Stopped in-between for breakfast and coffee (by the way never have coffee at this place, 10 kms before Kemmangundi – Cafe Coffee County, they charge Rs. 45 per cup) and was dying to have lunch but as we were getting late for blocking our rooms we decided to get to the guest house even before stopping for lunch, very surprising for a person like me who lives to eat:) The lunch at the guest house canteen was OK, as we were hungry we ate whatever we saw- veg pulao and mini meals. Mind you there is no other place to eat, so better go there with your room booked (from Lalbagh) and eat at this canteen 🙂
The Horticulture Government’s Guest House is a separate story all together. The rooms can be booked for Rs. 200 per day ONLY. The booking has to be done through their Lalbagh office in Bangalore. We got it done a month before, actually the ladies in the team did. Guys are too busy working you see. The Guest House is actually not that bad at all, against my expectation of a clumsy and untidy room as it was way too cheap for me to believe it! The weather also was not too cold or hot, it was rather pleasant. But too many monkeys and dogs around did screw up the serene calmness. We were hardly in our room to complain though. Watch out for really big spiders here, they may not hurt you but may give you nightmares.
There were many well maintained gardens, at multiple levels, nice flowers all over and the sunset point. We were there from 6pm and stayed until 7 15pm after enjoying the soothing sunset. It was a very refreshing place and we took lot of pictures, not so crowded, pleasant.
Bhadra Tiger Reserve is totally mismanaged or may be it has been kept like that. No one to talk to, no proper safari. The only safari vehicle is a big van which makes more noise than even a diesel generator(see photo). Internet also does not talk much about it so read it here! We reached knowing nothing about the safari timings and realized that the safari was carried out only at 4pm, we were there at 1030am!
Actually that gave us some free time to relax near a small stream of water where we did some mountaineering 🙂 Vikash even left an offspring there – a leech sucked some blood of his. The lunch was at the ‘Nature camp’ (The entry to the stream is through this camp) where the cook made rice and sambar for us, at rs. 25 per plate 🙂
Had dinner at The Planters Court, chickmanglur. A neat place, food was good but the quantity was way too less. Biryani got over even before I started. Anyways, it was already 9pm and we were left with 42 more kms back to base. We reached the guest house at 11:30 pm, all were almost asleep and I was dead tired. We retired.
For the trek we went into the mountain ahead of the guest house and parked till the place there was any drivable road left. Oh by the way, do not bother going to the rock garden, z point, Shanti falls – it’s a total crap. I don’t even wanna waste your time talking about them. We did not go to the abbey falls as it was said only jeeps can reach there and the cost per jeep is Rs. 750. Looking at the crowd we rather thought we will give it a miss.
Ok, coming back to the trek. The path was narrow and within 100 mts we saw a small streak of water falling from a rock 1 floor high, past this was a beaten path to the top of one the mountain (this was supposed to be Shanti falls), the first 50 mts were really tough and we all thought how will we ever come back from the same route and relied on our guess that there should be an alternate route to come back, which we later found out that it was not the case and had to come back the same way!
The next 2 hours were one of the best in my life! The walk on the plain green mountain, with a cool breeze, we walked till there was no way to go any further and we started moving sideways, then we had to return also to vacate our rooms but we had enough time to have a cup-o-noodle on top of the mountain, yes we carried hot water too! It was so much fun. The fun became chilly as it was time to return to base via the same path, which was by the way almost 80 degrees steep. It was difficult but not non-achievable, we did it. On the way back to the base I also had a flat tyre 🙁
After vacating we started for chickmaglur as we had seen a day before the drive thru this route is simply amazing! Got puncture fixed in-between. Had lunch at 4pm in a highway hotel next to The Planters Court. Food was good – veg fried rice, poori subzi, tea, gobi Manchurian. The highlight was the drive till Bangalore – the antakshari between boyz and girls! We were very good in creating songs from nowhere and mixing up two songs in one. Would upload few videos soon, if Vikash agrees 🙂
The ride from there was very rough – firstly it rained heavily, the roads did not have dividers and as it was getting dark even the headlights were of not much use in that heavy rain! Do not ever take NH48. The construction is on for god knows when and god knows when it will finish. We reached home only at 12am.
Awesome!!!!!! :))
he he he .. tiger reserve mein tiger dekhne chale the bhaiyya 😛 😉
Nicely written. Vikash left an offspring? 🙂 🙂
liked your blog!!!
This was such a great trip! And the mountain trek was the cream on the cake! And boys, do remember that when girls do the planning…we cut down on the cost (Rs. 200/day/room), but not on the fun quotient 😉 😉 !!!!!
Hope to have many more such trips with the gang 🙂
Awesome, Fun & masti all the way from blr to blr