Sringeri..Hornadu...Kudremukha...

Humans have for centuries derived pleasure and inspiration from nature, so much so, the foundation of Hinduism, the VEDAS, were supposedly written by aryan warriors bewitched by the elements around them. Thus they wrote about sun, the moon and the ever lasting sky, praised them and eulogized them so that they are worshipped ever after.

Poetry, by and large, was probably invented to describe what is indescribable by words alone, and Nature was one such thing. Plants, trees and landscapes just open up the human consciousness and uplift his inherent happiness in more ways than one. Poetry is a medium to express that part of uplifted consciousness, to reach places which couldn’t be reached by prose alone, and to feel what was being felt.

Having seen Malnadu, it doesn't take much to realize that its no coincidence that greatest poets of Karnataka were born in this region, for such is the captivating beauty of this place.

I couldn't contain myself either and was last heard blurting out limpid poetry before being calmed down by friends and well wishers.

The first stop in malnadu was sringeri.

Having visited the temple's main diety, we quickly went towards the temples' famed free Lunch system.The queuing system for sringeri's food distribution system, i was surprised and sad to say, was highly chaotic and unorganized. I have always believed that with Indians, most fights and scuffles break out with gastronomic matters. This was best exemplified by yawning and casual folks in the queue leading up the deity , but highly aggressive and pushy ones on queue leading upto the platform serving the meals.

Needless to say, we youngsters who had more muscle and nerves took advantage of the chaotic situation, slid through the gates , pushed and shoveled people out ,eventually reaching the platform in short time.

Food served here, as is no secret, pretty basic, consisting of rice and watery curry, but was nevertheless divine to taste.

Having Quickly gorged ourselves to the free Lunch, we made out the huge central porch of the temple, shot a couple of pictures and admired, as usual, good looking damsels. We also got down to the TUngA River, which while looking serene and shallow, hid rather monstrous looking fish. Luckily these fishes dont mess with humans unless messed with first.

Having done with sringeri, we quickly made it to the Local Bus station, where a "Hornadu” bus was to arrive shortly. I and mahesh ventured out to eat inthis rather small and nondescript restaurant at the bus station. As we ordered chai and bonda, the damned bus came in and led to a mini stampede by people trying to get it and reserve the seats. We ditched the local "Bondas" and chai and joined our folks jostling to get in. Not very good effort it was anyway, since we ended up sitting on the last few seats of the bus.

The drive from sringeri to hornadu would have been rather uneventful, if not for sunil , our own vin diseal,who started vomiting. Now buses were always hostile to sunil, but this one, with its lack of ventilation and the curvaceous route was too much for him. He clung on to the door, puking with utter disdain for co passengers , much to the chagrin of the conductor of the bus. Whilst the journey was throught the heart of western ghats, we couldnt observe much since light was falling rather quickly. we reached hornadu amidst huge rumors about the place being filled to the brim by bustling crowds. The jam of the roads as we approached hornadu confirmed the fact that we were entering a place packed with people.

As we got down from bus, we could see "HORDES" ,and i brook no exaggeration here, Hordes of people jostling for space. We saw these huge marches of kids, yes kids, from schoools all over india being led by the important looking "masterjis"(or teachers). Apparently, the holiday season had gotten to these schools, and most had ostensibly embarked on "Annual tours" to sringeri and Hornadu. If kids were bad enough, there were huge masses of regular travelers, descending upon this little hamlet from what seemed like the four corners of the world.

Having secured our rather clumsy luggage at the Hornadu's temple Locker rooms, we set out to find ourselves some dwelling place for the night. Now I could see immediately, from my past experience of overcrowded temple towns, that finding accommodation would be either ethereal or forbiddingly expensive. Needless to say, it was revealed by a few enquires, that the town hoteliers were out to make gold while the rush lasted. Rooms were strictly available for sums upwards of 1.6k and any enquirers who amassed courage to question the "Ethical" aspect of it were either scoffed at or rudely shunted out.

We, of course, were made of sterner stuff and on my directions, set out to execute plan B. Plan b of course, was to pitch up our thus-far-unused tents on suitable vacant ground. The idea, though repulsive to many a civilized folk, was very plausible one to us, because we were trained in camping and trekking.

so it was and we tried to break away from bustling-at-seams temple environs and headed outside into hte countryside.

