Mullayanagiri Trekking

After many years of my life, some how Trekking came to my mind all of a sudden. As soon as I got this idea, Searched for places where I can take 2 days out of my busy life. Saw lots of places where people do trek, read lot of blogs, inspired and made my mind and said to my self... "Let do it"

As it was my first time, I wanted to try some thing which my body can support. One of the interesting place came in my search was this Mullayanagiri. 

Feeling like Birds...

Quick Facts of this place: 

• This is the highest peak (6,330 ft from sea level) in Baba budangiri range of Western Ghats of Chikmagalur Taluk, Karnataka. 3rd highest in India!!!

• July-Dec is the best time to go.

• Make sure you go with proper guide or you will be roaming in mountains for days to find a way out of it. :(

Days of Travel: 2 Days... Just perfect for my weekend :)

Date: 29th July 2012

Trekking Guide: Bangalore Mountaineers Club  (For more details: www.bmcindia.org)

Distance: Total ~600KM.

Best Time to Visit: July-Dec.

Tips: For free :) 

• Rainy seasons are not good as the path will be very slippery and lots of leaches.

• Avoid night treks and make sure you are out before 7pm.

• 100% guide is required even you have a great GPS tracking system... Because in clouds your GPS also may not work accurately.

• Water proof bags, Jackets, Very less luggage. 

• Medicine.. mainly pain killers and allergy one

• First aid kit.

• Dettol, Move spray, salt, and the list goes on to make leaches leave you from sucking blood. Simple rule: Leach just leave you from sucking blood as soon as the taste changes. So just put some thing near the wound, it will go off...

Story Begins...

   Started our Journey from Bangalore at 10pm Friday night. BMC people picked us from one of stops. We were around 25 people where most of them were first time trekkers. 

 Slept in the Bug for entire journey. Reached our homestay "Mugila Mane" around 3am. This is very near by place for trek start point. This was a very small homestay with very basic facelities. But our guide always remained us ----- "We are here for Trekking not for sleep in resort :) "

HomeStay...

Entrance to HomeStay

Read for Trecking...

  Slept till 6am. Had bath and junk breakfast was ready. Remembered the Guide words again and eat that only. And our trek started at 7am.

 From bottom we were able to see only 25% of the peak due to fog and hence we were all not sure how big the mountain is. Below pic is the starting point of Trek. From here it looks like we have nice path, but later we found that only entrance is good and rest all path is unknown. 

The entire trek path is called as "Sarpa Dhari"... Mean snake path. Once we started climbing we came to know why it is called so. The path will be like snake only... 

Entrance of SharpaDhari... 

Trekking was really great. It was almost 4KM up trek and 5KM down trek.  Just standing for 1min for rest will bring back all energy in us. There were 2 guides, one at front and one at end. They make sure that no body is missing all time. 

Just show the slope

Check out the back..very slope...

Some places needs an extra effort...

Very Windy....

Feeling Great to Reach till this height...

Finally We reached the the Temple which is at the top of the Hill... Wondering how priest can reach this temple everyday? That's simple... There is a road till that place... We came for trekking so no steps, no road, only Mountain path....

Took a few minutes break on top of the hill and started the trekking down the hill in different route...

It almost took 3.5 hours to reach top and another 3 hours to come back down.

Finally our body was completely down and no more support for any other work... We badly need rest... Went to base camp, Had lunch. And our Guide declared one more trek to Baba budangiri Mountains which is again 10KM trek. Asked us to get ready with in 10 min for next trek... I and Vandana was completely down and dropped from the plan and lied on bed peacefully. Out of 25, almost 15 went for next trek. Had a nice time in base camp and a nice sleep.

Other batch completed the trek and came back at 6pm. Walked on road for few km to find some shop for some food. Found one shop where we bought maggi, and cooked in our base camp kitchen. Seriously it was our maggi moments...

Took rest again and our dinner was ready. Eat dinner and chatted for time in front of fire camp...
One side cooooool breezzz of coffee plantations and other side a warm fire...Enjoyed the night and went for sleeping....

