So what is next ... I am back from the trek I was supposed to go and boy was it good ... you bet it was ....
Cloudy skies, misty mountains, gusty winds, verdant scenery we had it all. Added to it a heady dose of rain, leeches, dumbCs and foot-in-the-mouth incidents (with Gokhale and Himanshu these are inevitable) the weekend was definitely one to remember.
We started on Friday night, the start being delayed by the customary hour. I was rather surprised at the relatively short delay. Guess working in a company gives one some semblance of punctuality. I hope it did that to me. Anyway, we started off on a rather sedentary note with almost everyone hitting the dreams the moment the bus started to roll. Deepak had pre-DJed the songs to be played in our times on the bus and I have to say that the choices were impressive. I remember getting a single seat to myself and still tossing and turning trying to find the most comfortable postion to catch a wink or two. And just as I had (or it seemed so) the bus lurched a halt in front of the Chikmagalur bus station. Trivia freaks might recollect that it was this constituency that gave Indira Gandhi shelter after she was thrown out by the people in Rae Bareily. Anyway, I guess or rather hope that it is known more for its excellent coffee.
Coming back to our trekking expedition and finishing off the morning exigencies at the bus stop, the packing for the trip started. The first task was the picking of the sleeping bags. Biju and me did one of our 'chance pe dance' items and picked out a couple of decent bags early on. Anyway regardless of the bag one got the major problem was that of packing them in such a way that water could not get to them in these rainy days. Gokhale wrapped his one in a Dominoes polythene and with his blue jeans and properly tucked T-shirt looked more like the model pizza delivery man rather than a trekker. On a side note Gokhale had lent me his sweat pants thinking they would not look good on him. Turned out that those were better suited to the conditions than his impeccable Lee jeans. Just one of many faux pax by him. Himanshu came with an ingenious idea to wrap 3 polythenes so as to cover his sleeping bag. And most of us stuffed them into our huge backpacks. All in the spirit of deepak saying "There is nothing worse on a trek than having a wet sleeping bag". In hindsight nothing could be more true.
Wrapping off the breakfast and refilling our water bottles we were on the bus again to get to the point where we would start our trek. During the breakfast came to know that Biju was getting married, and to who else but Aruma, a news that left both Saniye and myself flummoxed at the breakfast table. Within minutes after leaving Chikmagalur bus station, we were in the mountains and could see the greenery of the coffee plantations by our side and the rising clouds on the mountains above. I do not remember the checkposts' name where we got down but what do remember the view from down there was awesome and at the same time was just a whiff of what was to follow. It was not raining but rather drizzling slightly. Backpacks loaded, jackets and raincoats tightened we set out. Rain had made the moutain soil into slippery clay at most places so we had place each step in a careful and calculating manner. Initially I (and some more people) has some problems in dealing with the slippery surface but soon got adjusted to it. The hill we were climbing was called Mullyangiri and from Nari's info it was the highest peak in the state of Karnataka. We had actually covered quite some distance uphill on the bus itself but a significant amount of climbing was left to be accomplished.
I kinda stuck to the front of the group and hence missed some of the action that must be happening at the back. But one incident stands out in my mind. Halfway through the climb we came across this rockface that must have been around 10 feet in height. Not finding any trail circumventing it, we decided that probably climbing it was the only option. Saniye was at the head of the group and how she managed to climb that thing I do not know. Biju managed it front of my eyes with some unhealthy stretching of his leg muscles. Prachi went in next with Biju holding her from the top and Sooraj pushing up her legs from below. Sooraj also accomplished the task somehow. I was the next and managed with Biju helping me from the top. But Sujai had other ideas. He decided that not everyone would be eager to take up so much pain and would have found a easier solution and managed to find, after some searching a trail which circumvented the rock face. We sat there panting while the entire group merrily ran a circle around the rock. I felt genuinely stupid. Moreover, Biju was saying things like if you are a man climb this rockface. Just wondering whom he was trying to prove himself a man to.
