Kodai-Kuthiraiyar Dam Trek

It all started around July-end when Madhukar floated the idea of doing a trek in Kodai. A group of 22 was marked to be an ideal number. After a few additions and ommissions, the group of 22 was finalized. Madhukar himself had to drop out due to official work.

Run-up to the trek:

Flurry of mails followed on Do's and Don'ts. Tents and Sleeping bags were hired. Vehicle was booked. Pick-up points were finalized.

Day Zero - 18th Sep, 2009

Messy day in office, messier traffic on the way back home. Purchased MTR food items from Total. Stuffed the backpack. 45L one did not seem to be enough to hold some of the items. So, unpacked and shifted to a 65L one. The journey to Forum, chosen pick-up point, turned out to be worse with heavy traffic on inner ring road. Finally reached Forum @6.30. Had to goto the other side. Security guard didn't allow me to make a throughfare as such a big bag was not allowed inside. Went around to the other side and waited for the others. Kutty reached in with the tents and sleeping bags. Madhukar, who came to bid us goodbye, joined in after sometime and so did Karthik. Met Nidhi near the petrol bunk. All of us waitedin the drizzle for the bus to come. Finally, the bus arrived at 7.30. Everybody got in, bags stored inside the back of the bus.

9.00 PM : Time for dinner. Bus stopped near a Veg Restaurant. Chappatis, Egg Curries and Khuska rice were the flavor of the night. After a round of drags, everybody got into the bus and we started our journey towards Kodai. Gopal and Rashmi initiated the antakshiri proceedings.

Bishu, Rajesh, Vasu, myself joined in and had a gala time till late in the night as others too joined in as time passed by. We had breaks for tea in between. Finally, we reached Kodai at 8 in the morning.

Day One : 19th Sep, 2009 : The Leechy Trail and the Walk in the Clouds

Kodai town is centred around Kodai lake. Looks very much like Ooty. But Kodai seemed warmer than Ooty @ 9.00 AM. The rest of the gang had breakfast at Meenakshi resturant, next to the lake. Bishu, Manas, Rajesh and me decided to test out idli-vadas and ate at a road-side restaurant. Awesome vadas.

10.00 AM

Food items and sleeping bags were distributed among all. Everybody was set and waiting for the guides to come. Around 11.30 AM, the guides came with the bus that we had to take to get to the starting point, Kookal shola, just above the Kookal lake. After a break for photos and tea and a few failed attempts to start an antakshiri, we reached Kookal starting point at 2.00 PM. Kookal lake is a majestic sight. Its like one of those laidback lakes set amidst a few hills with a pristine countryside to boot. Shutterbugs were excited and derived maximum benefit out of the break of one hour till we were ready to start the trek at 3.00 PM.

3.00 PM start:

The start was through a bit of grasslands, till we reached the forest part and the guides instructed to remain in a straight line. Myself, Manas, Rajesh and Bishu were the sweepers in this part of the trek. And yeah, our 'leechy' friends were waiting there. A shout from the front confirmed it. Since I was wearing floaters, I had an easy time removing leeches from my body.

However since the trek had a few begineers and the guide, who was ahead of me in the trail stopped every 2-3 seconds to see whether any leech got stuck into them, I ended up with a few leech bites till I saw 8 leeches piling onto one big drilled hole in my right foot. I went out of the trail and bypassed almost everybody ahead and came right up to the front. After that, it was a run towards the grasslands. Totally, it took an hour to come out of the grasslands. The damage was only 7 leech bites.

After a search and cleanup operation, we started the climb again and reached a temple at 4.15 PM. Mani, the guide brought out some awesome homemade chocolates. The guides performed a puja , after which we had lunch. For 5 of us i.e. Prasanna, Bishu, Manas, Rajesh and myself, lunch was on the rocks with chappatis, bhindi masala and pindhi masala. It was then that I said to Rajesh for the very first time "Its a crime to trek and not sit on such a rock for a break".

This was to be repeated a million and fifty-nine times more in the next two days.

Trek started again at 5.00 PM with descent from now on. Awesome views greeted us on the way. We were mostly walking on the ridge. Shutterbugs were pretty busy in the entire stretch.

A herd of 4 bisons cause minor excitement in between. Finally, we were down a couple of blackened mountains, probably forest fires did them in. Our camp-site was just behind them.

