

It had been almost two months since I went for a trek (kanoor fort). Damn that Subbu! I was itching to go somewhere for a nice monsoon trek when Tarsh comes up with a trek plan to Nadumale (finally he puts his NOLS training to some good use!!). Without a second thought I jumped in. The team: Subbu, Sirish (yes!), Flavia, Tarsh, Astha, Anand, Shalini, Siddharth, Suresh, Shashi and yours truly!

Before boarding the TT to Bhagamandala (the starting point), we had a hog-athon at Brigade Road, where we hogged on delicious chicken momos (2 plates each) and then bought 2 full baskets of KFC chicken!! (Oh my, the quantity is too mach!) Not content, we even stopped at a dhaba on Mysore road for another round of dinner! :O Bloody eating machines. Let's trek bitches!

Route: Bangalore - Mysore - Hunsur - Madikeri - Bhagamandala.

The starting point.

The trek started from a forest guest house near Bhagamandala and was of constant descent on a jeep track. Almost the entire stretch is a walk in thick forest cover. Only at a few places we were on open grasslands overlooking a valley. Since we had done the trek in monsoon, I can only describe the trek in 4 words: misty misty leechy leechy!

Misty misty!

The first day's halt was at Nadumale forest guest house, which is no longer inhabited. (Why would it be? To even talk to another person, you'll have to walk 12 kms). The guest house is located next to a stream and is a really nice camping spot, if you don't count the leeches! Since it was raining throughout, we didn't stop for lunch and came directly to the camping site at 5:00 pm. Taking a quick dip in the stream, (aah ice cold water, brrrrr!), we gorged on Maggi noodles. Everyone was too lazy for a full-fledged dinner (we were also quite full) and everyone hit the sack as early as 830 pm. Me and Subbu, though, had a discussion on world peace (no, seriously) till 11:00 pm :-).

Hog baby hog!

Our camping spot..

Next morning we started from the place at around 9:30 am. The route from Nadumale to the ending point, Peringom in Kerala, is on a flat jeep track and is about 12 kms. This was a pleasure walk. Once we reached the end point, where our TT was waiting for us, everyone got into another de-leeching mode, while me, Subbu, Sirish and Sid took it as another opportunity for wallowing in the stream close by.

The route back: Peringom - Karike - Bhagamandala - Madikeri (awesome dinner at Hotel East End) - Mysore - Bangalore.

Permission is needed to go to Nadumale. Call up Aranya Bhavan in Madikeri for permission and they'll arrange for a guide (required, the forest is a core elephant territory). Contact number: 08272-228019

Photos are here and here!

Thus continues the quest...

Deepadakallu and JenkalguDDa!

2009-04-19T18:28:00.000+05:30

Three times before have we set out from Blore to reach this peak. Twice it was thwarted by an enigma of a peak called Ombattugudda. The third time we lost our way and found ourselves on top of a new peak called SubbichenDguDDa.

This time we got another opportunity, as we had completed Amedikallu on Saturday itself. This time, instead of starting from the Lakshmi-Saraswathi estate, we decided to try out some other route to get to the peak. Last week from the top of SubbichenDguDDa, we had seen a temple very closeby and also a neat-looking path to Deepadakallu from there. The temple, named by us as "Duplicate Bhairapura" back then, is in fact Bettada Bhairaveshwara temple.

How to get there? Bangalore - Sakleshpur(right turn towards Mudigere) - Hanbal - Maragunda - Bhairaveshwara temple.

Walk a little on the same road from the temple and you will reach a place where you will see two peaks in front of you. Dipadakallu on the right side (with a large stone on top, can't miss it) and on the left hand side, higher than any other peak in it's vicinity... the JenkalguDDa.

As Subbu says, if a peak is visible, half your conquest is done. Continuing on the same road, we got to a place where there were multiple paths. After a heated discussion, we decided to take an obscure looking path which looked like leading directly to the Dipadakallu, but passed through a forest. And oh boy, did we do a good thing or what!? When we got to the other side of the forest, we realized we saved more than an hour of walk by taking the obscure looking path. From thereon, it was hardly half an hour's walk to the peak of Dipadakallu. Unsurprisingly, all along the way, we could see EttinaBhuja (yes, another profile) and we reached the peak from the temple in about 1.5 hours.

The final climb to Dipadakallu..

The Dipadakallu peak..

As it has been with our recent treks in the region, we were welcomed to the peak by a cool breeze and misty weather. On top of Dipadakallu is a stone structure. If you haven't climbed up this one, you haven't peaked Dipadakallu :-). "Intelligent-looking" Mahesha, as usual, pointed at an arbit jeep track and called the nearest peak Ombattugudda. On one side we could see EttinaBhuja, another side SubbichenDguDDa and on another side, very close to us, was the JenkalguDDa, which looked high and majestic in front of us. Five of us from the group, Subbu, Mahesha, Jagga, Sand and yours truly, decided to check out JenkalguDDa while the others, decided to by-pass it and started heading towards the temple.

The climb to JenkalguDDa!

The climb to JenkalguDDa from Dipadakallu hardly takes 45 minutes but the last few minutes of the climb is very steep, to the point of slippery. As if to make up for the steep incline to get to the peak, the top is a flat land and has a small stone for a shrine. There is a belief among locals that if you drop a coin here, the coin appears on top of Mulliangiri and vice versa. From the top, we could see Dipadakallu, EttinaBhuja and Amedikallu, all in a single line!

The first few minutes of our stay at the top was very peaceful with only the gusts of wind on our faces to interrupt the sound of silence. But, slowly and gradually, almost stealthily, we were swarmed by honey bees! It was then that we realized why the peak is called so!! But before the bees gathered in large numbers or could attack us, we started our descent on the other face of the peak, which would lead us directly to the temple, instead of going back to Dipadakallu.

Before we could get to the temple, we had to cross a small strip of thick, and I mean thick forest. There was a round-about path which could take us to a jeep track on the other side of the forest, and since we were descending, we could see the jeep track. Adventurous as we are, it was unanimously decided that we take a short cut into the jungle and come out on the other side. Needless to say, we lost our way and took about an hour to wade through the thorny thickets of just about 100 meters. When we came out on the other side, we got a little disoriented, and ended up taking a route which was longer by about 3 kms! Finally, we got to the temple at 1730 hours where our TT was waiting for us to take us back to Bangalore...

Photos of the trek are here.

Thus continues the quest...

Amedikallu!

2009-04-18T17:59:00.000+05:30

I have been wanting to go to Amedikallu for quite some time now. In fact, in the good old days when Moch was around, we had made several plans. But we never ended up going there, for whatever reasons. Buoyed by our last weekend's trek to Ettinabhuja and subbichendgudda, when the weather was good for treks, we decided to give Amedikal a shot on the weekend of 18-19th April.

The team: Subbu, Sirish (yes!), Flavia, Mahesha, Jagga, Sand, Adithya, Balaji and yours truly!

Amedikallu, as quite a few blogs have claimed, is considered one of the toughest climbs in Karnataka.. But is it? Read on!

There are two trekking routes to Amedikallu. The first one is from Neria estate which is relatively easier. But the estate owners supposedly donot let trekkers go through the estate these days. The second one is from Shishila which is tougher. We, needless to say, opted for the second route.

Bangalore - Hassan - Gundya - Kokkada - Shishila.

We considered going to Amedikallu without a guide, with just a GPS for assistance. But we realized that without a guide, it would be difficult for us to return on the same day, knowing our fearsome reputation of getting lost during treks! Not returning on the same day in no big deal, we were ready to spend the night on the peak, but the unavailability of water along the way bothered us. If you go along the path, there is no water source right from the beginning till the peak. But there is a water source near the base of the peak where only a guide can take you to. So we went to Gokhale's place looking for a guide. (At Shishila, anybody will guide you to his place). He immediately arranged for a guide called Chennappa, although it is advisable to call him in advance and book for a guide (contact number: 08251-269246). We soon reached Kandechhar, which is the starting point of the trek.

Amedikallu from a distance!

Take a left turn on a narrow trail from Kandechhar and you are on your way! Again, without someone telling you, it is impossible to figure this narrow trail. The walk to Amedikal peak is one of continuous ascent and the first break you get from this monotony is only after about 2 hours of climb in the forest. Once you complete this stretch, you get a magnificient view of Amedikallu in front of you, and what awaits you next! The left side of the peak has three rocks neatly arranged to look like a stove. The main peak, at the center, looks like the outer shell of a turtle (ame = turtle, dikkel = tulu word for stove). The climb from this point to the peak is steep. But to get to a water source, we took a left turn just before the ascent. Ten minutes into the jungle, we came across a stream where we refreshed and had our packed lunch.

The climb from this point is steep and is without any forest cover and with good pace, can be done in about 1.5 hours. There are plenty of rocks en route, sitting on which you can enjoy the views all around. All along this path, we got to see the other side of EttinaBhuja (we now have 360 degree profile shots of it). Also, thanks to the showers a few days back, the entire stretch was green. To get to the main peak, we had to cross a thick forest and come out on the other side. But there is a clear trail to follow. After checking out few view points on the right side of the peak, we reached the main peak at about 1630 hours. And I must say, it isn't as tough as it is made out to be. In fact, it is nothing compared to the ordeal we went through on our way to OmbattuguDDa. Amedikallu is amongst the highest peaks in it's surroundings and we could see EttinaBhuja, Minchukallu, ShinganiguDDa and other peaks. Conspicuous by it's absence was the OmbattuguDDa. The "intelligent-looking" Mahesha has this habit of spotting any arbit jeep track and calling the nearest peak OmbattuguDDa, randomly. Here too he didn't let go of an opportunity when he spotted a jeep track.

The team at the top...

After spending a good 45 minutes at the peak, we started the descent. By the time it was dark, we had reached the forest cover from where we had got the first glimpse of the peak during our ascent. The descent from this point to the road was done in darkness and was the most boring part of the trek. The descent took us so long that it seemed like a journey to the center of the earth. Finally when we reached the road, it was around 2030 hours, where our TT was waiting for us.

Some useful info:

Although considered a tough trek, the whole stretch (up and down) can be done in a single day. I would call it a moderately tough trek.

Contact number of Gokhale: 08251-269246.

Guide charge is around 200 per day. But since Amedikallu is considered a two day trek, you may have to pay 400 as guide charges.

Photos of the trek are here.

Thus continues the quest...

SubbichenDguDDa!

2009-04-12T19:28:00.000+05:30

As in the previous post, I am writing this blog in the present tense. Don't ask me why.

We have finished EttinaBhuja yesterday and we intend to conquer Deepadakallu and JenkalGudda today. We have had two unsuccessful plans to conquer these twin peaks (here and here). Both of them were thwarted by an enigma of a peak called Ombattugudda.

