Hogenakkal

I had been to hogenakkal in last week of july..logging my experience..

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We, a group of 3, hired an indica car with national permit, as we needed

to pay road tax while entering tamilnadu.

It was around 6 in the morning when we finally reached hosur road.

After a series of toll-booths, we reached dharmapuri by 830am.

We had Idly-vada in a hotel in dharmapuri. It was quite a different taste..

On the way from dharmapuri to hogenakkal, Few huge posters of thalaivar..

Lot of huge statues of Village Gods (aiyyanars) welcomed us..

one more toll before we started to descend a hill leading to hogenakkal.

Downhill to Hogenakkal

On reaching hogenakkal, it was filling a money-pot... parking tolls +

development fees (there will be lot of ppl waitng for this..

i think we paid 15, 20 20 at 3 places till we finally parked)

We walked to the waterplace..where lot of coracle boatman were

waiting for their day ...

First rate: 660Rs/ride; max.6ppl/boat.    << this rate is all bribe :(

original cost is 70Rs per head...but we cant help

After lot of bargaining in tamil, we got for 450 + (50 which we paid as tips).

The Coracle shells

I would suggest you to get the life-jacket..they dint give us even on asking...

Then we went coracle boat to another place..(here there will be one more

boatman head) ,we got down and walked down the steps to one more place,

where the boatman carried the heavy boat on his shoulders and brought it

down to the place..

From there they will take us near the waterfalls..and next towards the

karnataka border. (total duration 45-60 mins in boat)

Near the karnataka border, you can get down on the shore and walk around

for a while..You get freshly prepared meen-sapad..Fish food..plus oil massage for few more hundreds..

The boatman took us near the naturally formed cave-formation..Jaganmohini cave..it was a natural AC there..

Jaganmohini Cave

After the boat-ride, he dropped us off to the place (near the steps).

There is another waterfalls here..We had a refreshing time here.

from here, we walked towards the place, where we got down after the first

coracle ride. met the boatman-head. after telling the boat-number which u

took..we got into one more boat (this is free. initial dealing of boat(660 or

watever) would have included this) to the initial place where we bargained for

the boat.

End or the Beginning ..?

                                    

We were back in  bangalore by 430pm..

shivagange

Date:10-1-2010
Group: 5
Mode of transport: public transport


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Route: bangalore-nelamangala-dobbaspet-shivaganga
Distance: Bangalore to Dobbaspet is ~60 kms. Shivaganga is another 6 kms from dobbaspet.
Log:
I could not visit shivagange The last time i visited tumkur as the priorities were different and we were on a tight schedule.
I along with 4 of my friends decided to meet at bangalore majestic at 7 am. We caught a tumkur bus and got down at dobbaspet, which is on the way to tumkur , around 20 kms from the tumkur toll.

We had planned not to take any eateries to the hill as it was famous for the monkey menace. So we had breakfast at dobbaspet itself.
Breakfast at shreesagar was pretty descent. we caught an auto to shivagange. We started our uphill walk at 10 am.The hill has rock cut steps. people from all age group climb te hill to visit the shiva temple at the top ogf the hill.

Nandi dwara

first half of the hill has lesser gradient. the second half of the hill is steep , but thanks to the railings laid on the path.

I was on top of the hill at 11 am. It was a strain worth taking. We spent some time near the shantala drop and the small conference rock.
After visiting the temples at the top, i went to visit the nandi on the top of a steep rock, luckily we have the railing hereaswell. kudos to the scultor who sculpted the nandi there.

