ShortTrip to MakaliDurga...

When we came to know about Makalidurga, I asked Aramis "is it a religious place? Kali Durga all goddess are there? :O"  He showed me some pics from google. When I first saw them ,I was not actually interested . After some google browsing, we found there is nothing but a rail line and some small hills . That made us interested ,if there is nothing then why people go there!! And finally  I told "ok ,lets go." Aramis was pretty much excited because he is very fond of train. Don't know why ,but normally when he sees any train or train track he felt nostalgic. So it's a great opportunity for him to see the train track  through hills. He was excited. Me, Athos and D'Artagnan were excited because we are going again for a bike trip which will include night journey and lot of famous food places to nurture our taste . As usual Aramis took the responsibility to track the route . Sometimes I wonder when there is no google how people found the route specially at night time. Aramis took google maps help, draw it in mind and as usual directed us to just follow him . Next day morning we started around  5:00 form whitefield. The road is almost known one. We went to nandi hills once and Airport several times through this Devanahalli route. But the problem was freezing cold. As I was  pillion rider with D'Artagnan , my job was to enjoying the beauty through this cold. So I did.  Normally when we  take this route we have some fixed spot Tea break . It was January 23rd ,2013 . Athos is guiding Aramis using GPS navigation and we were following them. We stopped for Tea, Aramis needs rest, we all need rest , it's already  1 hour bike journey. When you are at the National Highway you can spot direction for Nandi hills, but there is no sign board for Makalidurga. So you have to believe your map and your instincts that, yes you are at the right way. After some misdirection, some round and round trip in same road ,finally we reached at Makalidurga. First thing what you can discover on the way of this place is awesome road through hills and it will be splendid if you are ridding your bike through the hills and  suddenly you see one train is just passing by.  We reached the train station around 8 AM. It is a lonely small station, surrounded by hills and spectacular scenic beauty. I guess we are the only 4 other than  station master in the area.

 We asked the station master about the direction for the makalidurga hill. He starred at us with a peculiar look...like we are asking for the route for the moon. And then gave us the famous direction.."go straight".. We were also thinking from his look that this kind of  answer may come!! Ideally if you go straight then your journey will end here as there is only rail track lies in front of us. We gave him a big thanks for this straight direction . We heard he was murmuring .. "These freaking IT guys ..Full week you do some nonsense work and weekends you roam here and there..Who told you to come here, nothing is here...”
We were disheartened to hear the truth.  But we move on. After a short 1.5 Km journey through paddy field, we reached  one level crossing. And we can see 4-5 green hills are just in front of us. All are full of herbs, trees, but most importantly no visible route. We understood this is our base camp!! and we have to make our own route.. We parked our Bikes and boost our energy for unknown route trekking. 

 Now we are in a small trouble..We could see there are  hills spread across the area. 3 of them is really high. But which one is MakaliDurga????  This is the dilemma. Nobody is there. There are 2 more bikes parked at the same place, but no survivors visible!!! We thought about to play eeny meeny miny moe to select a hill!! We were watching for 30 min and argued a lot.. suddenly we saw two people at the  top of one hill, and then we realized that must be the right one.  So we started trekking for that one.

 

 

 

There was a small temple at the bottom of the hill, and after that there a long green valley. Starting phase of the trek is quite  easy  . As there is no specific route , we started with the aim that we have to reach at  the top. After some time it was really tough one. Sometimes big  trees close the route, shrubs with sharp thorns made us bleeding.  Thanks for the winter that we all had jacket. But still it made us injured many places. The path was also full of small rocks, sand and trench, so we were careful enough not to slipped, otherwise we have to miss one bike from next trip. After a stressful hiking for 3 hours we reached the top of the hill. It has a picture perfect view from there. You can see a wide view of greenery, and one big Lake.  That's all. Nothing more there. We took rest for a long hour as we all are exhausted. , finished our portfolio shooting, and started for down.

We forgot the route from where we came up. It was all tress, spikes, small rocks everywhere and we are lost now. Somehow we decided to take left route!! After getting down for 15-20 min we saw it can’t be the road, because it’s a trench after this road. So we change our path, we came back, take right direction, and then again back , sometimes up, sometimes down. D'Artagnan started panicing.  He started telling the story what he heard from childhood ,where some people could not get down and after some days police found their skeleton!!!!  We assured him that don't worry , we have full day to find one route and we will be definitely take him down. Finally after a 2 hours struggle we somehow managed to see the down valley and we realized that we are saved. :) .

We reached at the temple . There was nobody still other than god itself. We took rest and then kicked our bike.

This was a short trip, we thought it should not be a tough one, but  the trekking part and lost in the middle of the hill , made this one a memorable one.

Hunger warning:: If you take devanahalli route, open your eyes for one shop, Mayura bakery. It is at Devanahalli. And it’s all items are so delicious..

Periyar-Gavi "Wilderness beacons"

Some ideas come up in mind like a flash. We are in a Dinga, in the middle of a river, and suddenly we decided,  next trip should be something that has adventure with same time eye-soothing beauty. We had one name ...."Periyar".   

