Bandipur & Gopalaswamy Betta

After our last successful trip to Mekedhatu , we were eager to go out once again and this time we were planning for a 2 day trip. I was going through the blogs and forums for a weekend getaway when someone suggested Bandipur. That's when we started exploring about Bandipur and its Wild life. We were all excited thinking about spending a night in the wilderness.

We did some more exploration and found out Jungle Lodges to be one of the best lodges at Bandipur . Jungle Lodges provided a one day itinerary in which we were provided with Accomodation , Food , Jeep Safari, Nature Trek and also some other recreational facilities. So we went up their office in M.G. Road and booked our accommodation.

We were all fully excited about going into the jungles and spending a night in the wilderness , but in a way it was a disappointment , JLR have a resort which is away from the reserve , not quite what we expected . We expected it to be within or near to the reserve ;-) . Apart from that JLR was an amazing place to stay . The cottages were huge and well furnished , food was ok , but definitely not bad.

At about 4:30 in the evening we went into the jungle , luckily the whole gang we went fitted into the jeep and it was like having our own vehicle . The change in the atmosphere was imminent , the scent of the natural surroundings filled our heart with joy . We had to wait at the check point near the entry to the reserve , as we had booked the trip via JLR , we had no probs and in a matter of few minutes we were rolling into the jungle.

We saw a large herd of deers grazing , the number could easily be in some hundreds, thou the jeep's engine was growling, the deers were least bothered , some of them were as if they were posing for the camera :-). We drove deep into the jungle on the way we saw some langurs , peacocks , lots of bison.

We were now approaching deeper parts of the jungle where the trees very clustered very closely , the driver warned us saying that ,whatever happens dont jump out of the jeep. We were eagerly looking out for the tiger ,elephants and any wild animals , but we were not so lucky ,we were moving about from one waterhole to another, just to catch a glimpse of any wild animal.

It was getting darker by the minute, still no sign of any wild animal , the driver then decides to call it a day and head back to the high way , as we were approaching the highway we herd some noises , the driver stopped the jeep and pointed towards the bushes on our right , everyone in the jeep sprang up to look at a herd of elephants passing by , it so happened that we were right in the path of elephants and the elephants were waiting for us to move , so that they can proceed. There was a jeep in front of us ,looking at the elephants he just stopped the jeep midway , so that everyone can see the majestic beings. The elephants waited for a few moments as the visitors clicked away to glory , after some time , one of the elephants started getting impatient and gave a wild roar by raising its trunk , everyone for a moment thought that its gonna charge at us .

The driver kept his cool and again reminded us not to jump out of the vehicle under any circumstances. We were all standing at the back of the jeep not knowing whats gonna happen next. In the midst of all this drama , we failed to notice an elephant cub in the middle of the herd. The cub was well protected by two adults forming a V shape in front of the cub. We could hear occassional grunts from the little one , the driver in front of us moved forward and we followed , we just went a few yards forward and the jeep halted , everyone turned around to see the elephants cross the path with the cub pacing in between two adults.

We then started our journey back to the resort where we had a campfire arranged , a documentary on Bandipur on a big screen followed by dinner . Next day morning we were scheduled to have a nature trek but we pleaded with the authorities to provide us another jeep safari. After much persuading , we were allowed to go on a jeep safari but for a price ;-) . This time our objective was clear and that was to spot a wild cat.

We told the driver our objective and he immediately led us to a part of the jungle which was secluded from the other areas of the jungle . There was a board which said , do not enter without permission and the road leading into the jungle was blocked by a check post sort of barrier. Our driver stopped the jeep , and asked my friend to go and raise the barrier and we moved into the secluded territory.

He took us to places where the wild cat usually makes it rounds , he took us on top of a peak , the view from that place was superb , there are no words to describe the view , we were busy clicking snaps when the driver asked us to board the jeep immediately , it was not until he swirled round the first bend , he explained the reason for hi actions , it seems that he had heard the deer's frantic warning call when it sees a tiger .