Though highly cloudy and dark in the night, we couldn’t but admire for the first time, the quiescent beauty of the place we had just landed up in. Hornadu was in the middle of what seemed like dark mountains on all four sides. The wind was cool and the air was pleasant. The lack of pollution of the place caught our attention immediately.

We kept trudging along when we came across a coffee shop, a rather familiar sight in these parts, whose owner on being enquired pointed towards a huge patch of ground opposite to him as a possible camping ground. The team, for all its bravado, didn’t like the idea of pitching up tents and freezing in this open ground. We decided to walk along and find something better. then we came to this huge harvesting farmhouse not he outskirts of the town. The ground here seemed much warmer and with the hay lygin around, we could easily use it to cushion our tents.

We enquired the local workers about the feasibility of our fancies, but were reminded to get permission by their owner, a certain temple bigwig.

Shaken, but not stirred, we decided to move along until we encircled the entire temple town.

Then, something remarkable happened.

I went upto this ominous looking policeman standing and regulating the incoming vechiles ont eh road. Weary by now, i asked him rather casually where the rooms, if at all , could be got. Intially sounding official, he later divulged that it was difficult to get any room tonight and that thousands were sleeping outside.

Then, something amazing happened.

He pulled out a key from his khaki pants and flung it at me , saying that this room was booked for someone important , who having not turned up, was free , and would be now given to lucky us!

He further added that it would cost us only 80 bucks and we would have to just submit the keys when we checked out from hotel. If not for his police uniform and the guarantee of govt of India that this man was authentic, we wouldn't have believed the offer.

Thanking the police man profusely, we left the place in a hurry lest the man changed his mind!

I must say, however, at the back of my mind, that I was disappointed at not having the tents pitched up that night.

The room itself, we were to find out later, was truely amazing. It was located right behind the temple complex and had a huge room enough for four beds. it had a sufficiently clean bathroom and a wash basin to boot. All this for just 80!

It was truely a miracle and thats when i fell in instant love with Horanadu's living diety, fondly called "Annapoorneshwari".

Its a feeling that cant be described, but i felt the god was right behind my back , protecting and backing me up. I could feel that way with only Lord venkateshwara at tirupati and it was second time at horanadu.

Having picked up our bags from locker rooms, we shunted them off at our room and then headed out to settle mundane chores of having something for supper.

This too, it would be found out, no mean task, for that night this small temple town was overwhelmed by people and had virtually run out of FOOD!

Hotels and shoppes were shutting down or were desperately turning away hungry folks. It looked as if a bengal famine of british times had hit this temple town, with folks ranging from kids to haggardly looking uncles angrily cursing restaurants and bakeries.

Here again, our skills of local intermeshing came to our rescue, as we got hold of this rather non descript "MEsh' selling food at nominal prices. Here too, the seller, a elderly gentleman with roots going back to founders of temple itself, was aggressively questioned by weary looking travellers.

We finally got hold of our supper for the day, and we delightedly gorged upon whatever we got hold off. Later me and mahesh went on to a bakery and drunk pasteurized millk fresh from packets, not an entirely safe thing to do, but nevertheless had been done many times before.

Then, on my orders, we started "walking" all around the country side again, and the time was around 10 PM. Traversing roads in western ghats at night time , though around a town center, was no walk in the park for it was home to various flora and fauna. Snakes, it seems, were more common here than dogs, and one wrong step in our merry stupor would pack us up on way to valhalla.

Nevertheless, i thought that this was a worthwhile end to a supper, and would compensate for lack of any physical activity in this overcrowded place.

Having slept comfortably, we woke next day to a highly clouded and drizzling horanadu. Perhaps words couldnt justify or capture the nascent beauty of the place, for the clouds were amidst us, and the gentle drizzle seemed like a refreshing shower from above. The teeming crowds from day before didnt seem to have lessened, for we could see the same hordes of students and tourists.

We got, not without some cunning and guile, the queue leading upto the temple and within no time had a Darshan(or view) of the resident diety . Annapoorneshwari, the diety housed within complex was extremely captivating to my eye and i loved the look of the Mother godess. In fact, i would, without any hesitation say that it was the most endearing image of a DIETY along with my LORD sri venkateshwara at tirupati. I had a sneaky feeling all the while that her majesty sri annapoorneshwari was watching over us and protecting us just in a way a mother protects her children.

We later jumped on to the Breakfast queue, which was,as with all things indian involving food, more vicious and prone to belligerent outbursts of aggresssion from crowds then the main queue itself.

