It was on the 7th of feb-2005 that me n ma frens decided that we start trekking again.
i had always been a regular trekker in school .me having studied in TVS Academy had a lotsa exposure to trekking,wildlife,adventures etc. but after school ,during ma college dayz didn't have the oppurtunity to trek, in the sense that i didn't have like minded ppl for company ,coz all ma frens were studying in different locations and that meant all of us didn't have holidays at once.
so even i was longing to go on a trek. ma frend n i were brushing our teeth , when Spandan(ma frend) said "hey navin lets go on a trek this weekend,lets chill out............. wat say?" and the obvious answer from me was a big YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
in no time we were discussing places,possible guys joining us and stuff like that. we called up Sandy and he readily agreed ,but now we were three of us and needed another guy to join us to go on two bikes. just when we were scratching our heads , we saw Rajan comin out of his house and we shouted at him "hey rajan we r goin on a trek,would u join us?" and he shouted back "i would luv to................." and thats it, there was no lookin back. i was browsing my memory to decide on a good trekking destination. and vat came to my mind was kemmanagundi in chickmagalur district. i had been there while in school .
so the next day i told them about this place , but rajan wanted to go to coorg and after a lot a discussion and arguement we froze on kemmanagundi. spandan n I put up the budget and informed others. spandan was getting his brand new PULSAR DTS-i and i offered to get ma splendour , but sandy wanted to get his CT-100 brand new again, so it was decided that we were biking to kemmanagundi.but unexpectedly sandy was not able to get his bike for the trek and i had given ma bike for service, but there waz spandan for the rescue, he offered his (hamara)bajaj.so both bikes belonged to spandan on this trip.
It was on the 11-feb-05 at around 2:00am in the early morning ,we hit the road............................ the road to kemmanagundi. we were all singing , shouting as the road belonged only to us at the part of the night.......
We Went through Tumkur,tiptur,arsikere,birur and reached kemmanagundi the next day morning at around 11:30am. we had reserved accomodation at the KR hillstation maintained by the horticultural dept of karnataka.we had reserved 2 cottages and surprisingly they charged us just 150 bucks per cottage. two guys could stay in one.
Then we had our lunch at around 12:00noon. Even though we were very tired we made up our minds to go on a major trek the same day.In the next 15mins we were on our way to the hebbe falls ,the major attraction at k'gundi.There were 2 ways to reach there,one by jeeps andthe other was to trek. And our unanimous choice was trekking.We were welcomed into the jungle by the chirping of the birds and the noise made by the crickets.It was adventurous getting into the forest, because the first step into it was itself was very risky and steep.As we didn't know the exact route to the hebbe,all the guys risked my memory which dated back to 7yrs.The total distance was around 22 kms both ways.As went deeper we came across some coffee plantations which were occupied by the fellow humans.We were so tired we had to search for some water and luckily we did find a water pipe which was from hebbe to the coffee plantations.We quenched our thirst by drinking water to our hearts content.Then as we continued i made a wrong move when my memory gave in.We took a right turn which did look like a way but which wasn't.We realised this as we went quite some distance.Then we decided to continue hoping to find the way as we heard the water gushing from the HEBBE where water drops from around 275feet.That's a majesticone, trust me.......... Again we lost our way,this time it was even worse coz we met the dead end of the way which we chose.Then we had to climb down a steep place which was almost vertical at the end of it was a cliff.So it was some kind of aVERTICAL LIMITstunt. But sandy showed the way by climbing down.Then i followed and suceeded.Then it was the turn of spandan who was almost horror struck.We all could make out from his face that he was verymuch frightened .But still he made it with a gr8 difficulty.And then came Rajan who almost climbed down like a TARZAN.We carried on and finally we realised we were lost again but this time it was a serious concern.I tried to recall but i wasn't able to.We could hear a bike zoom some where in the distance. It seemd like we were very near to the falls. But it was not to be. Still we heard the water gushing, but when we tried to search for a way we realised that it was a broken water pipe.
