Impulse

It all started one fine evening when we realized that we haven’t done any travelling in our two years of so called MBA… We had a week off and the weather at Pune was getting HOT.

Our mind’s raced to Karnataka, One State Many Worlds as they say. We sketched out a plan:

Kukke Subramnaya in the Western Ghats, a climb to Kumara Parvatha and a leisure stay at a home stay in Malnad.

Feb 1st: 9 in the night and 5 of us were off on a bus ride to Bangalore in search of a place to hire a car for our adventurous journey. Got hold of a Wagon R and vroom, we were off to make our 386 km drive. I thank the KSRTC for converting all the kachha roads to pukka roads; they surely made our drive heavenly. Just when we were praising them, Ouch, we hit upon roads that stopped us from going 20 kms an hour. The drive just got miserably painful. Couldn’t blink an eyelid and all 5 * 2= 10 eyes were on the road screaming Loook Out!!

Kukke Subramanya is a beautiful temple town at the hill of Kumara Parvatha. The temple of Lord XXX is said to be very auspicious.

At last we reached our calm, green, orange and yellow temple town. Ya, sure was orange and yellow as all the lodges which belonged to the temple’s organization were painted such…im, sure no one misses them.

Darshan at the temple and were all dam tired with the long trip. Dinner is served at the Kukke Subramanya temple every night and so we stood in the queue, waiting to sit in a row have dinner in a banana leaf. We were really dreading the food but surprisingly it tasted good. We were quite taken aback when we saw rice being served from a trolley, leaf’s thrown in front of us, one cup to be shared by the entire row to drink water and most surprising of the lot was when we saw the ladies in one row and the men in another.

Stomachs were full, the beds were ready and we all divided into them. Our plan for the next day was a strenuous one. A 6 km climb uphill with a heavy backpack on our back’s and the sun. So we realized a good night’s sleep would really help.

Feb 2nd: D The early wake up didn’t happen as expected. A 0600 am wake up call extended to 0730 and finally by 0830 we were ready for our ascend. Kumara Parvatha is known to be one of the toughest climb and we were all ready to make it. It was quite a steep uphill but the canopy formed all through the way provided thick shelter from the heat. Our food stock of dink ladoo, Tropicana juice, chocolate bars were all emptied by 4 ½ km. JOur bags got a little light though

This stretch of the kumara parvatha leads us to the Bhatta’s Mane. He has established this business of providing food for all the tekkers from the past 20 yrs and charges 50 Rs per meal. The food is known to be delicious. We reached the house in the afternoon and were waiting with baited breaths for lunch but sadly it was honestly quite depressing for all of us. But the farm, the rivulet was mind blowing. Right in front of the house is his farm with coconut and areca nut trees amidst where we pitched our tents. The shade and the coolness of the breeze put us into deep slumber. The evening started getting chiller and out came all the things that helped us keep  . And in no time we were all back into the tent, snoring.Jus warm

Feb 3rd: This morning we successfully woke up on time, 0630 am, had breakfast at the bhatta’s house (cant believe Upma can be made that badly) and descended. Believe me, our climb was any time easier. After half an hour of climbing down, my knees were shacking, feet were burning and I was tired. Nevertheless, we reached the temple by 1100 am and started our hazardous drive to the homestay.

Malnad, is known for their chicken curry, roti, smoke and drink. More than anything else we all needed to have a bath. We had heard of a beautiful water fall near our home stay and so were all more than keen on getting there.
The drive was HORRIBLE. 10 km/per hr was all that we could go. I guess that was a good thing in a way! As we were driving by we were on a bridge and all of us were still sleepy. One guy got down to relieve his bladder and there he saw the breath taking view of the Bisle river below. We didn’t take a minute to wait and ponder and before we knew it, 5 of us were out of the car, towel in hand, jumping over rocks to find a secluded place for ourselves as such rivers were out of bound for visitors. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the place. 20 feet away from the bridge and no body could not spot us nor could we see anyone passing by. The other sides were covered by trees and not a soul in sight. It felt like a fairytale and we were the lead roles. 2 hrs of prancing around, diving into the pond, sitting under the waterfalls, heavenly! ! Only did we realize that we were famished when we saw the watch, it was way past 4 pm and we hadn’t had anything to eat.

We reached the homestay at 0500 in the evening and felt sad for the family who were waiting for our arrival with steaming hot roties, chicken curry, hot rice and a dessert. We got acquainted rather too soon and pounced on the contents of the plate. SLURP, YUM and our plates were empty. The house was beautifully kept, red oxide gave it the ancestral look with the olden wares to heat water from fire logs, a as stove to light the place and a mud pot to store drinking water.
A home to stay in and never to vacate.

Feb 4th: Our dreamy vacation got over in no time. We drove back to Bangalore and caught the 0900 pm bus back to Pune. A monotonous routine to fall back into.