The breakfast intself was rather inadequate and consisted of pancakes of some sort.

We decided later, rather unanimously, to not vacate the room immediately, but stay along whilst we left town tonight. In the meantime, we hopped on to the Autorickshaw going to kalasa, a sleeping malnadu town about 9 kms from hornadu. At kalasa, the usually untimely buses heading towards kudremukha through refreshing, though not unusual , scenary of tea plantations and plush vegetation.

A couple of malnadu girls, famed for their beauty , kept our young hearts racing as i raced to capture "strategic" seats along side them. A rather avuncular gentleman reminded us that a fall called hanuman gundi was ahead and was known for its depth and leeches. It being enough to inspire us, we bought tickets for the place. After a refreshing 2 hr journey, we landed up at hanuman gundi. A fat forest dept cunningly tricked us into not bothering about tickets as we paid for his free advice regarding the Fall's depth and the danger spots.

Hanuman gundi falls was extremely beautiful, and to our surprise, teeming with tourists. Mahesh was screaming out of his lungs pointing towards the young ladies bathing in the falls and vigoursly bought out the virtues of joining them immediately.

We quickly stripped and waded though shallow water and ....the usual happened. Girls gasped for thier lives, or so it seemed, and ran for thier lives as thought we were out to get them. Some even franctically learnt to swim while doing so!

Miserable as it was, we quickly came over this dissapointment and headed upto the base of the falls.

After frolicking there, we climbed back up and headed towards kudremukha again.

Our intital plans of viewing kudremukha were quickly discarded as conductor of bus assured it was a dull and dreary place, with hardly any place worth seeing except the mud covered damn.

So we made back to kalasa and found this rather small but cozy place called sagar restaurent where we had tasty food.

Heading back , we got into an auto amidst a sudden downpour of rain. The auto driver turned out to be a rather nice guy and he promised to take us to "ambala" teeertha , which was a scenic point on the banks of river bhadra halfway between kalasa and horanadu. Ambala teertha turned out quite nice and not surprisingly had a film production crew stationed to shoot a tele series. after admiring teh leading ladies of the crew, we made out to the banks where we shot some scenic , but rather artificial sounding pictures.

The river had carved out amazing flutes and channels on the rocks below, something which captivated an educated geographer like me.

Then we headed back to horanadu, packed our bags, and then helped ourselves to a nice dinner at the annapooreshwara Mesh.

At 9 am, we checked out our rooms, and to our surprise found the receptionist not demanding any money at all!. so it was free accommodation , valued at around 1600 per day for 2 entire days! It coulndt be short of miracle and i thanked her majesty sri annapoorneshwari for her kindness.

We landed then at the bus stand, where we found our to-be bus to be a vintage model of KSRTC.

On enquiry , it transpired that the original bus had met with a problem and was thus replaced with a "suitable" one.

After few squabbles with conductor and the co passengers, we finally got rather airy(not a great idea in this cold damp region)seats at the back of the bus. Later that night, we froze like jim carrey and his buddy on way to aspana in the movie dumb and dumber, but the pleasure of reaching bangalore compensated for this and we were left with only sweet memories of a excellent trip that was......

Narashima Parvata Trekking.

Narashima Parvata Trekking.

Why does a man choose to leave behind his home, his loved ones, his girlfriend and head for mountains? Why do we have to put ourself in a potentially dangerous situation full of leeches, snakes wild animals and possibly naxalites?

Why do we have to go without quality food for days , trek miles and miles into wilderness just to see the sight of sun setting down the green corners of mountain tops?

Why do we have to push our body,bones and musculature to the point of breaking it? These questions might haunt trekkers and normal folks alike. I guess the answer to that cant be explained , but only felt.

To the regular folks who cant FEEL it,why do we do it THEN?

WHY?

BECAUSE WE CAN!

yes, because we are young, healthy and full of life. Because god has given has given us this wonderful life with immense possibilities. He has created a wonderful world out there full of mysteries,wonders and surprises.Sitting at home watching SITCOMS is a notorious way of kicking life and exploring god given gifts.IT JUST doesn't do justice to what we could do with life.

As discovery channel says "THE WORLD IS JUST AWESOME".

Geography is of two kinds.

Physical geography is the geography of landforms, of fauna and flora, of rocks and rivers. Then there is the Human geography, geography of people, of how people adapt to theirsurroundings.Human geography consists of Human factor, of their interlinking to SPACES and of spatial ICONOGRAPHY.