With just an hour left for the sun to set it was a issue to think about.We tried finding the way out,where on our way we saw some really deep caves .Certainly some looked like they belonged to panthers and bears. certainly scary...... we felt thirsty again and luckily found a stream.We quenched our thirst by drinking water from a stream.We were all quiet and were trying to find the way out of this ‘SCARY TRAIL’,and sandy did it again, he found the way back to the main jeep track. We were very much relieved to be out of the jungle. We kept walking along the jeep trail and after some distance, we saw another trekking trail taking a right turn into the forest and this time I recalled this is the one in which we had to go.So we descended down and mind u it was a pretty steep one.As we climbed down the sound of the water gushing down became very loud. And this time we could also feel the water droplets on our faces. I was damn sure that we were just around 1km from the ‘hebbe’.But the clock struck 5, and we had to hurry things up and we almost ran to the falls, but again the descend to the foot of the falls was scary and dangerously slippery.And there it was the ‘MAJESTIC HEBBE’………….Shouts of “wow,wonderful,majestic,marvelous…..”And all the possible adjectives echoed ……………. We shouted at the top of our voices. And w couldn’t wait to get to into the water. And freakkkkkk, the water was damn cold. But that couldn’t stop the trekfreaks from jumping into the water. Though it was February and there were no leeches around this time,the rocks had thick algae covers and it was very slippery. That meant we had to watch our steps. But Spandan was not going to listen and he wanted to go right beneath the falls and he dared to do it. We were all lost in our own worlds,splashing water on each other, take a cold dip every now and then and suddenly we found that spandan is missing ,and when we looked around for him……. We saw him slide down the rock, right at the foot of the falls and he vanished. Boyyyyyy we were all scared and shouted at him, and just when I took a step ahead to find him, there he came from the back of that rock, had actually slipped and suffered some minor bruises. And again we were playing around , we had a nice time or rather a CHILL time.hehehehehe………..
And just when we came out of the water , we realized we had to walk back to the KR hill station and that was a gud 11 kms . We were all tired and had no more gas to walk back. How we wished we had our tents and sleeping gears with us at that moment. But the matter of fact was , we had to get back to our cottages. Lil did we know that this trek would strip us off our energy , which normally is very high. We had rode our bikes the whole night and without even a nap, we had started trekking.But we had an option , we knew that the last jeep which picks up ppl from the estate would leave by 6:30pm and we had 15 mins to make up the 1 km from the falls to the estate. We had sum biscuits and apples left wid us, we hogged them and our batteries were recharged, atleast mine…………….. we then started jogging and I was carrying the rugsack, coz everyone else were dragging their feet- literally. We were almost near the estate when we heard the jeep start its engine, ghosh if we missed it we had it, coz we didn’t even have torches with us and we missed the trail in the broad daylight, boyyy my heart missed a beat, when I imagined all this.We heard the jeep move and all our guys lost hope of making it to the jeep. And then I had no other option than to unleash my athletic skills, though I was a marathon runner, I had to sprint this time and it was for a serious reason and guess vat,………………?????????I did it man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I caught the jeep and had it waiting for the guys to arrive and they were all saying “ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh, thank god”,and all those kinda sigh of relief stuff.We got into the jeep and were shocked to see a 16yr old guy driving the jeep. He stated the engine and vroomed into the thickets of the jungle. It was 6:45 pm and it was almost dark. Sandy n I were sitting in the front. And we started questioning the driver , for how many years he is driving , who taught him to drive, wasn’t it illegal to drive b4 18.?????? And that guy asked me for my coolers(Oakley) , it was actually a dull orange shade and he wanted to wear it and drive. We thought , he should have gone nuts…. Coz it was difficult to see with naked eyes itself. But he wanted to try and I had to give it to him. Lemme tell u, he is one hellova driver, he knew exactly what he was doin and those steep curves , especially when the track is loaded with pebbles it makes it even more tougher to drive, but he was experienced, that gives u a fair idea as to how many years he was driving , yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!He started driving ever since he was 10, so he had 6 yrs of driving experience under his belt. His cleaner was around 10 yrs old… er….. young.
