Tranquility to Turbulence - A trip to Sita Nadi, Agumbe and Sringeri

Caution!! Long (and may be boring) post ahead - Just putting it down here so that I don't forget any silly or tiny thing also about this trip.. Read at you own risk ;-)

March 7th 2008, 11:14 am: Mail from Manz.. Guys,

I Know it is too early to plan for the next trip, but when it is time for the next trip, lets see if we can make it to this place... It sounds really interesting :) http://naikutti.blogspot.com/2006/10/rafting-trekking-etc-at-river-sita_20.html

~Manasvi :-)

Just a glance at the above blog was enough to frame an idea of visiting this place in monsoon. Hats off to the guy (Kartik I guess) who posted that wonderful experience with few amazing snaps of river rafting and mountain biking. Manz had just thrown a stone hoping that it will strike few of us, but eventually it did strike all of us and made us eagerly wait for the monsoons for our adventurous trip to Agumbe. Well...Everyone knows that if something is being planned too early, the efforts will go in vain. Sita nadi trip set an exception to that statement. We all waited for this trip for months and the plan worked out just as expected, may be more than that. Everyone I met since I heard about this place, I kept mentioning about this place and kept making false promises except to "this group". I am thinking of a better name for "this group". Any suggestions from "this group" are most welcome. As the clouds thundered and sky started showering, all of them who were convinced with my false promises, started buzzing me "boss, monsoon arrived? You said we will go sita nadi.. are we going??" - I didn't know what reasons I would give to avoid them.  


1st Aug 2008, around 9 PM: 
The late night discussions about plans, long chat with San who was in Denmark, a telecon of 1 and 1/2 hours between me, Manz and San to get convinced about San's plans and list of places to be visited, home made food preparation by Hari, Shy, Nidhi and Thrish, Larry and San's shopping for snacks - everything put together made us occupy our seats in TT with Raghu (driver) all set for the river rafting and leechy trek in the Agumbe Ghats. Gang - Below in the video :-)

Though we made sure we had everything set for next 2 days including food, we had to get down for dinner at 10PM. After having delicious grilled sandwiches, pretty costly though, the TT took a left turn on the Tumkur road, towards Haasan. The road was pretty good and we reached Beluru at around 2 AM. We got down from the TT to stretch our body a bit. After a while, we had to get back into TT and close our eyes in search of sleep. I desperately prayed for a proper sleep, but the curvy roads and on/off rain made it difficult for me. The road was so calm in the late night, rather an early morning; I could easily count the number of vehicles that our TT encountered on a stretch of 50kms. 2nd Aug, 4:30 AM, Sringeri: Highly opposed place for the first visit, Sringeri was the place where Raghu insisted us to stop by and look for lodge. I was happy that my plan was working out. We took 2 rooms (for 100 rs!!!), in the vicinity of "Sharadambe Temple" to sleep for some time and to get fresh. Except for the "no hot water" and the colorful cold water the rooms were pretty good. Most of us took bath and headed towards the temple which was very close the rooms.

I believe there wouldn't have been a better start to this trip than stepping into Sringeri Sharadambe temple. It was a cloudy morning, with a drizzle now and then. We took Darshan and visited small little temples around, went near the bridge. The place looked awesome and peaceful; water current below the bridge was setting fear in the mind for the river rafting that was supposed to happen on that afternoon.

Soothing atmosphere and a Holy place - Sringeri 


 

After eating Idlis that we carried from home, it was time to start to Agumbe which is 18 kms from Sringeri, a 20 minutes journey. We reached Agumbe, Malya Residency, right opposite to Agumbe police station, at 10:30 am. We had booked rooms over the phone 2 weeks before. After dumping the entire luggage inside, we got ourselves ready for the much awaited River Rafting in Sita Nadi. At around 11:15AM TT left Agumbe, and drove towards Sita Nadi Nature Camp, which is approx 20 KMs from Agumbe. To reach the place, one has to drive down through the Ghats crossing 14 hair pin bend curves and Someswara. 2nd Aug, 12.15 PM, Sita Nature Camp: As we reached the Sita Nature Camp gate, our excitement to see the river Sita reached heights. When we all got down, eyes first searched for the rafts to get the feel of rafting but unfortunately there were none because the morning batch hadn't yet returned. We met Sharat from Adreno Adventure club through whom we booked for long run rafting for 3 hours. We had to sign the security paper to own our life's responsibility. It was precisely 12:15 PM when reached there and the rafting time given to us was 2:00 PM. Sharath asked why we were so early and I told him that we wanted some time to set ourselves. In the mean time we had lunch and roamed around enjoying the serene beauty of the nature camp for a while. The current in Sita River was setting more fear and excitement as we assembled on the banks of Sita. A beautiful voice emerged in the middle of the silent nature camp; it was Nidhi's melodious voice which we were all entertained with, "Tere bina zindagi se.." one of everyone's favorite songs, was heard more fluent when she was singing that. San was busy with her handy cam, Manz & Kumz with photography, Shy in imagining zuiinnnnn swim in the river, Amit and Monty still trying to make themselves more comfortable with new group, Trish was busy taking "close up" pictures of her sis - Hari and Larry were on the branches of a tree which was leaning towards the river.

