2 days trip from bangalore to Yercaud

   Every year we always want to start new year in a nice place with less crowd...For 2012, it was bird sanctuary, for 2013 it was Visakhapatnam beech, for 2014 it was Ooty and for 2015 it was Yercaud. Yes, this time it was a beautiful hill station Yercaud. It was decided just 4 days back and luckily got hotels. 

Here are quick info before I start

Started from: Bangalore (1st Jan 2015)
Gang: With my Lovely Family...Daddy, mummy, my better half, and naughty son Srujan.
Number of Days: 1 night, 2 days
Mode of travel: My new Car...Duster
    Prefer your own drive...Journey is the best part of entire trip....You are going to love it for sure.
Way: Bangalore --> Salem (200KM) --> Yercaud (30KM full Ghat road)
Stay: Sri Durga Residency
   This was ranked top 4 in Trip Adviser. Got an Offer in goibibo where price came down from Rs.3000 to Rs.2000 per suit room. Booked 2 rooms. After going there, We came to know that actual price itself is Rs.2199 only.
   The best part of the hotel is the location. Completely out of city and crowd. Check out the pics below for views from hotel room.

   Quick Tip: Please note Yercaud is just simple hill station with very few attractions. You can say this place as little ooty. Its just a beautiful hill station to just relax.

Here the journey starts....

    This new year there is some special. Its not just Jan 1st but also very auspicious day as it was Vaikunta Ekadhashi... Woke up at 5am and by 6am all packed up and ready for the trip. First went to nearby temple and spent a hour in temple. Sharp 7am started the Journey. Luckily it  started raining very early in the morning and by the time we started it was slightly drizzling. So the climate was awesome. Bangalore itself was looking beautiful.

 Reached Salem by 10:30am. From there you need to take deviation to Yercaud. Now the fun starts with great views and 20 hair pin curves driving to the top of hill. Full of fog with lovely views everywhere.

On the way to Yercaud

 Finally reached Yercaud by 11:30am. You hit the junction of Yercaud where you can see a big lake. From there its hardly 1 km to hotel. The best part of the hotel is the location... You get a nice views from room itself and very silent place out of pollution and crowd. Relaxed in room for some time and started the journey to see the attractions...

Sri Durga Residency...

The plan was to see all places little faraway today and to cover near by places tomorrow. Our first destination was pagoda point. This is one of the view points where u get view of few hills... It was full of fog initially and got cleared soon. Spent some time and started back. 

Watch Tower

View of small Village below the hill

Can you see the small beautiful temple...

Next stop was rose garden...Its utterly waste with no roses at all...

~500m from there you get a Lady's seat. This is again one more view point to see other side of hill...

View from Lady seat view point...

Next stop was Karadiyur View Point. Trip Advisor have rated this as top 3. This is almost 13KM away and little difficult to find. Some how asking many people on the way we reached this place. You see a small board saying "Karadiyur View Point"...Its really small and you cannot see it properly also. There we need to park the car and walk for 1KM. Strangely there were no Visitors. Not even one. We were alone and need to walk little in side the forest and its very scary. Its a small mud path and no guidance on route. Mom and Dad stayed in car. Still Myself and vandana started walking. Had a walk for little distance. We found 3 guys coming return. It was a great releif to see atleast 3 of them in that scariest place. Sadly even before asking, they told not to go. As per them, "Nothing to see there and no body are there.They said they even didn't took single photo". With that bad review we just returned back half way.

Quick Tip: Completely avoid this place. If you have a good gang and want to do some adventure, then its a must place at least for trekking.

From there returned back and went to Shevaroy Temple. This is a small cave temple. Nothing special of temple but a nice location and very narrow road drive.

Shevaroy temple

Next place was Raja Rajeshwari temple. Again again..Small regular temple...

It was almost 4pm and went back to hotel. Took some rest and again went back for boating. But it was 5:30pm and its closed. Hence went to Anna Park just opposite to lake. Again nothing but a small park. We can see this type of parks on every corner of Bangalore.... But Srujan enjoyed some good time in playing with kids play area.

Went back to hotel by 7pm. We have already ordered the food. By 8pm, we got the dinner ready. Hotel have small restaurant where you can pre-order the food. Had dinner and slept off..

Day-2:

 Woke up early in the morning. Took few pics and had breakfast.

Sun rise view from room

View from room

view from room

 Started the drive by 9:30am. Went to Lake and did the boating. They charge around Rs.120 and we got a paddle boat for 30min. Did nice peddling covering full round of lake. Completely tired of peddling.

Boating Point

View from lake

Went to hotel and checked out by 10:30am and started our journey back to Bangalore. Over all it was a nice place.

In Salem did small shopping and ate in Saravana Bhavan and back to Bangalore by 5pm.

At last, all I would like to say is...Do not expect anything from this place. Its just a nice hill station with good views and nice climate. Nothing else....See u in next blog...

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 Coorg

Coorg also called as Kodagu was our Destination this time. Below are quick info before we go in details...

Date of Travel: 5th Feb 2011 from Bangalore

Company: Myself and my wife Vandana. Harsha and his wife Chaitanya.

Duration: 2 nights - 3 days

Places Covered: In and around Coorg and Mysore (Just palace and zoo)

Places covered near to Coorg: Dubare Elephant Camp, NisargaDhama, Golden Temple(Tibetan camp), Abbe Falls, Thalakavery, Bhagamadala, Omkareshwara temple, Raja Seat

Total journey: 750km



Stay in Coorg: Raksha Homstay, Sidhapura. This is an excellent homestay with yummy food. Nice location in 30 acres of Coffee plantation. Very lovely atmosphere and great hospitality from host. Check out http://www.homestaykodagu.com/home_stay/raksh%20cottage.htm




Travel Mode: Drive my own car

Occasion: My 4th Marriage anniversary

Day-1:

Ok let me come to more details. Journey started at sharp 5am from Bangalore. We packed home made breakfast as we were not sure on hotels on the way.

