3 days - under nature s care

at last i was going on a trek!!!
after a long long long break.
it was 1 year ago that we(harte katte) had been on a trek...
we do learn from our past experience.
arun made it clear that carry mat and sleeping bag is a must and he would not allow us into the bus without them...

28th night
time 10 pm swaroop and me had just left shridhar s house after collecting the carry mats which were hoplessly packed.
the bus was supposed to leave majestic at 10 30 and we were sure that we could not make it.
what a start for the trek!!!
we decided to catch the bus at satellite bus stand (mysore road).
probably for the first time arun was late though not late enough to miss the bus.
satellite bus stand was empty... good for us we (swaroop, his sis, and me) made our best attempt to roll the carry mat, and this is what arun had to say: " thu! angDi avnge carry mat roll maaDakku baralla. waste fellow". swaroop decided not to take the blame on us :-)

finally the journey begins...
more than half the luggage in the bus was ours.
it was not a very eventful night. usually we end up getting scolded by our co-passengers for making noise, but this time probably they were lucky!!!
not much noise, the usual "hi, how are you?" s, some small chat. i tried my best to sleep. but was not very successful..

29th morning
the same maDikeri bus stand welcomed us. santosh who was to join us here was not to be seen anywhere. in some time saw a strange figure get out of sleeping bag...
and out comes santosh. in some time srinivasa and shreyas also joined us. after ablusions (better not use the terms we used) and breakfast got into the bus to hatti hoLe which is around 20 km from maDikeri. arun had described the place in a mail few days ago. this is what he had said "crystal clear water-u, very tempting-u but we wont be getting into water during uphill trek". indeed it was very tempting. we only went near the stream for photo session and then back to trek

it was not a normal trek where you just keep walking. it was almost a relaxing uphill walk but for the load we were carrying. had to walk along the stream for about 2km. here we exchanged our secret angle gifts. every one kept guessing as to who their secret angle was. santosh must still be wondering who calls him "gangster". keep guessing santosh. keep guessing santosh until you get "secret angle revealed" message from our moderator who by the way has done a very good job.

our yoga expert srinivasa rajan was telling us about some yoga aasanas. we were passing next to a paddy field. in some time we came by a house. looking a dozen of people in wierd clothes, carrying huge bags, with some cylindrical thing attached to it induces curiosity not only in humans but also among animals. and one such curious dog came out of the fence. i might have had a tough time judging us, to decide whether to bark at us or to wag its tail and come behind us and join us in our quest. at this very moment our srinivasa demonstrated 'simhaasana'. his ferocious roar scared the hell out of the dog. it yelped, and ran away with it s tail between its hind legs. poor dog sri, you probably made it skip a beat :). but you know what you missed a very beautiful place on monday.

crossing the hanging bridge and making it swing on purpse was real fun. arun spotted few birds here. and i captured some nice pics. eating "sweet, fresh, tender baTani kALu" was nice fun (thanks to seema). we were all marching at snail rate. enjoying nature and taking rest at every possible place. there were many small streams which provided us with chilled sweet water, and each halt at the stream was really refreshing.

we were all hungry, very very hungry when we passed by a house and each one of us could smell the food cooking. this made us even more hungry. people might think "what are thes fools doing here on a holiday in stead of staying comfortably at home" but at the end of the day its really worth the efforts. not everyone can understand this.
due to public demand we halted at around 1 near 'a dried up stream'. had lunch. all possible combination with poori was tried by arun and santosh - poori with chocolate, grapes, jam, pickle, saagu and combination of these (cocolate + saagu + poori + dry grapes what a combination!!). i saw trace of water on a rock a bit above and we went water hunting. a bit more of adventure...which all of us love :)

a short rest after a tiresome day, especially after lunch is most welcome. and once our group sits it is very difficult to make them get moving. as for arun he finds more peace under cool shade of tree (even if it is in the middle of the road, and on stones), than on soft comfortable bed at home.


finally everyone managed to get up and get going. every 5 min someone would ask arun "how much more to go?" and he had only this to say "just 2 more km" or "10 more mins". at one point of time seema told "i ll just walk for 10 more mins, be it peak of not i am going to halt there" and arun said "dont worry. in 10 mins you ll reach the point from where you can see the peak".

sri, santosh and me were the first to reach the peak. sun was about to set. waiting for us to reach the peak and appreciate the beauty of the valley with mild evening rays on it. santosh as usual sets the timer on for group phots and runs to sit amongst us, scaring everyone while doing so, many voices saying "no hurry, you still have time" could be heard.