This place is called the Pappalamman Kovil Grassland. We reached the camp-site at 6.15 PM and immediately got up to setup the tent. Within 15 mins, our tent was up, some more plugging of loopholes later, we were proud of the sturdy product.

By 7, everybody was at the camp-site and we had all tents up. Then folks decided to have a canopy in which all backpacks can be put. It took one more hour for the efforts to bear fruit.

Finally by 8, everything was done and the 4 of us moved into our tent. Had arbit chat for a couple of hours before having dinner(pulao/rice/dal) and desserts(halwa). Music followed. More chats followed ranging from Ivory Coast to Gokarna. Around 12, we were inside the sleeping bags and fast asleep.

Day Two : 20th Sep, 2009 : The Descent and the Night Trek

6.00 AM:

Manas woke everybody up in the tent. Already Prasanna was waking people up in other tents.

We quickly packed up the sleeping bags and mats. After morning ablutions were done, the tents and the backpacks were packed up. By 7.30 AM, after a round of group snaps and smiling faces, we were ready for the trek.

Boys, Are you ready for Adventure?

Yes Sir!

Boys, Are you ready for Danger?

Yes Sir!

Boys, Are you ready for death?

uuggggh, can u plz repeat the question?

The Morning Halt:

After a brief walk of 10 minutes, we halted at a place for brushing up and having some food.

Then we started the walk around the ridge which was wide enough for just one person to walk. The rocks were loose and the soil was giving away at a few places on the ridge. A slide down meant getting a few bones broken. Luckily, no such thing happened.

The Descent:

Boy, memories of Barai valley came flashing at times. Although that was a 80 degree slope for 900 feet with loose gravel, the descent here was no less mean, as the grass was hiding quite a few holes, and there was a real danger of spraining ankles etc. It took around 3 hours with a few halts to get down this slope. My backpack support rod had broken into two and the existing portion was piercing my back every slide. We moved in groups of 5-6. Everybody ensuring that the one behind had made it safely. Great teamwork marked this part of the trek. Kuthiraiyar falls was an awesome sight.

The Dry forest:

Post-descent and with no water, we rested for sometime and continued our journey to the mini-pool. We had a full-fledged water source to our right all this while. But its preceded by a very steep descent that ends up in water. Some irony, I thought. After some confusion regarding the trek route, we were near the pool by 3 PM. The ones who reached earlier already had their food. For the rest of us, we had a quick bite and by 4 PM, we were on our way. This was a simple walk and the most boring part of the trek. The floater tore up as well, just to add to the misery. The pebbles started getting inside and soon I had blisters on the feet. After that every step was a pain and I remained in the back of the group till the end. Came across lot of elephant dung in this part of the trek. Three-finger pug marks were also discovered. Also, lot of big rocks were there along the trail. Rajesh and me were chit-chatting throughout till we reached the river . I said to Rajesh "Its a crime to trek and not sit on such a rock for a break" after coming across every such rock :-)

We were at the river by 5.30 PM. River crossing is always a fun, but not when done with a torn slipper and a heavy backpack and deliberately stepping on jutting stones. A fall is not far away as I realised. A few more strides away, we came across a small waterfall and the last sun-rays penetrating the forest. Rajesh started taking snaps while after seeing a big rock , I declared to Rajesh that "Its a crime to trek and not sit on such a rock for a break". Ultimately, we lost sight of the first group. The place was a lovely sight and since life is short, both of us decided to make the most of it and enjoy our time here. We waited for almost half-an-hour.

Night Trek:

Because it was 6 and it gets dark pretty fast in the forest, torches were out. But 13 people and 5 torches is not a pleasant experience. A few falls and slips happened. I had a torch and that kept both Rajesh and myself in the business. It took two hours , one wrong deviation, several ups and downs before we finally came to the dam, thirsty and hungry. The dam water was also very muddy and used it only for washing our faces. After a 1 km trek, we reached the dam and finally reached the shop nearby and downed a 7-up on-the-rocks for a change.

Ultimately, it was a 13-hour trek on the 2nd-day. From the night halt to the dam, its around 25 kms according to the guide. So, 10 hours timeline given for 2nd-day depends upon speed.