From Bangalore join Mysore road and travel on Mysore express highway till you reach Srirangapatna (just 20km before mysore).

From Srirangapatna take the diversion (not that good road) towards Ranganthittu Bird sanctuary. Continue on that small road till you reach ilivala. Any person on road can guide you the route. Even if you don;t know the language, just tell the name of place and he will explain you. Not much complicate way actually.

At Ilivala you will reach highway again. Now take a right on highway and move towards Hunsur, Periya patna.

Just after Periyapatna, you need to take a first left (Check out Orange County Board) and move towards Sidhapura road.

Raksha Homestay in just half a km from Sidhapura(35km from Coorg) , a small town. Even if you don't take this homestay, rest of my travel guide will remain same.

We reached homestay around 10am (so it is just 5 hours journey). We had small refreshment and started our journey again.

Dubare Elephant Camp:

From Sidhapura it is just ~10km away. This is the place where Elephants are tamed and trained. Try to reach here by 9am to see how elephants take bath. You can even see at 5-6pm. You need to take a boat ride to cross the river to reach the actual elephant camp (just 10Rs per head). Enjoyed few snaps with elephant and if you wish you can take a rise also. Then crossed the river back and went for river rafting (100 per head) in the same place. The rafting was for about 2 km and it was really great experience. Finaly swim in river for some time.

NisargaDhama:

From Dubare a route towards KushalaNagar for ~5KM. you can see it to your right. Here the Kaveri river just divides and joins again to form a small island. There is nothing much to see except a bamboo tree forest where you can walk for some time. Enjoyed few pics and some time sitting with full peace.








Nyingmapa Tibetan Monastery and Golden Temple:

After NisargaDhama go towards Kushalanagar and after Kushalnagar with in ~5km you will find this golden temple. This is second large Tibetan settlement in India. You can see many monks and a beautifull Golden temple. Huge Buddha statue is the biggest attraction. felt very peacefull and silence in the temple. Spent some time just sitting inside the temple. Outside there is a small shopping place. We didn't buy anything as nothing much special.





Return to HomeStay:

All the above places will come in single stretch of road one by one as said in above order. After Golden temple we returned back to homestay in the same route what we followed. Spent rest of the day enjoying the place. Had a great dinner and slept.

Day-2:

Had breakfast and left the home stay at sharp 10am for next round of places. From Sidhapura ~35km you will reach Madekeri (Coorg). From madekeri again 48km is our next destination Thalakaveri.

Talakaveri:

River Kaveri which is one of the 7 sacred rivers of Sapta Sindhus of the Hindu scriptures, originated at a place is called Talakaveri (head of Cauvery) in the Brahmagiri hills, at about 4,500 ft above sea level. This place is marked by a tirtha kundike or Brahma kundike (small spring/pond) from where the river emerges as a small perennial spring, but flows underground again to emerge a short distance away.

Very beautiful place because of its view. Enjoyed some time and returned back towards madikere.

Bhagamandala:

From Talakaveri, it is just 8km down the hill towards madekeri. This place is also called as "Triveni Sangama". There is a small temple to see. Nothing special. You can skip it also. But it was just on the way and hence we dropped here for some quick view.

After Bhagamandala we came back to madikere and had lunch in small hotel (athithi hotel). It was tough time to place get hotel. Athithi was one of the suggestions from local people and we went there. Hotel was ok.

After food next place is Abbe Falls

Abbe Falls:

Abbe mean "waterfall" in kodagu language. This is again a beautiful waterfall and must see place. About 4km from madikere. Need to take few steps to reach the falls. We were completely upset as they are not allowing to enter the falls. We just saw the falls and took few pics and left from there.








Omkareshwara Temple:


From Abbe falls, came back to Madekeri. This temple is in heart of the city. Temple will open after 5:30pm hence we just spent some time in front of the temple and left from there. Nothing special place but we visited this place as it is one of the common place to visit by all.








Raja Seat:


Again this is in heart of the city. This is again must watch place and all ways make sure you reach here by 5pm. Very beautiful view. Watched the glorious sun set where sun say bye-bye at the edges of green mountains. After sun set there was a musical fountain (6pm-7pm).

This ended our places in Coorg. reached homestay around 8pm and again slept for the day.




Day-3:

Woke up at 8am and celebrated my 4th wedding anniversary. Thanks to Harsha and Chaitanya for cake arrangements. Had breakfast and checked out the homestay around 10am. We will never forget the stay in homestay. It was one of the best part in entire trip.

Started journey to Mysore. Around 130km from Sidhapura.

We we wanted to reach Bangalore by end of day-3 only, we choose only 2 places to visit in Mysore - Zoo and Palace. There are many other places to visit which again takes one more day.

Mysore Zoo:

A typical zoo with most of the animals. Very poorly maintained. If you are first time visiting zoo or if you have kids then this is must watch.












Mysore Palace:

No words to say. This Palace shows the royal life of Wadayar Family. This will be closed by 5pm so be sure you catch it. Almost 1 hour spent in palace. Took a audio guide to help us in knowing the history of palace and few important places inside the palace. After you exit the palace don't miss the musiam where you can see lot of things related to kings.







END:

So by this we end of trip and back to Bangalore. 130km from Mysore. Had a great trip and we will cherish this for ever.



Last thing...don;t forget to out your comments.... Thanks for reading....

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