After more trekking uphill and some water breaks, we came across this wonderful alcove with a small temple. A rusty looking old tree covered entirely with green moss and lichen gave shade. Lilac flowers of some unknown genus completed the picture giving the whole setup the look and feel of Impressionist painting. In addition, the view of the valley below was nothing short of incredible from there. We were by now quite a some distance up and could see the meandering river running across the plains, the greenery of the forests and a small town (was it Chikmagalur??) at a distance ensconced in them. That is when the clouds underneath us cleared enough. At this stage we were very close to the top of the hill and continued to climb on till we stumbled across a couple of caves. After some initial exploring, we left them and continued uphill. I was return later to these caves after Shankar shown pictures of the amazing rock striations on the walls of these caves. In fact, one fabulous rock layering looked like a Japanese Kabuki mask to my eyes. The cave itself was very low with me having to usually move on my knees or haunches.
Nothing and I mean nothing can really describe the feeling I got on reaching the top. There was the structure rising out of the mist that look like some kind of Paleolithic Stonehenge with stairs leading to its mysterious interiors (It later turned out be one of those fortress kind of walls). Wind was howling, yes literally howling as the clouds swathed everything around us in the mist that gave each of our physical embodiments an ephemeral nature. Forms became undefined as I squinted to look some feet ahead. Taking the stairs, we reached inside the compound and were pleasantly to see a functioning temple inside with people actually staying there. A thought struck me then and would come back to me later as we moved on about how these people would be feeling staying at this remote place.
We circled around the whole compound while waiting for Santhosh and others to climb and decide upon the future course of the trek. Before they came in Sooraj spotted a snakeling (I still wonder if it was a snake or a retarded earthworm?). Some photos of the snake and Himanshu wanting a bottle and few helpers to capture a 12 cm long snake it was decided that we take shelter for the day at the temple itself. In addition, from this point the fear of snakes manifested itself in Hims mind to an extent that he had to go to ludicrous lengths to pacify them. The priest had allowed us to use the hall provided we maintain some decency and keep our shoes away from the shrine. We were soon sequestered in the main hall of the temple, sitting on our mats, devouring the packed chapattis with pickle, jam, mixture or anything else we could put our hands upon. After this moment, the group was in a constant state of ingestion with biscuits, mixture, tea, coffee (and sugar in case of Hims) constantly reaching our stomachs. I fell asleep for some time inside a sleeping bag, without a zipper, which caused me to lash out my legs much to the discomfort of Prachi, and man did see berate me enough for this. And by the way I also found out that Prachi and Neha were both from Rourkela (you know, my hometown). On hearing this, for the nth time (n -> infiniti), I realized world is a small place. On further hearing they were Carmelites, a further remembrance of the days I used to (ok not correct entirely …) ogle at girls and curse St. Paul guys came rushing back. How weird memories are?? At the slightest hint, they just inundate you.
After an hour or so of sleeping and another meal of rice and rasam (which I did not partake being full) junta sat down to pass their time playing DC. When guessing movies people were saying things like “__________ of ____________” and Deepak always cracked the obnoxious joke, “Abbey Dash tere ko bula rahe hain”, while I was trying to sleep inside my rather comfortable sleeping bag … now a zipped one. After some time I realized the futility of the whole endeavor of sleep and jumped head on into the ongoing game of DC. I announced my participation by giving others things to act like “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Great Gatsby” and acting things like “lag” and “synonym of” in ways that seemed completely natural to me but were immediately dubbed by the group as IIT DC techniques. Baffles me. I mean if you show 2 fingers horizontal, parallel, one on top of another, what else can it mean other than “equal to”?? And of course there was this classic act where Gopika was trying Sooraj to guess the name of the restaurant in 3rd block Koramangala where they went for dinner. After some obscene number of hand gestures and Gopika’s frustration at Sooraj, the movie turned out to be “Steel Magnolia”, Magnolia being the name of the restaurant in question.
In between the DC and dinner, some of us went out into raging gale sometime in the evening. The venture outside was mainly due to the natural causes rather than any daredevil attempt to go out in the wind and pit our strength against it. However, the weather outside was much worse than earlier in the day. It was drizzling slightly and the wind was much more stronger, strong enough to blow away some instances of the Homo sapiens class into oblivion.
