Dandeli it was this time. Northern Karnataka (510 kms from Bangalore), the very first time I was traveling this side. Would have never come if my brother-in-law would not have bought land here – for the dream of his life – to build a resort! [!!Excited!!] This was planned only a week back and we booked rooms in the Jungle Lodges and Resorts – Old Magazine House (JLR).
Anyways we decided to take a night halt at Chitradurda for 5 hours and then to start again in the morning as early as 05 30 am. When we reached Chitradurga, – the city of Fort (at 11:45pm) we started looking for a hotel, looked at Amogha International, Aishwarya Fort and Naveen Regency but interestingly all were either full or not good to stay (Amogha – the internet search throws up this as the first result but I would suggest you skip it and try others). We finally took rooms in Ravi Mayur, on NH4 (only at 00:20 pm after roaming around the city for sometime); interestingly many folks were walking in the city and were helpful in guiding us to the right hotel even at that hour! Rooms were good at Rs.600 per day (all hotels were priced exactly the same!).
As soon as we reached, a good lunch was waiting (not the best) , had that, took some rest and then started for a 3 kms trek just behind JLR on the mountains – trust me, do not make assumptions of it being an easy task.
Meanwhile the place was buzzing with photographers – both amateurs (like us) and professionals – all here to click pictures of the vast variety of birds seen in this range ( peak season).
Continuing on the trek story – We were sweating both ways; it’s a steep climb and would involve alertness while coming down.
As soon as we reached the peak, it was heaven for almost 40 minutes, the sunset is something I have not seen anywhere! It was the sun, the reflection of it on the river and it was best reflection/sunset/moment ever. It’s a meeting point of 4 rivers – Kali, Pandri, Nagi and Nasi – SUPA Dam nearby by. Visually gorgeous (as seen in the picture below)! As mentioned earlier the walk down is also very tiring, walk slowly, as you would get tempted to run on the path, don’t.
We spent the evening in open air, in front of a bonfire, having a drink and enjoying the calmness. Food was again OK, slept by 11pm.
Got up at 7am, went for the morning walk – the time you would again get to see more and more birds! And lots of them – so colorful that I started wondering if I had ever seen so many species in my entire lifetime! The Praying Mantis made our day!
The 57 year old ‘Jumma Ji’ who was our guide and an employee at JLR provided us the best service. Mind you – don’t go by his age – he looks like 40 something and has been doing the mountain treks (in which I was sweating big time) daily (sometimes even twice a day)! Amazing person – very humble and down to earth, is not educated but with the help of guests and good learning capability now can talk about all the varieties of birds just by listening to them chirping! He is a case study in himself.
We came back and had breakfast in a hurry as I got really excited for the high point of the trip – White water rafting in the river Kali! Well, that is one experience you must have, have done rafting earlier in Kushal Nagar but then that was nothing in front of this one. Around 11 rapids, a total of 10 kms, would take around 1.5 hours (with pick and drop), JLR arranges this at a total cost of Rs.1300 per head. I have heard the options at Rishikesh are much economical (without the pickup and drop)!
Surfing was the best part of it, where you come down a rapid, take a U turn then take the rapid head on – amazing it is, one of us sat (took turn to experience it) right in front to take the flow of water straight on his/her face. Even the ladies in the raft did and loved it! We also got down into the water a couple of times to swim! Loved it.
Back from this mega experience by 3pm and had lunch then I slept for some time, evening was much relaxed with tea, bird watching and then bonfire, roasted chicken [as my friend Santhosh says – “so much so for my love for birds, I guess love in some form is ok:)”], some drink and dinner at JLR.
Next day morning was dedicated to visit the place where my brother in law has bought land to build the dream of his life – a resort. It’s a nice place to build one, for the bird lovers and for the folk who go to Goa can visit Dandeli and spend some serene time after their crazy time in Goa, or whichever way you want it!
We left the place at 12pm and took the Hubli-Dharwad road then finally reaching NH4 where we cruised for a while before we realized there were multiple points where there were diversion on account of flyover constructions and many a times road construction. We had lunch in Dharwad at Mayur Resort – a classy place to stay if you ever need to. We finished lunch only by 4 30 pm hence did not feel like having dinner. But mind you if you wanna have good dinner then there are not many good restaurants on NH4. Two Kamat’s that we noticed are very far off may be 200 kms away, hence we crossed one when it was just after our lunch hence did not stop for tea, but felt like we drove quite far to get to the next Kamat (only place we could spot for good food and loo). We reached home only by 1am!
cool…its time again for the 2nd visit 🙂