After EttinaBhuja yesterday we came to Mudigere for overnight halt. Today we are fresh and ready to go. We have enough time on our hands to conquer both the peaks. Also, we are not tired (as what had happened after Ombattugudda-1).

We have our breakfast at Mudigere and leave for Lakshmi Saraswathi estate (Hoskere), which is the starting point of the trek. Everytime we have come to this estate, the workers here have recognised us. Hope they don't get irritated by our frequent visits to the place. We reach the estate at 1100 hours and find nobody at the estate. Everyone has gone off to work. We are already running late and we don't know where to start from within the estate! Me and Subbu scout around a little and find a carpenter who is overjoyed to see someone come and talk to him. He tells us that we need to take the left turn (going down) just before the estate workers' house where will cross a stream. So we head in that direction. We also have in mind the piece of advice Mithun has given us: "There is a highway to the peak!".

The jeep track which didn't let us take the right route.

Look. We do know that there can't be a 4 lane highway or even a jeep track till the peak. But somehow none of us are willing to take any deviation from the jeep track which is stretching in front of us in a very winding and inviting manner! After a certain point, we are constantly moving in the opposite direction of the peak and somehow none of us is stong-willed enough to move away from the jeep track. So we keep on going until everyone of us agrees what we know for quite some time now - yep, we are lost, we have headed in the wrong direction. Now now, what's a trek without a little "getting-lost" business? Meandering in the forest not knowing what to do, we come across a mango tree, the ground beneath which is strewn with ripe mangoes! So what if we are lost?! We indulge ourselves like kids and after about half an hour, standing right below the mango tree, Jitha comes up with this gem: "Where is the mango tree btws?!"

Mangoes!

Getting to a clear patch of land, we spot a peak to our right side, which looks steep and inviting. It's already 3 in the afternoon and it looks like we have a fat chance of getting to Dipadakallu. So what? We'll get to the top of this arbit peak, get a sense of direction and head back.. simple! Anyways, we haven't heard the mention of this peak anywhere and we decide to name it... SubbichenDguDDa!

On top of SubbichenDguDDa

We get to the peak of SubbichenDguDDa and we get a magnificient view of the surroundings. We spot Dipadakallu which is about 3 kms off from this place. We also realize where we went wrong in our mission to get to Dipadakallu. We also get to see EttinaBhuja and Amedikallu. Conspicuous by it's absence is the OmbattuGudda. We also, surprisingly, spot the temple of Bhairapura just below the peak! The temple, as we saw yesterday, is very close to EttinaBhuja, which, now, is in a completely different direction! In utter disbelief, we look at Ettinabhuja in one direction and Bhairapura-like temple in the other direction which are, atleast, 10 kms apart. Then we realize this is some other similar-looking temple and we name the place "duplicate Bhairapura" (thank God we are not chemists stumbling upon new compounds every now and then).

Getting down SubbichenDguDDa

We have missed Dipadakallu again. Damn it! How can one simple peak evade us on three successive attempts? Anyways, we get down the peak and get back to the estate well past sunset. We reach the estate and see a strange phenomenon: all the fireflies around us are flashing simultaneously in a burst! Have never seen this phenomenon and we are quite fascinated by it. This phenomenon is called "phase synchronization". Read more on it here.

The photos are here.

Thus continues the quest...

EttinaBhuja

2009-04-11T19:02:00.002+05:30

Ettina Bhuja - the peak which resembles the shoulder of an ox is named aptly (ettinabhuja is Kannada for ox's shoulder).

Note: For reasons irrelevant, I am writing this blog in the present tense.

It has been almost two months since I have gone for a real trek and I float around the idea of going to Ettinabhuja and Dipadakallu for April 12/13 weekend. And the people who say yes are the usual suspects - Subbu, Jitha, Mahesha, Jagga, Sand and, of course, yours truly!

Initially I considered going to Ettinabhuja from the Bhairapura side. But talking to Shilpa she told me that the peak from Bhairapura side is just an hour's trek and the route from Shishila side is much more difficult... Well, the decision making cannot get any easier than this and Shishila side it is!

So we start on Friday night from Bangalore in a qualis, equipped with food supplies to feed hungry Ethiopians for a week! Jitha is upset*.

The route we take is Bangalore - Hassan - Sakleshpur - Gundya - Kokkada - Shishila.

About 15 kms from Gundya, we take a right turn (towards Dharmasthala) to reach Kokkada. Apart from about 20 kms stretch near Gundya, the entire stretch is quite good. Even the stretch from Kokkada to Shishila, which many blogs have claimed to be horrible, has been repaired and is in excellent condition now. From Shishila bus stand, we take a left turn and go about 5 kms on a mud road to reach the starting point for the trek. Many blogs have also mentioned one Gokhale's place where you can hire guides, get food etc. But I wouldn't recommend it since the place is nowhere near the starting point. Also, the route is supposed to be "clear and straight forward" (fellow trekkers, please excuse! :D). Jitha is still upset*.

It is almost unanimously decided that we go without guides and... as fate would have it, within 5 minutes of the start of the trek we get lost!!! There is a stream which we cross at the very beginning of the trek. We cross the stream and soon we come across multiple intersecting paths. And, like we are in a parallel universe, we completely lose track of directions. What the!!?? Wasn't the route supposed to be "clear and straight forward"? But hey, a trek isn't half as interesting without some "getting-lost" business. (So, all you fellow trekkers, you owe me and Subbu big time). Catching hold of one such path which goes in the direction of the peak, we go on. It seems to be the right path as we go on for about an hour and a half until we hit a dead end in the forest cover. We soon realize that we are officially lost for the second time that day. After some scouting around, Subbu finds a place where he can spot the peak (and with that, he claims, he got us onto the right track.. yeah rrright). Although no paths are to be found around, we do some brute-force method (haven't we heard of that before?) to go in the direction of the peak and we soon find the path leading to the peak. Jitha is fuming*.

Being the peak of summer isn't helping us much. All of us are sweating bullets out there and the humidity is starting to get to a few of us. Jitha is like he has just had a bath with all his clothes on. The extreme heat and humidity is making every step difficult... until we get to this place where we have this majestic view of the peak in front of us!

Jitha is going mad now*.

Aaha, the very thought of being at the top of this peak is working like a charm on us and we forget all about the humidity and start walking with renewed vigour. To get to the peak, we have to go to the other side of the hill and make a gradual ascent. Effectively, we have to get to the back of the ox to reach it's shoulder which we do in good time. And as we are making the final dash to the peak, the weather changes... Gone is the intense humidity, gone is the scorching heat of the sun. Out of nowhere comes a sudden wave of clouds and mist and it is like monsoon, only without the rain! The weather is perfect by the time we reach the peak, at around 5 in the evening. The peak is amongst the highest in its surroundings and we can see Amedikallu, Dipadakallu and JenkalGudda in different directions. Conspicuous by it's absence is the OmbattuGudda. It is probably not seen because of the mist cover or simply isn't high enough to get noticed. Either ways, OmbattuGudda continues to be a mysterious peak (and hence irresistible :-)). Jitha is hopping mad now*.

Not wanting to get lost again in some forest cover, before sunset we head towards Bhairapura which is on the other side of the ox. The path is very straight forward (yes, I mean it!) and we reach the Bhairapura temple where we have asked our qualis to come. We have completed EttinaBhuja in one day. For tomorrow we have plans of going to Dipadakallu and JenkalGudda...

The photos are here.

*Jitha has forgotten to get his camera!

Thus continues the quest...

Kudremukh

2009-02-14T21:33:00.005+05:30

What?: Kudremukh is a peak in the Western Ghats. The peak, when seen from one direction, resembles a horse's face. Hence the name.

Where?: Kudremukh peak is close to Kudremukh township. The route is Bangalore - Hassan - Belur - Mudigere - Kottigehara - Kalasa - Kudremukh. The approx. distance is 375 kms.

When?: 7th - 8th February 2009.

Who?: Subbu, Mahesha, Shenoy, Jagga, Sand, Tej, Tough Bala, Ramya, Shilpa and yours truly!

Why?: Is that a trick question?

The trek was originally intended to be an IISc affair. Some 8-10 people from IISc were planning it and me and Subbu were to just tag along. But how we tookover! Jitha broke his leg (again) and had to drop out. So did a few others from IISc. A few more additions/drop outs and we were 10 of us. Hiring a TT, we reached Kudremukh late on Saturday morning, with the driver taking umpteen breaks because of drowsiness. We managed to keep ourselves busy by playing DumbC. The highlight of the morning was the 100 'neer dosas' we had atKottigehara. It has become a custom sort of thing to have neer dosas at Kottigehara.

Day 1:
Reaching Kudremukh at 1100 hours, we obtained permission from the forest department to visit the peak. As camping inside the reserve forest is not allowed, permissions could be given only for one day. As we couldn't have reached the peak and come back on Saturday itself, we obtained permissions for Sunday. Realizing we didn't have much to do that day, we decided to go to Hanumangundi falls. The falls is about 20 kms from Kudremukh township on Moodbidre road. The entry fee is 20 Rupees and is well maintained but "touristy".

HanumangunDi falls

Getting right under the falls, we wallowed in the shallow water for quite some time. Having breakfast at the falls (Rotis and MTR curries), we got back to Kudremukh to start the trek.

Since we weren't reaching the peak on that day, we decided to go half way to the peak and camp at one Rajappa Gowda's place. We took the TT to the starting point of the trek which is about 15 kms from Kudremukh on Kalasa road. (About 3 kms after crossing a check post at Basrikatte, you can see a white coloured bridge on the right side. This is where the trek starts and the place is called Balegal.) Some fat-asses in the group got too lazy and insisted on taking a service jeep to Rajappa Gowda's place. Packing the jeep with the 10of us, we reached Gowda's place which is about 7-8 kms from Balegal. Since we had reached earlier than expected (thanks to the jeep), we decided to go for a walk to catch a good sunset. Although nowhere near any peak, we weren't disappointed.

Kudremukh from a distance...

After a good spicy dinner at Gowda's, we had camp fire going (this time everyone of us had a match box, unlike Ombattugudda :-). Sipping hot tea, we generally had a gala time, indulging in general trash talk :-)

Day 2:
Having had breakfast at Gowda's, we set off towards the peak. The path to the peak from RajeGowda's place is quite well defined and there are three houses you get on the way (landmarks). The first one is the well known 'Lobo House', the second one is pretty close to it (hardly 50 meters) and the third, last one, just before starting the climb. All the three are abandoned houses. (Note: You are not allowed to camp at any of these places)

The famous Lobo house...

Although the place was drier than it was the last time I had been there, it was a nice trek to the top. We also got to see some sambars from a pretty close range.

