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(Photos/pics for this travelogue might be available on My Tourism Photo Album)
Summary
I left Bangalore on Friday night at 2145 hrs by KSRTC Deluxe bus whose reservation I had done at the Kidwai Institute at 1545 hrs same day (Opp. Nimhans). Actually, there was a screw up in that the rest of my group had got their tickets through an agent. So they had to go by the 1845 bus whereas since I had some work till 2000 hrs, I had to go all by myself by the later (2145) bus. The jouney was very comfy. Reached Talguppa at 0730 hrs where the rest of my group (Hari, Jai, Nattu, Sweta, and Amol) was waiting for me since 0500 hrs. Talguppa is a very small village on the way to Jog Falls. I just had tea at Manjunath Dwarka hotel (actually a chai stall) and then we set off to set the trek on fire. Our schedule was to trek to Honnemardu, a beautiful place with the backdrop of Linganammaki Dam. Trek we did, all the 14 kms to Honnemardu! Some of it by concrete road but most of it by kaccha road passing through fields. The trek passed by small huts, and occasional villagers on bicycles (mostly Atlas SuperGold- the largest selling bicycle in India). The trek was full of greenery and after some time on kaccha road, we could see the backwaters of Sharavathy river, i.e, the Dam reservoir. We came across a small rivulet/falls on the way where we refreshed ourselves and clicked some pictures. Again, while almost approaching Honnemardu, we clicked pictures on a beautiful clearing which afforded us a superb background of the backwaters. At Honnemardu base camp, we were
welcomed by Rakesh and Mahesh, the 'The Adventurers' volunteers.
We were dying to jump in the waters. So quickly changing clothes, we came down where we were treated to the best lemon-rice I have ever had. Soon, we all found ourselves in waters. Even though I don't know swimming, I went quite far into waters (where it might have 50-60 ft deep!) with life-jacket. Shweta and Amol, both pucca swimmers were having a ball. Then came coracle ride. Not a ride actually. We had to row our coracles. And that was so much fun!. We had to touch a wooden pole far away in the reservoir. We did that first (me,Hari, and Nattu)!! Had lunch after sometime and then in the evening we started for the island. We were carrying tents, dinner etc with us in the coracles. That was quite a ride. In mid-way, the waters were quite rough and I was a bit scared as waters were threatening to jump into our coracle. This time again, there was a race and my coracle (me and Amol) won! By the way, by now one more group from Bangalore had joined us. Pitched the tent on the virgin island and collected some wood for bon-fire. Antakshri around the fire in the night was pretty neat esp. with the other big group from Bangalore. After bonfire, we had dinner and left for a moonlight coracle ride. We could see the Dam lights from our position. Waters looked more scary in the night, though. WE came back to the island and now Hari, me, and Rakesh went for a night trek on the island. After the trek, we fell asleep in our tents to the sounds of wildlife... Next morning we left for the mainland after collecting all the litter that we had created. Remember, it is a zero-impact programme. There should be no trace of u visiting the island. After having a good breakfast, we decided to trek our way through villages to a place where we could get a bus to Jog Falls. This trek was around 8 kms and passed through private fields which reminded me of Sylvester fighting in the fields of Thailand. Reached Jog Falls at 2PM. After having lunch, we started to go down to the bottom of the Falls. The falls are 295 m high, the highest in India. So it was quite a descent. Also, me and Jai met one young fella on the way who was quite drunk. Without being asked, he told us that he did not live in Bangalore but in Chikamangalur because of the population problem in Bangalore!! People do speak sense after getting drunk. But once down, we forgot all our tiredness, as the view was just too good! All the 4 Falls: Raja, Rani, Rocket and Roarer were presenting themselves in the best form. And not to forget the mist taht resulted from the fall from such a great height. It was, simply put, heavenly. Now the tough part came: climbing back up! I must say it was quite tiring. By the time we came up, the Falls were developing clouds around them. That was some view. We relaxed for sometime and then inquired for the bus to Bangalore. This is a deluxe bus that runs daily from Linganmakki Dam (14 km from Falls) to Bangalore. Since it was a Sunday, it seemed to us a better idea to goto the starting point of the bus, i.e., Linganamakki Dam itself so as to get a seat. So we hired a taxi and reached the Dam in time. Got seats easily. And then the bus started at 7pm and as we moved towards the Falls, it was getting filled more and more on the way. And when we reached Jog Falls we gave ourselves a pat on the back for deciding to goto the dam itself to catch the bus. And then we fell asleep the 3rd and last night of our journey...
Update (May 27, 2004):
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Last updated: Nov 21, 2005 Created: Feb 10, 2002 |
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