Panoramic view from the shanthala drop

I started the decsent at around 12 noon.on the way back i went to the pathalaganga. Its famous as the water stays there for throughout the year.
There are lot of vendors along the path, selling churmuri,cucumber,watermelon,lemon juice,buttermilk, sugarcane juice etc. I had my hands laid on virtually everything
Next i visited the oralkallutheertha/oLakallutheertha. This is a cave temple with a watersource within the rock. There is a belief that only good people will get the water from this rock.
Needless to say, i got the water
Next we visited the Gangadhareeshwara cave temple, religiously famous for the ghee turning back to butter penomenon. After having the darshana and taking prasada, we bid adieu to shivaganga.
It was 130 by then.
We again took an auto to dobbaspet. We had our lunch at kamath hotel on the tumkur road highway, around 2kms from dobbaspet.
Unfortunately, the bangalore bound busses were not stopping at that point. We took a lift in a goods auto and came back to dobbaspet. We caught a bangalore bound KSRTC bus. We were back in bangalore at 530 in the evening.
The  gmail status message that evening “Shivagange conquered!!” 

A day around tumkur

A days outing to Devrayanadurga, goravanahalli,hebbur and kaidala
Date: 25-12-2009
Group: 8
Places: Goravanahalli, devarayanadurga, hebbur, kaidala
Route: Bangalore – dabbaspet – goravanahalli – devarayanadurga – kunigal – hebbur – kaidala – tumkur – bangalore
about 350 KMs in all.


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Log:
We left bangalore at 630 in the morning. after picking up my sister’s family, we took magadi road, NICE road and then joined tumkur road just before nelamangala.
It was a tiresome travel until nelamangala along tumkur road with traffic moving in inches. It was a relief to get the tumkur toll road.
We took a right turn near dobbaspet. from dobbaspet goravanahalli is around 35 kms. the roads very pretty good.
We reached goravanahalli at 11. Since it was friday and a chritmas holiday, there was lot more crowd than expected.

After the darshan of goddess lakshmi, we went to the annadasoha. Annadasoha is a place where lunch is served as prasada.
every batch lasts for 10 minutes. for that mass, the food was of decent quality.The way the authority was managing the dasoha was pretty good.

We next visited Devarayanadurga. Heres a yoganarasimha temple.

Namada chilume is on the way back from devarayanadurga. mythologically, Rama had hit an arrow to create a waterstream so the sita could quench her thirst.
Since we still had two more agenda to complete, we missed namada chilume.
taking kunigal road, we reached hebbur at 430. it has a goddess kamakshi temple. The place is famous for it 5 shri chakras, one of them being the temple itself.

from there we went to kaidala via shettyhalli gate. Kaidala has a chennakeshava temple of hoysala reign. The sculpture is similar to belur chennakeshava though smaller in size.
The priest told us the legends regarding the temple. the place was known as kreedanagar (place of playground) as it was hosting the horse race, wresting archery sports during the
hoysala period. The king gave a monolithic stone to jakanachari. Janakachari, then 84 yr young, had cut of his right hand for sculpting a faulty stone.
The shilpashastra ( science of sculpting) tells that whatever is done in left hand is impure. But jakanachari had no other choice. so he sculpted a chennakeshava similar to belur but with suttle
major changes.
the shanka(conch) chakra positions are interchanged.
The are signs of trimoorty brahma’s kamala, shiva’s panipeeta, and above that the lord chennakeshava.
The panipeeta is reversed direction.usually is ends to the left of god. but here it ends to the right of god.
I guess because of all these, the lord is west facing instead of east. ie if you look from east, some thing are followed according to the shilpashastra.
It was kind of mystrious place.
We started our journey back to bangalore. It was midnight when we reached home. It was a good christmas outing

Nandi Hills

Date: 6-12-2009
Group: 5
Route:
Bangalore to chikballapur about 65 kms
 

 Log:
It was quite some time since we decided to trek skandagiri. We had seen lots of blogs regarding the moonlight trek and we excited that we could be the next group to trek that.
We started at 430 am and reached the place by around 515.
But something else was awaiting us. A policeman :O . He started telling all sort of reasons which included Animal attack, murder and finally there was a “prohibitory area” sign..so trespassing infront of a policeman on duty dint seem a good plan.
We quicky shifted to plan B – Nandi Hills.

It was near to skandagiri.
We reached Nandi hills by 6..we were just lucky to catch the sunrise. We spent some time near tippu drop.