Waiting for the rafts - Sita Nature Camp                                  


 
 


It turned out to be a much longer wait than we expected. It was already 2:15 and we could not see the rafts coming in. Also Sharat was telling that there were some problems. Everyone kept their fingers crossed, waited eagerly near the Shores. Finally we could see the rafts after half an hour and there were instructors too. The wait seemed to be over when we were asked to assemble to listen to the instructions. We then wore, with all excitement, the raft wear which were all over the rafts. As the guides and organizers were pumping the blow inside the rafts, we felt the adrenaline pump. Then we moved close to the river for further instructions. Basically there would be one instructor per raft who will sit at the back and give us the commands. It all started with "Paddle forward, paddle backward, right forward and left backward" etc... Then Sharath moved on to explain the consequences if we are detached from the raft in the middle, if the raft itself topples, not to panic since the life jacket could helo us float for 24 hours at least! (After that!!!???) - Those instructions were really scary - scary enough to change manz's facial expressions. "We will all practice few commands for sometime, near the shores.." - That’s what Sharath told and our rafts moved on.. Hari and I occupied front rowers' position. We were watching the current in the water waiting for the raft so long and now we are on it!! Initially it was scary. There was a specific position in which you have to sit and lock your legs to the raft; however we weren't that perfect in doing that. Within few minutes of our rafting there was one huge rapid, which came as a surprise and since it was the first, we weren't prepared for it at all... My god! I became upside down and water gushed through my nasal cavities. Huh.... That was really a spine-chilling experience. However I was still attached the raft and the paddle was with me.

"Kaalu" was the name of our guide; let me call him a commander. The guy looked tall and dark. He held a paddle with a larger blade than his subordinates'. He looked Nepali but spoke Hindi and English. He is an expert in this art of rafting and he does this in both India and Nepal it seems according to the seasons.Truly a memorable adventure - Sitanadi                                   


 
  


Kaalu kept pestering me to hold the raft properly, to bend forward while rowing... Though it was annoying, it was for my safety and it was lesson for me for my next rafting (If I do!!). The river seems silent after a while's rafting. Kaalu said that we can jump into the water but holding the rope along side the raft. San had got free pass to jump wherever she wants even without any support. She just utilized her chance and jumped straight into water; Shy sitting on the raft was imagining herself in San's position - "zuuinnnnnnnn..." - Yes she just imagined, did not make an attempt to get down. Sangeetha was flowing away faster than the raft and finally a small thin bush helped her to give support. Even the bush would have felt happy that in life it could give support to one creature at least. :-) Kaalu stretched the paddle towards San and managed to pull her back into the raft. She kept smiling as though nothing would have happened. 60 odd years old uncle who was sitting behind took this opportunity to praise her and ask her name. When an old man does this, nobody says that he is flirting. On the other hand, when I asked the old man's daughter who was sitting behind me about what she does, everybody thinks I was flirting. Bad people!

             
The river Sita, which takes birth in Narasimha Parvata, and flows down through the western Ghats of Agumbe to meet Arabian see, was flowing wild, wide and full. The trees along side the river remained serene in the midst of the turbulent wind and monsoons... We could catch the sight of many birds every now and then... Just to add more attraction to the present beautiful view, a peacock, flew just few meters above our head from one end of the river to cross it and find a place on a tree's branch. Our raft was gushing down through the wild water but still we could turn back to have a glance at the peacock... It was a typical Indian Blue Peacock.

After 15 minutes of rafting we all got used to it and the fear of water and the current disappeared; in fact we went in Sync with Sita. We desperately waited for more dip rapids while Shy prayed for calm water to swim! Everywhere balance is required you see! When we neared a bridge where the other troops were parking their rafts, we thought it was over! :-( However it was a break for the people who were registered for long run and an end for the people who were on a short run. It was already 1 1/2 hours of rafting. The raft mates changed for the next half and Larry occupied the front rower's seat along with me.

When we got close to the other rafts we spilled water over them as though we had caught up a fight with the other gang; it was fun though. The stomach started complaining for food after a while; I was really damn hungry. However just to deviate thought of hunger, some interesting things happened in next few minutes. Monty never wanted to get into water since he had back pain and all; as soon as he mentioned that, there was rapid waiting for him to make him upside down. Well as expected he was dipped in water for a while but he managed to hold on to the rope and the paddle. Hari on the other side, in the same situation, just missed his paddle - that he realized after climbing the raft. We could see the paddle taking the other way, and we somehow wanted to get it back. To add more curiosity to this there were lot small bushes spread across the river widely, right in front. I thought the paddle would get stuck with a bush on the way. As we decided to turn back after crossing the bushes, we could see the paddle crossing our raft in all its glory. That's it, one long stretch towards it; we could get hold of it. After another while there seemed to be huge rapids, and it was scary enough to see; but our rafting ended just before those rapids. Larry wanted to cover those rapids and then stop. He didn’t know that there was a water fall just few meters ahead. We had one more adventure to do there; we had to carry the raft on top of our head and climb a steep little hill to park it near the road. It was really painful and we all struggled to carry it.

Labour work - carrying the rafts to the main road :-)

 
There was a bus waiting for the rafting candidates; we had to walk for a kilo meter to board the bus; as we entered the bus we could see all the wet bodies occupying the seats; as usual I chose the last row, my favorite from college days :-). Back to the nature camp, we dried ourselves with the warm clothes. A cup of tea/coffee with Bajji after that ended our tenure at Sita. We came back home after a shopping for pickles, ghee and Curd, prepared steamed rice, had a peaceful dinner with our home made chaptis and parathas. Carrying food there turned out to be a wise decision as far as I think.

3rd Aug, 2008: 10:00 am "What's today's plan?" - That was a question everybody asked while having breakfast, and question, obviously, was to San. She said she had no idea; as per our discussion before the trip our avid trekkers’ gang had decided to trek to Koodlu Theertha falls. However, trek to this falls should be ventured only in dry season otherwise people will come back with leeches everywhere. ;-). Lodge's owner suggested me to route the gang to Barkana falls which was quite a small trek and there was a view point of the falls and another falls called Jogi Gundi falls where we could get into water.