We were all excited hearing that and we kept our eyes wide open to spot the wild cat , he took us to the place where we passed a deer herd on our way to the top , we couldnt find any of the deers there , he slowly drove the jeep , keeping his eyes and ears open . After a few minutes , he stopped the jeep and pointed towards something on the ground , they were fresh imprints of a huge paw , which he claimed to be of the tiger. We were not so lucky to get a glimpse of the wild cat but we were fortunate enough to catch an imprint of its paw ;)

We then headed back to the resort where a nice breakfast was arranged and after our fill we headed back to Mysore and on the way we took a detour to Gopalaswamy betta . We reached the top of Gopalaswamy betta and had a darshan of Lord Gopalaswamy (Krishna) and then we spent most of the time taking pics around the temple . The place was lush green and with mountains in the back drop , it seemed like heaven on earth. From there we reached Mysore and had our lunch , and on our way back to Bangalore we had a brief stop at Srirangapatnam Temple.

Mekedhatu & Chunchi Falls

Its been a long time since I have updated the blog, thou I have been regularly freaking out with friends to various places. I felt that its high time that I updated my blog with all my travel expeditions. It was in the month of October 2008 , 2 months after our trip to mysore , that we planned to go out on a one day trip to some place nearby Bangalore . I was as usual searching on the net for weekend getaways and other stuff when I came across this place called Mekedhatu near Kanakpura .

I put forward my proposal in front of my friends and in no time everyone approved of it. Later we came to know that our friends from IIIT-B were also planning to visit Mekedhatu , so we planned to meet up on the way at Kanakpura. On 18th October 2008 , we set out in 2 cars from Bangalore. Just for people who are unaware of Kanakpura , you need to reach Banashankari Bus stand and from there take the Kanakpura Main Road , if you are coming from the BTM , just cross the Jayadeva Hospital and keep coming straight , until you cross a few signals and then reach Banashankari , you will see a temple on the other side of the road , you have to take a left at that point and from there its a straight road to Kanakpura. If you are planning to pack up lunch , then Kanakpura is the last stop , after which its totally rural area but with amazing landscapes .

We reached Kanakpura and thats where we met our friends and from there we started our journey towards Sangama. In order to reach Mekedhatu , you have to reach this place called Sangama and there take a coracle to reach the other side of the bank. From there you can either trek towards Mekedhatu or you can take the old ricket rackety bus. We preferred to take the bus and we ended up at our destination in 15 min. The place we got down had a circular resting place where there were selling water ottles and cool drinks.

One has to clim down from there to reach Mekedhatu, the path down is full of rocks and without proper shoes , there is every chance that you may slip. We carefully climbed down and what met our eyes was breathtakingly amazing , there was a small gap between 2 mountains and the water was flowing underneath at full flow , the gap between the two mountains was just sufficient for a goat to jump from one side to the other , hence the name "Meke" dhatu . Meke means goat and dahtu means cross , which literally means space enough for a goat to cross.

We had photo shoot session on the rocks , we had a good time climbing up and down ,exploring the place , after about an hour everyone were tired and we all sat on the rocks watching other people roam here and there . After sometime we slowly made our way up through the rocks and reached the top. We had to wait for a few minutes for the bus to come. The path through the forest was very narrow and only one bus can fit at one point in time,so when we were coming back by bus , it so happened that the other bus had started from the other side and both the buses got stuck in the middle of the forest , then both the drivers did some jing bang and finally we were able to pass through.

We reached the banks of Sangama and took the coracles back to the place where we parked our car , we had our lunch there in an open place and started our journey to chunchi falls. We thought reaching sangama was difficult but to reach chunchi falls you need to go through small villages , and asking directions especially if you dont know kannada is very difficult , finally we managed to reach chunchi falls. We were surprised to see that , thou it said chunchi falls we were not able to look at any water falls near by. We then asked a shepherd boy and he said we had to go down by walk along a narrow path, we slowly started descending the path and after some time we were able to hear a faint sound of water gushing and after a few mor minutes trek we were able to see the falls.

We were on top of a cliff and there was a small stream which was flowing from that cliff down ,on the opposite side we could see a stream of water which was gushing down from a height. We slowly moved towards the stream which was just flowing through 2 boulders . Not much of a water fall but the location was amazing. We spent some time taking pictures and relaxing on the rocks .

After some time we started our ascend back to the top where we had parked our car and started back to bangalore.We reached bangalore by around 10 in the night.

Mysore Trip

The last time I updated this blog was in 2006 , I have been covering so many places off late ,that I thought why not make a blog of all the places I have visited. I would like to start off with the trip to Mysore on the 10th of August 2008.

