My trip to the skies... :)

WOW!!! Words simply can't express the experience that I had... I am not saying that we had the best of the facilities, On the contrary we had one of the horrible transport ever…

This summer surprisingly it’s raining. The trip was actually meant to be arranged in summer, because we had a plan visiting one beach, one island, and one trekking place. But the island was ditched as the beach itself was so superb.

Hmmm… Wondering where we had been??? OK… I will not beat around the bush anymore… let’s get to the point…

We started our journey with 17 people on Friday, 21st march of 2008 around 10:00 PM. The bus looked fine, the driver was also fine, and so we thought that at last this is going to be one awesome trip… But, everything doesn’t come our way, it started to rain, then we came to know that our bus roof is one big leaky roof… within minutes we were all wet… But the journey had to go on… so with all these problems and more grumbling we reached udupi in the morning. As if the bus problem was not enough, there was a hell lot of a problem for accommodation. But in the end we got rooms to stay… By this time our moods were horrible… we were all ready to pounce on everybody… we just wanted to get ready and start moving… we wanted to do something, see a nice place, and also eat something as we were really hungry :(

At last, the fun part… the real trip environment begins… We entered the Malpe beach surroundings… we were all cleanly bowled… It was awesome… what a clean beach… Never in my memory, never, can I remember a beach which looked so good… just felt like going and jumping into the water… Plus an added bonus was the Banana boat and the Jet Ski… Had a lot of, lot of, lot of fun on these rides. If anybody is going to Malpe beach, then one piece of advice – don’t fret. Just go on all the rides that are available. I am telling this because, I was damn scared and thought I would not go on them. I would have missed it, if I had had not gone on them. It was awesome…

So now with our hearts lighter. We called it a day and retired.

Till next day 4’o clock we visited two temples- Annegudda (Ganapathi temple) and Kollur (Devi temple) and we started towards our most anticipated spot “KODACHADRI”.

The best part of the journey was this as our bus got stuck in the mud and it would not move. We had to get down from the bus and push it.

Hmmm Kodachadri at last reached our destination… What an awesome place… It’s picture perfect place. When we visited Kodachadri it was raining lightly and it was covered with mist. Visibility was very less. It’s a painter’s imagination. It was awesome (Sorry but I cant stop using that word) One should really see it to imagine it…

The pictures that you can see in this post, are of kodachadri...

This is me and some of my friendz inside clouds...



We went there by 6'o clock. It was a feast to our eyes. Alas we couldn’t trek as it was raining, otherwise it would have been more fun. It’s actually an 8km trek from the base. If you don’t want to trek then jeep facilities are available. The jeep drivers whom we met were awesome (Ramesh and Prakash) we used 2 jeeps as we were 17 members. There are no roads actually so hold on tight if you are going in a jeep… We saw the place where gaalipata was shot… Nothing is real in Gaalipata everything is made up plaster of Paris, but still the place is simply beautiful.

We just in stayed the travelers Bungalow all evening, we were just enjoying the scenery. Hmm got up in the morning and started our trek upwards to Kalin-Mane and Chitra-Mane. As we all love trekking, we simply enjoyed this. First we went to Kalin-Mane there was one Shankaracharya idol there. It is somewhere around one and half kms from the TB. It is said that he meditated there first and later he installed the Mukambika godess in Kollur. It was the highest point. It was as if we were walking inside clouds… Awesome…

From there we had trek down on the other side to reach Chitra-mane. Usually people stop at trekking at this place but we gals went further. It’s a dangerous path. It is a one kilometer trek from the Kalin-Mane. It was wonderful. There is one Shiva idol there, plus there is one lady there who is sitting there from 30 years. She sits at this place and does puja to the Shiva there everyday. There is one small water fall kind of a thing. It is said that, in all seasons at all times only that mush will be flowing. It was also wonderful. We drank the water there… hmmm it was yummyyyyyyyyy.

The best part of this trek was when we had to climb a ladder to reach the Shiva idol. There was one small ladder there. But one of my friend is very, very afraid to climb a ladder. She was screaming at the top of her voice as she was very scared, at last she was pulled upwards. While getting down she started crying as she was afraid that we were going to leave her there and leave as she did not know how to climb down a ladder. Then with much difficulty and more screaming and crying she climbed down. It was a laugh ramie… we enjoyed it…

As all good things should come to an end our trek came to and end. We trekked back to the TB. And after lunch we even left for Mysore. This was one of our best trips ever. We had a wonderful time despite our hole(y) roofed bus. Even while coming back to Mysore it rained but none of us were that fussed as we had had an awesome (This is the last time I am using awesome ) time.

This is some of the information which is required if you are going to Kodachadri:

Phone number of Kodachadri Bungalow: 08185290368

Best person to get hold of there: Rajendra

Best jeep drivers: Ramesh and Prakash

Necessary Backpackings: Along with your First Aid, its better to have a torch, a waterproof jacket, a thick blanket(very cold up there and if unlucky might not get a blanket up there) and few tobacco leaves or a fresh lime.

Tips: Guides are available at Nittur. If late better hire a guide who will lead you at least up to the jeep road. They will come for less than 200 rupees on bargaining. Tobacco leaves or Lime juice are must if you wanna save your blood :). Places near the falls are usually slippery and very slippery during the rainy season. I felt that a good grip chappals will do better than any shoes and shorts will be better than jeans.