We took his suggestions seriously and started our Sunday's ventures with trek to Barkana falls. That was the best time when we visited; looked green everywhere. There was a threat of leeches while we stepped down from TT to start off the trek. There were small little water streams on the way; I liked them and few hated them the most. As we were pushing ourselves hard to catch up with Baabanna, the local guide, Shy lead him and moved fast like never before. Moreover all the way through we were busy detaching the leech attacks; by the time we removed one, there were five stuck on the other leg.

 

The entire group was split into 2, one lead by Shy and another by no one. Hari, Thrish, Nidhi, Law, San and I lost the leading group. Though we were walking along the correct road, we thought we were lost; we decided that it's wise to go back and see if there was any other turn rather than walking a long way and messing it up. We suspected a right turn which we left behind. We came back and checked with suspected turn but it was not the one as there was no leading path towards that direction. We had no other way than get back to TT. We lost the way on the way back too. I was totally messed up with the directions. However Hari and Law made the best efforts to guide all of us to the correct road. Also people who saw the falls were coming back and we could hear from them; finally we got the right track towards TT. It was a real disappointment for me that I could not see the falls. There was nothing that I could do though. The thing which cooled my temper down at that moment was that we had one more water fall to visit.

Though, it was disappointing not to see the water fall, there was a lot of fun trekking through the thick green forest and getting lost twice both ways. There were few awesome clicks by my camera too. It rained on and off; standing head up towards the sky facing the crystal clear rain drops amidst the thick green forest certainly gave a feeling of "true happiness".

       There was much more fun waiting for us when we neared the TT; I hesitantly asked Raghu to allow me to sit on top. He reluctantly said No! However, Hari and I moved back and climbed the steps to conquer the top of TT. Raghu had nothing to say than to drive. There was heat inside the TT because of jealous as some people did not make it to the top. We reached Jogi Gundi water fall's starting point soon after a small drive. Amit and Monty did not come out as they had warmed themselves with warm clothes and did not want to get the new clothes wet. All others went down to see Jogi Gundi falls. I made sure this time that Mr Baabanna was with us, though there were little interruptions by someone ;-). It wasn't a long trek; we reached the falls in just 10 mins. The fall wasn't that height, but there was too much of water and the falls roared in the middle of stupendous field of trees. The water was damn cold. It required little adventurous efforts to get into water but eventually we all got into water and shared a rock to sit, watching the falls closely. I tried to get close to the fall, but the buoyancy created was threatening. After spilling water over each other like small kids, we said bye to the falls and we literally ran towards the TT for occupying the top seat. Well... shy missed it this time and Amit, Monty were already sitting inside..

The ride while we were sitting on top of TT, certainly was the best of this trip. We enjoyed this as much as rafting a day before. A Drizzle , a narrow road, Raghu's "wonder la" sort of ride, trees along the way, the green grass on the sides, the shining wet faces with smile on the face - everything put together was just like "time of life" (as manz described it right then and there). It was truly superb, amazing ride. Words can't explain it better.

We got down just a half km before Mallya Residency, where we stayed. We did crazy stuff while we walked till the lodge. We bent down our knees to take a race as if it was some Olympic track; never realized there was a van coming from behind. A man inside the van was totally confused to see what was happening there, he peeped through the window while the TT passed us, still confused!!

We went back to the lodge desperately to change dress. Before that everybody enjoyed eating "Neeru Dosa". It was a great satisfaction after making sure that there were no leeches on the body, and when we warmed ourselves. It was time to vacate the rooms and say bye to Mallya Residency. After checking out from there, we drove to Someswara and visited few temples in the evening. The plan was to reach Sringeri by 7.30 PM at least. It worked out as expected. We had lot of group photo sessions near Someshwar, before we left the place.

A decent gang with a set of dependent and independent individuals ;-)

As planned we reached Sringeri at the right time, before "Maha MangaLaruthi" that happens at 8.10 PM. San, Hari, Shy and I preferred to wait for the Puja before we had dinner. Others preferred Pet Puja first. There was a little fun when we had our dinner. San could see a leech there also, and I can't forget how she ran from there to sit next to Hari who was sitting a little away. After a round of walk around the temple, we left the campus in search of TT. That also turned out to be dramatic. We could not find our TT in the vicinity of the temple. We played Sholay trick.. aadhe idhar jaao, aadhe udhar jaao.. and it worked too, we could finally spot the TT. So just like that our visits on the trip ended with start as Sringeri and end also as Sringeri.. Couldn't have asked for more..

We played Hitch while coming back to Bangalore, which got stuck half way through - but not before Hitch conveyed a message - "Life is not the amount of breaths we take; it's the moments that take our breaths away" - which went in sync with our trip to Agumbe. There were plenty of such moments that took our breaths away. The fun, the wonderful rides, the laughter, the trip ended at around 4:15am in the morning when I buzzed the door bell to irritate my brother and woke him up to open the door.

4th Aug 2008 10 AM: Back on my Honda activa and on my way to office towards Jayanagar; mind has stopped calculating the routine roads and is still sailing in the fond memories of Agumbe trip.

