Chikmaglur - Our Team Outing

We took the risk of going for this trip during the peak rainy season. It seemed certain that the rain would play the spoilsport and make us to spend the most part of our stay indoors, playing some indoor games, but it was our resolve to be there...which made the difference.

We were fourteen in total and our group included three girls.One should really appreciate them for coming forward and making this trip a memorable one.

We had planned for this particular trip from such a long time that many of us almost thought that this trip may never take place. Finally, we left Bangalore in a mini bus after completing our work on Friday night from office at 1.10 am. The destination was Chikamaglur, which was about 250 kms from Bangalore and then we had to go to Jungle Greens Home Stay is at a distance of 21 Kms from Chikamagalur.

Chikamagalur means town of the smaller daughter. Chik means smaller or younger, Magalu means daughter, and Oor means town or city, hence Chikamagalur. The local Raja gave this place as dowry to his younger daughter, from then on, this place is called so.

                                       

We had a very nice time in the bus while traveling; we started watching the latest hindi movie “Singham”…as the movie progressed, I noticed that most of them had fallen asleep. They only started waking up when the end credits started rolling on the TV screen. We all got down and had tea and coffee at a small road side dabha. We still had to cover a long distance…and the dawn was yet to come.

We reached Chikamaglur and had to ask for directions to reach Jungle Greens Home Stay. We saw many coffee and pepper creeper estates on the way. I was almost lost in nature at this time. Our bus could not go through the narrow road towards the home stay, so we had to travel by jeep.

                                        

Jungle Greens Home Stay is surrounded by Mountains, Jungle and Coffee Estates, which had pepper trees too. The main objective of Jungle Greens is to encourage and promote Country side tourism which most people might not have experienced. Even the Muthodi Forest is about twenty minutes drive from Jungle Greens Home Stay. We could hear the peacocks sing from the home stay, though we weren’t so lucky to see them.

 Some of us, including me, preferred to walk to the home stay and it was really pleasant early morning walk. We were greeted by birds on the way, which were singing somewhere in the coffee gardens. We could only hear them.

                                      

We settled in the rooms and got ready. Then we had our tea/coffee which was followed by break fast. Now, we were ready for the first trekking of the day, which was the private water falls called Hulikal Waterfalls. We had to travel by bus and then wait for the jeep to arrive. The jeep was supposed to carry us further to the waterfalls. Again, we had to travel in two teams as the jeep could accommodate only 6-7 people at a time. There was a small water flow crossing which had a gate. This gate is usually locked as it is a private property. We had to wait for the key and also for the second batch to arrive.

One thing that bit scary was the bite from leeches; as they were everywhere near by the water falls during the rainy season. The horse leech is very commonly found in this place. We were not aware of the leech attack unless we noticed the blood flow from our body parts. As the leech bite is painless in nature. We had carried packets of salt to avoid them, which could help us only to some extent.

                                     

The jeep left dropped us at one spot, from where we had to trek to reach the water falls. When we kept silent, we could hear the nature hum. The path which leads to the waterfalls wasn’t an easy one. I felt like halting at some point, but thanks to my colleagues who somehow managed me to get to the falls. The falls was amazing, nothing like I had seen before in my life. Though I had seen many water falls before, but they were crowded by people who made it look less beautiful. This was the perhaps the first waterfalls where we were all alone.

By the time we returned back to the home stay, it was 5.30 pm. We were late for our lunch and couldn’t venture out for the next destination as per our plans. So, we decided to stay at the home stay and enjoy the camp fire. And again, this was first time at least for me to enjoy the night in the camp fire, dancing to the music coming from the stereo system. There was also slight drizzling to make the evening memorable.

Later, we settled to play UNO (card game), many were new to this game and they started enjoying the game. We played until 2.00 am and then settled down to sleep. We woke up early in the morning and got ready. The break fast was good.

After the breakfast, we left to the shooting spot near Mallandur village in our bus. We made a mistake of going too far into this shooting spot, which had grass lawn spread across. Our bus got stuck in the middle and it refused to move forward. We started thinking about the way to get it out of that place.

One of our team mates Mr.Prashanth suggested to get hay from one of the houses in the village, so that to spread it below the wheels of the bus. It would help it to move forward on the wet ground. It was also raining to add to our misery.

Prashanth went along with some villagers, who had come there to graze their cattle and came back with bundles of hay. Meantime, the driver and cleaner had gone in search of help and came back with some strangers in a jeep.

                                    

We even called our home stay owner and updated him about the situation. He told us that he would be sending his son to help us out. He came in the jeep after sometime. Two jeeps were tied to our bus with ropes and we tried hard once again and this time we succeeded. It was a team effort, which provided us the success. We thanked them for helping us and left to Chikmaglur.

After having our lunch, we left to Mulayangiri the highest peak in Karnataka, with a height of 1,930 metres (6,330 ft), it is the highest peak between the Himalayas and the Nilgiris after Chembra peak (2100 m),Banaura peak(2073m),and Vellari mala(2339m) of Wayanad district of Kerala.

                                                   

The climate was harsh, with rainfall and strong winds blowing against the climb, which made it difficult to climb the steps to reach the Shiv temple on the top of the Mulayangiri. I decided not to go, as I had been to this temple twice before.

Once again, while descending from the top of Mulayangiri the bus was stuck in the mud on the side of the road. It was already late in the evening; we were thinking different ways to get out of this situation which could strand us in this spot. However, we were lucky that a group of guys traveling in a jeep stopped by to help us out this situation.

We finally headed towards bangalore watching the movie “Zindagi Na Milege Dobara”. I dozed off to sleep as I was tired. Also I had seen this movie twice before. Finally, we reached bangalore at 12.30 am. This was one of the best trips of my life…Like the saying quoted by Praveen goes…

"If the path is beautiful, ask where it leads to. But if the destination is beautiful, don’t ask how the path is, just keep going".

Home stay details :-

http://junglegreens.blogspot.com/