Journey Back:

Nothing exciting. No Dhabas nearby, slept hungry. Had tea in between. Reached Bangalore at 7 AM.

PS: For some gyan

1. Kodai-Kuthiraiyar trek is awesome. But its much more than a photographic trip as I initially thought.

2. Always have backup water.

3. Floaters are good for small treks. Not for a 25km trek in one-day. Chances are that you will be walking with bristles on your feet for a week after.

Sach Kaa Saamna : India's Moment of Truth

I got hooked onto Moment of Truth while flipping between channels a few months back.
I found it pretty innovative and enjoyed other people squealing out their truths in utter discomfort. The format is like the contestant takes a polygraph test and later on same questions are asked, and the contestant has to answer TRUE/FALSE on those question. These are later matched. If its in the affirmative, the contestant goes to the next question with some added cash in the booty. If its in the negative, the contestant bows out with his existing sum. The questions are very personal in nature and might as well result in hurt feelings and broken relationships.

Human tendency as it is, is to see other people in embarrassing situations, this show managed to grab quite a few eyeballs. Every question seemed to get the audience on a high. And every answer followed with gasps of shock as if these are unheard of and constitute acts of sacrilege and felony:-) Only in America, I felt!

But hang on, whats this ? One fine morning , I see ToI and there on page1 Kambli says that "Sachin has not helped me much". Now Sachin sells in India. The legend goes that once in a party of bollywood celebs and cricketers and politicians, Amitabh Bacchan made his entry , everybody ran to shake his hand. When Sachin made the entry, everybody ran to shake his hand, Amit ji leading the pack. Coming back to Kambli's rant, those comments were quoted from a TV show "Sach Kaa Saamna", the Indian version of the highly popular "Moment of Truth".

Now, when I saw the original version, I was pretty sure that this concept won't work in India.
What with cultural sensibilites, private affairs in public life and all, I assumed that the questions would be much more toned down than the original one. Well, the winds of change seem to have blown east. I had underestimated the TV audience, who likes to watch other people clean their dirty linen in public.

17th july: An aged person was on the hot seat, having already won around 5 lakhs.
He had 3 failed marriages and was about to be engaged for the 4th time. His daughter-son-in-law, 2nd wife and to be 4th wife were there in the audience. The questions started like this:

Host : Do you think that you did enough to save your 3 broken marriages?
Contestant: (Swipes his sweat) NO.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

next question:

Host: Have you ever had sex with a relative?
Contestant: (Unable to look beyond the host) YES.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

next question:

Host: Have you ever had sex with a girl younger than your daughter?
Contestant: (laughs then ponders) YES.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

next question:

Host: Have you ever had sex with a prostitute?
Contestant: (swipes sweat again) YES.
PAT comes the answer: ANSWER is CORRECT.

After a couple more questions, the contestant loses out to a non-sexual question and goes home with 2.5 million INR. The public and the TV audience were shocked at the dick adventures of this below-the-hip-shooting geriatric, shocked at how a person can indulge in all this perverted stuff.

And I thought, this used to happen only in America!

Gokarna : The Land of Peace

Gokarna is a small Hindu temple town, 480 kms north-west of Bengalooru. Gokarna is famous for its Mahabaleswar temple, where the Shivling is beneath the sea-level. The Mahabaleshwar temple enshrines the Aatma Lingam of Lord Shiva. Legend has it that the holy Lingam was given by Shiva to King Ravana to make his kingdom an invincible fortress. Varuna and Ganesha tricked Ravana into placing the Lingam here and in spite of the might exerted by Ravana , the Lingam remained rooted to the ground. Apart from this, Gokarna is also famous for its idyllic beaches, mostly untouched by the commecrialisation so rampant in the beaches of Goa.

How to reach:

There are direct buses from Bangalore to Gokarna. KSRTC(Karnataka State Road transport Corporation) has a daily Sarige bus from Majestic at 2030 hours. Travelling by this bus is like an adventure in itself so much that one of my future blogs is going to be dedicated for this.
For the less-adventurous folks and comfort-seeking folks, VRL and Sugama buses run daily.
VRL bus is a sleeper bus and tickets can be booked online. It takes around 12-13 hours by bus, depending upon the route the bus takes.