Fly High

"How? Why? When? Where?" How does it feel when you are flying? How do the landscapes look when you see them from a height? This curiosity and excitement remained for a long time in life till I really experienced it. When I was in schools, I used to watch these things on TV, and always wondered "When will I do such things?" - May be money was the factor which made me wonder that way.. Today it's not about money, it's about I wanted to experience something like this and I am going for it, that's it! This parasailing was an inspiration from one of my friends who celebrated one of the special days in her life in a grand way by doing parasailing. I grabbed the instructor's phone number and details from her blog. That's it, I got in touch with Mr Neeraj (9886797597) who conducts this adventurous sport.. Everything was set for the weekend, but then on a beautiful friday, the day IT people long for a long week, though it comes every week, turned out to be a shock to the entire, B'lore. The entire city was stunned, menaced by few creatures on this earth who belong to nowhere and who love no human being. Serial bomb blasts, 4 according to one tv channel, 5,6,7 according few other news channels., startled living beings in Bangalore. Nothing affected my plans for the parasailing though. My eagerness to pull out few people from my team in office went in vain. It was such a disaster that, 1 out of some 60 people accepted my invite. It was Amit who accompanied me and my previous colleague, a friend, Lawrence.. Landmark: On a fine Sunday morning, all the roads of b'lore gave a feeling of the old garden city, when there were not many vehicles around.... The roads were empty like never before.. becasue of the bomb blasts' after-effect. We were supposed to go to KR Puram hanging bridge from where the parasailing place was exactly 9kms towards Chennai & Tirupati. From the hanging brindge we kept riding till we reached a "Bharat Petroleum Bunk" on the LEFT side.. (one comes on the right side also, but that's not the one). We stopped by and called up the instructor, he directed us from there to the destination! On the field: While we entered the field, we could see the instructor was already there with his gypsi. and his 007 son was getting ready for the sailing. As we entered the field we were getting scared. But this kid, Jaswant, who had so much of guts to sail alone in the air, quite a good height, really inspired us. Jaswant - a fearless dude! We signed on a sheet of paper, didn't read a single line then, but I guess it was about out we bearing our life's responsibility.. Amit was the first one to go... He was all excited as the parachute was being tied to him. The gypsi which had the other end of the rope, started and move a 100 meter away.. and then 1 2 3 start....in few seconds Amit reached heights! Next was the Lawrence's turn. He would also reach quite a good height but he was cribbing that it was not as high as the one he had done before in Jakkur..

That was quite a good height

Finally it was my turn. I don't know what was going on in my mind then, but it was a great feeling... As the intructor took his gypsi forward, I was asked to run 2 steps; yes with those 2 steps in next few seconds I also reached high high on the sky.. I carried Amit's Nokia N95 cell phone with the camera switched on to video mode.

start of the adventure

I can't explain the feeling when you are so high in the sky, your legs are hanging down, and down you see the large green field, all of my friends looked so tiny, there were many cattles on the field, everything looked so beautiful; I didn't want to come down. But for the money we were paying, 300 RS, 5 minutes was like too much of time. Landing was smooth. Mission accomplished feeling :0).

Landing was smooth but it was me who gave it little twist

We then paid him money and thank'd him for the wonderful experince he provided us through parasailing, I promised him his son's photographs which I had captured in my camera. It was then the time to say bye to everyone and the field. On the way back home it rained heavily, and we were supposed to go a friend's place for lunch, we went there, had lunch and reached home early in the evening.

KemmannuGunDi - Hebbe Falls - MuLLayyanagiri -

Friday, 13th June 2008

- 2:00 PM

Subrahmanya Arcade (My office)

(Friend of mine calls me)

Friend: "Hey, sorry for calling you up on the last day and inviting you for the trip.. would you be interested?"

Me: "Dude, just because few seats are left unoccupied, are you asking me this? Not really intended me to come on the trip huh?"

Friend: "ha ha ha..nothing like that, I thought someone else would call you"

Me: "Well, today I have a telecon with my US peers and a customer, so if this issue gets fixed will be able to come. But chances are 10%.. "

- 8:00 PM

Me: "Hey I can't come for the trip, I have to stay back in the office since we are supposed to have a net meeting with the customer..Now the chances are 5% that I can make it for the trip..If some miracle happens and the issue gets resolved, I will join last moment!"

Friend:"Welll..okay...."

-9:15 PM

A mail from a US peer: "Hi Prashant, the net meeting is over, the steps provided by you guys seemed to work just fine"

Me: "Sir (to my colleague), I will go home and try to catch up with my friends for the trip"

And thats it, my 5% chances turned out to be 200% to make it for, what I call a wonderful wonderful trip to KemmannugunDi, a hill station distant 40Kms from Chikkamagaluru.

Started from Bangalore at 11:30PM in the night from my pol, vijayanagar, the 21 seater containing the mixture of the generations drove us to Chikkamagaluru. Yes, there weren't only friends but friends' friends, friend's parents in-laws, son, husband..

Mullayyanagiri was the first place to be visited on the list - It would have been a second visit to the highest peak, but still I didn't mind - My second visit to the same place started giving me a different feeling as the bus started trekking the hill :-). This time around it was drizzling there. There was a small tree bent towards the middle of the road obstructing the way for our cute bus. I was more than happy to help the cleaner, to move the tree upstraight to make way for ourselves. Great feeling!!

As and when I saw the places we trekked through last time around, I was showing my friends, "see this is how we came last time..." 2 months back it was a clear sky, with bright sun throughout out trek. This time no trekking; We had the bus.. On the way we got down at a view point to inaugurate our photo sessions!

Before reaching Mullayyanagiri, there comes a place called, SitaLLayyanagiri, from where we can trek to the peak - it takes about half an hour to 45 mins. I asked who wants to get down and try to trek through the clouds. All youngies stood up and said "Let's go"! And as expected it turned out to be an amazing experience. C'mon who wouldn't like walking through the clouds.. Few of the troop who had never seen such a scenic beauty were already on the sky, it was so good to hear a Northie praising my state Karnataka for the first time..

"Amazing, fabulous, ultimate, heaven.." these are words I could hear frequently on our way up the hill.

Our bus which took some people in it did not manage to reach the peak, since the driver got threatened by the high speed blowing wind and clouds. He stopped it in the middle of the way itself. Trust me it was really scary, I man could have been easily flew away with the wind.. But still our other teammates and their parents, made an effort to get down and walk till the top. We were relieved to see them near the top.