Travel Philosophy

Me and captain mahesh have evolved our own way of travelling which we call "TOTAL" travelling.

We insist that most things in world can be enjoyed with little cost. We strongly despise artificialand costly ways of travelling. We hate resorts and the luxurious getaways where you can do anything for a price. We hate the fancy "paragliding", "rappelling", "kayaking" ads that the resorts resort to.

My granny could be hitched on to safety equipment and sent into skies for a price.

GOD , we believe, has given a world out there for free, and as a free BIRD we ought to enjoy it.

Also, we insist on inter meshing with human element where ever we go. Talking to locals, helping out old haggardly women, playing with kids etc helps us Get into the "ICONOGRAPHY" of the place. Remember, a SPACE becomes a "PLACE" when humans,human emotions, memories are mixed with geography of the place.

Don't you feel elated when you visited your native village with all its flowing fields, river banks and temples? These places reveal deep emotions associated with that place.Even if you are only visiting your relatives, it’s a special feeling. You couldn't derive the same pleasure if you visited same relatives who have shifted to say, bangalore.

To summarize, we believe that a local "Chai" had with a lowly peasant reveals more about the place than a biryani had in TAJ hotel.

So how better to see the world and all its wonders than to TREK into the RAIN FOREST ecosystem of Western GHATS, one of the Biological HOT SPOTS of the world.

Home to king cobra, it boasts of a new species being discovered every day. A rainforest or an evergreen forest is the thickest kind of forest there exists.

More recognizable in Congo and Amazon basins, it is known to have 4-5 layers of trees one above another. Its biomass productivity, jargon for net living stuff that exists per square meters, is maximum in the world. In other words, its a freaking bustling BIO-Metropolis out there.

START:

So it was, we decided to Kick the couch and head into the wilderness on the Christmas weekend of 2009. It was to be a befitting closure to the year that was, and a refreshing curtain raises for one that would be.

we choose a quaint little place called AGUMBE as our INSERT point, eventually to head up into the Barkhana Falls and ending up in Narshima Parvata PEAK , which was to be our Destination point for our trek.

We were to base our camp for the night and then to head down the day after, reaching Kigga andSirimane falls. We were to then head to Sringeri, a sacred temple town of considerable repute before taking a DETOUR into CHICKMANGALUR district's Horanadu. We were to then head into wilderness of Kudremukh Park and then take it from there.

Narshima parvata:

Now narshimha parvata is a rather bleak and quirky place. 18 Kms off Agumbe,not many trekkers can claim to have scaled its top. Mostly bloggers online talk about how their plans to trek it went awry when police objected to their presence. The peak itself is a hot spot for naxals and police alike and with STF(Special task force)now permanently posted there, things have taken a turn for worse.

Trekkers are strictly forbidden to stay on in forest and their movements are monitored closely. Every trekker is to "register" himself at agumbe police station before heading into wilderness. That would not guarantee further harassment by police belonging to "OTHER" districts and certainly will not allow us to Camp inside.

In fact, I couldn't find any genuine TREK blogs about anyone scaling Narshima parvata except some IISC guys.

Most of them just went to barkhana falls, returned back to agumbe or headed out to sringeri.

But I, with my impeccable talking skills and mindset was confident that we would do the UN-DOABLE...SCALE NARSHIMMA PARVATA!!

With certain plan in place, I and mahesh started off with frantic preparations, buying everything from rope to lighters. We invited a select band of trekkers namely Sunil, Toyota mahesh, Manoj Alias tiger, Ajith.

Sunil, my cousin, is a chunky and well built guy, famed more for his bulky muscle then trekking skills. Manoj alias "TIGER" can fall behind a fat old LADY in trekking and physical skills on any day.

Ajith is a yoga specialist, known for his meditative, endurance and balancing skills.

Toyota mahesh is a rookie, but a fairly fit guy.

Mahesh and I are "veterans" of treks and all matters of crazy endeavors. We could give erstwhile Steve Irwin a run for money in these sorts of endeavors, or so we think.

So, with this introduction, we all met up on cold wintry night of 24th at "VARSHA" travels opp. majestic bustand. Tiger kept us on tenterhooks till last moments, reckoning his work problems forbid him to join in. We eventually adapted the plan and managed to draw the sucker in.