There are no direct trains from Bangalore to Gokarna. Trains on Konkan railway have a halt for 2 minutes at Gokarna road station. Not all trains stop here though. However, some like Matsyagandha express(Mangalore-Mumbai via Madgaon) do stopover to provide much needed relief to wanderers like me who can't desist either goa or gokarna.

What to see:

Gokarna is a small Hindu religious town. However unlike most other famous temples, Mahabaleswar temple here seems to be devoid of touts lurking in large numbers.
Apart from this temple, there is one more Ganesh temple nearby. The small shops in the town sell religious items, pshychdellic T-shirts, Trace music CDs etc. The town is mostly centred around the KSRTC bus - stand. About a kilometer from the bus-stand , the Gokarna beach starts , forming the coast of the town. As you trudge along the narrow lanes of the town towards the beach(the lane is named 'Samudra Marg'), you will come across houses of priests where some religious talk will be going on or people invoking the Holy Lord with chants or somebody learning classical music.

The Gokarna beach is like a typical Indian family beach, where you will have the beach teemed with entire families from grand-pa/mom to chotu, motu and pinky-rinky. Young couples with clasped hands enjoying the breeze from the sea and fishermen going about their work i.e. venturing out into the sea, lying nets etc. are a few common sights in Gokarna beach. The extreme right end of the beach is a more quiet place for people seeking some solitude. Incidentally you will see many foreigners truding along towards further right from the end of the beach. Maybe some other beach like Honey or Honnibail beach might be there, as one local suggested. Gokarna beach has a few shacks, but most of them serve juice, puri's, samosas; not for guys like me who like to gorge on some continental stuff.

At the left end of the Gokarna beach, a narrow path goes up a hill, where you cross a temple en-route. After climbing up some stairs, you will find flat ground and some breath-taking views of Gokarna beach as you turn-around to see the distance you covered. As you move along, about 10 minutes walk from this place, the flat ground leads to a narrow lane, which goes down to Kudle beach, the second of Gokarna's beaches. This beach looks very unkempt, desolate and dirty in off-seasons. You will hardly find a soul here then. But come season time between November- February, this beach will be dotted with hippies. Very few Indians are sighted on this beach, and mostly day trippers. Sunset-Cafe , on Kudle beach, is heaven if you are lazy and like to dig yourself into a rice pudding(and dozing off in between). This cafe offers good food and suits my taste buds pretty well. French toast here is a must for foodies. This is one beach where one can know more about the female human anatomy than any biology class. In season time, quite a few shacks operate in Kudle beach. Most of them have rooms behind the restaurants. Rents are around 200 INR for a very basic and around 350-400INR for a little better room. The seabed here looks more shallow and inviting. Its very safe to get into water even for non-swimmers.

At the extreme end of the Kudle beach, a small meandering path leads up the hill and we came onto a well-laid pitched road. For the non-adventurous folks, a walk down this road will lead to the main road, which is about 500metres from OM beach. For the more adventurous, instead of taking the pitched road, you can go straight and walk across the small trees for around 15 minutes and directly get down at the starting point of the OM beach. For avid trekkers like us,
we took a route which goes in the opposite direction of the pitched road, made our way through the thorny bushes and went down onto the rocks on the shore. This is the rocky part of the OM beach. From here , it takes around 10 minutes, crossing the rocks and landing up directly on the OM beach.

OM beach is so named, because the shape is like that of the Hindu religious symbol "OM".
OM beachs is about a kilometer from the main Gokarna town and fully approachable by road, unlike Kudle. In fact out of the 5 beaches, only Gokarna and OM beach are approachable by road. For the other 3 beaches including Kudle, hiking or taking a boat ride are the two ways.

At the start of the OM beach is Namaste Cafe, by far the best shack in OM beach in terms of quality of rooms, beds and toilets. The food is good over here, but somehow I like the food in Ganesh cafe better than Namaste. Don't forget to try out Honey Pan Cake at Namaste. Apart from these two, there are innumerable other shacks during season time catering to tourists. But in off-season, these two were the only two shacks still open. Off season prices in Namaste are like 200 INR for single room, 400 INR for double-bed(with attached bathroom). Hippies abound in Gokarna, more so in OM beach. One can get good boat-rides from here to all other beaches and Gokarna town from OM beach. The sand here is like white-sand. Although season time, its great to visit OM beach; its the start-of-season time when monsoon is just over is the best time to be in OM beach. Watching the high-tides smashing into the rocks, sea gulls frolicking away , fishermen going about their jobs are a few sights which brighten up the soul.