BMC provided us sleeping bags where we enjoyed the warm sleep in that cold climate.

Day-2:

 Woke up early in the morning 6pm. Got ready and had break fast and started for next trek... But this time it was not mountain but trek in small muddy roads in between coffee plantation to reach a water fall. It was almost 3KM walk... Enjoyed the walking on beautiful Sunday morning... Reached Water fall...

Path to Water falls

Best way to enjoy a Fall... :) I Love it

Water was chilled and we can hardly touch also. But we all took deep breath and entered the falls. Our body got freezed for few moments... Later we adjusted to it and started enjoying it...

Spent good 2 hours in falls... Hey here is where I first met with my Enemy... A leach... It got stuck on my leg and already started sucking the blood.. I was too horrified and shouted for help..Guide put some salt on it and it left me. Later 2 more leaches attacked me but I was already used to it and applied the same technique. Best part of the leach is it wont pain you even little bit. You will not sense anything and a big thanks to the anesthesia that it applies before sucking blood...

Now biggest problem is that we need walk up the path for again 4KM to reach road. We were very much tiered playing in falls and pulled up all energy and started walking.

Started back journey to Bangalore at 2pm. Had Lunch In dabha near Hassan. Then playing few games in bus. Finally reached Bangalore at 6pm... Our Nose started smelling pollution and ears started hearing noises of road....

Finaly reached home at 8pm. Played with Kid which we missed for 2 days... Had Moms great Dinner and Slept with remembering great memories of our journey...

Thanks for reading this blog... See you all in next trip.....

Trip to Belur - Halebidu - Srungeri - Sirimane Falls - Horanadu - Dharmasthala - Kukke

Hi All... before going details, below are quick info...

Places Covered : Belur - Halebidu - Srungeri - Sirimane Falls - Horanadu - Dharmasthala - Kukke

Traveling route: From Bangalore take a diversion towards Hassan at Nelamanagala Junction. You can even reach Belur by continuing in NH4 at Nelamangala to reach Kadur, Chikkamagalur and Belur but this is bit long journey but road is bit better (make a note of word bit). From Belur just follow the places in the list I wrote above. Finlay after visiting Kukke you can come back to Bangalore from Hassan road.

Purpose Of visit: Main purpose is my Son's Aksharabyasa at Srungeri Sharadhamba temple. Rest all places are just covered as they are near by.

Number of Days: 2 nights and 3 days

Total Traveled KM : 1020 KM

Transport: Mahindra Logan rented at 7.5Rs per KM

Trip Story:

Now let us start the journey. As I said the main purpose of the trip was my son's Aksharabyasa which is ceremony to start first writing in front of Sharadhamba Goddess. We need to plan a lot this time as we have 2.5 years old son. We never did a night journey in the whole trip and took good rest at each place to make entire trip go smooth. After all planning we started our journey on Friday morning 6pm.

Belur:

Took lot of breaks in between and reached our first destination Belur at 1pm. Belur and Halebidu is a must watch once in a life time to admire the beauty for Hoysala Kingdom architecture. This place was the capital of Hoysala Kingdom. The place to see here is Chennakesava temple .The sculptures were so beautiful and shows the greatness of master mind Jakanachari who created these master pieces... We cannot imagine even in those days (12th century) they created such a great art. Even hundred photos are not enough to show the value of this place... Few are below my favorites...

Halebidu:

- Left Belur on 1pm and had lunch on the way and reached Halebidu our next destination at ~2pm.
- Main attractions are Hoysaleswara and Kedareswara temples again famous for sculptures...

Halebidu means ruined city. This name is given as this city was ruined two times by Bahamani Sultante. They destroyed entire temple by breaking lot of sculptures. It looks so bad that such a beautiful place has been destroyed on the name of cultures. Anyway again its a must watch place. We almost spent 2 hours in this place and then started our journey to next stop.
few pics of Halebidu...

Srungeri:

- Left ~3pm from Halebidu and reached Sringeri at 8pm.
- Main places to see are Sharadhamba temple and Vidya Shankar temple
- Hotels: You will get lot of hotel to stay including the one the temple offers. Outside it is ~400Rs to 500Rs for double bedded room. Again rates changes depending on demand. Food is very bad and not at all clean in all hotels. So you need to bare this.