Travel:

Now varsha travels, we quickly found out was an "agent”, which only transferred us to another travels called "East west". We found out that the bus, expected to arrive at 10 30 PM would not arrive until 12 PM!. Flabbergasted, we had no option but to sit around and look at cute Girls passing by. We chatted and played jokes upon each other, too tired to do anything else.

Eventually, the bus turned up about 12 45 PM and we hurriedly scurried into the bus only to find the seats had been rigged. The "conductor", now grinning sheepishly, "replaced" our seats to one behind us. The new seats were broken and nothing to hold to BUS except a string tied precariously to the pole above.

Me and Sunil cunningly tricked ajith and tiger to take these seats while we sat ahead. This "Treachery" of us was to be the butt of jokes all the night.

We woke up at 7 Am, only to find ourselves still travelling!. The bus was to reach at 6 Am and needless to say, we were behind schedule. Ajith got busy taking beautiful pictures of unwashed faces of the team while an OLD lady blurted out that we should have taken "Karnataka sarige" instead. That seemed like a commandment given to entire bus by MOSES and was enough to get me and gowda giggling.

Eventually we ended up at dusty shimoga bus stand at 8 AM. We quickly gathered our huge bags and headed for a place to freshen up.

We barged into hotel, refreshed ourselves in toilets and then ate tasty idly-vadas. We then entered the dusty bus stand again, looking for a bus that would take us to agumbe, but not before we packed our bags with basic "necessities".

The bus, "Hanuman Travels”, eventually arrived at around 9 AM. We reminded our friend pradeep mallaya at agumbe that we would land up at 11 30 and asked him to keep a guide on standby. He wondered if it would be too late, but we assured we were fit lads and would complete the trek in good time and condition.

The drive to agumbe was through thick vegetation and it would have been perfect if not for HOT sun and lots of dust.

We reached agumbe at around 11 30, quickly met with pradeep mallya of the reputable "MALLYA RESIDENCY".

Being already late, he quickly arranged for our transport to Malandur, where we were to meet mr Thimappa, our friend philosopher and guide for rest of trek.

Now Thimappa was basically a farmer and lived under the shadow of his more illustrious brother. Krishnappa, whose picture incidentally, looked down from his house walls? We took a few pictures on this farmhouse, played with his kids and carefully evaded his rather snobby DOG which insisted that we were strangers.

With entire gang being dropped into Thimmappa's house by Sudeep, brother of of Pradeep, we were now all set to go.

With a quick De-Brief, we quickly introduced ourselves to Thimmappa, buckled up our shoes, prayed to our gods and SET OUT on the trek.

Initially, it was basically shrubby grasses that we waded through. Ajith mistook a grazing cow to a more exciting "wild Buffalo", but was eventually assuaged by thimappa.Now thimappa turned out to be of the class of a Kenyan marathoner, and was ahead of us by a few meters. The lads were at their chatty best, with conversations veering from cinemas to thier favorite serials. I decided to lead the gang and followed Mr. thimappa closely. Thimappa took pity on my ignominious fate of carrying a bag and the tent and offered to carry the tent for me. I readily accepted the offer and Mahesh "Captain" Babu scorned rather jealously about his tent.

The initial part of trek was rather jolly, with ocassional photoups and posing. The forest was getting quite freakily thicker as we passed. Eventually, the trail closed completely and we had to plunge ourself into thick fauna of low lying trees and shrubs. Barely able to spot thimappa, we hurried to keep pace.

At this point, we were certain that leeches would be waiting to cling on in droves and that our bodies would be short of a few botttles of blood by end of day.

Soon, we had to scale steep gradient infested with creatures of all kinds and bounded by greenery of all sorts. The steep gradient soon separated the boys from men, and thimappa and i soon were about 10 meters ahead of the gang. "Tiger" stopped his chatty odes and began to huff and puff.

The pit stops became too often now as guys started to show signs of fatigue. Luckily the leeches weren’t too interested in us. It was mid afternoon and the lack of proper food became conspicuous we craved for lunch. Thimmappa assured as that lunch was at least 2 hrs away at barkhana falls.

So it was only cardamom and raisins that kept us going for the initial parts and tiger by now was pleading for stops. His mannerisms of protest were strictly gandhian, ranging from dropping dead to refusing to carry bags anymore. We had, therefore, no option but to yield to his cries.

The Trek at this point was classical Trekky type, with mundane self thoughts interspersed with heavy breathing. Hardly having time to admire the forestry, we had to keep moving.