Dinner again was the usual romping affair with Hims putting sugar into all kinds of things to make them more edible (his opinion). Some more tired acting and guessing later we all were ready for bed. Rolling out the mats in the floor we snuggled into our sleeping bags to drift away into a night of dreams. Or were there any??
During our afternoon nap, Sujai had proved himself a master in the art of snoring. From Santhosh’s account in the morning, Sujai was the clear winner in the snoring competition with me and Sooraj giving a semblance of competition to him. I do not know about Sooraj but I am sure I do not snore. Anyway also from Santhoshs’ account of the night Abhishek was saying some things like somebody is opening a polythene bag and that I was virtuoso cycling in my sleeping bag. Wonder when Santhosh slept.
Very unlikely, I opened my eyes by myself in the morning. After brushing my teeth and I came back to find Raghu poking a sleeping Hims with his toe. On asking him what he was doing he replied “I am pinging him to see if he is alive”. Henceforth we forgot Raghu and were introduced to Pingu. Sometime later Raghu took a fascination to an antique rifle (or was it a musket?) hanging in the walls and wanted a couple of photos with it. The helper of the temple correctly identified him as Tiger Prabhakaran. I thought he meant the LTTE supremo but it seems there is a Kannada hero of that name. I keep on telling Nari that he can become a Kannada superstar but he does not listen to me. My beliefs were reinforced. Raghu was henceforth to be called only Tiger Pingu Prabhakaran aka TPP. Me started wondering what CPP stood for??
Anyway putting our feet into shoes wet from exposure to rain, hail, snow and god knows what during the night we set out down the hill on the second part of the trail. Our eyes were now adjusted to a visibility of 10 metres or so and it was intermittently drizzling so the ground was slippery and we were putting each step with care. More so as we were moving downhill. I broke away again to the front of the group with TPP, Saniye. Biju, Aruma and Shankar. I had my first experience with a leech on this part (more on leeches later) and my first slip crashing my bum on the rocky ground but still alive and kicking. The experience of trekking here was more like walking through the Scotland of Braveheart or the green misty environs of Lothorien in Fellowship of the ring. Quite some distance of the journey was on the edge of a cliff which sloped down into a deep forest that was purported to be tiger territory. My thoughts while walking through that part were like “Don’t slip. Don’t slip…”
Somewhere during this period, TPP saw a snake. It was obviously not one but he was petrified and insisted on informing others at the back before moving forward. Now I was without my contacts and only make out a vaguely make out something around a feet long and green in color. I thought it is probably a grass snake but then whats the big deal. After a minute or two of waiting, I decided to have a closer look and then found out it was a rather large blade of grass. Nevertheless, I had moved quite a distance ahead of the main group and very soon reached the end of the trek at a checkpost. Since the main group was still some distance away from the destination, we contented ourselves by gorging on chocs and guavas’ which I had carried the previous day and had insisted on distributing this morning so that my backpack weighed less.
After the main group arrived, we realized that we had told the bus driver to wait at another post 7 km down the road. However, luckily for us the driver applied his brains and first came to this post. Dumping our backpacks inside the bus we climbed onto the top to admire the scenery as the vehicle skirted around carefully on the mountainous terrain. Another first for me. Winding down the road, we were on our way to the spot where we could start the second leg of the trek leading to Baba Budhan. Incidentally, Baba Budhan is the one who got coffee out of Arabia into Chikmagalur and I am sure his shrine should be one to visit for any half decent coffee connoisseur. We had the mountain on one side of the road while the other had coffee and eliachi plantations on the downward slopes.
Going down we came across a waterfall (a man made one) with a chai stall in its side, where we got down, and took at few snaps. Someone then gathered some information that pointed to another waterfall a furlong away and bigger one at that. Now I do not think any of us knew how much exactly is one furlong is but guessed that it should not be more than a kilometer or slightly more than that. Anyway, we went for it. Sounded too irresistible. As usual, I kind of stuck with the avant garde. We must have trekked a km and a half before we saw and heard the first traces of the river. Soon we were climbing down to it. Also we could see a small waterfall and guessed that it was the one we came in search of.