the sun tired of his journey from east to west was soon covered by a blanket of clouds and was no where to be seen. and the stars which were shy of sun and hidden somewhere started appearing one by one. moon still lazily slept somewhere. now the stars took over remote control to AC from the sun. they unlike sun were not in favor of high temperature. they kept decreasing the temperature slowly. it was really tempting to get into the sleeping bag but we wanted some fun... there were lots of glow worms around. many of us mistook it as shooting stars initially. aditya taught us a game 'mafia' - a really complicated game. it took some time to seep into our mind but it was fun. police got killed by the mafia, innocent arun was convicted as mafia by the jury which till this day he keep reminding us... 'The Mafia' (shubha) sacrificed her faithful helper to gain supremacy...

it was dinner time. a trek is incomplete without a campfire. shreyas and santosh were successful in starting a campfire. i can never forget - the clear sky, millions of stars smiling on us, cool breeze, no work tension, no pollution, no idiot box, just the 12 of us and not a single soul (we thought so). with in no time 50 chapathis were over. dumb cheralds by the fire (no one ll forget arun enacting gothika), the noise we made, veda getting afraid to sit without a 2 body guards, aditya s 'logical reasoning' behind everything...
with this the day came to an end. campfire was put off. everyone went to the warmth of their sleeping bags. for the first time in my life i was sleeping under open sky for the whole night. only orion i could recognize, and of course ursa-major and pole star early in the morning. it really was a nice experience.

dec 30 sunday.
probably no sw engineer would have seen the morning sky before sunrise on sunday (on any day actually). i thought i saw river in the valley, which i somehow had not seen the previous day. only then i realize that it was not river but clouds. we were above the clouds. the view really good. the sun was still sleepy. slowly he came out of the blanket of clouds. his transition from apple red to golden was amazing.

we had variety of stuff for breakfast - fruits, bread, bun, biscuits, peas. not only did shubha (snacks incharge of our group) loved to eat bread n jam but also to apply jam to bread slices for each one of.

santosh, srini and me waned to have a dip in the stream which came along with for around 2 km last day - hatti-hoLe. the rest of the group had decided to enjoy water the next day. so we left the group behind us and went down hill at a higher pace so that by they reach the rest of the group reached the stream we would be ready to join them. so the 3 of us started... and it so happend that the same dog which srini had scared the previous day met us on our way down, and it recognized srini. it was so scared of him that i thought more than million times whether or not to eat the biscuits srini had offered it. and finally making up its mind, gathering up courage it came close to us and eat what was offered... we had a faithful follwer till the stream now.

the water was really cold. but didnt feel like coming out of it. after a day s trek, dip in water was refreshing. srini demonstrated some more aasanas in the stream. it was almost 3, rest of the group had not yet come. we started to think that they might have halted for lunch somewhere. we had a bag of snack, didnt know its contents though. we had emptied half of it when the others started coming. apparently we - srini, santosh and me had missed the adventure (which we are happy for). they were attacked by some insect similar to honey-bee. that was one bad experience for all of them.

lunch time at last. after a long walk, sitting in cool shade, on the river bank, having food together. and then a short nap.

wow!!! what a life. my new year resolution - have such an outing atleast once in a couple of months.

srini had to go back to mysore that evening. so from hatti hoLe he went to maDikeri and the rest of us went to somwarpete and hired rooms there. 11 of us in a room chatting all night, arun patiently read everyone s palms. which was followed by adventure and ghost stories narrated by different people made the girls hesitant to turn off the lights for the night.


dec 31

i had just slept (at 3 am) when i heard a voice "vivek get up, time to leave". it was 6 already. everyone had their eyes half closed. swaroop came to the room where i was sleeping and jumped onto the bed murmering "wake me up before arun finds me asleep"....

the journey to beedaLLi was hopeless one. some fool may be drunk and pretending not to be drunk was screaming on top of his voice. none of us could enjoy the journey. even the conductor got pissed off. to add to it

somehow swaroop got the brilliant idea of having lunch at some "home-stay" place near the bus stand which worked out really well...

the walk to stream (kumaradhara) was not tiresome. fun indeed. swaroop narrated some really interesting ghost stories. santosh was the first to dive into the river (not sure if i can call it a dive, water was only knee deep). again sooper-cold-crystal-clear water. spending time in water somehow make one feel more hungry. to add to it we did not have proper breakfast that morning. deprived of hot tasty food for 2 days we were... hot, delicious lunch served on fresh banana leaves - what more could we ask for!!!

2 more hours for bus. empty bus stand. we were about to get settled there when thousands of spiders fell on us from the roof .
so it was 2 hrs spent by the road playing DC again....

3 fun filled days had come to an end. first day started with breakfast in maDikeri bus stand and ended the 3rd day with dinner at the same place. every such trip shubha gets home made chocolates which btw are very tasty. i was wondering why we were deprived of them this time when she took out 2 boxes of those yummy chocolates as new year sweets...

3 fun filled days, which are among those which i can never forget. 3 days under mother nature s care. and of course under arun s care.