Sharadhamba temple is very famous for this Aksharabyasa ceromony. Just make a note that you mention the kids age is 3 or 6 for this pooja. They may decline for small kids. As we reached late in night, we took the hotel in front of temple to rest for the night.

Morning at sharp 7am the pooja starts and will be there till 1pm. We were the first one to be there and got our pooja done faster (priest completed the pooja in just 10 mins :( ). Then we offered slates, books, pens, pencils to few kids there.

After this ceremony we went to the river just back side of temple. There were hundreds of fishes readily waiting for food from us. Fishes were enjoying the food that all devotes gave. My kid enjoyed a lot for an hour playing with them.

So by 10am we were done with all side seeings and started the journey to Sirimane falls which is just 12 km from this place. You have to come back to Srungeri from Sirimane falls in return journey. So plan accordingly.

Pics from Srungeri...

Sirimane falls:

This was really great falls and just 20 mins drive from Srungeri. We reached here around 11am. There were only very few of them at the falls, hence enjoyed the falls alone. Water was soo chilling that no body dare to enter the water. After few mins I dared to get wet in falls and enjoyed for 1 hour . At 2pm we started our journey to next place....

Pics:

Horanadu:

- Around 6pm reached Horanadu.
- Main place to visit is Annapoorneswari temple

As we reached at 6pm, we choose to stay there for the night stay. The hotel given by temple was decent enough to stay. As it was bit cold there was no need of AC room anyway.
Eat night dinner in temple only. Food was ok but much much better than hotels outside. So you have no choice.

Next day (Sunday) early in the morning we got ready and started our journey at sharp 6am. You will get hot water for bath only from 5:30am to 6am, so you have to wake up early if not be ready to get bath in chilling water which comes all time.

Dharmasthala

- Reached in just 3 hours of journey from Horanadu. distance is just ~80KM but the entire road is forest area with full of turns (be ready to vomit all the way :( )
- Manjunatha Swamy temple is the only place to see.

Manjunatha Swamy temple is most sacred place which is visited by most kannadigas like Tirupathi in AP. Be ready for long queue. We were lucky enough to get dharshan in 30 mins itself. This is why I prefer traveling on non-peak days.

Food is very pathetic again here outside. So prefer food from temple only but you need to wait in a long queue.

Kukke Subramanya:

- Again 2 hours journey from Dharmasthala. Kukke is famous for Subramanaya temple. We had dharshan and done with our last stop.

End of the trip:

So by 3pm we started return journey to Bangalore. Reached Bangalore around 10pm. Completely tired and took again another one complete day to get back to daily boring routine.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Friends let me know your thought on this blog. BYE BYE

Trip to Jogfalls Murudeswara from Bangalore

After a long planning we were ready to trip on 2nd Oct 2008. We were of total 11 members. The biggest issue was that I am taking my son of 6 months old to this trip. This was his first big journey and we don't know how he reacts...

Number of days: 2
Places list places covered:

• Kallahathi falls
• Kemmanagundi
• Jog Falls
• Idugunji Ganesh Temple
• Murudeshwara
• Maruvanthe Beach
• Kollur

Hotels Stayed: Mayura Hotel, Jog falls on first day night...
Need prior booking... We were lucky to get one with out booking... You can get lot of rooms even at Honnavar also which is on the way to Murudeshwara from Jog.

Full Story:

As planned we checked in to the Tempo traveller at sharp 3am morning from Bangalore. As soon as we get in, we all went to a deep sleep as it was too early.

Place-1: Kallahati falls: The route we followed was Bangalore -> Tumkur -> Tiptur -> Kadur -> Birur. From Birur we should take a divertion leaving national highway. We reached our first destination Kallahathi falls which is about 30 km from Birur at 8am. Even it was a not a main place in our plan still we liked a lot. The water comes from Chandra Drona hills amidst fascinating. The water was chilling. We all slowly entered in to the water and finaly drenched in a beautifull chilling water. Initaily it was very cold and soon we adjusted to it. We played a lot in water and took all different snaps for some time and started to reach another destination.







