Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Madikeri Exploration

Golden Temple-Nisargadhama-Dubare elephant camp-Maandala Patti-Raja Seat-Abbi Falls-Bhagamandala-Talakaveri - June 25th - 27th 2010.

The four elite gang included Vinay, Sandeep, Ravi and Myself, decided to venture in to the cold, misty Madikeri.  For our surprise the “driving” force Sunil brought one of his friends Raaghu, he was effervescent.  and both brought a lively atmosphere to our trip. We had a nice time in the next 48 hours.

Sunil started from Bannerghatta Road picking up Vinay from Belandur Junction, Then Ravi near Gopalan Mal in Mysore Road, Myself from Vijayanagar, and finally Sandeep near BHEL  factory on Mysore Road.  After a small pooja to the vehicle, left Bangalore behind at around 1.45 in the night.
Our first stop was near Maddur, where we literally woke the Chai wala, and he offered a wonderful Tea. 
In the early morning reached Bylakuppe – Golden Temple.  It was an architecture marvel, and it was engrossing, spent about an hour there relishing the details of each and every bit of the golden temple.
It was good spot to start our memorable trip.  Then we headed towards Cauvery Nisarga Dhama.  We were there at 8AM in the morning.  It was a beautiful island, where we are the only four people around, then slowly the countable people from the nearby cottages started pouring in.  But it was silent island, except for the birds twitter, and gentle rhythmatic symphony from the flowing Cauvery, it made an awesome setting for us to chill out.  Photo session was more demanding from the gang, where we latched on to each and every place to frame ourselves in the lovely nature.
The Dubare elephants were waiting for us.  We Six of us ventured in to the Rafting.  It was breathtaking experience.  We made a good out of half an hour in the flowing river.  The Guide and lifesaver “Shankar” helped us to know thing or two about the rafting.  It was Rs.100/ per head for an half an hour rafting, they had closed 7.5 Kms rafting due to swollen river. It was good outing for all of us.  The elephants taking bath, feeding the giant with Raagi+Huruli Mudde was a treat to watch.  In between there were crew from “Samaya” News channel taking interviews from the senior citizens to throw the limelight on the elephant camp. We were amazed to see the giant animals heeding to the words of the man and it is painful to see the ambitious man depriving innocent animal’s privacy and freedom. 

The next destination was our star attraction “Maandala Patti” A good 20-30 kms from winding Madikeri Ghats. 

The drive uphill was a breathtaking experience, as I read in the blogs, Driver should have more enthusiasm and guts to drive the pitiable, and narrow winding path to reach the top.  Our driving force Sunil was in great form, with effortless ease he took us to the top of the mountain. The chilled, mystic,  weather added intoxicating moments for our trip.  Even though our eyes couldn't penetrate beyond ten to fifteen feet due to thick fog, still we could able to have a glassy moments on this hillock.  We drenched in the rain, jumped all over the place, we were shivering but still, the boyish, cheeky smiles were on our face, coz the experience cannot be explained. I decided to venture in to this location again in the post monsoon.


On our way back, the road was in a pitiable condition due to heavy rains, A troop from Bangalore in a tempo traveler were stuck in an muddy path when they were negotiating a curve.  We converged ourselves to bail them out of the woods.  In this scene three people were decisive Raaghu who first showed herculean interest to bail them out, then the smiling assassin “Vinay” who inspired us to pull them out from the ditch, and finally Sunil who was instrumental in taking the TT and also a Maruthi Alto out from the pitiable stretch.  Even though our plan of visiting the Abbi falls on the same day dashed out, but the experience of pulling the vehicle to the safety was a good enough to keep the memories for a long time.  All of us had a permanent muddy stains on our clothes, surely we may win Rin super Contest. The troop from the tempo traveler was kind enough, later on they followed us just like a shadow till we travelled back to Bangalore.

We reached Madikeri, visited the famous place “Raja Seat”, but according to me, it was a small park just like any other park in the busy Bangalore, but on an elevated slope. 


The chat shops near the Raja seat was not an encouraging one, but the savoring chilled ice cream in the rainy, cold weather was a great experience.


We stayed in an “Home Stay” for Rs.1300/- . The facilities were not good enough, but we didn’t had any choice as we were tired a lot, after a not so good dinner in the town, we slipped in to the bed. 


We all woke up around 8.30 in the morning, still Madikeri was in deep slumber, we went a small temple Kundur Motte Choudeshwari Temple to start our day two trip.
Our next site was the majestic Abbi Falls.  As we reached the falls around 11.30, it was crowded, hardly we found a place to take the snaps to include one of us in the frames.   In the Maandala patti due to heavy rains, my camera lens got exposed to the rain gods, and it showed its true colours in the Abbi Falls location, photos taken were not good for eyes.  But only the memoirs were preserved for our life time.

The Road to Talakaveri was a treat to the eyes.  But the weather gods started playing again, the climate changed just like asking run rate when India bats second in the cricket match.  In one turn we could see the blazing sun, the other turn a sharp shower.  When we reached the top around 14.00 Hrs , the hillock witnessed heavy rains, our patience reached a limit, then we started walking towards the holy point of the Cauvery in the heavy rains.  We stepped in to pond, felt like we were getting freezed. After taking the holy dip and also the theertha from the holy pond, we climbed up the Brahma Giri which was a good 300-400 steps above the holy pond.
 We had hot bajjis near the parking lot, it was good enough to energize our cold body.  We reached Bhagamandala around 17.00 Hrs, we took the blessing from the god and started towards Bangalore.  On our way, again one “Marthi Omni” needed our hands of god to bail them out.   We had a good time with the cycles of the boys who were playing around.



One the way to Bangalore, Sunil took all of us to his house on the outskirts of Mysore.  His mom prepared hot hot bajjis and delightful coffee.  We are all grateful to her.  Our sagging shoulders required some kind of energy, which came in the form of Bajji and Coffee.


Our driving force Sunil brought down memories of our Sahasasimha Vishnu by posing like him and also some memorable chartbusters from his great hits.  It was nostalogic journey as we had plenty of Annavaru mattu Sahasasihmana hadugalu playing in the music system throught out the trip.  Literally this trip will be dedicated to the two stalwarts of our kannada cinema whose innumerable pictures were shot in Mysore, Madikeri and sorroundings.


Some of the immitated images can be seen below :-)












After the dinner near Mandya around 23.00Hrs, We reached Bangalore at mid night around 1.00 Hrs safely.  


The engrossing moments of the trip
·         Wonderful combination of Sunil and Raaghu.
·         Photographic R & D from myself and Sandeep.
·         My Drenched camera, played safely all the way, except Abbi Falls, and Talakaveri
·         Rafting and Elephant Camps was breathtaking experience.
·         The last and but not the least mesmirsing Mandala Patti, which was  craving for more from us.
·         It was an expensive trip, but it was fully a paisa vasool.

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