:-)

Ambling along, we reached the peak at 1400 hours. Such was our pace that another group, consisting of Mallu aunties and uncles wearing sareesand lungis, were faster than us! We were quite ashamed, honestly.

Now, the popular perception is that from the top of Kudremukh, the peak next to it looks like a horse's face. This is not true. To see the horse's face, go to the edge of the next peak (15 minutes walk) and look at Kudremukh from there. If you haven't seen this face of the peak, you haven't seen Kudremukh!

The Kudremukh face from the other side...

Abandoning plans of visiting the nearest waterfall (about 30 minutes from the peak) since we were running late, we had a quick lunch and started back and reached Gowda's place at 1900 hours. Asking the jeep guy to come back to Gowda's place, we reached Balegal, from where we got into our TT. The journey back was made all the more memorable by my stinking socks. The stink was seriously unbearable and I had to throw the socks out! (This supreme sacrifice I made needs to be paid back).

Photos of the trek are here, here, here and here!

Contact details:

Kudremukh RFO: 08263-255998 (the one provided in their website is invalid).

Raje Gowda: 08263-249333(R), 9481179008(M)

Trek charges:

Entry fee: Rs. 40 per head.

Trekking fee: Rs. 75 per head.

Guide fee: Rs. 150 per day, but if you know the route, you need not get aguide.

Thus continues the quest...

OmbattuGudda.. again!

2009-01-24T22:15:00.005+05:30

This is my second trek to OmbattuGudda and the place doesn't fail to amaze me. I repeat from what I wrote in the post from my first trek: Newbie trekkers donot try this trek. Experienced trekkers donot go to this place without a map and a GPS and loads of water! And get ready to get lost! Brace yourself for one of the toughest treks in the south.

Going to this place once itself is madness enough. To go there the second time, you either must be supremely fit (OmbattuGudda doesn't bog you down) or you are plain insane. I belong to the second category.

Subbu had been wanting to go this place for more than a year now. Finally last weekend his prayers were answered when Mahesha and his friends decided to go to the place looking for a new route (if there is one!). We were 10 of us: Jitha, Mahesha, Subbu, Jagga, Madhu, Sandeep, Srini, Shyama, Veeru and yours truly!

Hiring a TT, we reached Gundya, the starting point for the trek. The jeep track starts from about a km from Gundya gate towards Mangalore. The first landmark, the kabbinale river junction is about 2 hours walk from the highway and is pretty straightforward. As last time, we had breakfast at this place, where we met two other groups of trekkers to OmbattuGudda. That was the last we saw of them! :-)

The kabbinale river junction

From this place, instead of going straight, we decided to check out a new route, to the left, which the Chennai trekkers had used to get to the peak successfully. Instead of going along the stream, we also decided to find a short cut to reach the destination faster, in which we failed miserably. Till around 5:30 in the evening, we hadn't gained any altitude, and distance wise, we hadn't even covered half the distance. Disappointing, when you know that the last time we had done the whole trek in one day. So if you are thinking that this time we took two days to complete and hence would have done it quite comfortably... read on!

So we decided to camp wherever we were, right next to a stream, in the middle of the thick forest. Luckily for us, within 100 meters, we found this deserted hut sort of a thing probably built by the forest guys.

The camping hut

Now a place like this, right next to a stream in the jungle, might sound all nice and a good "get-away from the hustle and bustle of the city" sort of thing. But these are exactly the kind of places animals would come to quench their thirst. The place is known to house elephants and bears, mind you. So, to keep the animals away, we needed a camp-fire and for that to happen easily, we needed a match-box. And none among the 10 of us had it! At the abandoned camp site, I found an empty match box. Damn. Haath mein aaya, muh na laga. It was a desperate attempt by the 10 of us to get a camp fire going. Some of us were desperately looking for loose match sticks that might have been accidentally spilt by the campers before. A few others tried their hand at lighting a fire using batteries by shorting them.

Using batteries to make fire

A few more tried friction to get the fire going, a la Bear Grylls.

Friction to get some fire

Madhu even tried to get fire by hitting two stones together! It was fun watching all these. After some time, we gave up. Still worried about the possibility of animals coming near the camping site, the 10 of us decided to keep watch in shifts. In case someone sees an animal, he was to wake others up and start making a hell lot of a noise and scare the animal away! To do that, we even had a steel plate and a wooden stick handy!!!

The night shift. Notice the steel plate in my hand!

Doing my duty from 8 to 11, I woke a few people up and went to sleep, trusting the others with my life. Next morning around 4:00 I happened to get up only to find that all the others are sleeping blissfully! What the heck, even I went back to sleep.

Day two: We had to find a way to the peak and get to the estate before late. We traveled up the stream for about an hour, had breakfast and filled up our water bottles, knowing that this will be the last time we get any sort of water source. Looking at the map and the GPS, we somehow found a path for some distance. And, as it always happens with OmbattuGudda, it disappeared after some time...

Being aware that the peak is to our east, we decided to head east by climbing a hill. But soon we realized we were going south. We got down and climbed another peak but this time we realized we were going west! How is this possible!? Upon investigation, we realized the compass in the GPS was not functioning properly! What next? Brute force eastwards to the peak. We were climbing a smaller peak on our way, when suddenly we heard something which sounded like fire. Getting curious, we marched forward and the sound grew louder and louder. Onwards we marched. We could now see smoke from some distance. More curious, onwards we marched till we saw a raging forest fire about 50 feet in front of us! Almost panicking, everyone began to sound off ideas. I suggested we get back to the last known trail, and try to go to OmbattuGudda afresh. But the trail was a long way back. Subbu suggested we go around the forest fire, without climbing down, to the other side of the small peak and move onwards! And what if the fire catches up with us by then? He had a simple theory, fire doesn't enter the forest region. So we stick to the forest region without exposing ourselves in the grasslands till we reach a safe distance!! And that is what we did, walking across the slope, inside the jungle, just below the forest fire, till we got to the other side of the peak.

By this time, it was already 2 in the afternoon and the tiredness was getting to us. Water was also at premium and we had to preserve it till we reach the estate which was another 6-7 hours trek. Also, since we had no path to follow, we had to wade through the thicket and thorny bushes till we hit the grassland.

The OmbattuGudda series

When we came out in the grasslands, we could see the nine peaks (OmbattuGudda) right in front of us and we made it to the peak at sunset time, just like my first trek to the place. Only that in this case, we had taken two full days to reach the peak!

Sunset at the peak

Having learnt from our mistake the last time, we didn't unnecessarily get into any jungle. And we could see the jeeptrack on the other side of a thick forest. Easily finding a narrow trail, we entered the forest, in complete darkness. Believe me, only the fact that we were 10 of us made me slightly less uncomfortable. And when we somewhere in the middle of the forest, "Jagga the bugger" realized he had left his monkey cap at the peak, turned around and ran away! There we were, the 9 of us, in the lurch, standing in the middle of the forest in complete darkness, having absolutely no idea whats 10 feet away from us, waiting for Jagga. Finally he turned up 10 minutes later and we soon reached the bloody jeep track which had irritated us the previous time with it's long and winding and ascending path. But this time, we knew what to expect and we were ready for it. Also, we had conserved enough water this time. It was 9:00 when we reached the estate (Lakshmi Saraswathi estate) and another half an hour when we got to our TT to get back to Bangalore...

As last time, we had plans of doing Dipadakallu, which had to be abandoned once we couldn't make it to the peak the first day itself.

The map of the place can be found here (thanks to Subbu). But I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone. Even if you are serious, think twice before heading off to the place. You might be tempted to hang your trekking shoes forever (like Sirish did!).

Photos can be found here and here!

Thus continues the quest...

Getting pampered at Sharavathi backwaters..

2008-11-15T17:36:00.001+05:30

For quite some time, I had been thinking of going to Honnemaradu which is famous for its backwaters. Well, nothing could stop me from going there but the only problem is that the place is generally booked for the next few months! I seriously have no idea what am I going to do next weekend. How the hell am I supposed to foresee my plans for atleast a couple of months?! Also, the place has restrictions on the number of people to be involved (12 is the minimum number I guess).

So when Subbu informed me about Sampath who offers something very similar in the Sharavathi backwaters itself, I had no hesitation in agreeing. And the booking was done only 4 days in advance. Also, from what I know, Honnemaradu people charge 2000 for 2 days. Sampath charges 1200 only.

Catching a bus from Majestic on 14th evening, we reached Sagar early next morning. Freshening up at the Sagar bus stop (the graffiti in the toilets is really interesting!), we caught a private bus to Gubbagodu, which is 18 kms from Sagar. The backwaters is just a few minutes walk from this place.

Lets go on a visual tour of the backwaters and the activities involved...

Getting used to the coracles. Coracles are used to move from one island to another..

The island where we camped. The island in the background is the 'shit island'. Yes, you need to take a coracle and row (or swim) to that island. If you cant contain yourself for that long, God help you!.

The backwaters..

Pirates on board the raft!

Abandon ship!

Getting used to the kayak. Do you see him tensed? :)

The team: (L to R) Subbu, Mahesha, Veeru, Jitha, Shalini, Flavia, yours truly and Sirish.

One memorable thing about this place was the food offered to us. Instead of the stale food which we regularly have during our treks, we were pampered with delicious fresh food. The akki rotis especially were yummmyyy...

Once we were back to the mainland, we decided to trek(?) up Deveragudda to get a good view of the backwaters and the islands where we had camped.

Catching a bus, we were back in Sagar at 1900 hours. Since we had about 3 hours to kill, we decided to pamper ourselves more with some sea-food and a couple of pegs to help us sleep better in the bus! It definitely helped, as the bus-seats were infested with bed-bugs which I realized the next day wonly :-).

Contact number of Sampath: 9845397386.

More photos are here, here and here!

Thus continues the quest...

Dabbe falls and kanoor fort

2008-10-25T21:23:00.010+05:30

With me getting 4 days off for Diwali, plans were being made for a drive to Goa in my uncle's new Ford Ikon. But a few days before the long weekend, the hopes were dashed as my uncle had to attend some function he couldn't miss. So then, trek it was. Looking for a trek I hadn't done before, I realized I hadn't done a trek in the Sharavathi valley. How silly of me! With others not being able to come for all the 4 days, it was decided to be a two day trek, just like any normal weekend trek. Jitha got some information about Dabbe falls and another nearby place called Kanoor fort. A few messages here and there, and we were seven of us. An ideal number for a qualis to be booked!

The team: My brother Deepak, Jitha, Naveen, Kid, Harsha, Manu and yours truly!