Ajay,Balaji, Prashanth,Ravi and myself started from Bangalore early in the morning by Ajay's car. The sky was covered with grey clouds and it appeared as though we were in for a heavy downpour, and as expected most of the drive was amidst heavy downpour , but that dindt dampen our spirits. We reached our first destination , Raganathittu Bird Sanctuary which is situated very close to Mysore. After you cross Srirangapatnam , the high road curves towards left which leads to mysore and then there is this right turn which takes you to the Bird Sanctuary.



It's an amazing place , very calm and serene (atleast early in the mornings) . It is better to get to this place early as tourists start coming in towards afternoon and it gets crowded. The Bird Sanctuary is broken up into small islets and the only way to cover them is via a boat. There are supposed to be around 60 crocs residing within that bird sanctuary and we were lucky enough to spot some ;-) .



The whole place was filled with chirping of birds , we saw some birds feeding their little ones, some of them lazily strolling on the rocks , some of them busy cleaning their feathers , some of them singing , some of them staring at us as we rode past them , it felt as if they were communicating with one another but I dindt understand a single bit of it :P



We spent around 1 hour on the boat and another 45 min at the Sanctuary enjoying the scenic beauty and taking photographs and after that we left for Mysore . We had our breakfast at Nalpak restaurant and from there we went to Chamundi Hills. After having the darshan, we came back to Mysore and had lunch at Hotel Ramanashree .

We then spent our afternoon at the Mysore Palace and started back to Bangalore . On the way back we visited Srirangapatnam Temple and came back to Bangalore.

My First Trekking Experience

Date : 08/07/06

Place : Nishani Mottae Peak, Kodagu Dist., Karnataka

Starring :

Anil

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Ravi Kiran Reddy

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Lokesh

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Venkat

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Vikas
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Narration : Vikas.

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This was my first ever trekking experience and ohh boy !!! what an experience to start off with. It all started with our group of 17 people ( Andhra batch guys @ IIIT-B) planning a trip to Coorg . We planned to visit places in and around Coorg and also to go on a trekking expedition to the third highest peak in Coorg dist. the NISHANI MOTTAE peak.

Only 5 of us were interested in trekking and hence we 5 set out on the trekking expedition at 10:30 AM in the morning. We had no clue where to start our trekking from, we enquired a lot of people (local authorities) about this trekking place, strangely we got different , different answers from different ,different people , after a lot of enquiry finally we got the directions to reach the trekking place.

We had to start our trekking from a place called Vanachal and reach Galibedu which is 8km from Vanachal. Other than this piece of information we had no clue as to how to reach galibedu by trekking along the mountains.

Many tourist officials warned us not to go ahead as the forests are covered with blood sucking leeches , slippery paths , fog & mist.If someone asks us not to do something. We end up doing that as they say "There is more happiness in doing what people say you cannot do!!"

Here started our expedition , we were dropped at Vanachal by our driver (Balu) and we started our trekking experience from here .

It was very cloudy and it was drizzling as we started the trek. We slowly started moving into the dense forest , initially there were just tea plantations along the way , where we stopped by to take some pics

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We were very cautious moving ahead as the land was very slippery and covered with leeches. We had a knife with us and we used this as a guard against leeches but it was no match,as they were humongous number of leeches in that region. The scenery around that place was really breathtaking but most of them were covered with mist and fog. It was as if watching an action flick movie where there is a hot pursuit for a hidden treasure.

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After trekking for 1km or so we met Mr .Ramesh, he gave us directions as to how to go about and gave us the GOLDEN RULE OF THUMB .... "Wherever you go always take the left most path and you will reach your destination ".

Thanking him for his advice we set out again ,but were confronted by leeches just ahead and as we were trying to remove them, he crossed us again and asked us to come to his house which was on the way.

when we reached there he gave us a weapon to tackle the leeches ........ A Magical Wand

It was nothing but salt wrapped in a cloth tied to a stick and it was really handy as using a knife to remove the leeches was becoming more and more difficult. He then accompanied us a few yards and showed us a narrow path up the hill, asking us to follow that path , he even told us that on our way we will reach an uninhabited house which would indicate that we are on the right way.
No sooner had we climbed up the narrow path , Lokesh fell prey to the leeches wrath.

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We checked ourselves thoroughly for hidden leeches in our shoes and socks , after that we continued our onward journey and stopped only when we reached that uninhabited house. Here we started checking our shoes and socks again, the magical wand was working superbly, the moment you touch the leech with it , it falls of from your body and cuddles itself as if it has been tranquilized.