We researched a little, argued a lot, made different list of must visit places, throw those papers and changed our mind to the ultimate decision. Just go then we will see.. ( actually this is the normal case for us in every trip)..And finally finished the ticket booking, Thanks to Redbus.

We started on Friday Sept 13th, 2013. SRS travel send their chariot at 10:30 PM at Madiwala, near silk board. It's raining and then we realized that we forget our first thing. Nobody brought an Umbrella. Anyway this is just starting.. lots of thing will be lost and forgotten . That's we know..We boarded and started thinking about next 2 days what to do. Actually we don’t know what to do. :P.

Its a long night journey, and believe me my friends never take a bus from banglaore to anywhere other than a club class volvo. It may cost 200 bucks extra but you can feel the difference if you have already boarded both.. Finally we reached Kumily, and first ensured that our all body parts are at same place.. :P  .It is a small village near Tamilnadu and Kerala border (small tip, take right side seats in bus, then you can see a splendid view of waterfall before entering Kumily jungle. :) ). Buses come up to this point. We crossed the check post, and started looking for tea shop. Because we need life first rather than any transport to reach periyar. If you have experience of kerala then you know that tea making style is different in kerala from other states of India. Me and Aramis were in kerala  for a long time, so we are familiar with this style. But for Athos and D'Artagnan, it's a new experience. We  are searching for any kind of food to gobble because our stomach is  shouting, and we got famous keralian chips and some other stuff. Ok now as we are full ,we are in search mode for any kind of bus or cab anything to reach periyar. Suddenly we met  Mr Bose. He was our real hero. First of all he cleared our confusion that where are we.. We gauze the knowledge that Periyar is a lake which is 4 KM from that place and now we are in Thekkadi. :) . Moreover he has a auto which can take 4 person. Normally in Kerala not more than 3 people are allowed in one. But he is ready to take us four and the unbelievable thing he told, He will take only 1000/- for all of us for the full day . We are just calculating with compare to Bangalore auto driver and we picturised them as blood sucking Dracula. He took all our responsibility and we are happy to give him that opportunity. . We thought there is only periyar lake is the one to see. But from him we came to know there are lot of things we can see and do, but we could not finish all of them in this 2 days trip.

We reserve that auto for the full day . We gave a requirement to him that first of all we need a home stay. So he took us to a beautiful one. It's on a top of a hill and surrounded by forest.. There are lots of other cheap home stay and those are beautiful too. But you know what ,we are not in mode of argument. The beauty of that place is so good that we agreed to pay 1500/- for all of us for 2 days. ( quite cheap ha!)..
If you search for 2-3 min you will easily get one inside jungle and near Bus stand!! 

Mr Bose came at sharp 10 :30 and told us that we need to be in real hurry otherwise we will miss a lot of places and you know we are born lazy.  So we started about 11 PM from home stay . The system is good in thekkadi. You just need to entry at a single place and from there you can get all your tickets like Elephant safari, Jungle safari , Kathakali and lots more.. We started our adventure with  Elephant safari.It’s actually under kerala Govt and Forest Dept. .

As per our  just made plan we bought tickets for elephant safari( 250/-each) , Kalaripayattu ( traditional martial arts) and Kathakali dance. Elephant safari is  approx 20 mins. They will take you through different spice gardens and if you wish you can bathe elephants. Obviously you have to pay extra for that.  

Then we run for Green Land Spice Garden. This is one of the Lonely Planet's recommend garden. It has a variety of orchid collection and different kinds of herbs and trees. I can't remember all those unintelligible names.. The lady who demonstrate the area was really nice . I got below average number in my school life in  botany. So first time I saw elephant grass, cardamom and many more. normally I see them in my food.  We took a wonderful walk through  the garden and if you wish you can buy some product from them too.
Now we are on the way to a Tea garden because we all need some profile picture for our facebook. So after a good photo session inside the tea garden we rush for suicide point, not to do but to see. The breathtaking view of this point makes the name real one. The place is really BEAUTIfull.  You can see Tamilnadu and Kerala village and a last green scenery surrounded by the hills..Don’t miss this one.

           


               


Now we are in real hurry. it’s already 2 PM and we have to take 3:30 boat in periyar reserve forest and for that we have to collect ticket from counter at 2: 30, and the place from suicide point to periyar is 30 min away. Mr. Bose run his auto like Michael Schumacher and after that F1 race we just reached the counter at 2 40. In Periyar there is only 3 Boats, it operated by Forest dept and there is a long queue and limited seats. Boats started from morning 5: 30 and last one is at 5:00 PM. People says there are chances to see wild animals if you take first or last boat . But then you need speed of milkha singh to reach the counter and power of john cena to make others out of the line. :) We are lucky that we got last 4 tickets for the last boat.

The place is a real example of beauty. its a dense forest and it was raining sometimes ago. So dense fog throughout the jungle and hills. The Lake is situated in between all those hills .Water is calm and quite . But you need to wear safety jacket for your safety purpose. This lake is not a natural one. We heard that few years ago when Govt. is making some dam then the part of the forest drown and this lake created. But anyway the beauty is not dependent on if its natural or not. The dead tree in between the lake makes it more beautiful. It's a place for uncountable birds, Elephant, Deer, Bison, and many other wild animals. It is a tiger reserve forest also. So when we came to know that we all are so excited that the tiger may come to our boat and will shake hand and may say hello. I guess whenever we heard about the word "tiger reserve forest" we all think like this.  