Now came the most challenging part of this trek. A man can stand on the earth and look up to see the clouds moving - we could see them all around us... so much of fog and blowing wind which could take anyone away easily.. Few guys from the other troop warned us "don't go..very risky..hammering wind!" Initially we were hesitant. But then I said, we should climb few steps up and come back if it gets diffcult. Slowly and steadily we managed to climb up few steps, after a while, it was a moment of life or death. Had we not held each other's hands we could have gone with the wind! majority of us decided that we should go back, but there were 3 people who wanted to make it to the top. We took a deep breath and said "Time to climb down".. as we turned our face down to climb down, the 3 of them who were interested, just ran up the steps. Now a big dilemma, "Shall we also go or wait for them (if at all they come back)?" - I said "we should also go up to see these guys are there" - We made it to the peak point somehow and grabbed a cup of "requested tea" at the top [ priest's house on the top].

There were showers for some time, and as soon as it slowed down we fastened our pace to climb down the steps. What a memorable and scariest experience!

Next place on the list was BababuDangiri, a holy place basically. Way to BababuDangiri was unforgettable. It really makes you wonder; look through the window of the bus and see numerous cloud formations and their meet with the hills, some milky clouds look sliding down the hills, way down you see the trees which give guest appearance when the clouds are away.. I know I can't explain all this like the writers do or the Discovery Channel's presentation of the scenic beauties.. That's why I put a lot of photos to make myself more expressive :). Well, for a moment I felt I am blessed to be still in India unlike others going out of the country in hunt of success!

A feeling of bliss..

By the time we reached the place called "Datta peeTha" I was done with a nap. The chill cold weather woke me up and my hungry stomache made me grab a Pulav packet and after that I could not stop myself searching for a tea shop in the vicinity. I managed to get one and had 4 cups of hot hot tea :-)

Once we were done with the Darshan (visit) to the temple, it was time to go to KemmannugunDi. On the way "Mungaaru Male" was enjoyed by all of us, with lot of cheering for Ganesh and all the songs. As I wanted it to be, we reached the place when the movie reached a part where Ganesh gets acceptance from the girl for his proposal :-) "A happy ending" I said as the driver switched off the tv.

So far I felt I was on the sky, in fact I was!! I could feel the ground when I touched the soil. With a set of very good organisers for the trip, everything was set right for accommodation etc.. As we reached the guest house, there was a huge queue for... you know for what.. ;-)

Next on the list was Z-point, the next day, but we were unfortunate to miss going there because of rain and fog.

Next it was Hebbe falls right after the breakfast. We walked for a km to get jeeps to Hebbe falls which is approx 8 KMs from that place. The jeep drive was so amazing and seeing stupendous fields of grass on the way made me feel really happy. Hats off to the drivers who manage to take us through, through such a bad mud road, and high speed wind. Jeep dropped us near a guest house from where the falls was again around 2 kms away. This 2 kms way to the falls in this weather is outstanding. With so many water streams on the way which you have to cross, and the steepy little hills which you climb give you undoubtedly a great feeling. Not to forget few leeches who give you few unforgettable memories when stuck to your legs to suck your very sweer blood :0)

Just as we turned right from a curve on the way, we were shown the great hebbe falls by mother nature and the two eyes were really not enough to catch the beauty of it. Hebbe really rocks between the picturesque nature of hills and trees..

Only few of us escaped leech attack, some realized late in the jeep when they thought their leg was itching.

Back to KemmannugunDi on a jeep drive, lunch at the guest house restaurent, a group photo, a visit to a small holy place "Kallatigiri falls" on the way back to b'lore and then back to bengaluru, a city full of IT people, ended our trip without any hassles!! All thanks to the wonderful organisers who took take care of every possible things to make this trip a big success!! Right from snacks to entertaining us with "Jab we met", "Mungaaru MaLe", and "Tom and Jerry" - They had made all arrangements!!

My mind is still not out of that wind and clouds....it takes a lot of time to pull myself out of such a masti-misty trip (that's how someone called it on the trip)....

People stare at the peak and say "How can someone climb up to that point?"

I stand on the peak and say "Why can't you climb up and play with the clouds?"

Visit for few more snaps -

http://www.orkut.com/Album.aspx?uid=9534179928671722591&aid=1213868753]

Cheers!

"Trek to the Highest Peak of Karnataka"

Place: Mullayyanagiri, 20kms from Chikamagaluru.

Chikkamagaluru is certainly one of the famous places in Karnataka, for the coffee estates and the exuberant hill stations... How to go: Lot of Buses are there, Raj Hamsa, Volvo, Semi delux (from B'lore)

less than 6 hours of journey from Bangalore.

Stay and food - is good - Plenty of good lodges and hotels.

Date: 11th and 12th of Apr 2008 Place near chikkamagaluru, called Mullayyanagiri is the highest peak in Karanataka, which is just adjacent to the Bababudangiri hill ranges!

This trip came as a treat for me since it had been a long time since I went out for a trip (mostly 4 months). And as usual this one also left some memories to cherish about for lifetime :0) It all started with my neighbour uncle who has a big yoga gang of his, when he told me about this trek. I immediately said "I am in" since I was waiting for it. I like this gang since it has all generation of people from 20 to 50 years old :o) So certainly it is a good experience and exciting one too to see aged people climbing the hills faster than we do.

We all (19 of us) started from Bangalore at around 11pm after a lot of last minute hassles for searching the bus in jam packed KSRTS bus stand. Since there were 3 continuous holidays, we had to fiddle with a lot of traffic and we could beat the traffic just in time and boarded the bus in last minute.