I felt that the next part of the journey was the most dangerous and exciting part of the journey. It was like this , a mountain with dense forest , you get in to it and its like you cant see the sky , the path to the top was through this forest and the slope was pretty steep.(You can see the same in the pic below in the background)

I took a deep breath and darted off into the forest and started climbing it as fast as i could , my heart was pounding and my breathing became very heavy , I managed to get to the top in a few minutes just to find my shoes filled with leeches. I tried removing the leeches with my shoes but they kept sticking to it.

Venkat's shoes were also filled with leeches and he was busy removing those with the knife and Ravi (who had the wand) had moved ahead .......we both called him for help and as he turned back he slipped and fell. Fortunately he fell on the path and not sideways where there was a huge valley , he got up and came running .... hearing Venkat's screams he went there and removed all the leeches and in the mean time I was able to remove a few leeches but I felt a tickling sensation in my left shoe and as I opened my shoe I saw that.......................... the leech has struck and claimed another victim

Ravi came to me and brushed the magical wand against the leech , it dindt fall off...... he tried again but still it had a firm grip on my foot , he rubbed it very tightly and it fell off ..... The magical wand was loosing its power as the salt mix was falling off from it . Ravi stayed with me as I wore back my socks and shoes and we could hear venkat calling from a distance saying that we have reached the top most point.

Just as we reached the top most point it started raining heavily and we were stranded in that place and then we did one of the most craziest things ever ........Stood on the top most point and started singing " Lahiri Lahiri Lahiri lo .................."

(The view we had when we were on the top most point)

You guys must be thinkng that we have gone nuts ,well wait till I complete the rest of the narration. :- D

Here we met another person who told us that we were on the right track and it would take us another 2 hours to reach Galibedu from here. We were drenched from head to toe and I was shivering like hell. Lokesh was walking as a Robot as all his limbs turned numb . Ravi & Anil moved ahead slowly ...................but unaffected by all this ,Venkat was active throughout and shared some of his personal experiences with Lokesh :-P . As we started descending we heard sound of water gushing , it sounded as if water was falling from a height , we rushed towards that place and what we saw left us spellbound .

It was a waterfall in the midst of the forest with water flowing in between the forest , we had to cross the small water stream to reach the other side . we stopped here for a while and took some snaps.

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As we were climbing the rocks on the other side we could here dogs barking ferociously , as we started ascending the barks became louder and louder ,Just as we reached the top out of nowhere 2 dogs sprang out from the house nearby and started barking .

Venkat who had the stick with him just shooed away the dogs but the barking dindt subside. We had reached a place where we had 3 routes , one going up the hill and the other 2 going down the hill, we were perplexed as to which route to take and were in a dilemma , Just then we spotted a house a few yards below from where we were standing .

Venkat went down with a knife in one hand and the stick in another for asking directons ....... the poor resident must have been shaken out of his skin seeing venkat ,for a few seconds they exchanged words but he was not able to speak out properly.... we asked venkat to put his knife inside and in the mean time that person came out with an umbrella and showed us the path which was going up hill and asked us to take that path. Now we were confused because we were descending and this path was going up hill ,so we were not sure about his words and then everything clicked into place ....."THE GOLDEN RULE OF THUMB" .

So we started our uphill trek and we were very famished as we had nothing till then after the breakfast early morning ,so we removed the snacks that we had got and started devouring it like hungry beasts.

Energy revived and now everyone had forgotten about the leeches and there were no leeches present along this path ,so the second part of the journey was a bit relaxing . As we started descending the route became more and more dangerous with only rocks along the path and that too slippery ones.we came across another waterfall along the way and we halted for a few moments here and started our final part of the journey.

As we went down the steep increased and the stones were too slippery, one slip and you can go rolling down the hill. we had to be cautious in every step that we took and after a few minutes of careful descent we spotted level ground filled with fields and lakes

It dindt take us much time in getting down and we finally reached level ground and another 1 Km walk we reached Galibedu Main Road where there was shouts of jubiliation and hearts filled with satisfaction

Showing Everyone the mountain that we have conquered

Trekker's Triumph

This is one experience which I will treasure for the rest of my life.

PS : Since this is my narration I have written what I have experienced.