With rain lashing Bangalore on Friday evening, the departure was delayed as the qualis couldn't come on time. Finally at 2330 hours, the qualis made its appearance at the usual pick-up point, Ittiam office. It was a smooth drive till Shimoga the next morning, with me sleeping like a log (vertical though) throughout! Finally I woke up somewhere after Shimoga and happened to see the driver's rear-view mirror, on which I could see the driver - and he had eyes almost closed! Yep, he was drowsing! Tired driving is as bad as drunken driving and immediately I went behind the steering wheels as the driver caught up with some sleep for a coupla hours. After breakfast and getting some food packed for the trek in Sagar, we headed towards Jog falls, our first destination. Although Jog was not in its full glory, whatever water was there was enough to awe us. The water falls from about 970 feet and is the highest waterfalls in India. (Aah, I desperately want to go to Angel falls, which is thrice this height!

Jog falls.

From the top of 'Raja'

Anyways, moving on, we took the road which goes to the left of the falls, towards Bhatkal till we reached Hosagadde. From Hosagadde, there is a jeep track to the right. Any villager around this place should be able to guide you to "Dabbe Mane", the last house before the falls. But we had asked the Dabbe mane guy (Manjaiah Jain) to come to Hosagadde and take us to his place. Dabbe Mane is a little more than an hour's walk from Hosagadde. We had lunch there itself (you need to call and book in advance for that). Our original plan was to go to Dabbe falls, trek from there to kaNoor village the same day, go to kaNoor fort the next day and end the trek at Gerusoppa. But since we reached Dabbe mane quite late in the afternoon, we decided to spend maximum time at the falls and then take the qualis to kaNoor village, thereby saving around three hours (time for trekking from Dabbe falls to kaNoor village). The descent from Dabbe mane to Dabbe falls is very steep, and thus very interesting! Within 20 minutes, we were at the bottom of the falls and oh man, isn't the falls beautiful! Jitha started wondering what is all the fuss about Abbe falls, when you have a falls like Dabbe falls!

Dabbe falls

Wallowing in the falls water for about an hour, it was time for us to head back. Taking the qualis towards kaNoor village, we stayed at a village called Biligaru, as weren't sure of accomodation at kaNoor village. To go to kaNoor village, take a right turn here.

We were told that we need a guide to go to kaNoor fort from kaNoor village (around 8 kms). For reasons unknown/irrelevant, we decided to make do without a guide and it was a wise thing to do, as finding the way to the fort is not all that difficult (we did lose our way once and lost about an hour). Keep walking on the jeep track from kaNoor village. There are a few diversions but the main track leads to the fort. A couple of hours into the trek, you get a house in the middle of nowhere. Walk for another 20 minutes, and you get a guDi (a small shrine). Immediately to the right is the track which goes to Gerusoppa. Going straight, some 50 metres ahead, is a small trail which goes right and up, and a wider jeep track which goes to the left. The small trail to the right is to be taken. If you reach a lake, you are on the wrong track. Come back and look for a small trail near the guDi. The fort is only a few metres from the jeep track and is covered by dense, and I mean dense jungle. The fort is dilapidated and looks interesting, with the forest completely taking over the fort. Supposedly there is a temple about 1 km inside the fort. But we weren't aware of this and unfortunately missed it.

Kanoor fort, dilapidated.

Coming back to the guDi, we took the path leading to Gerusoppa and within another couple of hours we reached Gerusoppa

Bridge on the river Kwai!

Just before Gerusoppa, we had to cross the river Sharavathi. The boat ride to the opposite bank of the river brought back memories of my ride in the North East :). As soon as we hit the other bank, Harsha, Deepu and me had an urge to get into the water and we decided to swim to the other shore and back... just like that.

Sharavathi river, which we crossed, and swam & crossed again :)

The qualis guy was waiting for us at the Gerusoppa side of the river. Although he did give us a few anxious moments with his drowsy driving, we reached back to Bangalore safely the next morning at 7..

Some info:
Route to Dabbe falls:
Bangalore - Tumkur - Arsikere - Bhadravati - Shimoga - Sagar - Jog - Hosagadde
(right turn) - Dabbe mane.

Route to kaNoor fort (from Jog):
Jog - Hosagadde - Biligaru(right turn) - kaNoor - kaNoor fort.

Route back:
Gerusoppa - Jog - Bangalore.

The contact numbers of the Dabbe mane guy Manjaiah Jain are:
Mobile: 9480579094
Residence: 08186-210670

A few photos are here and here!

Thus continues the quest...

Kodachadri and Hidlumane falls.

2008-09-13T18:21:00.006+05:30

Subbu, all of 27 years old, had one regret in his life - he hadn't been to Kodachadri, although it's just a stone's throw away from his place. He decides to address this shortcoming during the second weekend of September. In an unrelated incident, Jithu, about to be married, decides to live his life to the full (before getting married) and plans to go to Kodachadri. In another world, Sirish, the grand old man, decides to go to Kodachadri one last time. Elsewhere, me, after being out of any sorts of action for close to two months, desperately wanted to get off my ass and head somewhere. No matter what the destination was. The trek to Kodachadri through Hidlumane falls is the story of coming together of these four people... :D

New raincoat?!

There are many trails that lead to Kodachadri and we decided to try the scenic Hidlumane falls route. How to get there?

Bangalore - Tumkur - Arsikere - Shimoga - Hosanagara - Nagara - Nittur.
About 3 kms from Nittur towards Kollur, there is a small bridge and a bus waiting shed and the place is called 'marakutuka'. Get down there and start walking on the jeep track. Hidlumane falls is about 6-7 kms from the main road and there are many forks on the road. It is nearly impossible to find your way here without the villagers' help.

Sirish, suffering from incurable Gaja Dosha, was saying something about elephants. The word 'elephant' had barely reached our ears, we hear a thudding sound and see Sirish resting on his buttocks! His Gaja Dosha continues...

Sirish's Gaja Dosha continues..

It was here, when we were on our way to Hidlumane falls, we stumbled upon the great idea of starting a club for all the singles in Bangalore... The "Hopelessly Singles-Bangalore Chapter" (HSBC). To know more abt the club, click here.

Hidlumane falls is a series of cascading falls with about 6 or 7 falls one after another. The beauty of these falls is that each of these falls are hidden from one another and they get better and better as you go up the cascade, culminating in a magnificient fall which is as secluded a waterfall as you can imagine! As we had gone in the monsoons, going up the cascade was anything but easy. The path was treacherously slippery with leeches feasting on you at every step. As we reached the main falls, the excitement was palpable as we began indulging..

Reminds you of Shawshank Redemption?

After about half an hour, we took a vague-looking path to the right side of the falls which eventually led us to an open grassland from where we could see the jeep track that leads to the Inspection Bungalow atop Kodachadri.

Jump up in joy!

Walking amidst clouds with green colour all around us, we reached the IB at around 5 in the evening. Hidlumane falls is without doubt a much better route than the more famous and commercialized route from Nagodi. Accomodation at the chaotic IB is not so great but then, what the heck. Its better than sleeping in the open, that too in biting cold. Plus you get food! What else one needs??

Jithu and Subbu

Since the visibility on the peak wasnt too great, we decided to make do withouth watching the famous Kodachadri sunrise. Also since we were told that the path to Arsinagundi falls will be really tricky because of the rains, we headed straight back to Kollur the next morning and then to Kundapur in desperate search of some sea-food! We kept ourselves hungry for most part of the day anticipating some yummy sea-food in the coastal town. But...

Evening 4 to 6 is not a good time for hungry souls to be in Kundapur, that too on Sundays. To our utter disappointment, there were hardly any restaurants open! Finally we managed to find a place which serves regular non-veg food, which was about to pull the shutters down. Luckily we reached there just in time as we hogged on some good chicken biryanis.

The contact numbers of the IB chap Rajendra are:
9480205657 (mobile)
08185-290368 (residence).

Photos of the trek are here.

All in all, for me, it was a birthday weekend well spent. :)

Thus continues the quest...

Cheetal walk - Masinagudi

2008-06-28T19:42:00.002+05:30

Cheetal walk - Mark Davidar's place. I had never heard of it until Pinky mentioned it one evening. Apparently her uncle, who is now settled in Australia used to go to this place some decades back(!) and had a lot to say about the place. And so, as Pinky was about to leave for the US (its been a month and she is still here :D), she says she has got one weekend free and really wants to go to the place. Some people who were interested backed out, some broke their legs and others had other plans. So we had to make frantic last minute calls, somehow try to get four people because the bloke (Davidar) says four people only. Nothing more. Nothing less. With some last minute calls, we manage get four people on board.The team: Pinky, Adithya the Jadoo, Arvind and yours truly.

How to get there?
The place is about 8 kms from Masinagudi. Continue from Masinagudi towards Ooty. After crossing a village called Mavinhalla, there is a road to the left (there is a sign board saying Wild-Haven). Continue on that road and u'll reach Mark Davidar's place. Book in advance. His no. is : 0423-2526256.

The place is good for armchair naturalists. The place is right in the midst of the corridor for wild-animals. Hence, wild animal spotting is a sure thing here, most prominent ones being elephants. He doesnt let u go out of the verandah, and rightly so, there are wild animals all around the place. You cannot go out even if you want to. We spotted a wild elephant (which kept visiting the place), wild boars, a huge sloth-bear, deers, sambars, snakes, bysons etc. The elephant came just outside the verandah. Davidar says he can "connect" to the elephants there and has named them after Brazilian footballers and the elephant who kept visiting us during the weekend was a bloke named "Roberto Carlos".

Roberto Carlos

What a figure! :D

While there, be prepared to listen to his rants also. The guy is perpetually drunk and keeps saying shitty things. Also, when we were there, he used to keep jackfruits for the elephant. Although he doesnt do it regularly, I dont know if its a good thing to feed wild animals.

The rate is about 1000 per head per day, but dont expect any luxury at the place. Be informed that you'll get a good enough discount if there is a chick in the group :-)

There is nothing much to do there for more than a day (unless you are a very keen naturalist) and we decided to head back the next morning. Since we had the whole of Sunday, we took a small detour to Gopalaswamy Betta, where the wind and the mist have always fascinated me.

Atop Gopalaswamy Betta

Stopping for lunch at the now customary Fish Land Mysore, we realized we had enough time to kill and went to Kokkarebellur. Unfortunately, it was off-season and we hardly got to see any birds (season is from January to June). And we headed back to Bangalore. End of the story.
A few photos are here.

Thus continues the quest...

Kuringal GuDDa and Onake Abbe falls

2008-05-24T21:27:00.003+05:30

Another jobless weekend and we had to go somewhere this time also. After considering Amedikallu and Mukurthi, we zeroed in on one of the Kudremukh National Park trails. I dont understand what is the problem with the Mukurthi forest officials. The first time I call them they readily agree to give permission (upon arrival). Still skeptic, I ask Subbu to call them up and confirm and he gets the same response. I call them again after a few hours and they flatly refuse to give permissions! Anyways, Kudremukh permissions were easily available and we decided to go to Kuringal Gudda (or Kurinjal Gudda).

