kodachadri

Early morning start:
We decided to start very early on sunday morning.Going to kodachadri meant trekking for more than 10 kms and we wanted to complete the trek before Mr sun become too torchy. So at 4.15 A.M or so, all of us were ready and set to go. The home-stay owner seemed surprised to see the party leaving at the pre-designated time. But he bid us adieu by taking a group photo of all of us and party took off.

kollur to nittur:
Off we went towards kollur. kollur is around 45 kms from Maravanthe and is famous for the Mookambika temple. We almost immediately entered the ghat section and i swear that i also saw a very confused deer in the middle of the road which ran helter-scelter on seeing the head lights of our car. After a brief visit to the temple we started towards "sagara" a small town in shimoga. Our destination was Nittur which fell somewhere along the way between kollur and sagara. We didnt know then but Nittur is a further 45 kms from kollur. The distance and the ghat section slowed us down a bit.

So it was almost 6'0 clock in the morning by the time we reached the foot of kodachadri hills. That's when the merciful sun decided to give us the first view of the hills. Kodachadri is deemed as the most beautiful place and trekking spot in coastal karnataka and now i clearly saw why. Though very enthusiastic from the start i was also a bit skeptical about visiting this place, as i has heard and read that the trek was a bit difficult. But looking at it now, there were absolutely no doubts left, easy or difficult i wanted to trek and go all the way to the top.

Foot-hills:
We went a further of 6 kms, as far as the qualis could go. We breakfasted here at one of the local home-stays and again here too food was home made and exceptionally good. It was a misty dewy morning and there were dews everywhere.
Its amazing how much difference a few drops of dew can make to the flowers and leaves,
i suppose a dew drop is to flowers as jewelery is to women :) . I could not let my camera miss some of these beauties so i also spent some time capturing them as the hot "upma" and hot filter coffee was prepared.

We started our trek from the home stay. We were told that the trek was around 9 kms and we started our journey excitedly. There are also jeeps that you can take to go till the Inspection bungalow. So the jeeps have left a wide track which is easy to follow. You can also take the short cuts as they are just adjacent to the jeep tracks.
Which ever way you take this trek was a lot of fun....

Kodachadri trek: 11 kms in 11 steps

Step1:
Bhattara mane Garden, misty morning dew drops

Step2:
The jeep track, Our journey starts, can you hear singing, teasing and chattering?


Step 3:
We are soo tired? how far yet? not even halfway?

Step 4;

We are alomost half way. I remember asking the passing jeeps how far? but the answer was always the same.."3 kms". It was good for us in a way, kept us motivated

Step 5:
We are half way through....

Step 6:
Pity we went in summer...all the lush green grass has dried up...
Step 7:
Can you spot the Inspection Bungalow? That is our destination
Step 8:
Hurray, we reached!!!!!!!!! or did we?
Finally after a non stop trek of 3 hours we reached the Inspection bungalow and what did we find there? That we have another 2 km to trek to reach the top :(.
We are exhausted...but can we stop? naaahhhhhhhhh

Step 9:
Phew! we cannot do it,
wait a minute, did u see the view?
we can do it off course ....

Step 10:
Just a little bit further....

Step 11:
Finally reached...sweaty , dirty and exhausted...

Shankara peeta and the cucumber seller:
Given above is the picture of shankara peeta, a small temple dedicated to Shankaracharya, who the legend says meditated on top of this hills.

I expected to feel euphoric on reaching the top, but right now it felt like my brain was dead. There was a guy selling cucumbers and nimbu sharbat next to the small temple. It also had a thatched roof kind of shelter, the only refuge from the sun which was now burning hot. I remember slumping in the corner of the shelter and gulping atleast 6 glasses of nimboo sharbhat. My glucose-deprived body suddenly seemed to get out of its waking slumber and the first thought that my brain registered was "wow, this must be how' amruta'- the celestial nectar must taste like.

I have no idea how much money this guy collects, but i am pretty sure he collects a lot of 'punya' and if there is a heaven anywhere, he will definitely be welcomed as a 'priced candidate'.
So after drinking 'amrutha' and taking some rest the feeling of 'mission accomplished' started to sink in which was celebrated by taking group photos of the troupe. I know we did not conquer Mt everest, but that did not make our sense of accomplishment any lesser, especially after seeing that we were above the clouds.