We had breakfast near a hotel neat the base of the hill. and came back to bangalore by 11 am.

Savandurga

Savandurga
it  was nice today..but none of us were willing to trek :D
we dint either..we hiked on the forest path..and had some kinda sense of adventure..
we reached the place at 11am..it was damn hot.. We should have reached the place by 630 max

i started at 545 from home..we left bangalore from lalbag at 8after having breakfast at MTRmasala dosa is gr8 thr

we went to the hills..the view was great..but the hot sun and the apparent elevation was a demotivating factor..so we thought of going atleast the base..:P..
the place was scenic..had we gone in the morning , the weather would have added to the beauty ..after that , we went on a forest trail..below the hills
we went for around 2 km ..it was sort of adventure finding the right trail back...

Irpu NagarhoLe

We left Bangalore on Friday the 20^th Feb night 2100 hrs in an Airavatha destined to madikeri. Our travel itenary was simple. Take rest on Saturday, outing to irpu falls and nagarahole on Sunday and roam about in the madikeri on Monday and return back to bangalore on Monday evening.

We hired a taxi for the Sunday’s plan. We started around 7 am for a wonderful journey ahead. Since we knew that there would be no hotels near the places we were heading to, we carried loads of food reserves for the entire day.

Irpu falls is around 90 kms from madikeri and nagarahole forests are another 9 kms from irpu.

The roads were pretty drivable, except for few places. The scenic beauty of coorg was the first thing which I noticed. The entire calmness, freshness of the moist air was completely revitalizing, that too when we stay amidst the noisy and polluted city.

We reached irpu falls at 10 am. After having breakfast near the rivulet much below the actual falls, we started the long march up the brahmagiri hills range, which led to the top of the falls. We had an unexpected host – A green tree viper. One of the fellow visitors saw it first. My attempts to shoot it (of course with camera) failed miserably, since the snake was too quick and nature had granted it with one of the best camouflage- The green color of its skin and its ability to straighten its body like a perfect tree twig.

 

We continued walking for another half a mile to reach near the falls. Irpu falls was pretty tall slender lady, unlike her neighbor abbi falls, who is spread across wide and comparatively shorter. Since the top was a bit over-crowded, we went near the base of the falls. Seeing the algae on the rocks and leaves dirt on the rocks, we were certain that not many people would have explored this path. On one of the rocks, just away from the water flow path, there were plenty of butterflies, colorful and almost the size of a sunbird. They were so happy to silently sit on the rocks. I was just wondering if the water is so sweet or something special was oozing from the plants/ trees above the rocks.

           butterfly on the rocks near thefalls

I completed the trek to the top of the falls with utmost concentration, feeling the rocks for algae before placing the foot, judging the path which is free of “dangers”. I guess watching the discovery man-vs.-wild had bestowed me with some hidden knowledge

Since the actual waterfall is very narrow and the place where the water falls is very deep, a make-shift bamboo platform had been created. We enjoyed in the water for a while and began our journey back to the bottom of the falls. While returning I was hoping if I could catch another glimpse of the green tree viper or any other relative of it. And I indeed saw one at the same place, where the green viper was spotted a while ago. I guess this was the same one. It was quite calm this time, maybe it had filled it belly. I clicked a few snaps this time taking care that the camera flash was off.

It was 1 pm when we came back to the bottom of the falls, where we had our car waiting for us. After having the lunch, we left for nagarahole forest by around 2pm. We knew that the safari would be starting at 3pm, we reached the forest guard place at around 230pm.

We were happy to get the tickets for the 315pm safari. Summer had not been very merciful on the forests this time as well. There were lots of fire-forests reported. The safari vehicle got late by around an hour. The guards present near the ticket counter sited forests fires as the reason for delay. We believed it since there was no reason not to.