It was a nice jolting drive , thru thick bush and just when we were nearing the cottage, the jeep failed to climb a steep terrain and guess vat the cleaner did????????He had two big stones handy with him, he alighted from the vehicle and kept those stones right behind the rear wheels, so the driver had some cushion to move the vehicle up , even then it was difficult, so we alighted from the jeep as well so that he could mov the jeep easily. After a lot of attempts they managed to get the jeep up the hill . and the cottage was just 100mtrs away, so we gave him the money- 50 bucks per head and thanked him. From there we walked with our eyes closed till the cottage.It was around 8pm and we had to order for food. There s a decent restraint there, but we get only veg food readily available. But we wanted to eat chicken and he offered to cook any one dish(wid chicken) and also demanded that we need to take one full chicken. We readily agreed coz we were reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hungryyyyyyyyyyyy.We ordered rotis(25 of them) and chillichicken wid gravy. They promised to deliver within 9:30pm. So we had to control our hunger wid the left over snacks.
The doorbell rang , it was just 9pm and to our pleasant surprise , the dinner arrived to our cottage it self.Probably this is the only instance I can recall where something in INDIA has been delivered on/before time. And we didn’t waste any time b4 we got our hands on the hot rotis and the spicy chillichicken. Nobody talked for about 20 mins , it was totally silent. The silence was occasionally broken with a “wow, aaahhhhh, tasty” …..We hogged our dinner and were just talking about the IF’s and but’s had we lost our way….The clock struck 11 and the shutters on our eyes automatically closed coz we had not slept for more than 24 hrs. ……….
We were awake the next day by 6 in the morning and after answering our nature calls, we were on our way to the Z-point . It was a view point around 3kms from the KR hill station. The view from Z-point was breathtaking. We felt as if we were on the top of this world. We had hoisted the tri-coloured flag when we had been here the last time from school. After recalling all those sweet memories at the top, we left back to our cottages. The view from the top was a treat to our eyes………………Back in the cottage, we packed our bags and it was time to say bye bye to kemmanagundi for now………..Soon we were on our way back, sandy & I on the PULSAR and spandan and rajan on (hamara) BAJAJ.I was enjoying my ride down and the josh machine(pulsar) was responding well. Spandan & rajan were trying to catch up with us and trust me bajaj exceeded our expectations, it was almost keeping pace with the pulsar. I was at a good pace at around 70kmph and there was a hairpin bend, I managed to control the bike , but spandan following me closely almost went down the cliff, coz bajaj has small tyres and and that made braking very difficult . After a small piece of advice ,rather instructions from sandy , we started our engines again. We decided to come back via chikamagalur. The road was awesome and sandy’s piece of advice was lost in air as we were ripping , closing the throttle. We paid a visit to the temples at belur & halebid and were back on track again. We felt damn hungry and we were searching for a nice dhaba. We decided to cover maximum distance before it gets dark. coz the Bangalore-mangalore road is very dangerous for two wheelers, especially at night. It was almost 6pm and we had to stop coz hunger overtook time………….Luckily we found a nice dhaba, it was clean and seemed like just the right place. We settled down to eat and it was our 1st priority at that moment. It was around 8pm by the time we finished our lunner(lunch + dinner).We were about 130 kms from Bangalore , we exchanged lil bit of caution and hit the road again. we had to get back home , coz the next day was Monday and we had to get back to business. We stopped for tea at gubbi at 10pm, we had been riding slow and steady. The stretch from hassan to gubbi was more prone to accidents. Nothing to blame on the road though. We washed our faces, sipped tea and were back on track again. At around 00:30 we reached our homes and the long ride had taken its toll on our backs.The next day, when we printed the photos and shared the experience with other friends and family , it was worth it. We felt refreshed , rejuvenated and got back to our daily stuff with a lotsa energy……………And guess vat ????????????We were planning for the next trip ……………….