After reaching Chikkamagaluru in the early morning at around 4:30am, we started searching for lodge, so that we could take bath and start the trek fresh and fast. I don't know why many lodges were full that day; after a lot of difficulty and a walk of 1 km we could get a lodge.

After having heavy breakfast, all started walking towards Mullayyanagiri, I asked everyone, "why can't we go till the starting point by bus?" - but who will listen? - They started walking on the roads - with a standard dialogue - "Enappa ishtu young aagi, aagalla antheera?"

I tried to walk for a km or so and then 6 of us got into a local transport and reached the place called "kaimara" from which the peak is 14 kms. A left turn from there leads to the peak, and Kemmannugundi etc... places. None of us knew the exact starting point for the trek. So we kept on walking on the main road. In between whomever we met, asked them where is the "Kaalu daari" to go to Mullayyanagiri. Everybody told us a different way and we ended up walking more distance than we were supposed to. Someone said we have to go through coffee estates, others pushed us on to the mail road again.

One memorable incident happened which was witnessed by all 6 of us. I don't think anybody would believe this other than we 6, if i tell the story. As we went down to take the short cut, I got see a cobra on my left side, in a small bath room sized room. One of us took out a camera to zoom it and capture the snake.. The snake moved back and did hide itself beneath a step like structure. It popped up again to see whats happening outside, since all of us were staring at it, it moved fast towards the door and disappeared for a while.. .Next moment we had the biggest shock to experience.. Who would expect a snake to climb up the door and close it showing its face to the stunned spectators! Trust me it was the scariest moment I have ever witnessed in my life so far.

Only we know how careful we were for the next half of the trek. A local man was giggling at our unhealthy efforts of climbing the steep regions. We had to walk a long distance and more over it was almost a bus route, nevertheless we thoroughly enjoyed it as we got to see many eye-catching view points, views of 2 beautiful lakes (one of which is supposed to have been shown in "Gaaliapata"), ice cold stream of water to relieve our suffered legs..

After a few more steps we reached a place called "SitaLayyana BeTTa" - where there is a shiva temple. We opened up the eatables that my mom has packed up for us, and we had a peaceful lunch sitting under the tree. By the way, what happened to the other 13 people whom we left behind?? - I called them up to hear that they are almost near the peak. I was surprised!! We left them 4 kms behind and we are lagging behind by atleast 1 hour. We had taken a round about trip to the hill :o)

After taking rest for a while we climbed up 3 more hills to get the ziz-zag view of the steps to the highest peak. btw there is a temple at the the top of Mullayyanagiri, called "Mullayyana MaTha".

When we reached our gang on the top, most of them were flat down - Their snoring sleep could disturb birds flying around. :o) They had actually trekked the hill stright up which was almost 75 digrees. I also took the opportunity and slept off for 2 hours. When I got up at around 6:30pm, others were trying some photography, when sun was closing down for the day. We had a great evening discussing all gossip news, pulling each other's legs, teasing someone who was over the phone for 2 hours on top of the hill!

We stayed back over the hill for the night - it was an amzing experience - No vehicles around - no pollution - every breath we took was so sweet and satisfying - a dim moon light - blurred view of the perimeter of the Bababudangiri hills - sparkling bright stars of course - Not only on top but when we looked down, Chikkamagalur's lightings looked like a necklace filled with rich jewellary - refelction of the road lights in the distant lakes - Words can't explain better than the live experince.

The guy who takes care of the temple (priest), gave us shelter for the night and food to make us feel even better. Next day morning, after wishing a sweet morning to the raising star, the Sun, we thought it is time to leave, and immediately we started back our journey. We trekked down few hills for 2 kms and then waited for a bus to Chikkamagaluru. We reached back home at 5pm, after we boarded bus at around 12pm.

Though it was burning hot season we didn't feel so, since it had rained the whole week before the day we went there. We could see more greenery just because of that one week's rain. Thanks to two of my colleagues who made it for this trek. So 2 more guys added to this trip list. Someday, somewhere villagers will see a huge crowd attacking a hill nearby and definitely get scared! :0)

One more unforgettable trip added to my list to make it more rich and make me say "Yes, I am really having an amazing journey through my life".

"Yaana", "Sirsi", "Om Beach"

Place: Sirsi, 400kms from Bangalore Route: Find out from the net ;-) Facilities: Sirsi has got good hotels for stay and food Team: As it can be seen in the picture, a bunch of highly enthusiastic, people started from Bangalore on 11th Jan, 2008 which was supposed be our first trip for the year 2008! Yes! What else could have been a better way to start off 2008 than visiting some mesmerizing locations like Yaana, Sirsi and Om Beach.

With the same old set of people, there were few new faces adding delight to our freaky troop! Thanks to Trishna and Chandra Kala for joining us. As usual, Prashant (myself), Lawrence, Manasvi, Sangeetha, Surajit, Shylaja, and Meetha were all set for this long journey. SriHarsha was supposed to join us from Sirsi. FRIDAY LATE EVENING!! After a 2 days trip to Wayanad and a day's trip to Skandagiri, it was Manasvi and Sangeetha's responsibility (owned by themselves) to arrange for the next trip , whose result was a 2 days trip to a place called Sirsi. Sirsi is a place distant around 400 kms from Bangalore. We wanted to explore "yaana" and few were desperate to go to one beach atleast ( we decided "Om" beach ). Well, the place was decided, and now we had to arrange for the cab. We decided to hire the same driver whom we took to Wayanad, since we were all impressed with his driving skills. Raghu, the driver, managed to come back from Shabarimalai on friday morning, and after sleeping for some hours he was geared up to start his driving towards Sirsi on the same evening. Raghu came to my place in Vijayanagar at around 10PM, we started towards the organiser's house to pick them up. Next we had to pick up Shyli and Chandra Kala, they were waiting for the cab in Rajajinagar, and we were told the landmark of the place where they were waiting. - "Take a left turn near Jyothi Bakery, keep driving for 5 MINUTES, you will find us" !!!! I said " okkkaayyy"! Luckily it was Raghu's galli, so he knew where exactly to drive! After all of us settled in the tempo traveller, all of a sudden I got a shock seeing that the number of guys for the trip is too less. It always happens with this troop. I just asked shyli who has so many friends all over bangalore, to arrange for some more Gents for the trip. After introduction with each other (there were some new faces), and after the most important thing, "paisa vasool" we started discussing the plan for Saturday and Sunday, "where to go first??" , "when do we reach om beach??" etc et॥ I was for, going to some water fall, and Sahasralinga on Saturday, and on Sunday, early morning trek to Yaana and then to OM beach। This plan looks so neat to me now also but I don't know why it did not strike anyone else