Our initial plan was to trek from Mullur gate to Kuringal Gudda and camp at Bhagavathi Nature camp. Mullur gate and Kuringal Gudda come under Karkal RFO and Bhagavathi Nature camp comes under Kudremukh RFO. Bookings were done accordingly and we (6 of us) started from Bangalore in a qualis.

Jump up in joy!

The team: Moch, Mithun, Subbu, Mahesha, Indranil and yours truly!

After a peaceful overnight drive to Karkala, we got the required permission (in writing) from the RFO and reached the Mullur post, which is on the way to Kudremukh. But to our dismay, the officials in Mullur refused to take us from Mullur from Kuringal Gudda. The reason given was naxal problem but I suspect it was more out of laziness than anything else. Instead they offered to take us to Kuringal Gudda from some other route which was supposedly not half as tough. All our efforts of convincing them fell on deaf ears and we were compelled to take the other route. So then, we drove towards Kudremukh and about 11 kms before the town, we started the trek.

Kuringal GuDDa peak

The trek to the top should not take more than 2 hours. The only matter of concern for us was the huge mosquitoes that use to swarm us wherever we went. Have never come across such a breed of mosquitoes and their bites were quite painful. Other than that it was an enjoyable trek to the top. On our way back it started raining and oh boy, I really enjoyed the rains that day :-).

Upon reaching the Kudremukh forest office for permissions to Bhagavathi nature camp, we realized the accomodation is way beyond our budget! Two man tents for 400 bucks and two man guest houses for 600 bucks! (yes, we consider them ridiculously expensive). Since we were planning to go to Onake Abbe falls the next day, we decided to go to Karkala, where we got a three-star like accomodation for a total of 700 bucks (for the six of us). Great deal. The non-veggies had a customary Tandoori-chicken (you need to bring your two hands, fists clenched, closer to your face and crouch a little when saying this) for dinner.

The next day we set off towards Someshwara to go to Onake Abbe falls. Someshwara is on the foot of Agumbe Ghats and is about 60 kms from Karkala. We got hold of a guide (easily available) to take us to the falls since the route is a little confusing and the place is amidst thick forests. After about two hours of non-stop trek uphill, we reached the falls which had decent amount of water, thanks to rains for the past few days. The place is nice and I can only imagine its splendour in the monsoons! The fact that you need to swim to get to the falls makes it a very attractive place.

Water sports at Onake Abbe!

The high point of the day was when we ordered 20 plates of Neer Dosas and fish fries at Sridevi hotel for the five of us! (Mithun had decided to check out some other veggie hotel). Had a quick stop at the Agumbe view point just before sunset as we headed back to Bangalore, stopping for dinner and doodh-peDhas at Chickmagalur.

The trek is listed here. But the contact details are incorrect.

The contact details are as follows:
Kudremukh RFO: 9448789998 (M)
Karkala RFO: 08258 231183 (O)

The route taken:
Bangalore - Hassan - Sakleshpur - Gundya - Belthangady - Karkala.

Return journey:
Agumbe - Chickmagalur - Belur - Hassan - Bangalore.

Photos are here, here and here!

Thus continues the quest...

Pondicherry

2008-05-17T15:49:00.005+05:30

After a month-long taxing ride in the North-East, i wanted to go to some place to put my feet up and relax. And what better place to do that than Pondicherry? Never mind the heat though.

So when Moch called me for this trip, without a second thought (as always), I signed up. Leave on Friday evening and come back on Monday morning with the transportation taken care of. Sounds fairy-tale eh? The catch is in the number of people who had signed up. A full dozen and a three-quarter! Yeah, 21 people.

The team (start counting, you may need ur fingers as well as toes): Moch, Jitha, Subbu, Sirish, Anjali, Flavia, Pari, Babitha, Hasan, Harsha, Akhila, Aparna, Naveen, Praveen, Badri, Gautham, Murali, Ritvik, Sushmitha, Holla and yours truly!

Anyways... to keep ourselves entertained during the trip, me and J decided to go speaker-shopping and bought a set of portable speakers for 150 bucks. The speakers entertained/irritated all of us for a good part of the journey.

A few pre-trip calls that JJJ got were quite interesting and worth writing:

X: Hey JJJ, I have a pair of floaters, do I need to wear sneakers??
JJJ: First tell me what are floaters and what are sneakers!

Y: Hey JJJ, do I need to carry change of clothes??
JJJ: I don't care man!

As it always happens with such a large group, we left Bangalore pretty late (around 1 in the morning i guess), which left Aparna quite fuming i hear. After a tea break near Hosur which was almost as long as an elephant's gestation period, we set off to Pondicherry, via Tiruvannamalai (did I spell it right?). The driver of the other cab decided to keep his passengers awake by driving like a drunkard on steroids. The passengers apparently went "Ooooooo", "Aaaaaaaa" and "Ohhhhh" every now and then. The next morning when I got up at 7ish, we were still 60 kms from Pondi and we could see a small hillock in front of us with a fort on its top. So then, trekking instincts took over and we decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, we took a wrong route and had to abandon our climb mid-way.

Who slapped these people?

After a stop at a bakery for a doodh-peDha session (its paal-khova in Tamil Nadu), we finally reached Pondi at 1 in the afternoon. The chappars that we are, decided to go for budget accomodation, and headed towards Cuddalore where rooms were booked in Youth Hostel. Good accomodation at a mere 100 bucks for a night!

Youth Hostel Dormitory

After cooling our heels for some time, we decided to check out the silver beach very close by. The place is a little crowded (no no, not by the 21 of us) but we managed to find a good place for our frisbee game.

Frisbee Time!

For dinner, the non-veggies decided to get some sea-food and ended up at an uptown place (dont remember the name). The food was decent but the waiter made us wait for too long. Never mind. The Fish-65 was good.

The "no-nonsense" people. Me, Jitha, Subbu and Holla.

Next morning, most of us wanted to go to Mahabalipuram, but Moch, for reasons unknown, was adamant on not going. Pari almost fell at his feet but the bugger didnt budge. But Moch did manage to get everyone ready to go to Auroville. And what exactly did we do in Auroville? Play Frisbee!! Lazing around for most of the day, we went to another beach in the evening for another frisbee session, while some girls and Subbu decided to go shopping (poor Subbu). In the beach, Mochi managed to get his ankles damaged, Harsha managed to do a cool somersault at break-neck speed, Akhila managed to lose her goggles and her cool, me got an inch long cut on the sole of my right foot.

Though in no mood to get back to Bangalore, "Monday-morning" beckoned us. Also, we decided we got tanned enough and headed back, stopping for a quick dinner on the way. Reached Bangalore at 5:30 in the next morning.

A few pics are here, here and here!

Thus continues the quest...

The North-East expedition.

2008-04-11T17:51:00.010+05:30

Have you ever had throngs of people wave at you, from a remote village, as you roar by? Have you ever felt like a celebrity, atleast for a month, with people surrounding you and your bike, staring at you in disbelief? Have you ever had policemen stop you, only to have a cup of tea with you? Have you ever hugged your bike while crossing a stream on a cramped boat, all raining and completely drenched? Have you ever whispered words of encouragement to your bike, egging it on to cross a high pass at temperatures way below freezing point? Have you ever felt one with nature and your bike, that holy union of three entities?

I have...

Watch this space for updates. Too much to write. Trying to keep it short and hence taking time.
In the meanwhile, if you are as jobless as me, go through the pics here

Kabbaladurga

2008-03-16T16:58:00.004+05:30

Lazy Sunday? Take your bike out and head to one of the many 'bettas' or 'durgas' outside of Bangalore. That is exactly what we did last Sunday. A few calls here and there and we were already 10 of us! Talk of jobless S/E engineers. We decided to go to Kabbaladurga, about 70 odd kms from Bangalore.

The team: Moch, Jitha, Shashi, Harsha, Holla, BK, Pari, Ramya, Jo and yours truly.

We all decided to get together at Family Mart near Kanakapura road junction at 0730. By the time everyone turned up, it was around 0745. Remarkable! considering there were many late additions and last minute calls for co-ordination. Getting to Kanakapura road junction wasn't a problem. But the good ol' Family Mart, which was our reference point for many a trips, wasn't to be seen! Not a trace of it!! Apparently, someone had done a ctrl-x, ctrl-v of the location of the mart. Whatever! Had breakfast at some Adiga restaurant and I was made to pay the bill. The reason? It was supposed to be my 'wedding day' :D. Aah the price I had to pay for the prank...

Slow-paced ride for about 2 hours (with a break) on a not-so-bad-by-Indian-standards road, and we were at Kabbala village.

The route: Bangalore - Kanakapura - Satanur(right turn) - Kabbala.

Kabbaladurga is a fort on a monolith right next to the village. Parked our bikes at a villager's residence and started the climb. The climb is not tough, although at a couple of places, you may have to be on all fours. There are steps to the top. At some places, there are railings which you can hold on to. But you need to be a little acrobatic, considering the railings are about 3 feet away from the steps. Getting down, it began to rain, which made the descent slippery. Other than that, there is nothing much to the climb (and descent).

Once back to our bikes, we bade a tearful adieu(?!) to BK, who decided to part from us to go to his granny's place. Aah the pain of separation! :D. We decided to take another route on our way back. Chennapatna was a little more than 20 kms from Kabbala and the temptation of getting to Kamath for lunch was too good to resist. At Chennapatna, had a tough time explaining to Ramya what Chennapatna toys are. Poor Ramya didn't know what Chennapatna toys are (toys-deprived childhood she had, probably) :D. Had a grand lunch and a customary doodh-peDha session at Kamath and got back to Bangalore.

Question for the day: What are the odds of 10 people coming on a trip and not one of them having a camera, not even a phone-camera?

Thus continues the quest...

OmbattuguDDa

2008-02-19T14:46:00.008+05:30

Warning: Newbie trekkers donot try this trek. Experienced trekkers donot go to this place without a map and a GPS and loads of water! And get ready to get lost! Brace yourself for one of the toughest treks in the south.

A few of us had planned to do this trek three weeks back wonly (the last weekend of Jan). But somehow, didn't happen. This weekend 'Mohmad' was around and I had decided to go to the place no matter how many ppl drop out. I knew Mohmad wouldn't ditch. So no way OmbattuguDDa was going to be cancelled, for any stupid reasons. So finally, it was eight of us. Mohmad, Jitha, Mahesha, Adithya, Madhu, Kantha, Vatsha and yours truly. Equipped with a GPS and a topo map, we set off from Bangalore in a qualis, with latest Kannada movie songs blaring from the stereo. Weren't me and Jitha excited!?? I have no clue how others managed to get sleep, but for me, it was a sleepless night as we reached Gundya at around 5 in the morning. Kantha and Vathsa, who seemed like eternal sleepers, finally woke up!