i had always been a regular trekker in school .me having studied in TVS Academy had a lotsa exposure to trekking,wildlife,adventures etc. but after school ,during ma college dayz didn't have the oppurtunity to trek, in the sense that i didn't have like minded ppl for company ,coz all ma frens were studying in different locations and that meant all of us didn't have holidays at once.
so even i was longing to go on a trek. ma frend n i were brushing our teeth , when Spandan(ma frend) said "hey navin lets go on a trek this weekend,lets chill out............. wat say?" and the obvious answer from me was a big YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
in no time we were discussing places,possible guys joining us and stuff like that. we called up Sandy and he readily agreed ,but now we were three of us and needed another guy to join us to go on two bikes. just when we were scratching our heads , we saw Rajan comin out of his house and we shouted at him "hey rajan we r goin on a trek,would u join us?" and he shouted back "i would luv to................." and thats it, there was no lookin back. i was browsing my memory to decide on a good trekking destination. and vat came to my mind was kemmanagundi in chickmagalur district. i had been there while in school .
so the next day i told them about this place , but rajan wanted to go to coorg and after a lot a discussion and arguement we froze on kemmanagundi. spandan n I put up the budget and informed others. spandan was getting his brand new PULSAR DTS-i and i offered to get ma splendour , but sandy wanted to get his CT-100 brand new again, so it was decided that we were biking to kemmanagundi.but unexpectedly sandy was not able to get his bike for the trek and i had given ma bike for service, but there waz spandan for the rescue, he offered his (hamara)bajaj.so both bikes belonged to spandan on this trip.
It was on the 11-feb-05 at around 2:00am in the early morning ,we hit the road............................ the road to kemmanagundi. we were all singing , shouting as the road belonged only to us at the part of the night.......
We Went through Tumkur,tiptur,arsikere,birur and reached kemmanagundi the next day morning at around 11:30am. we had reserved accomodation at the KR hillstation maintained by the horticultural dept of karnataka.we had reserved 2 cottages and surprisingly they charged us just 150 bucks per cottage. two guys could stay in one.
Then we had our lunch at around 12:00noon. Even though we were very tired we made up our minds to go on a major trek the same day.In the next 15mins we were on our way to the hebbe falls ,the major attraction at k'gundi.There were 2 ways to reach there,one by jeeps andthe other was to trek. And our unanimous choice was trekking.We were welcomed into the jungle by the chirping of the birds and the noise made by the crickets.It was adventurous getting into the forest, because the first step into it was itself was very risky and steep.As we didn't know the exact route to the hebbe,all the guys risked my memory which dated back to 7yrs.The total distance was around 22 kms both ways.As went deeper we came across some coffee plantations which were occupied by the fellow humans.We were so tired we had to search for some water and luckily we did find a water pipe which was from hebbe to the coffee plantations.We quenched our thirst by drinking water to our hearts content.Then as we continued i made a wrong move when my memory gave in.We took a right turn which did look like a way but which wasn't.We realised this as we went quite some distance.Then we decided to continue hoping to find the way as we heard the water gushing from the HEBBE where water drops from around 275feet.That's a majesticone, trust me.......... Again we lost our way,this time it was even worse coz we met the dead end of the way which we chose.Then we had to climb down a steep place which was almost vertical at the end of it was a cliff.So it was some kind of aVERTICAL LIMITstunt. But sandy showed the way by climbing down.Then i followed and suceeded.Then it was the turn of spandan who was almost horror struck.We all could make out from his face that he was verymuch frightened .But still he made it with a gr8 difficulty.And then came Rajan who almost climbed down like a TARZAN.We carried on and finally we realised we were lost again but this time it was a serious concern.I tried to recall but i wasn't able to.We could hear a bike zoom some where in the distance. It seemd like we were very near to the falls. But it was not to be. Still we heard the water gushing, but when we tried to search for a way we realised that it was a broken water pipe.