We started the 12 kilometer journey into the forests at 415pm. We saw quite a few animals near the trail. Deers and bisons were most frequent welcomers. Apart from these, we very fortunate enough to sight some elephants, peacocks, jackal, few wild birds and snakes on the way.

    forest trail

Frequent welcomers

We were indeed lucky to spot that many animals within such a short distance. Many others time, even with full safari, people may not be this fortunate. With law4 re-iterated, we left nagarahole. We reached madikeri around 8 in the evening. It was indeed one of the memorable days of my life.

Monday, Feb. 23 was Mahashivrathri – the festival of lord shiva the destroyer among the trinity. We visited omkareshwara temple in the morning. There were lot more devotees than I expected. We got the darshan after 1 hour we entered the temple. During this time, we saw the paintings around the temple. The architecture of the temple was unique since it was the indo-sarcenic style. Not many places we will see the dome for a temple.

Omkareshwara temple, madikeri

Legend says that the king of madikeri insulted a shaivite and killed him. Lord Shiva came in king’s dreams and asked him to apologize .The king built this temple for lord shiva. Since the king was a sinner, he was never allowed inside the temple. He used to pray the lord from the platform at the center of kalyani- the water quadrangle in front of the temple.

Kalyani

We bid adieu to a green abode.

Mudukthore talkad

I along with four of my college friends planned to attend my classmate’s marriage. The ceremony was to be held in mudukthore near maddur and I dint wanted to go alone.We met at the Bangalore bus stand and caught a bus to maddur at around 630am. Since we met after a long time, we dint realize the clock tick 830 till the conductor of the bus shouted “maddur bantu saar”.

We got a transit bus to malavalli. From there we caught a private bus to poovalli. That was the bumpiest experience I had ever had in recent times. By the time we reached poovalli, it was 930. We boarded another bus heading towards talkad and got down at mudukthore. After a brief meeting with the groom, we went to visit the mudukthore Easwara temple. The 600 steps led to the temple.

Mudukthore Maillikarjuna temple 

Even though the time was 1100 and it was mid summer, the temple premises was ornated with cool breeze. The scenic view of cauvery was nice.

We went back to marriage hall after getting down from the temple. After spending some more time there, we bid adieu and went near the Mudukthore River. The bright sunshine imparted a silver tinge to the farthest end of the water.

We planned to go to talkad, which is 8 kms from mudukthore. Talkad is one of the unique places in Karnataka. The place is completely sand covered with river flowing just besides it almost entire year. 

Legend says that a queen alamelamma was tortured by Mysore kings. When the guards went to capture her, after killing her husband she reached the place of talkad. Here’s where she threw her jewelleries in water and cursed-

ತಲಕಾಡು  ಮಾರುಳಾಗಲಿ,

ಮಾಲಂಗಿ  ಮದುವಾಗಲಿ,

ಮೈಸೂರು ಅರಸರಿಗೆ ಮಕಲ್ಲಾಗದಿರಲಿ.

This meant

Let talkad become filled with sands

Let malangi river be filled with whirlpools

And let the Mysore kings have no offsprings.

All of which are true till date. So no challenging the validity 

sand and water at talkad

 

We caught a car heading towards talkad at 12noon and got down at the entrance to our destination. With the sun raging, we started to walk towards the Malangi River. We kept on moving for more than half an hour, enjoying the village life.  

We finally reached the river fully exhausted. After re-energizing ourselves with some tender coconut, we went for a ride in teppa – the round coracle boat . It was total fun. I liked the part of ride, where the boat is swirled in circles. We enjoyed some more time in water and we went on the sand trail amidst the cashew and eucalyptus trees. We saw the 3 temples which were among the panchalingeshwaras.

Eashwara temple

pathaleshwara temple

After a long walk back to the talkad entrance, we caught a bus to malavalli. From there we were lucky to get a direct bus to Bangalore.

we had a memorable day- visiting mudukthore, attending friend’s marriage, going to talkad, meeting friends after a real long time- an experience to experience :)

God's own country

And at last we visited the god’s own country, Kerala. There was a plan to trip some nearby place from long time. After the return from the US trip, we were looking forward to the next outing. The destinations were many and plans were plenty, but the plans remained as just plans. Not longer though.