The starting place for the trek is about a km from the Gundya gate. Immediately after crossing a bridge, there is a mud road on the right side, from where you set off. After about 2.5 hours of brisk walk along a flat terrain, we reached a river intersection, which was our first destination. Well, we could see only one river, but the intersection wasn't very far away from us, according to the topo map. Finished our breakfast and many of us were tempted to get into the river. Adithya got adamant that we leave soon, but managed to 'accidentally' fall into the river! Nice trick. We continued straight on a well defined path, along the Kabbinale river for another two hours, when finally, the urge to get into the water got to us and all of us took the plunge. I suggested we have lunch there itself, but others refused and were to find out what happens when they dont listen to yours truly...

End of the picnic. Now begins the fun. There was absolutely no path from thereon. But looking at the GPS and the topo, we headed straight in the direction of the peak (we probably should have taken a round-about route). Steep climb, loose mud, thorns all around and not a hint of a drop of water anywhere. Getting to the grasslands itself is tough but we managed to do it in good time thanks to the GPS and fit trekkers (all of us). Water reserves nearly got over and all of us were extremely thirsty by the time we hit open grasslands at around 4:30 and yeah, we could see the peak right in front of us. Another two hours of arduous climb and we reached the peak... Phew, first attempt, first day, considering the place is famous for people getting lost and all (haven't come across anyone who has completed the trek in one day). But all of us were too dehydrated to celebrate. Parched throats, dry tongues, burning lips, salts coming out of every pore in the body... Amidst all these, our dear committed man Mohmad managed to pee!!!! Jitha pointed out that he might have wrung his thing to get the pee out, but hey, he had that much water reserve nevertheless! We were all hungry too (remember we hadn't had lunch), but nobody was willing to eat because that would make all of us thirstier.

Our next task was to get to a jeep track which was less than a km away. But we had to cross a jungle to get there and it was already dark. We didn't find any path but got into the jungle intending to go in the north-west direction. But it ain't no easy finding your way in the jungle in the dark. Within a few minutes we got lost and the GPS stopped working in the forest cover. We kept walking for about 20 minutes until we got an eerie feeling that we were lost. Already dark, no path anywhere and all the directions looked the same! We had no clue which direction we were going in! So then, we tried getting out of the forest in any direction for the GPS to start working. We couldn't even retrace our path. We were left clueless in thick jungle and in the dark. Mea-culpa, since I was leading. But thankfully no one complained (nobody had the energy to talk!). After apparently going round in circles for more than an hour in what is supposedly a small strip of thick forest, we decided to rest for some time, think and start again. It was here that ppl started getting ideas of camping where we were (definitely not happening, i thought, we didn't have water, damn it!). Most of us considered spending the night in the forest itself. We started wondering whether the trek was really worth it. But then there's something called necessity and hope which can drive a person to his absolute limits. We started noticing the direction in which the moon was moving. Although others weren't aware of the fact that the moon moves from the east to the west, me and Adithya knew for sure. Then eventually, gathering all the energy and determination we had, we headed in the north-west direction and managed to come out of the forest. As if getting lost once wasn't enough, we had to cross another strip of forest to get to the jeep track! But luckily, after me and Mohmad scouted around a little, we found a clear trail and after another half an hour of walk, we hit the jeep track.

We were relieved beyond any forms of expression. We could now easily get to the estate where we could get those two molecules of hydrogen and a molecule of oxygen, which people lovingly call 'water'. Water... Aaahh.. that colourless, odourless and tasteless liquid to which you have an easy access when at work or at home... that which quenches your thirst... that which was the only thing in our mind then... But we were to suffer for some more time. The jeep track was frustratingly long and winding and ascending. After every corner, I would flash my torch to see any traces of water on the roadside. The jeep track was where the exhaustion and frustration really got to us. Till then, (even in the forest when we were lost), I could see the funny side of everything. But the never ending jeep track got to me. Never before was I so exhausted. Dragging my legs for what seemed to be an eternity, we finally reached the estate at 11pm. We all broke down with emotions when we saw a hose pipe with water trickling at the end of it... Well, we didn't actually cry (we are all men u see), but the mood was something similar. The estate workers provided us a room where we crashed for the night.

The next day, abandoning plans of dipadakallu trek, we put a touristy trip to Mulliangiri, going all the way up in our qualis! Every water source, a lake or a small falls or even a simple tap, would remind us of the previous day's experience and would make us happy and bring an ironic smile on our faces. After a customary "tandoori chicken" (you need to bring your two hands, fists clenched, closer to your face and crouch a little when saying this) lunch at some dhaba near Hassan, we headed back to Bangalore.

Ombattu guDDa has to be the toughest trek i've been to (i've done quite some trekking in the past and consider myself reasonably fit). OmbattuguDDa is an endurance test. Think twice before heading off to the place. Going there without a GPS would be pure madness. The dryness of the place apart, it's very easy to get lost there and the place is supposedly infested with elephants, though we were lucky not to find any. Iam not even imagining being chased by elephants when all of us are parched dry.

The aftermath: I am now looking at water in a different light altogether. Everytime I drink water and I see water, I remember that evening. Everytime there's a slight hint of me getting thirsty, I run to the nearest water source...

Thus continues the quest...

Kodachadri and St. Mary's island...

2007-12-25T01:13:00.016+05:30

My christmas vacation were about to start and I was supposed to go home for those 11 days. But when Moch called me for a 'walk' to Kodachadri and a trip to St. Mary's island I couldn't resist the temptation.. mmmmm.... It didnt take much of a task for my brain to chalk out a plan to accomodate both. I would go with these fellas to Kodachadri and St. Mary's and then head home! Simple! I am sure your brain also didn't have much of a problem in figuring this out. So we started from Bangalore on the 21st of December. Since I had to spend more than a week at home, I decided to 'take off' on my bike.

The team: Moch, Jitha, Badri, Naveen-1, Naveen-2, Navya, Pratima, Akshata, Praveen, Murali, Maddy and yours truly.

I was asked to meet these people, who were all cosy in the TT, at 9 near Nelamangala. But the bloody %$^#&^#&s made me wait for more than an hour! Finally when they did arrive, I realized they all had had their dinners too, which I hadn't! Again...... #^%$#%&^s. (Please notice that this swear word is different from the previous one). But with someone like Jitha around, dinner plans are never out, never mind the time and place. Also, when I was riding the whole night, these #$%$#%$$#s (another swear word) were happily dozing off in the TT. None of them even offered to give me company. Grrrr. We reached Akshu's place in Shimoga at 5 the next morning, and I rested my eyes for about 2 hours. It took the aroma of Masala Dosas and the sounds of Jithu munching them next to me to wake me up from my sleep! The MDs were lip-smacking yum.

After a customary group photo with Uncle and Aunt, we started off towards Kodachadri, this time Moch giving me company. On our way, we stopped for sometime at Nagara fort, which has a decent view to offer from its top. A lake at some distance, a river nearby and a few hills scattered here and there... u get the picture. We were soon reminded that the MDs are being digested and we started hurrying towards our destination. There are a number of routes to Kodachadri, the most prominent two being through Hidlumane falls and the one that starts from exactly 11 kms before Kollur. We took the second one. I parked my bike at a check post about 2 kms before the left turn we had to take and started walking. The first part of the trek is a casual walk for about 4 kms on a level jeep track after which we reached Kaka's angaDi (Hotel Santoshi) which served Mallu delicacies (don't have too much expectations though :) ). Loads of puTTus and iDlis and butter-milks later me, Moch and Jitha decided to give others a head start and took a brief nap for about 20 mins. Another two hours of lazy walk uphill and even Murali was at the top!

Just before the top there is a temple and an Inspection Bungalow where we camped. The IB chap charges around 200 per person which includes a dinner and a breakfast, which is pretty reasonable and he offers non-veg food at extra cost, for which you have to order in advance. After a good dinner, we got down to playing DumbC. Badri enacting "The chronicles of Narnia" is worth mentioning. After letting us know that the movie in question was an English one, he expected us to guess the name, without doing anything!!

Next morning got up at 5:45 and, anxious not to miss the famous "Kodachadri sunrise", we sprinted to the top, only for the sun to turn up 30 minutes after we reached the top. Damn the late comer. After breakfast, heavy as usual, we hired a jeep to come back to the main road. The jeep cost was 125 per head. Me and Moch reached Kollur much earlier than others, courtesy my bike. Happy, we walked more than a km just to get some chicken! As we were pushed for time, others who came late made do with some biscuits and we skipped Maravanthe and headed straight to St. Mary's island. Reached St. Mary's island just in time for the last ferry. The ferry made us poorer by 70 bucks. The last ferry to the island is at about 1530 (although depending on the crowd, they sometimes have a ferry at 1600 also).

The island is small and beautiful but gets crowded on weekends. After finding a suitable spot, we got into the water where Jitha and Badri managed to get pricked by a weird looking thingy and Jitha ended up limping for another week. Took the last ferry back and it was already dark when we reached the mainland and as is customary, we decided to get some "tandoori chicken" (you need to bring your two hands, fists clenched, closer to your face and crouch a little when saying this), at Dollops in Manipal. But on the way, we stopped at Akshu's cousin's place to munch on something before the dinner. But even before that, me and Badri squeezed in some time to get some sea food at some arbit restaurant (Anjal Masal fry was good!).

When at Dollops, I suggest you order curds... Amazing quantity you get. Me, a curdaholic, after a heavy dinner, ordered two cups and was quite taken aback when I saw the size of the cups! Post dinner, we saw off Prathima, cooled our eyes (kaNNu thampu, translated from Kannada) at the Manipal junction and hit the road again. Me on my bike, Badri for company, and others getting horizontal (not literally) in the TT, reached Mangalore and I headed home. Others, with plans for the next day, continued and spent some time in Coorg the next day before heading back to Bangalore...

Starting from Badri (with the towel), clockwise: Badri, Naveen, Murali, Kid, Jitha, Naveen, Maddy, Mochi and me

The route: Bangalore - Tumkur - Arsikere - Bhadravati - Shimoga - Kollur - Udupi - Mangalore.

The contact numbers of the IB chap (Rajendra) in Kodachadri:
Mobile: 9480205657,
Residence: 08185-290368.

Thus continues the quest...