that time, few sat passive! All of them were so excited that they wanted to go to yaana first on Saturday! I thought it would be better to sit quiet, and not to have the altercation going on, since it would spoil the entire trip!

All this while Raghu (driver) was alright, he was driving well, and somewhere in the middle of the journey he stopped the TT near a garage to check the condition of the tyers। All set and now Raghu got back to TT। Unfortunately, he was unable to start. After repeated attempts of repairing the wiring, and also getting a nearby garage man, his attempts failed. We had to do some circus there then, with only minimum number of guys (3), we had to push the TT hoping that it will start. Nothing helped, we wasted 2 hours there. Then Raghu had a very good option of phone a friend, he did call up his expert friend and somehow managed to start the TT towards Sirsi.

SATURDAY MORNING!! Raghu again had to make us wait for 2 hours on Saturday morning for some repair work, and made us reach Sirsi at 10:30 AM which was very late! Now again, I started convincing that we should not go to Yaana that day since it was already too late, and we were tired. According to me Sunday was a good day to start off to Yaana early morning, and enjoy most of it. Again the plan looks so neat now also, I don't know why others did not co operate!! :-) We waited for "Sree Harsha" who was supposed to land in sirsi all the way from Hyderabad, thanks to him, he had arranged for our lunch. We collected lunch from Harsha's dada, and decided that we will go to Harsha's place to have lunch. It was a typical antique house, beautiful in the middle of green trees. As we entered his house, we all for sure wanted to take a nap! it was really a great feeling to be sitting in Harsha's house, so cold so peaceful. Harsha's family showed us a great hospitality, they really did take a good care of us. Harsha reached home when we were having our lunch. He also joined my opposition party saying that we will go to yaana first. It was already 3 o' clock. I said okay, "we will go to Yaana" :-).

We reached yaana pretty late in the evening, at around 4:30. We hardly had any time left for the sunset, so we walked fast on the smooth track till the beautiful rocks. In the short time we had there, we tried to do some adventure by climbing few rocks, doing some crazy jumps here and there. Yaana is really a beautiful place. It is a nature’s wonder. Known for two gigantic rock formations of a height of 90 meters and 120 meters respectively called "Mohini Shikhara" and "Bhairaveshwara Shikhara". Half way up the side of Bhairaveshwara rock there is a deep cave measuring three meters at the entrance where Bhairaveshwara, the local deity is sanctified. Encircled by thickly wooded forest, it is a trekker’s paradise. There is a proper road (mud road though), from the starting place till these rocks. So it did not require much of energy from us. Before we could say that we should go further to explore some more of Yaana, it was already getting darker. We headed back and entered a temple, the "pujari" told us the story behind the "yaana", why is it named so, why the rocks have got that shape. He told perceptions of different people about the history of Yaana, Mohini Shikhara and Bhairaveshwara Shikhar , I donot remember even one story! We started walking back since it was getting darker. I had a lot of fun making some weird noise in the forest. All the way we walked listening to the music and answering great questions of "Question Queen" meeta. We headed back to the hotel we stayed in and it was a time to say good bye to our friend, Harsha, on the way. Really it was a great help from him, making the arrangements for stay and food and also showing such a wonderful hospitality at his house. Thanks Harsha! During the dinner I was just grinning sitting at a corner, and talking to myself saying that "see i knew that we couldn't have seen more of Yaana if we go there today" ! But it was too late and all I could do was sit and feel bad! However, I enjoyed the short time that we had at yaana. It was great fun! SUNDAY!! Next day morning, we had to get ready fast to start for the second day's journey. After experimenting with tasting new types of items in breakfast (MisaL pav, Banaana bun etc etc), we, headed towards a place called as "Sahasralinga", which is situated close to Sirsi (about 15 kms). Manasvi and Sangeetha had something to regret for, they forgot to pay for a glass of milk they bought from the hotel! Sahasralinga is a pilgrimage place in the Sirsi Taluk in the district of Uttara Kannada. "Sahasralinga" = "Sahasra" meaning thousand + "Lingam" . There are thousands of "Linga's" in a small water body. Lingam is a symbol of worship of the Hindu God, Shiva and its on the auspicious day of Mahashivaratri when thousands of pilgrims visit Sahasralinga to offer their prayers to Shiva. Each lingam here has a carving of Nandi facing it. We could get into the water there, we just went around for a while playing with the water and doing some photography experiments. I remember last time I visited the same place just after my second PUC, I made a borrowed camera soak into the running water. I tried my best to dry the camera and change the battery, but it did not work. Keeping the old memories in mind, I was very careful about meeta's camera which I was holding this time. She had given the responsibility of this camera to me, for the obvious reason of taking her beautiful snaps. The last moment while coming out of the lake, I lost control over my legs, I slipped in the water, and well.. I soaked in the water. Though I had 2 cell phones in my Jeans pockets, I was more worried about the meeta's camera. I remember how I managed to hold the camera up though I was flat in the flowing water. Some how I came out of it and camera was still working. Unfortunately my brand new w580i cell phone and my grand old samsung cell phones, were shutdown for a long time, until Lawrence made them dry dismantling each and every part of the phones and exposing it to Sun. I was happy to see both of them working later in the evening. I was quite happy that I enjoyed spending time in Sahasralinga, and managed to capture some "Kodak Moments"! Trishna and I had a competition to throw the flat stones on the still water to beat each other's count of number of bounces! It made me remember my school days when I used to do this quite often. It feels so good to do such things which I did in my childhood, and its all possible because I take out time for myself to go out of Bangalore, and live the life I always want to. It was a very pleasant morning for all of us and we all liked the place. We have so much of craze about photography (self and nature), that we didn't bother about cow's sh** and just stood near a bench and took some photographs. The most funniest part of it was when Trishna saw that sh** and sreamed "oh my god..chee...its a fresh sh**".... I just could not control my laughter!

