Malenadu Pravasa - July 29 - July 31, 2006

Starring - Shankar, Daya, Raaghu & Santhosh and Mr. Mahanthesh(Our Cab criver)

Trip to temples around Malnad

Day 1 - 29 th july friday Night

Friday was a bad & tiresome day at Office and I was not sure whether we were going any place... There was no communication between me & Shanks ( The Co-ordinator of the trip) that day about the time of journey and the people coming for the trip...
He had just told me that "Come to my place at 10".

When I turned up at his place at 10 after a call, Shanks was waiting outside his house for US with a red Qualis. Raghu & Daya turned up at around the same time. Shanks told us that we were waiting for Kiran (a Friend of ours).. So we sat down at Shankar's Place waiting. We saw a DVD of chandramukhi lying and Asked him to Place it. We Really enjoyed Rajini's Flying in the Air and his "Laka Lakassss"
and also Jyothika hideous "Hummaa". When there was was no signs of Kiran turning up, we decided that we would SMS him and Kick-off the Journey.

We started off at around 10:45 PM from Shankar's place at yeswanthpur towards NH4 (Tumkur road). The Night that day was real Chill, it must have been around 14 Deg C. In the Cab, Shanks Settled down as the Navigator(he Really proved to be Good with that and we can use him as so in the Trips to come), Daya & Raaghu in the Center seats and Myself in the last seat. Shanks & Me played the major part that Night. Shanks had to talk to the Driver to keep him awake and I had to sleep for the entire team, while Raaghu & Daya were just whiling away their time chatting to each other(what a serious waste of time). Mean while we also tried talking some songs and also to listen to the Deck we had in the Cab which worked on its own terms.

Between the journey to Hornadu we did stop at a couple of places for Tea and etcs... and followed continously by Rain...

Day 2 - 30th July Saturday Morning

At Hornad:

We reached Hornadu at around 6.30 in the Morning. I was totally drained out with the sleeping I had to do alone in the night and Shanks also looked at little tried. Then Shanks & Raaghu went around searching for a place to refreshen up, while I & Daya were guarding the cab from inside. They managed a room at Durgamba lodge close to the temple for 2 hours to freshen up. (We were not given rooms at the temple as we were Bachelors.So we have decided that we will fight this injustice effectively by Getting married sooner). I allowed the Guys to bathe in the HOt water
and freshen up while I bathed in the ICE cold water. So the GUYS were up & kicking at 8. We vacated the room and ventured out of the Lodge. We till then never realized that we were standing in front of a breathtaking view of the temple surrounded with mountains around it. For Guys who missed it , there is no reason to worry as we did have a photo session(both audio & video) around these places
for you people specially. We went in to the temple at around 8:15 and the Arathi was at 9 Am. So we had a quick darashan, decided to finish our "hootte pooje" and then come back for the arathi. We performed "hotte pooje" twice in the morning once in the temple and once outside the temple.
We returned back at around 9 and had a splendid darshan of the Goddess Annapurna. The Temple was( for some reason i am not sure of ) was decorated beautifully decorated with a lot of flowers and looked splendid. After some clicks and Pan , we decided to move ahead in the journey towards Kalasa which was just a
few kilometres away from Hornad. And not to forget we had rain , rain , rain & rain everywhere.

At Kalasa:

kalasa was a special surprise package. We hadn't really planned for this place. But the temple was beautiful,Quiet & Calm. This temple has history of 3500 years and is dedicated to Agasthya Muni(hope people know him). The temple has been renovated several times during that period and the current structure must have been built around 1000 years(???). For some reason there were literally no devotees at this temple, hence we had a good darshan of the main diety(???,sorry
guys excuse my memory) there. Note: This place is real calm and for married people who want to take up sanyasatva(celibacy),
this place is real idle.

Towards Kudremukh:

After kalasa, as we had a lot of time in hand due to our excellent planning, we did some panning & clicking and decided to move towards Shringeri passing over Kudremukh. we wanted to trek around Kudremukh and while some time of ours their. But as the rains were not receding & the slopes were slippery we did not venture out for the trek. So whenever the rain slowed down a little we would stop the cab, venture out for a walk for a couple of KMS with the cab following us. We were finding the walks real dangerous and hazardous, due to a the pure oxyzen
around us(I think you guys will agree that we would suffocate to death without the dose of oxygen we get at bangalore gelled with different exotic monoxides). But we guys with determined resolve ignored the rain and the oxygen and walked these distances with ease. We were eventually on our way to Lakya dam and in between these we stopped at kadambi falls and a river side of tunga (Place was scenic but we do not have a name for this.not to worry guys we did pan, zoom & click at these places for you). Do not miss Kadambi falls if you are going this way. The Waterfall was full and looked exotic. We went down to the base of the fall but sadly
we could not use the cameras.