Bandaje to Ballarayanadurga

2007-12-08T13:17:00.009+05:30

I had been to Bandaje before... twice. I had been to Ballarayanadurga... only once :-(. But I hadn't done Bandaje to Ballarayanadurga! So when Moch and his colleagues planned to do the trek, I, without a second thought, tagged along. But none of us in the group was sure of the path, so Subbu, who had done the trail a few months back, was to be pulled for the trek :-D. And pull we did. Apart from being the guide, Subbu was needed for the camera services! (He takes close to 600 snaps a day. The slide show can be made into a movie. What a man!). So we set off from Bangalore, 11 of us, in a TT.

How to get there? Bangalore - Hassan - Belur - Mudigere - Kottigehara - CharmaDi ghat - MunDaje - BanDaje.

MunDaje is just after CharmaDi ghats and about 5-10 kms before Ujire. Take a right turn at MunDaje and go on for about 8 kms and there is a sign board pointing to the right saying "BanDaje Arbi". Needless to say, take that road :D. Continue on that road till a place where the vehicles can be parked and start the trek. Be warned that the road from Mudigere to Kottigehara is horrible.

The team: Moch, Subbu, Jitha, PC, Mithun, Vinay, Vijeth, Deepak, Holla, Nagu and yours truly.

The initial path was a little confusing because of the many trails around, although it was my third time there. Figuring our way out somehow, we continued on the correct trail which is quite clear. After about an hour or two of trek, we reached a stream which is from the falls itself. The stream is quite wide, with nice big rocks to cool our heals, and we found the place suitable for our breakfast break :).

The breakfast point

From here, to get to the top of the falls, we had to cross the stream and continue on the other side. But we decided to go to the bottom of the falls, come back to the stream and then go to the top! Talk of exploration. So we continued on an obscure looking path on the left side of the stream, without crossing it. The two odd hours of walk is quite strenuous on a non-existent path and requires some basic sense of direction. The final part is quite rocky, uphill and is quite tiring. But reaching the bottom of the falls is quite worth it :-).

The base of the falls

Mission-1 accomplished. Now we had to get to the top of the falls, which was only a few hundred feet above us. But it was quite frustrating to know that to reach the top, we had to get back to the stream (about 1 to 1.5 hours), cross the stream and then trek up for close to another 2 hours! All this when we could see the top of the falls right above us!! How I wished I had wings. So then, back to the stream, crossed it and began the ascent, which is reasonably steep. Just before we hit the open grassland before the falls, an argument broke out. I said we had to go to our right as soon as we hit the grasslands. Subbu, who had also come there more than once, said we needed to go left! Confused, we headed straight, and we later realized straight indeed we had to go to reach the falls! How we both of us managed to reach the falls on our previous attempts escapes me :D. When we hit the grasslands, it was already 6:30 and getting darker by the minute. Not sure of the right direction to go, Mithun, Subbu and me decided to go ahead and find the right path. Climbing a small peak, we got this view of the falls from a distance.

The falls from a distance

Our water resources nearly empty and already late into the evening, we reached the falls in semi-darkness. PC and Mithun, God bless them, always come prepared for a trek, with sufficient food items, vessels to cook and sometimes a mini-stove too! After a heavy dinner and a good night's sleep in tents, we set off for Ballarayanadurga the next morning. Bandaje to Ballarayanadurga is a lazy two hour walk with good landscapes all around. Happened to spot a herd of bisons on an adjacent hill.

Bison herd on an adjacent hill

Mithun, way ahead of all of us all along, claims this very herd crossed his path only a few metres ahead of him! Well, he has a few photos here to validate his claim. Make sure you carry enough water while going from Bandaje to Ballarayanadurga.

The ballarayanadurga fort

From the top of Ballarayanadurga, it was a straight forward descent to some temple to where we had asked the TT to come at the specified time. After a customary "tandoori chicken" (you need to bring your two hands, fists clenched, closer to your face and crouch a little when saying this) dinner at some dhaba near Hassan, we headed back to Bangalore.

The route back: Sunkasale - Kottigehara - Moodigere - Belur - Hassan - Bangalore. If you are going from Bangalore to Sunkasale, take a right turn from Kottigehara (going towards Kalasa), after about 7 kms take a U-turn (easy to miss) and go on for another 8-9 kms. My set of photos of the trek are here.

Thus continues the quest...

Nilgiri trek - MasinaguDi

2007-12-01T20:45:00.008+05:30

Its been some time since this trek happened. But still blogging it because the trek was quite good. A group from BMC had done this trek a coupla weeks before we did, and that is how we got to know about the trek. At Masinagudi, on the road towards Ooty, towards the right hand side is a steep looking cliff. Anyone who sees that from a distance will testify that the climb is impossible. And we went about climbing that cliff! Before you start thinking that me and fellow-climbers did something akin to Stallone (in Cliffhanger) let me tell you that the climb is not tough. You just need to find the right path. And we had a guide to help us find the path! :D.

The team: Moch, Subbu, Sirish, Sriram, Vinay, Vijeth and yours truly!

We set off from Bangalore in a qualis (as usual, what's new in that?) and reached Masinagudi early morning. Sirish started shuddering every now and then just by the thoughts of elephants that we might come across on the road. (He is paranoid about elephants after a trek to OmbattuguDDa and starts hallucinating at every opportunity). Luckily for him and unluckily for us, we didn't spot any pachyderms that day. At Masinagudi we were welcomed by our guide Swaminathan who is a decent chap. Finished our ablutions at a public toilet, had breakfast and started the trek from the foot the cliff. Sirish, age notwithstanding (he is 27 and is considered a senior citizen amongst us) did well for most part of the trek. But the gizmos he carried started weighing him down. He had got a DSLR camera with a huge lens, two binoculars and a GPS other than the usual sleeping bag, mat and tent. Its another story that he never took any of his gizmos out.

Too many things hanging around the old man?

After a few hours of routine climb we reached a small village which is about 20 kms from Ooty. Must have been around 3 in the afternoon when we reached the village and we hadn't had lunch. As soon as the packed food was opened, we jumped on them, which would have made even the smartest of the predators turn green with envy. Another lazy walk for about an hour and we reached a villager's hut who was supposed to provide us dinner.

The evening was spent hanging around the place and the usual bantering with Sirish and Subbu. The dinner was provided by the villager who was quite warm and friendly. He charged a nominal amount for the dinner.

Subbu with his 'Rajkumar' impersonation

Do the socks smell? Let me find out..

We decided to pitch our tents about a kilometer from the villager's place and we found a suitable run-down house for that. The place was supposedly very close to elephant habitat. Needless to say, Sirish spent a sleepless night. And oh yes, that day was the first time I practised what we call "community shitting". No prizes for guessing what it is, although you might be invited to be part of the exercise the next time :D.

Next morning we got up early to get on top of a cliff to watch sunrise. And the sunrise was worth it.

On our way back took a slightly different route which eventually joined the original path and we reached MasinaguDi for lunch.

Photos are here and here!

09486630968 is the contact number of Swaminathan who arranges for treks in and around Masinagudi.

Kalhatti falls

2007-08-26T20:33:00.004+05:30

This trek happened some time back (a reliable source tells me it was on the 26th of August of 2007). Well, lets assume its true. Actually a night trek to Kalavarabetta was being planned for that weekend but for some forgotten reason, Kalavarabetta didn't happen. Everything happens for the good. Sriram wanted to do some 'serious' trek and we were off to Bababudangiri on the evening of 25th from Bangalore in a TT.The team: Sriram, Vachan, Subbu, yours truly, Flavia, Reshma, Hakim, Vinod, Ananth, Moch and Paddy (not in this pic).

The route: Bangalore-Hassan-Chickmagalur-Bababudangiri.The journey from Bangalore to BBGiri was quite uneventful. Few slept and for the other nocturnals, "KurigaLu Saar KurigaLu" (a really funny kannada movie) was being played.

Reached BBGiri at around 6 in the morning and even our asses were shivering there. Finishing morning rituals, we went to the only "restaurant" there which served good Bread Omlette. Be warned that the pure veggies dont have many options in BBGiri. Subbu, the eternal waste fellow, didn't happen to recharge his camera batteries, and to top it, took 100+ snaps inside the dingy looking place alone! Duh.

We had two trekking options: go to KemmanugunDi with a guide, or go to Kalhatti falls without a guide. Since some of us had done the BBGiri to KGundi route, we decided to go to Kalhatti falls. So what if no guide accompanied us? We had a GPS with all the points marked! Relying on the GPS, we first reached Galikere (lake of wind, wind lake, whatever), which is an awesome camping place (have camped there twice before). That was the third time I had been to the lake, and not once I could see the entire lake! Look at the foto and you'll know why. Even to go to KemmangunDi, you need to come to this place. From there on, we set off in another route towards Kalhatti falls. Light drizzle, awesome weather, beautiful landscapes, innumerable leeches... It was western ghats at it's best! Although we had a GPS and we knew which direction to head in, we could hardly see beyond 50 feet and we ended up using "brute-force" method to reach the destination. There might have been a clear-cut path but we ended up heading straight, into all the valleys and all the small peaks, unnecessarily! It came as no surprise to us when Subbu's batteries got exhausted within an hour into the trek. Bloody fellow! And although Moch did have a camera, he didn't even bother taking it out. No comments on that. It was around 5:30 in the evening when we finally reached the top of Kalhatti falls. Owing to good monsoons, the falls made for a good view from the top. It is a vertical drop of about 150 feet (or more, not sure). Since we were already late, we decided not to spend much time there and decided to get to the bottom where we had asked the TT to come to a village (kalhattigiri?).

Now began the fun. We could see a clear trail in front us to get down. But the GPS, the points to which were fed by PC, showed the next point to be somewhere above us, in a completely different direction. Confused, we saw where the point next to that was, and that happened to be in another different direction! More confused, we saw where the third point was.. and it showed to be in the direction we intended to go! But our committed man, Moch, decided to put all his faith on the GPS and went in the direction of the first point and then to second point, in that order. After about an hour and a half of climbing up and down, we realized we had come back to the same spot! Already dark (around 7 in the evening), wet to our undies, shivering, leeches having a feast on us, two torches for 11 people... I couldn't control myself and broke into a guffaw, all the while feeling sorry for our own foolishness! The next stretch of the trek was truly memorable. Steeep descent (real steep, I should say), loose mud, no real path in front of us, totally drenched... we weren't walking or crawling, we were sliding almost uncontrollably (lucky none of us got injured). I wasn't helped by the fact that the floaters I was wearing had absolutely flat soles :) Any part of my body I touched, I could pull out atleast a couple of leeches, blindly! After an hour of such descent, we reached a jeep track in a coffee estate, where we were not sure which direction of the track to go in. It was already past 8. So we decided to give our driver a call. Luckily he was reachable and we asked him to send some villagers for help :-). The villagers, to our dismay, told us over the phone that it would cost us 500 bucks! The ensuing conversation was quite funny:

We: Yenri Idu? Naavu kaLdu hogidivi illi. Help keLtha idivi. Neevu noDidre 500 rupai keLtha idiralla?
Villager: Illa ri, ashT agutte. Ee hothnalli naavu huDkonD barodu beDva?
We: Ree, 300 rupai thagoLLi hogli
Villager: Illa, 400 rupai
We: 350
Villager: 351...