After having a great time at Sahasralinga, we wanted to see some water fall, but again Driver and most of others, were like, "It will be too late to reach Om beach if see a water fall". This time I didn't want to hear all of that. I got down from the cab and enquired about "Unchalli" falls, and the distance to Om beach from there. According to my calculation we could have reached Om beach well before 4 PM in the evening. So we headed towards, Unchalli falls, around 30 kms from Sirsi, which is the one of the biggest tourist attractions near Sirsi. The waterfall is a 116 meter drop and offers spectacular views at all times of the year it seems!

We had to get down and walk for a while, around 2 kms, to go to the view point. I was thrilled to see the ghats, and on the left side, a milky water falls gushing through the beautiful western ghats and falling from a huge height!! huhhhhhh....a sigh of relief, that we did not miss seeing this wonderful breathtaking view. Then the photography started, focused photography covering the water falls next to the cheeks, next to their flying hair etc etc.. We again snapped some golden moments,and it was time for us to get back to the cab, since shyli was in hurry to jump into the sea water. We walked back slowly, Lawrence pulling some tired bodies along with him ;-). Before getting into the cab, all of us confused a shopkeeper with the number of banaanas that we ate. Everybody was hungry, and just could not stop themselves saying "I want one more"!! Shopkeeper also took the advantage of it and grabbed extra money! Now comes the most interesting part of the trip and the climax, much awaited Om Beach. Shyli wanted to swim and I was wondering "how could she swim in the beach". We reached Gokarna after travelling for 3 hours from Unchalli Falls. All thru this journey, I had a great time answering great questions from QQ(question queen), the best one being "Is this beach same as the someshwar beach?"....Of course all the beaches will be the same. You will see sea water and a sand on the sides ;-) As we had planned, we went to Om beach 2 hours before the sunset. I could not see the roaring waves of sea hitting the shores! Initially I was unhappy about it. I could see that there is some rock extending more towards the sea away from the beach. Few of us decided to go there for a while, the rocks were all dirty with bottles and rotten things all over. I really curse those people who spoil such a wonderful place. We sat facing the sun for sometime, we took some photographs again, and later I could hear that some one was calling us "oye oye".... Two local guys came with full of anger scolding me left and right, asking me how could I even dare to go to that place, I was the only guy in few of us who went and sat there, those local guys were targetting me and scolding, I tried to cool his temper saying that we could not see the display boards that its a "Danger Spot". I have heard of many instances where many people lost their lives in that spot.

We moved out from that place, started searching for Shyli, Lawrence and Surajit, and we could see that there was some swimming training going on by an untrained trainer (Lawrence) teaching a highly enthusiastic student (shyli), while Surajit was taking fun out of this. I could not resist myself getting into water,so couldn't others. I remember Lawrence and Surajit had great time, with both of them being trainers for sometime, and then being boats for most of the other time. There was one more troop, where those guys were wondering "what s happening out there?" . I can't really explain, in words what was the scene there! Having mentioned that, don't imagine anything else!!

We had great time at Om beach, few learnt the art of floating in the water (including me) and few learnt a little bit of swimming. Few looked excited and turned towards me and said "Hey don't move, let me see whether I can swim and reach this small distance!", It was one of the best sun sets I've ever experienced in my life! Floating in the crystal clear water and seeing the sun go down the horizon was just an amazing feeling!! After all the fun we had, nobody wanted to come out of swimming pool like beach, and I kept saying "some more time some more time".... Unfortunately, we had to come out and start our journey towards b'lore to make sure we reach early morning of Monday to go to office (Unfortunately!!). It was too late for us to start back from there, since we had to go to office the next day ( Monday ). We started back from there at around 7 PM. Raghu told, we will be reaching bangalore very late in the morning. Because of Raghu we had to wait for two more hours till he got his extra tyre ready in Kumata. On top of all this, when the entire world was sleeping (including us), Raghu said "why not me??"! He parked his TT on a road side and told me that he will sleep for sometime, and guess what that "sometime" turned out to be more than 2 hours and we were really really late, in reaching Bangalore! But I believe Raghu is a good driver and he drives carefully keeping our safety in his mind. It doesn't harm us if we reach 2 hours late to Bangalore than taking a risk by driving rash! So Raghu, again a good job done! and I bet, you will be our regular driver from now on (provided we don't see cockroaches in your TT again) ! We all carried great memories (as always) back home from Sirsi, yaana, sahasralinga, and Om beach, and Sangeetha carried an extra element apart from those memories, a doubt, "Why the hell was Tempo Traveller shaking when guys were changing their dress!" (after coming out of Om beach ) kudos to the trip team once again! and hope to see you all soon in our next adventurous meet!!