Juniper had organized a day events for the employees’ kids. The event, called kids fiesta, was enjoyed by one and all. The innocent, witty answers cute kids had won the hearts of one and all at the event. After the event many kids felt that it was better to go to office rather than to schools :)

 

This was where our plan to trip got stronger. We had a discussion that its high time to delay and we decided to go on 18 and 19^th of October. Soon the guys started confirming their presence. But as the day neared, many couldn’t make it for personal reasons. But we were determined enough not to cancel the tour for any reason. Finally 5 of us, were all set to leave.Hero did most of the arrangements for stay, travel, etc with the help of his friend’s dad.

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We planned to go to Ernakulam in KSRTC bus, stay in a lodge there and go to alleppey on Saturday and visit athirapalli falls on Sunday. The journey to Ernakulam via Mysore was a hectic 13 hours 480 kms drive. This was probably my longest journeys on bus after my trip to Andhra, 10 yrs back.

 

The journey to Kerala was marred by our bus hitting a standing lorry. Though it was a minor accident, it significantly damaged the bus. Airavatha Bus with no air break – Nice combinationJ. It crawled to the Mysore bus depot, where it got partly repaired. The total time it took for us to reach Ernakulum was a whooping 16 hours.  

This forced us to change our original plan. We decided to go to the waterfalls on Saturday and backwaters on Sunday. We left for athirapalli after having a refreshing time at the hotel. The falls was 85 kms from Ernakulam- a one and half hour journey in tavera. 

Climate in Kerala was equatorial type. The mornings were very hot and humid. The driver said that in the afternoon, it will rain like hell.

Kerala is an imperfect Malayalam portmanteau that fuses kera (”coconut tree”) and alam (”land” or “location). We all stopped to have tender “kera”s. The vendor guessed that we’re from Karnataka and asked whether we are from bagalkot or kolar. Probably he had been to only those places. We said that there’s a place called Bangalore and we were all from there. It made me think that for rural India, the silicon city means no excitement.

Language was a barrier as I expected, there were many instances where I was totally confused. The first such instance was in hotel ‘swad’, where we had lunch. I was obsessed to try out Kerala dishes. So I ordered for the Kerala meals. Since the curry was too good, I asked for more curry. The server, with all his politeness said “I am really very sorry sir, no more”. I was shocked with rude “politeness”. Later I got to know that “more” meant buttermilk and we were all ROFLing .I knew that many more lingual problems were awaiting and I was certainly not wrong.

On our way to the falls, the nature was displaying its grandeur and beauty. The scenic hills, valleys, greenery, occasional small water streams all were giving indication of what we could expect in athirapalli. Our expectations were high and they were not doomed. We reached the top of the falls. She was beautiful. The algae on the rocks had made them slippery. We managed to go for a walk on rocks. We had a good time in water. The better and the best time were yet to come.

athirapalli falls

An 800m walk down the trail led us to the bottom of the waterfalls. When we were coming near the falls, we could feel the moisture in the air and beauty of the environment. It seemed like the water drops were all giving us a welcome kiss. We went as close as we were allowed, to enjoy the mystic splendor. This was the better time, I was mentioning before. We started out journey back to the top of the falls, feeling that we missed someone, someone close to heart.

aournd 2 kms from athirapalli

We went to charpa falls, which was just a mile away from athirapalli. She was a cute little sister of athirapalli falls. We then decided to go to Wazachal and speed boating near a dam, 13 kms away. But destiny had other plans for us. The car in which we were travelling broke down with a mechanical problem and we had to come back.