Tiger at one point screamed out that he had been taken by leeches. Assuring him that more would feast on him if he would not get up from his watery resting abode; we checked each other for leeches. Ajith, the yoga specialist, then surprised everyone saying that he had lost his glasses. Being the detective type that he was, he scoured thought the digital photos and pointed at location wherein his glasses went missing. He and Captain then struggled through and finally located it.

Mahesh was then given the Best Team player award for his exemplary courage (patience) in getting the glasses for ajith.

We passed through several small streamlets and it was no surprise Tiger "the Sloth-man" was only guy bitten by leeches; again. Lads kept asking thimappa when the barkana falls(lunch) would come about. So the promise of a refreshing bath and a lunch was the motivation to keep us going even if our legs hurt and our clothes were covered with sweat.

We finally arrived at barkhana falls, which was as we saw it , just a stream. Having assured ourselves about leeches and depth of water, we plunged right in.

Camera was firmly placed in hands of timmappa, who in style which would envy rajnikant, smoked a "beedi" in a hand while taking pictures in another.

Pictures, by the way, turned out pretty good, and me and mahesh shed everything to display our bodies.

Water was cold and we all sang the iconic "LIRIL" ad song as we plunged in. I guess words can’t do justice to what cold fresh and clean water meant to us after 3 hours of hiking through that godforsaken place. Reluctantly, after about 30 mins, we got out and set out to cook ourselves something to eat.

We all enthusiastically dipped our MREs into boiling hot water (heated by stove we bought). The MRE's turned out to be adequately good, though sunil felt that it tasted like shit. Having treated ourselves to biryanis and pulovs, we then were led to nearby location wherein the actual FALL of water was to be seen.

Needless to say, it was JAW dropping sight. The water from same stream that we bathed in fell down couple of hundreds of feet into the dense forests below.

We could only see it in AWE.

At this point, guys were a bit carried away and wasted about 30 mins of precious time chatting away and taking unwanted pictures.

Needless to say, i gave them my piece of mind and in JUNGLE, the STRONGEST always wins. Discipline and Orderliness were restored in group and from now on there would be "RULES".

Chatting and posing for pictures would be strictly forbidden from henceforth and laggards would risk abandonment. Timmappa too reminded us of our wayward ways and assured as that light was dimming out too quickly.

So we once again buckled up, gathered our thoughts and headed up.

Timappa took us to a route which would envy kumara parvata trail. It was steepest gradient thus far and our fitness was quickly put to test. i managed to scale up along with timappa rather easily , something which would invite his admiration. Tiger, by now had lost all hopes of returning to civilization, (unknown to me) protested against my leadership and even cursed entire nature around him.

So we began again on a Pit stop spree and we would all lie down with our sacks on back. It was a scene which would be right out of platoon or predator.

As lights dimmed out and sunset was on the horizon, we reached the eastern slopes, which due to lesser rainfall, had scrubby kind of vegetation. Sunil was elated that forests had given way to clearer landscape. But the happiness was unwarranted because the trail became harder to trek. The grass concealed rocks and every step meant a fall or a ankle twist. Worse, the traditional inhabitant of the area, KING COBRA, could be lurking anywhere. Sometimes, we didn’t even know where our foot was and any creature could have a free bite at it. Luckily it was our day and we escaped unhurt.

Timappa pointed to a distant plain and congratulated us on having made it thus far from there. But happiness turned sour when he pointed to a huge peak on horizon that was to be scaled now. It was already sunset and what it meant was that we would have to use our torches for a good part of trek from now!

This was my worst fear since rainforest during night is not a friendly place to be. And my fears were confirmed when gowda showed his HOUSE LANTERN as our torch that we had requested him to get. Luckily, timappa was no fool and had a pretty cool torch with him.

By now, due to faulty packing (deliberate sabotage i would say), my bag was tilted towards a side. MY right shoulder was thoroughly ground down, and it was beginning to fail. For first time, i showed signs of fatigue, but to keep morale of team high, didn’t display signs of it.

Tiger by now was looking paler than a dry duck.

Life was getting out of him and we knew we'd have to get to base camp fast or risk abondoning him in the jungle.

Ajith’s condition was good and was rather cocky at times. Gowda was scaling up good too. Sunil, beset by bad health before trek, was hardly in picturesque condition. So once again we gorged on the remaining cardamom and raisins before heading up.