Place-2 : Kemmanagundi: From the falls it is about 10KM. We reached here at 10am. This is trekkers paradise mainly and with out trekking you may not enjoy much but can see the glorious beauty of pitch green mountains. The main attraction over here is the Z-point. If your vehicle is small car then you can reach almost near to it. But most prefered way is walking on small lovely, greeny road for about 3 kms. This walk is more enjoyable and you can reach a top point at the edge of a mountain which is called as Z-point. There you will get much more beautifull views. As the trip was for just 2 days, we may not offered for this walk. We continued our journey at 11am for next place.





Place-3: JogFalls: We reached Jog at 4pm. From Kemmanagundi you need to travel to Shivamogga and then via Sagar you will reach Jog. Jog is approx 100KM from Shivamogga. No one can explain how magnificent beauity the jog is. In fact we were bit disappointed as the water was less but still the view was splendid . This Created on Sharavathi River. Jog Falls is also known by many names few were Gerusoppe Falls, Jogada Gundi. The best time to visit this place is Aug when the dam leaves the water. Here the water gushes down from the height of 250 meters. Water fall creates a milky path to down. Finaly the sharavathi joins the Arabian Sea at Honnavar.
We were atmost tired after a long journey and settledown in Mayura hotel (Govt., Hotels) exactly in front of falls. You need a prior booking to get the room but we were lucky enough to get the room even with out any booking.



First thing we did after we wake up at 6pm is trekking down to bottem of jog falls. We reached some distance and came back as we need to leave this place bit early to cover some more. Again at 8am after breakfast we started our journey.

Don't forget to see the jog from other view called british bonglow view point. Here you can see the view exactly from top of the falls. This is very dangerous point and need to be bit carefull. The best time to go here is when the water is less. So, if the water is less there are 2 advantages, that is this view and you can treck down to the bottem of jog. This view has been captured at its best in the recent kannada movie "Mungaru male". This is now called as "Mungaru male View" also. After this we continued our jorney to reach Murudeshwara. You need to take Honnavar route for this. Murudeshwara is about 2 hours journey from jog.


On the way to Honnavar, about 20 Km from Jog don't forget to see the Sharavathi river vally. If the water is more then this is a best place to view. If the river is dry then nothing much to see here.

Place-4: Idagunji Ganesh Temple- This comes again after sharavathi vally and on the way to honnavar. This is very famous temple of ganesh. This is the only place where we can see the Ganesh Statue in standing pose. We quicky dropped here and left soon to reach our next main place, Murudeshwara.



Place-5: Murudeshwara: We reached here by 1pm on second day of our trip. This is a Shiva temple. The temple opens at 3pm. So we had lunch and started exploring all the places at the temple. Here we can see a huge Shiva statue and few attraction to show your photographic skills. then we reached the beach. Here again we enjoyed the light cool breaz with the small waves of sea. Took the boat ride where they takes a big ride around the temple. This was bit ok. Then finaly at 3:30pm we saw the temple and started to continue the journey to Kollur.





Place-6: Maruvanthe beach: From murudeshwara you need to take NH and move towards kollur. You need to take a divertion from NH to reach kollur after ~20 KMs. Here rather than taking divertion just continue in NH for another 10KM. Here you can find this beach. This is very clear beach with a beautifull view. The crowde is very less and you feel more like a private beach. We reached here at 6pm and just sat enjoying a beautifull view of sunset. The sunset was too good and I prefer this most. Sky was completly clear to make this sunset much more beautifull. You need to take the back route in NH again to reach Kollur, our last destination of the trip.




Place-7: Kollur: This is a Mukambika temple, one of the important temples of india. As it was Dasara and even Friday, this was the best time to visit this temple. We had dinner also in the temple only.



Finaly with complete body drop, we started our retrun journey and reached 6am on next day. Enjoyed a lot in trip and now we started to cherish those moments....

Please drop your coments on this story... :) See you soon with new trip...