With just an hour left for the sun to set it was a issue to think about.We tried finding the way out,where on our way we saw some really deep caves .Certainly some looked like they belonged to panthers and bears. certainly scary...... we felt thirsty again and luckily found a stream.We quenched our thirst by drinking water from a stream.We were all quiet and were trying to find the way out of this ‘SCARY TRAIL’,and sandy did it again, he found the way back to the main jeep track. We were very much relieved to be out of the jungle. We kept walking along the jeep trail and after some distance, we saw another trekking trail taking a right turn into the forest and this time I recalled this is the one in which we had to go.So we descended down and mind u it was a pretty steep one.As we climbed down the sound of the water gushing down became very loud. And this time we could also feel the water droplets on our faces. I was damn sure that we were just around 1km from the ‘hebbe’.But the clock struck 5, and we had to hurry things up and we almost ran to the falls, but again the descend to the foot of the falls was scary and dangerously slippery.And there it was the ‘MAJESTIC HEBBE’………….Shouts of “wow,wonderful,majestic,marvelous…..”And all the possible adjectives echoed ……………. We shouted at the top of our voices. And w couldn’t wait to get to into the water. And freakkkkkk, the water was damn cold. But that couldn’t stop the trekfreaks from jumping into the water. Though it was February and there were no leeches around this time,the rocks had thick algae covers and it was very slippery. That meant we had to watch our steps. But Spandan was not going to listen and he wanted to go right beneath the falls and he dared to do it. We were all lost in our own worlds,splashing water on each other, take a cold dip every now and then and suddenly we found that spandan is missing ,and when we looked around for him……. We saw him slide down the rock, right at the foot of the falls and he vanished. Boyyyyyy we were all scared and shouted at him, and just when I took a step ahead to find him, there he came from the back of that rock, had actually slipped and suffered some minor bruises. And again we were playing around , we had a nice time or rather a CHILL time.hehehehehe………..
And just when we came out of the water , we realized we had to walk back to the KR hill station and that was a gud 11 kms . We were all tired and had no more gas to walk back. How we wished we had our tents and sleeping gears with us at that moment. But the matter of fact was , we had to get back to our cottages. Lil did we know that this trek would strip us off our energy , which normally is very high. We had rode our bikes the whole night and without even a nap, we had started trekking.But we had an option , we knew that the last jeep which picks up ppl from the estate would leave by 6:30pm and we had 15 mins to make up the 1 km from the falls to the estate. We had sum biscuits and apples left wid us, we hogged them and our batteries were recharged, atleast mine…………….. we then started jogging and I was carrying the rugsack, coz everyone else were dragging their feet- literally. We were almost near the estate when we heard the jeep start its engine, ghosh if we missed it we had it, coz we didn’t even have torches with us and we missed the trail in the broad daylight, boyyy my heart missed a beat, when I imagined all this.We heard the jeep move and all our guys lost hope of making it to the jeep. And then I had no other option than to unleash my athletic skills, though I was a marathon runner, I had to sprint this time and it was for a serious reason and guess vat,………………?????????I did it man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I caught the jeep and had it waiting for the guys to arrive and they were all saying “ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh, thank god”,and all those kinda sigh of relief stuff.We got into the jeep and were shocked to see a 16yr old guy driving the jeep. He stated the engine and vroomed into the thickets of the jungle. It was 6:45 pm and it was almost dark. Sandy n I were sitting in the front. And we started questioning the driver , for how many years he is driving , who taught him to drive, wasn’t it illegal to drive b4 18.?????? And that guy asked me for my coolers(Oakley) , it was actually a dull orange shade and he wanted to wear it and drive. We thought , he should have gone nuts…. Coz it was difficult to see with naked eyes itself. But he wanted to try and I had to give it to him. Lemme tell u, he is one hellova driver, he knew exactly what he was doin and those steep curves , especially when the track is loaded with pebbles it makes it even more tougher to drive, but he was experienced, that gives u a fair idea as to how many years he was driving , yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!He started driving ever since he was 10, so he had 6 yrs of driving experience under his belt. His cleaner was around 10 yrs old… er….. young.