FINALLY, we could see the narhimma parvata peak just a few meters ahead of us. Our elation was abruptly interrupted by cries from behind. TIGER had given up. He wouldn’t budge an inch and no amount of physiological counseling would convince him. I guess he wanted to be buried right there as a symbol of eternal FAT trekker.

I and mahesh offered to carry his corpus to peak. Meanwhile Timappa , having gotten fed up of this alceration, pointed his torch at the nearby forest office building which was to be the camp for night. I guess that finally inspired tiger to take a few more steps. Wavering like a drunken monkey, tiger finally landed up flat on the steps of forest office building.

Others were too busy jumping up and down with joy. A cozy building, abandoned by forest officer due to naxals, all for our use!

We quickly discarded the idea of pitching up tents, and then got down to lighting the camp fire.

Timappa gathered firewood for us, and with the tremendous skill, lighted up the campfire in a jiffy.

We quickly gathered around the fire, still gathering our breath.

We started to sing unwanted songs(which is an unfortunate side effect). I reminded highly religious people there about how VEDAS were written by drunken Aryan warriors high on "SOMA".

Soon , we enquired about LOVE lives of each of the participants. Ajith turned out to be immature kid, whose only wish was to buy 20 acres of land before marrying someone. Gowda's love life turned out to be miserable due to circumstances. Mahesh revealed a similar pathetic record of crushes and failed proposals. Tiger talked about how he grabbed a girl when he took a girl out to coffee.(yeah right).

I talked about how love was more pure than sex.etc etc.

By the end of it, timappa was busy hankering around fire in the forest house. Naturally he would rather eat and sleep rather than listen to our tragic love stories.

Eventually we all grabbed, once again, our MRE's and boiled it for 5 mins. Having eaten our fill, only thing to do was to sleep inside the house.

That night, it was known later, mahesh and tiger were to share a blanket "affectionately".

That was ensuring that they would be "married" together the day after under the new ruling about section 377 of IPC.

Nights' sleep was rather uncomfortable but adequate and i woke up with a sore back. Mahesh and gowda had woken up earlier to take sunrise pictures.

So, once again, we quickly readied ourselves to climb down at the earliest. Tiger was to return back to Bangalore on the same day. Needless to say the events the day before had only strengthened his convictions to leave the place at the earliest. At his desperate pleadings, we quickened up on our chores like brushing teeth and cleaning our bowels at a nearby well.

Having buckled up once again, we took a few shots at the forest house, and headed down. Timappa looked nippier than before, and led us by around 20 meters.

The climb down was rather steep and i had hard time balancing the bag. We rested generously, once discussing about NREGA and how locals were being made increasingly lazy by it. Not before long, we found ourselves in a sleepy town called KIGGA.

Now kigga was known for its Shiva temple but only mahesh and gowda had enough time to visit it once.

Rest of us was busy drinking tea in this quaint town known for its brahminic population. Some of us even ordered coconut water and potato chips.

The local grocery store owner arranged us an Auto to take us to sirimane falls.

Meanwhile, we shoved tiger into a bus which was to take him to sringeri. Accompanied by timappa, he was to board a bus to Bangalore and never to be heard of again.

Quickly we jumped on to the auto and landed at this falls about 8 kms from KIgga. Initially it looked like a run down commercial thing with tickets for entry ET all. Hordes of people and kids confirmed that.

However, we discovered that water is fun no matter where it is.

we quickly took off our clothing and plunged into falls.

This was to be the most exciting moment thus far, for the water was icy cold and fell with incredible force. As we rested our backs below water, it seemed like we were hit by hail of bullets. But, the incredible lads that we were, we held on and got to the bottom of the falls.

As we moved in, aunts and girls were quickly led away by suspecting uncles and dads. Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves and even Sunil got down having a bath. Ajith lost no time in taking out his favorite shampoos, face washes and skin creams. Mahesh and I giggled as we snatched and put on whatever ajith did.

We later climbed up onto rocks, took photos all the while admiring a rather cute girl watching us.(or so we figured).

We headed back to kigga, requested the same auto driver to take us to sringeri. So with this, the TREK part of our EXCURSION ended.

Guys were shaken but not stirred, and the exciting prospect of what lay ahead healed our crushed morale and we were looking forward to HORNADU Detour coming up ahead.

Bruised shoulders, chipped soles, tanned faces and muddied clothes hardly made a nice picture, but I guess the show had to go on.

Sringeri,Hornadu and Kudremukh part of trip would be covered in a separate blog.