Our return journey was enjoyable, with heavy downpour and the occasional glimpse of sun resting in the west. Throughout the journey something was irritating me. I dint know what was, but something’s were certainly getting bad for me :)

We got a treat from hero in the hotel Tandoor, near the lodge where we stayed. As usual, every cuisine had some native touch in it. We walked our way back to hotel. As I was talking rest, I noticed the black stains all over the blue jeans. I thought it was grease or oil and removed it. To my astonishment, I saw my right leg covered in blood. The blood was oozing from a small pore near my knees. Thanks to my zoology knowledge, I got to know that I had just served a poor little hungry leech. I assured myself that the leech had enjoyed the feast and dropped off. Nothing serious was at the stake. I cleaned the wound and managed to put a full stop on the bleeding. I had a tough time explaining about leech to some of my friends with me. This was what I referred to the best (worst) thing to come 

 

We all got up early the next morning and left for the Venice of the east – Alleppey. A 90 minutes drive across three islands and we were there. We managed to get a nice houseboat for 5.5k.The houseboat had just everything we look for in a fully furnished house.2 BHK, dining area, upper deck sit outs giving a good view of the scenic wonder of nature.

view from the houseboat

We got down at some small islands. We went for a ride on small boat. That was exciting experience. Unfortunately I couldn’t row it. I made up my mind to drive the houseboat at least. Again the linguistic barriers cast its magic spell. I dint know Malayalam and the driver dint know anything other than Malayalam. I used all my dumb-charades experience to make him understand my requirement. Luckily “actions” are one of the few things that’s common everywhere on this earth, the other famous one being emotions.

The driver understood and let me drive the houseboat. Not a great difficulty but certainly a great experience. The driver guided me occasionally, when other boat was coming from the front. I was overjoyed by the 15 mins of driving. 

As expected, the climate drastically changed and it started to drizzle. I sat on the front-edge of the houseboat, experiencing the experience never felt before. Many school kids were on their way back to school on the small boats. Some were waiting for the boat to come. Just then I saw a boat from opposite direction crossing us. The people inside were singing and dancing. Seeing a trophy in their hand, I guessed that they won it in a boat race. I started to cheer them and they were even more happier and acknowledged me. These events just highlighted the importance of the boats in their life. Not only a means of transportation and revenue, but also a means to entertainment, livelihood. In short boats were their heart and soul.

Soon the houseboat began its return journey to alleppey. And I was thinking that the time is moving so quickly. It was all over in a split second. But that’s the way it is – all good things come to end soon. I still remember seeing the time in class and after a strainful hour, the working watch would just show an increment of 5 mins. The lovely moments compress the time. I guess, its a feeling universal to all.

We thanked the houseboat guys and left for alleppey beach. The alleppey beach was one of the more cleaner beaches I have seen in India. The huge waves hitting the coast seemed to tell a simple message. Try and try again… never ever give up…

The fort Kochi was our next destination. We went to the St. Francis church and the Dutch Palace. The Dutch palace had Hindu temples inside. We went to Durga temple. It had its own distinct architecture. It was serene.

I thought of going to one more temple nearby. I was about to enter it when the guys there started telling or rather screaming something. Nor I understood what they meant nor were my questions understood by them. The rules are stricter in Kerala. The access to temple is restricted only to Hindus and men must not wear any shirts. I don’t know what they wanted. May be they were asking to remove my shirt .Probably they thought we were non Hindus or they wanted to tell that access to girls to that temple was restricted. These questions were left unanswered and we returned back.

We got some souvenirs in an emporium in fort Kochi .The Handicrafts there were simply too good. We were immersed in shopping and the time (yet again) didn’t wait for us. We missed the ferry by a whisker. But as I had said in the beginning,

We drove back to ernakulam. The marine drive along the Arabian Sea was nice. And soon we were on our way back. While going to the bus stand, we all took some Kerala special chips. My craze for local sweets made me take Lakshadweep halva and Kerala black jaggery halwa. They were simply delicious.

We went to bus stand and were waiting for the bus. I remembered that I had missed one more thing- the Kerala bananas. I went in search of it in the bus stand. Luckily it was present in a shop nearby. I was really happy that I managed to get it.

The sweetest memories