Immediately Deepak went down into the water and Biju and me were testing the waters to see if we could also get in. At this time I suddenly realized that leeches were probably holding their version of Woodstock at the very same place. And Saniye already had one on her ankle. Aruma and Saniye rushed back. I wanted to stick around for slightly longer having came so much distance. Anyway, I also found a couple of leeches trying to get inside my socks. I now have a theory that states that leeches lack the sense of smell. I turned around and saw that Deepak had disappeared. I thought he had decided to take a dip in the water. Suddenly saw his head bob up with an expression which baffled me. Actually, he was like 20 feet away and I was still without my contacts. He went down and again his head came up in a expression which looked like he was gasping for air. Now I knew something was wrong. I called Biju and he realized the gravity of the situation and immediately went forward to help Deepak. However, by now Deepak seemed to have recovered himself and was swimming out to safety. Safety being first we moved as fast as possible from that place towards the bus. The trailing group was appearing and we pushed them back saying no point going there. Too many leeches and too deep water. Later Deepak told that there was a sudden depression underneath the falling water. Suddenly the chapter in my standard ninth geography textbook on water erosion came into full focus. We trekked back realizing always that the place was teeming with leeches and more leeches.
After coming back to the road we de-leeched ourselves by checking inside every piece of clothing. Still, Santhosh later said that he found a leech at his house. On a side note, Neha and leeches are a deadly combo. The height of the situation being when she mistook a small blade of grass for a leech and was jumping and stomping her foot trying to shake it off. It seems she took a photo of a leech to show what kind bloodsuckers were after her. As for me, I found two inside my left shoe and three more at various positions in my body. (I am sure you are not interested in the anatomic details). Another small detail. The waterfall we had searched for in the leech infested territory was missed by everybody but Biju, Hims and Shankar. Luckily Shankar had his absolutely brilliant digicam and so he took some decent videos and photos of the same to spare us some of the agony. And Hims got back leeches and as soon as he found on his waist start bawling like a 10 month old kid who is hungry and finds howling as his only form of expression. How true is the adage “There is a child in each of us”.
We started out towards the starting position of the trek towards the shrine of Baba Budhan sitting atop the rented minibus. When we reached there people who had already changed clothes were loathe to continue the trek in fear of spoiling the only pair of clean clothes they had. So some of them decided to continue to the shrine on the bus while we trekked our way up. Now some idiot had told that the trek to Baba Budhan was on relatively flat ground. As we trekked up the hill, I was running out of breath and could not wait to reach the flat track where the going will be easier. Alas! It never came. More than that, the path became steeper and the trails less distinct as we went up. But somehow we reached the top of the hill and from there the shrine which was to be our final destination for the trip.
Drenched to the skin by now we were eager to get out of our wet garments. Most of us managed to change in a dignified manner. Hims was however was upto his usual tricks he made the last seat of the bus a curfew zone for around fifteen minutes as he was doing god knows what. Finally, everybody was changed and we started down the hills towards Chikmagalur to have something as a late lunch. On the way, we bid our farewell to the hills talking the last couple of snaps. Reaching Chikmagalur we went to this place which served something called “Open Dosa”. After a year in Bangalore I had not heard of any such creation. Eager to try one almost every body ordered one of those. Turned out that it was pretty heavy and sufficed for a lunch and tiffin rolled into one.
Finally in the bus, dry and filled, it was time for DC again. The highlights of this session being Biju getting to my acting of Bekhudi as “back” and “Udi” or someone getting Tehzeeb from “The” and “Zip”. As they say, great minds think alike. However, around nine we had run out of movies and were so tired that we laid low in each of our seats waiting to reach Bangalore and go to bed to give rest to our tired limbs. It was finally around midnight when the bus stopped in front of the Talisma office and within half an hour I was in home, bidding adieu to my trekmates, trying to go to sleep while Ankit and Ajay wanted every single detail of the trip.
_Sriyansa
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PS:: Life was usual the next day. Photos were put up in share and experiences were shared. General agreement being that this was amongst the best treks by the 16$ trekkers.
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