There is a perfect song for every mood and occasion it is said and i did find a perfect one too.
The hindi song' aaj mein uuper, aasma neeche' kept running involuntarily on my lips ;).

we returned back to the IB and had a hearty meal at bhattara mane next to the IB. We were in dilemma whether to take the jeep or walk the way back and it was solved by the sudden appearance of the clouds in the sky. So off we went chasing clouds until our feet cracked and creaked.

Clouds forming in the sky, you could see them moving in front of you. Now i can proudly say i have touched a clouds :D

Maravanthe...

This is the first sight that caught our eye as we entered Maravathe. As seen in the picture it is a clean, isolated beach framed by gray rocks. The mere sight of it was enough of an invitation for us to jump right into the water. But we had had a long journey of 12 hours and needed our refreshments, so we headed in the opposite direction instead, towards the home-stay.

The "Sagar Kinara" beach resort: Not a resort as such, but it has around 6 - 7 rooms good enough for a pleasant stay. The rooms are unsophisticated, neat, clean and small. No A/c or generator but still it is pleasant place and an affordable one with a beautiful view of the beach from the veranda. The view is good especially in the moon light. The cost of each room comes up to Rs 500/- per day. The food is great, a typical udupi brahmin home food complete with pickle and pakodas.

The view of the beach from the resort

The Home-stay owner Mr. Srinivas (Mobile - 9448724861) is a very friendly person and took care of all our needs from the word go. He also gave us suggestions on the places in and around maravanthe that we can visit. I made the mistake of calling him "Uncle" and later in the night we all had an "entertaining" lecture on why only people above 50 must be addressed as "Uncle"and how we must not generalize the term.So thus began our "vacation" and the entry to the refreshment joint could not have been better.

A stroll by the beach:
After a short while we decided to take a stroll by the beach. We crossed the rocks lining the shore and started to take in the surroundings as we walked.

The picturesque water, white foam of the waves, broken sea shells brought ashore by the dancing waves of the sea, the feel of water and the receding sand against the back of our feet, the tiny little white crabs moving on the surface of the sand, little birds sitting on the shore as though watching a brilliant performance and flying away over the sea as we neared too close to them giving a spectacular performance themselves, the fishing boats, the coconut trees and everything around seemed picture perfect.

Maravanthe has a beautiful beach on one side of the highway and sowparnika river on the other. We walked by the beach and walked by the river and in the meantime all of us started switching over to our cranky sides. Saurabh pretended to be a ghost by a broken down, blackened house. Shashi and Deepti started posing on the bark of a tree, Chetan started taking pictures of every flower in the vicinity, for Deepti offcourse. I almost stumbled twice trying to take pictures of every thing from broken sea shells to dead trees. In one way or the other all of us were trying to do a bit of 'nortangi' in our own style. I dont remember what Prithvi was doing though. Either he is a very decent boy or I was too busy doing 'nortangi' of my own to notice what he was doing.

Without any doubt the vacation mood was sinking right into us. It must have got into our stomachs first though, as all of us were hungry at this point of time and off we went to have lunch.

Boating and the sunset:
After a hearty lunch and a quick nap, we went towards the river for a bit of boating. 30 min ride in the river was good enough where most of the time was spent in taking profile pictures of the concerned individuals :P. It was almost evening by the time we finished boating and the sun was beginning to set in the sky. As though by magic the river in front of us was transformed into pure gold and left all of us mesmerized. It also made the 650 bucks we paid for boating worthwhile.
It was time now, really time for sunset. All of us ran towards the beach and lo behold what a view it was!
Sunset happens everyday at every place, but its amazing how the experience can be so special at certain places.
A small golden orb sinking low, gloriously on the horizon, so simple yet so special...