 We stared at 3 30. It's a 1:30 hrs journey, The journey stared with a  elephant trumpet. So all are charged up. Surely we will take picture of a tiger with us and will make it in cover photo. Dears and Elephants are easily visible at both side of the lake. Its a paradise for Bird lovers. You can see a lots of birds. Don’t ask any name to us, we don’t know, we are not geeks ,only nature lovers  . But that 1.30 hrs journey will be your lifetime journey. There is no sign of tiger though believe me my friend. I have traveled a lot of places in Karnataka and Kerala. But this one is speechless, mind-blowing, fantaboulas. 


             



                 

It's already 5:00. So we need to run again for martial art and kathakali dance , as those timing are 5-6 and 6-7.These are at the same place where we went morning for elephant safari. Kalaripayattu is a real breathtaking art and those who were performing that one was real skillful. You can literally see sparks when they are fighting with sword. This is one of the oldest form of karate and some says like, from this art China imported there karate art. You can basically understand that those moves are inspired from different kind of animals, for protection, for attack. It's a real enjoying event.

         


Now we are dead tired. And day one end. We finished our dinner fish curry, fish fry, biriyani and take a walk to our home stay from the main market. Day one ends with a wonderful memory.

Next day our plan is to visit Gavi, We have already booked the tickets  from that same counter , It’s kind of  package trip.
As per the instruction one jeep wranglers came at our doorstep. It is approx 48 km run through the forest. When we entered in Periyar reserve forest we were excited like the crew of Jurassic Park.

Dense Fog everywhere, we are amazed how the driver able to see the road. After some km of up and down, climate changed to better and we spotted Bison at first site beside us. They are looks like calm and quiet and always chewing some gums. Next we spotted a gang of elephants. You can just imagine how exciting the thing is when you see wild animals are roaming beside you and you are stand still in a wranglers jeep. After that gang left, we moved on. Now it's time for  famous Malabar Giant squirrel. We heard that they are real shy and its real hard to spot them. And we saw 3 !!!! That was surely one of our luckiest days. Probably nature has given all its color to this creature. Aramise made some great capture.
 I can’t express in words how dramatic the road was and how was that journey for 48 Km. I just copied one sentence for this one... ""Gar firdaus, ruhe zamin ast, hamin asto, hamin asto, hamin ast" - Sorry Mr. Jahangir, I use your words to express my feelings without your permission. 

          


           


When we reached at the Gavi Forest Dept office it was raining. And the hill was surrounded by dense fog. Though those constraint can't stop us to feed our hunger from a majestic breakfast. This is also the part of the package and probably one of the finest food I had taken in Kerala. There is big lake just beside the Dept office and it's surrounded by hills. Dense fog made it impossible to see the lake. only when some breeze come its take away the fog and an amazing landscape is opening in front of our eyes. But that scene stayed just for some minutes. Again fog came and gobbles the beauty.

Now the craziest part of the trip. In the package you can choose any one trek, duration is 1 hr, 2 hr and 3 hrs. we took 3 hrs trek. They give us Leech socks!!!!! and Mr. Guide took one pack of salt. We thought there may be some leeches . But we were SO wrong.  Million trillion of leeches. and everywhere..

We entered in the jungle. It’s a REAL Jungle. Rain forest. We escaped many times from fall. We crossed dead trees those are lie between so called roads. Everywhere it is rotten leaves, sudden stream in the mid of the way, dark, leeches. We are just following our guide, don’t know what to see, there is nothing to see other than leeches and dense jungle. Suddenly we smell something. It’s like elephant... We got the same one previous day on elephant ride. Guide told us to be aware. We all already exhausted at that time by this long walk and more over all our dress is full of leeches. We tried first few hours to spay salt on the now we are living happily with them... We didn't see any elephant at that place.

It’s a river inside the jungle. it’s already 2 hr. we are walking , falling, bleeding from everywhere , so we decided to back from this place. . We are on the way to our base camp. Suddenly we are in front of a waterfall. Believe me , this one scene make us forget everything. It’s amazing. Dense forest, elephant smell, raining, leeches, and this waterfall. We can’t take many photos. But it looks like  god must have created this one for their use. I read in old stories that gods comes in such places.. I could visualize this is the place.

Anyways we move on, this part of our journey reminds me the "Avatar” movies scene. Those trees are there from ages and ages. Untouched, Unspoiled. We walked like a dream walker; We came back, had lunch and started  for Kumily. We reached at the kumily bus stand around 5 PM.  Bus is ready and it’s time to say good bye to a unspoiled beauty, The bus just started and we heard a trumpet. It can’t be a better ending for this journey..
 
 Oh shit. We have to plan our next trip. Time to go, Bye….  :)

PS: you can see the all the images and Videos in this link , if you have enough spare time to waste.. taken by Aramis..