At the end of the OM beach, we took another path going up the hill. here we have to get around a hillock(about 20-minutes walk) to reach Half-Moon beach. Half-moon beach is so named because the shape resembles that of a half-moon. During season, the path is pretty well laid out. But at start of season, look out for thorns in the bushes. They hurt!!! In between one can take a diversion and take some rest below a palm tree on the edge of a cliff, from where one can try to catch a glimpse of the horizon. There will be many zig-zags , but make sure that one gets around the hill rather than unnecessarily climb up the hill. Once one gets down to Half-moon beach, he or she can see the ure beauty of this beach. During season , a couple of shacks operate on this beach. This is no electric power on this beach. Hence its like totally cut off from civilization.
But its during off-season, when you will be the sole inhabitant of this beach without any shacks operational. When I set out on my first solo trip to gokarna, and I landed up on this beach, I spent one entire day here, doing absolutely nothing!!!.. Remined me of Cast-Away :-) The rooms on this beach are pretty basic. They set you back by around 150 INR per night. If you are going in-season , don't forget to try the corn-flakes with cold milk, fruits and honey. Gosh the foodie in me refuses to lie down!!!

At the end of the half-moon beach, a small trail leads to Paradise beach, also known as Full-moon beach. Its around 20 minutes walk from Half-moon beach. The thing to remember here is after crossing the first set of rocks, one should not try to climb the hill. Rather try getting around the hill. Its a much easier climb. The steep climb up the hill will take you to the next village, Bellekan. We did the trek from Half-Moon at night , and mistakenly took the way up the hill and landed up in this village. Had to cross some two hills. Anyways, after getting round the hill, one will come across Paradise beach. This is the last of the Gokarna beaches. Pretty much isolated from the crowd, Paradise, the name suits this beach well. Its an absolute paradise! Its a very rocky beach, with sand in between. Waves are very strong, and it is quite dangerous to go out very far into the sea. Evergreen cafe is the first shack on this beach, It has a few basic huts. Rooms on this beach are basically huts on the hillock. Toilet facilities are there, but sometimes water runs out. So, better to take a empty bottle, fill with sea-water, and then climb up the
hill :))

Apart from Evergreen, there are a few more shacks on this beach. A special mention for Anil Bhai, the guy who operated that shack. He is a gem of a person. He caters to numerous orders, sometime looses his cool , but all in good-nature. Anil Bhai - we bow to you. Hope to meet you again next season. Food is good in Evergren cafe. If you are a non-veggie, don't miss out on chicken steak with boiled vegetables.

The night we went to Paradise, there were no rooms to stay, and we slept on the beach. We looke at the constellations, and saw shooting stars. Some of my most memorable memories of 2008. Music from Shiva full moon, phsycedellic trance etc. were the icing on the cake that night. Lights from Ships, patrol boats are the ones you can see at far off distances. Generally, holy-men coming from far-off places in India, original hippies or people trying to find out more about themselves, land up on this beach. This beach can be reached either by trek, as I wrote above or by boat or by a bus to Bellekan village(its a 10 minute walk from there.) Buses run between Gokarna and Bellekan.

*This beach is strictly not recommended for people who want comforts*.

Phew, this is an exhaustive blog and seems to have covered everything.

Return trip:

Who wants to return from Gokarna? But somebody has to pay the bills...sigh..

There is a KSRTC sleeper bus at 1930 hours, VRL sleeper bus at 1900 hours from Gokarna.

Finally:

1. Don't litter the beaches.
2. Stay away from people who approach you with grass(you will find in plenty).
3. All orders take time here. So let time go at its own pace.
4. Happy Tripping.

Some Fotos:

1. Solo Backpacking in Gokarna during start-of-season:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solitary_harvester/sets/72157607067325168/

2. Gokarna as part of Great Indian Road trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solitary_harvester/sets/72157612093366902/

Back to Blogging

After a hiatus of more than a year, I have decided to pen down some of my thoughts lest I also get afflicted with something similar to 15-minute-back-to-amnesia , as typified in 'Ghajini'.

So here we go...