Hehehe... After haggling for about 15 minutes, we settled for some amount (dont remember the exact amount) and within another 15 minutes, they reached us and helped us get back to civilization. After purging ourselves of all the leeches in all the unwanted places and changing to comfy, dry clothes, we headed back to Bangalore, stopping once for dinner at some arbit place.

Moral of the story:
1) Never trust a GPS (or technology, for that matter) fully. Sometimes have some common sense also!

2) (For Subbu) Recharge your batteries, waste fellow. We don't have a single snap of the waterfalls!

More 'misty' photos are here

Thus continues the quest...

Tadiyandamol

2006-10-14T19:05:00.002+05:30

I have been to Tadiyandamol four times.. and not a single post on my blog! So I decide to write a general post on Tadiyandamol.

The peak

Tadiyandamol is the highest peak in Coorg and is one of the easily scalable ones. It is about 30 kms from Virajpet. From Virajpet, take the road going towards Madikeri. About 5 kms from Virajpet, take a left which goes towards Napoklu. About 20 kms on that road, before kakkabe, there is a road to the left which takes you to Nalknad palace (there is a signboard). There is an estate very close to the palace and is called 'Palace Estate'. The people are very friendly and you can park your vehicles there. Oh and FYI, 'Palace Estate' is a homestay also.

The trek starts on an asphalted road which narrows down, becomes a jeep track and then gradually becomes a small trail.

About half an hour or an hour (depending on ur speed) into the trek, there is a fork. The left one goes up and the right one goes down. Also there is a decent view on offer to the right side at this junction. The left trail (which takes you upwards) is the one to be taken. Another half an hour into the trek, is a huge boulder which cannot be missed.

The boulder

There are two paths here. One going to the left leading to a forest and another going straight, to the peak. There is a stream about 100 meters to the left of the boulder, in the forest, which is the last source of water before the peak. The trek from the boulder is an uphill one with no more forks/intersections.

When you reach the peak, do not forget to check out the left side of the peak, about 100 meters before the top. There is ledge sort of thing overlooking the valley and is one of my favourite spots! I can sit there for hours together and do nothing but stare at the valley below!!

The ledge, my fav. place!

The whole trek, palace estate to peak and back, if done at good pace, can be done in 5 hours, with an hour's break at the top! Tadiyandamol is probably the easiest trek with such a panoramic view on offer from the top. For all the newbie trekkers, I would definitely recommend Tadiyandamol as a must-see destination. It's easy, and will definitely get them hooked to trekking!

The contact number of the palace estate guy is 9880447702. His name is Prakash or sth which sounds similar :D.

Himalayan Odyssey

2005-06-28T11:25:00.001+05:30

Starting the blog with probably the best journey i've had so far... the Himalayan Odyssey!

It all happened because it was supposed to happen! Fate. The Himalayan Odyssey was to begin on the 27th of June 2005 from New Delhi and the scheduled return was on the 10th of July. But the time I came to know about this, my company joining date was thought to be on the 4th of July. Damn! I had given up hopes. But one fine day our HR calls me up and says the joining date has been postponed to the 18th of July. She asked me if I had a problem with this. He He! Things just couldn't fit in any better.

I skip the part of my Mangalore to Delhi journey and my escapades(?!) there. Joined the Odyssey gang on the 26th in Youth Hostel Chanakyapuri where we were given instructions regarding the trip, the rules and regulations (what are those?!!) blah blah... The group consisted 43 bikers from across the country. Three women, two of them riding and one pillion. The next morning the ride started from the National Stadium with the flagging off ceremony done by Sidharta Lal, the CEO of Eicher group. We were instructed to maintain an average speed of 80 kmph during our ride to Chandigarh. So me, like a good guy, started the ride with a constant speed of 80. I slowly realised that I was among of the few last ones in the pack. Even the female riders had overtaken me! To hell with 80 kph! Started ripping and soon was among the leading pack. After some 5-6 hrs of high speed riding, long breaks, we reached our destination for the day, Chandigarh at 3 p.m. where we were put up in Hotel Park View. The distance covered: 250 kms.

The ride next day was the most enjoyable one. About 70 kms from Chandigarh, we took a right turn to hit the ghat roads. Nice winding roads, high speed curves... Riding is an absolute pleasure on the Chandigarh-Manali highway. Passing through Mandi, Bilaspur and after two punctures in my rear tyre and quite a few snaps, we reached Raison (near Manali) where our stay was in an adventure camp beside the Beas. Distance between Chandigarh and Manali: around 330 kms.

Day 3 and our picnic was over. A major traffic jam near the Rohtang Pass and all the bikers stranded for about 3 hours in near freezing temperature. We tried to make the most of the situation and started throwing snowballs on one another but after sometime the chill factor really got onto us. I started to get a feel of what mountain sickness is. A few river crossings on our way and my feet soaked in chilling water. After about 120 kms of riding, reached Keylong, our day's destination. I was down with fever that night.

Day 4: The riding conditions became worse. I started the day with fever, and soon it was coupled with mountain sickness. I began to lose my mind and integrity. Wider and deeper river crossings, Barachala Pass, everything is hazy in my memory now. Was feeling as though I would drop off the bike anytime. Somehow managed to keep my bike upright and ride to reach Sarchu (107 kms). Nausea, headache, fever, loss of appetite, irritation at anyone, anthing, anywhere..... To make things worse, no sleep that night! That has to be the longest night I've ever spent...

Day 5 was just as worse, though I began to enjoy the landscape around me. Passing Lachulunga, 16500 ft - the highest pass so far, the gorgeous Gata loops with 21 hair pin bends we reached More (pronounced Moray) plains. Plains at a height of about 16500 ft from sea level, surrounded by a chain of white snow-capped mountains! The most beeaauutiful place I've ever been to. Inspite of having acute symptoms of mountain sickness, I could manage to put a smile across my face looking at the landscape around me. Simply mindblowing. And guess what? We were to camp at a place called Debring on the very same More plains that night! To reach the camp, we had to get off road and ride on soft sand which can be tricky. A sooper camping spot. But.... there is a dark side to this place. It turned out to be the most dreadful camps amongst all. Overnight stay at 16500 ft is no joke. I somehow managed to sleep well that night(thankfully), probably coz i didnt have sleep the previous night. Everyone else in the group suffered that night. Hemanth, the guy on the bed next to mine didnt get up the next morning..... He was taken to the nearest military medical camp and then air-lifted to Delhi. He is now safe and sound :-) Distance from Sarchu to Debring: around 125 kms.

Day 6: I seemed to be back to normal after a good night's sleep. Rode to a nearby lake in the morning with a few others and then headed off to Leh (around 150 kms). Very much accustomed to high altitude now, also helped by the fact that we were descending constantly to reach Leh (11000 ft), I began to enjoy the trip. Upshi was the first civilization we got before Leh. From then on, it was a smooth ride to Leh on surprisingly good roads. We were put up in Hotel Lingzhi. Had a nice hot water bath (after 7 days :-) and the only one for the next 7 days also!) and went to sleep, peacefully.

Day 7 was a welcome break for all of us and was spent lazing around Leh. Leh is a serene little town surrounded by snow-capped peaks. The narrow streets are lined with shops owned by Tibetan monks and you can see 'Save Tibet' posters all around. The Tibetans, far away from home, have been surprisingly successful in maintaining their identity here. There are numerous Buddhist monasteries in and around Leh. The main attractions in Leh are the Leh Palace and the Shanti Stupa. The Leh 'Palace' is completely dilapidated and deserted now. The Shanti Stupa is on a hilltop and is tastefully built. Once on top one can enjoy the panoramic view of the chain of mountains around.
Coming back from Shanti Stupa I accidentally noticed an astonishing sight. It was around 6 in the evening and in one direction, only one mountain was gleaming in golden colour! None of the other snow-capped mountains around had that glow. I stood there, speechless!

The next day we were off to do our final conquest: Khardungla! The highest motorable road in the world, at an alititude of 18300 feet. An ascent of about 8000 ft in around 40 kms makes the climb the steepest one. As a pleasant surprise, the weather changed dramatically and we experienced our first snowfall on our way up. Once on top, everyone started doing the victory jig, and we went about hugging anyone and everyone around for the sheer joy of being there with us in our moment of glory! The temperature on top was -4 at 12 noon!

The next morning we started on our return journey on the same route. Due to the weather change, the ride back was considerably tougher. But it made the trip all the more enjoyable. Snowfall, freezing temperature, landslides, numb fingers and toes. Thoroughly enjoyed riding in those conditions! Due to heavy snowfall and landslides, the road got blocked near Bharatpur and we had to spend an additional day in Sarchu. What a day! Doing NOTHING, no connection to the outer world, just lazing around, not feeling guilty of not doing anything. Total bliss, not a care in the world :-). Sadly the road got cleared in a day and the next morning we started off early to avoid getting stuck in a 300-truck traffic jam. What followed was THE toughest stretch of ride one can ever get in a lifetime. 6 o'clock at Baralachala and the water on the road had frozen. Riding on snow is one thing, but riding on plain ice?.... Demands such intense concentration and riding skills that sometimes you stand and wonder 'how do i ride my bike for the next 10 feet?' The sole aim in life seemed to be to keep the bike upright, somehow. Even the rear tyres of the TRUCKS used to sway, seriously! One more stretch of ride on our way back worth mentioning is the ride from Manali to Chandigarh. Some 4-5 500 CCs and me and my friend's 350 CCs rode like maniacs on the ghat stretch. Taking on the curves at more than 100 kmph on that ghat stretch, that was the rashest I've ever ridden. 6-7 Bullets on the rampage like that, every other vehicle on the road would just make way for us. We owned the roads... as we headed back to our final destination: Delhi.

There is no better way to experience the Himalayas than on bikes. The blissful feeling you get when you stop the bike to look out into the valley far down below the road or the narrow winding roads in front of you is priceless. Certain places all we could see was the blue sky, 360 degrees of snow and a trail of tarmac in front of us. Nothing else! That was a sight to remember..... Although have been to a trek in the Himalayas after the ride, the mountain ranges are calling me, again. And I have to go. It's only a matter of time before I start off for another Himalayan expedition.....

The photos of the trip are here

Thus continues the quest...