Beauty is often perceived as that what lies in the eye of the beholder.
But sometimes both the vision and perception become mere see -through glasses, see -through glasses framing a window of the soul....
and real beauty, surpasses them both and touches the soul directly.. stirring deep emotions from within..
Perhaps that's why, we like what we see and perceive it as delight......
To cap it, the spectacle took place against the backdrop of the dazzling full moon.
It was a triple treat, sunset on river, sunset on the beach and the moon rise.

rising moon

After the sunset we started to play on the beach. The waves are high on this beach and it can be pretty dangerous so we did not go deep into the water (none of us knew swimming anyways ;)) but sat very close to the shore and let the waves catch up. The waves were hitting us and going back, and sometimes taking our stuff with it too. It took my duppatta and Deepti's rubber band. But beaches dislike slippers as Shashi found out, she lost her slippers but got it back as well :)

Soon it was dark and we had no choice but to go back. But after dinner all of us felt like going back to the beach again.

It was 9.30 in the night and the tides were really high. We sat silently watching the sea. The sea was bathed in moonlight. Above us the sky was silhouetted by stars. We could hear the sea thundering as the waves rose high and low. None of us spoke a word but simply sat there for nearly half an hour. I thought i had discovered the true meaning of so many words that day, yet there was one more left.

It was here, sitting under the stars and watching the moonlit sea that i discovered the true meaning of the another word. Another word called "Tranquility".

Next Adventure: Kodachadri...Dont miss it!

Few more photos....

Shimoga- Thirtahalli-Agumbe-Someshwara- Kundapur- Maravate

Did i hear a cuckoo somewhere?

That was the first sound i heard on Saturday morning.
The last time i heard cuckoo in bangalore was at UAS campus nearly 3 years ago...
While i mulled over the thought of what happened to them, we had already crossed shimoga and were at the threshold of western ghats.

I have visited different places in the western ghats in the past few years and every single time i am enchanted by its beauty. Its unbelievable how much nature can soothe your mind. Just sitting in the car and watching the surround from the window was a refreshing experience.

The fresh light green trees around, the soft glow of the morning sun peeping here and there through tender leaves, the chirping of birds, the hairpin bends of the ghat, dotted by wild flowers, greenish blue mountain peaks covered in morning mist, the country folk going about their day to day business, the cattle, the children....
every small thing seemed to enhance the beauty of the place tenfold.

There seemed to be a kind of melody in the place. Except melodious music always comes from your ears and fills your heart, but here the melody seemed to be in my heart and was slowly filling my senses.

In the meantime we reached Agumbe, The place is famous for its beautiful sunset spot.
Though we missed the sunrise we nevertheless enjoyed the magnificent scenery of the place.
From agumbe it is roughly around 45 kms to kundapur. We took the route of Someshwara and reached kundapur in roughly about 1 and a half hours.

Maravanthe is exactly 13 kms from kundapur.
Maravathe is a little known place with easily the most beautiful beach that i have seen.
On the left of the highway is the beach and on the right is the sowparnika river.

What was in store for us when we reached maravathe?
The homestay where we stayed, the great food, the beach , the river...

More to come in the next post...

Agumbe

Maravanthe beach as seen from the highway

The much awaited refreshment joint.

Lately, my life seemed to be filled with c’s.
chaos & coding...
Complexities & coding
Confusion & coding
Coding , coding, coding & coding

I was so fed up with all of them that I decided it was high time I added a few more c’s
Companionship, Celebration, comfort, comedy and a bit of color.

And with that came the pleasant Friday evening, when a bunch us decided to take all the good c’s with us and head towards the country side for a peaceful, adventurous weekend.
The Arrangements were made, a Quails was hired and off went the party zooming along on NH4.

There was still a dull buzz going on in the back of my head. The images of the events of the day, the meetings, project details, the design, and code still kept flashing across my mind. The sounds of the office, the cafeteria, the Bangalore traffic still running in the back of my head were now accentuated by the steadily growing peals of laughter around me.

Slowly but steadily the chaotic feeling of arduous monotony was being replaced by the warmth seeping across my heart, A feeling arising from the fact that I hadn’t met any of my friends for over a year, but when I did it felt like I had seen them only yesterday.

The highway seemed to disappear under the wheels of the quails at a very fast pace.
It seemed to mimic my life which too kept disappearing under the wheels of time, just as fast. Across miles and miles of grey stretch, monotonous and continuous,
But today seemed different, it looked like I had stumbled upon a refreshment joint.
A warm, friendly one, promising lots of fun.

So when I looked at the highway stretching wide in front of me, both the real and the metaphor, I could not help but smile.


The Qualis



The Highway

(To be continued..........)