It was a nice jolting drive , thru thick bush and just when we were nearing the cottage, the jeep failed to climb a steep terrain and guess vat the cleaner did????????He had two big stones handy with him, he alighted from the vehicle and kept those stones right behind the rear wheels, so the driver had some cushion to move the vehicle up , even then it was difficult, so we alighted from the jeep as well so that he could mov the jeep easily. After a lot of attempts they managed to get the jeep up the hill . and the cottage was just 100mtrs away, so we gave him the money- 50 bucks per head and thanked him. From there we walked with our eyes closed till the cottage.It was around 8pm and we had to order for food. There s a decent restraint there, but we get only veg food readily available. But we wanted to eat chicken and he offered to cook any one dish(wid chicken) and also demanded that we need to take one full chicken. We readily agreed coz we were reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hungryyyyyyyyyyyy.We ordered rotis(25 of them) and chillichicken wid gravy. They promised to deliver within 9:30pm. So we had to control our hunger wid the left over snacks.
The doorbell rang , it was just 9pm and to our pleasant surprise , the dinner arrived to our cottage it self.Probably this is the only instance I can recall where something in INDIA has been delivered on/before time. And we didn’t waste any time b4 we got our hands on the hot rotis and the spicy chillichicken. Nobody talked for about 20 mins , it was totally silent. The silence was occasionally broken with a “wow, aaahhhhh, tasty” …..We hogged our dinner and were just talking about the IF’s and but’s had we lost our way….The clock struck 11 and the shutters on our eyes automatically closed coz we had not slept for more than 24 hrs. ……….
We were awake the next day by 6 in the morning and after answering our nature calls, we were on our way to the Z-point . It was a view point around 3kms from the KR hill station. The view from Z-point was breathtaking. We felt as if we were on the top of this world. We had hoisted the tri-coloured flag when we had been here the last time from school. After recalling all those sweet memories at the top, we left back to our cottages. The view from the top was a treat to our eyes………………Back in the cottage, we packed our bags and it was time to say bye bye to kemmanagundi for now………..Soon we were on our way back, sandy & I on the PULSAR and spandan and rajan on (hamara) BAJAJ.I was enjoying my ride down and the josh machine(pulsar) was responding well. Spandan & rajan were trying to catch up with us and trust me bajaj exceeded our expectations, it was almost keeping pace with the pulsar. I was at a good pace at around 70kmph and there was a hairpin bend, I managed to control the bike , but spandan following me closely almost went down the cliff, coz bajaj has small tyres and and that made braking very difficult . After a small piece of advice ,rather instructions from sandy , we started our engines again. We decided to come back via chikamagalur. The road was awesome and sandy’s piece of advice was lost in air as we were ripping , closing the throttle. We paid a visit to the temples at belur & halebid and were back on track again. We felt damn hungry and we were searching for a nice dhaba. We decided to cover maximum distance before it gets dark. coz the Bangalore-mangalore road is very dangerous for two wheelers, especially at night. It was almost 6pm and we had to stop coz hunger overtook time………….Luckily we found a nice dhaba, it was clean and seemed like just the right place. We settled down to eat and it was our 1st priority at that moment. It was around 8pm by the time we finished our lunner(lunch + dinner).We were about 130 kms from Bangalore , we exchanged lil bit of caution and hit the road again. we had to get back home , coz the next day was Monday and we had to get back to business. We stopped for tea at gubbi at 10pm, we had been riding slow and steady. The stretch from hassan to gubbi was more prone to accidents. Nothing to blame on the road though. We washed our faces, sipped tea and were back on track again. At around 00:30 we reached our homes and the long ride had taken its toll on our backs.The next day, when we printed the photos and shared the experience with other friends and family , it was worth it. We felt refreshed , rejuvenated and got back to our daily stuff with a lotsa energy……………And guess vat ????????????We were planning for the next trip ……………….
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