We reached Lakya Dam in the noon and ventured out for a walk on the dam.
For some reason there was no water in the dam. But Kudremukh with all the iron rich mountains looked outrageosuly beautiful from the Dam's view. We were not supposed to use the camera at the dam. So sorry guys no photos of this place. We spent some time at the dam and move towards Shringeri at 2 Pm. Between distances we would venture out for short walks and we did see a lot of small beautiful streams. We also donated some blood to few poor blood thirtsy leeches.

At Shringeri:

We reached shringeri at around 4 pm and searched for a lodge with a TV so that we could watch india's cricket match against SL. We found a room but there was no electricity in the whole of Shringeri. Might be due to the fallen electric poles we saw on the way. Electricity did come but unluckily we could not watch the match as the whole of shringeri did not have ten sports.(We do not know the reason which shringeri has banned this particular channel). We had lunch(meals) at a hotel nearby and took a quick nap for 3 hours and freshened up for the Evening visit to the temple at 7. We had a decent darshanam of the Goddess Shradamba and
spent some time in the temple. This temple has a history of hundreds of years(around 1500) and lates back to the time of adi shankara.

The Shiva temple here looks old & fabulous. We did some pan, zooms & clicks outside the temple and also visited the meditation place of the Mutt. It was really calm & Peaceful with the OMs echoing around the hall. We sat there for some time and moved back to the room for the Night's nap. Sorry guy, forgot the dinner we had at the temple premises. The food was good and as Shankar Says
"it's only in south Indian temples Devotees get Food for free to the devotees."So guys " This happens only in South India".

We chatted for a while and slowly our wickets started falling down one by one.
We had a peacefully night in the room enough though it was raining heavily outside.


Day 3 - 31st July Sunday Morning.

At Shringeri

We woke up EARLY in the morning and very ready for our advanture at 7:30. We went to the temple and clicked some snaps and we also had pan, zoom & clicks of us around the temple. We had a darshan of the Goddess and then strolled around the temple for sometime. We then went for breakfast at a hotel nearby suggested by Shankar and the food was real GOOD. We had a good breakfast and moved ahead towards Dharamasthala.

At Kigga

On our way to Dharamasthala, we went to temple called Kigga. This temple too lates back to the days even before the Ramayan and the place where the sage "Rushya Shrunga" was born. Thats the reason the place around is called Shrengeri. This temple like Kalsa looks Old & divine . The Priests there gave us a detailed Stala purana of this temple. We then had a darshana & archane of the dieties and left the temple in about 20 minutes. Guys, do visit this temple if you have time and are around Shringeri.

At Dharamastal

We then Travelled towards Dharamstala and reached there by 1:00 pm in the noon.
We had a decent Darshan of the lord Chandramouli(manjunatheswara) after standing in the line for around an hour. The day being a sunday, we could see veerendra Heggade performing tula-baraof some devotees with one of his younger brothers around him. We went for lunch at a mutt nearby with no hassles of standing in a line. After lunch we went to the bankside of river Nethravati and whiled away a little time of our watching the river flow at its fullest. We took some Photos around this place and then started towards Kukke Subrahmanya at 2:30 pm.

At kukke Subramanya:

We took to the road and moved towards kukke subramanya at the leisure speed we were maintaining through out the journey.We also had a couple of our mandatory stroll on the jungle roads and saw a lot of wild animals like buffaloes, cows, monkeys etc... As both the days were a weekend we could not see the other animals. on our way to kukke we did see a lot of streams flooding up to the brim of the bridges over them and it was lovely sight to watch the rivers flowing at tremendous speed under these rivers. When we reached kukke it was around 4 pm and with the rain accompanying us we visited the temple and had a darshan of the lord subrahmanyeswara. We also saw the river(stream) dakshina theerta and clicked some photos there. We visited the adi subrahmanyeswara temple also. We did not have much info of this temples. At 5 pm , we decided to move towards bangalore.

Towards Bangalore:

The road towards bangalore was blocked as one of the river was overflowing with water at 3 feet. So after much thought we decided to take a different route and go to bangalore. We went about asking & enquiring people on the road for the road which would lead us to Bangalore.We travelled for an extra 40 Kms(???) to reach our intended and we were back on track after minor setback. But we did enjoy the 40 odd extra kms we put due to scenic views we had in & around Panja. After this we had Tea & Snacks at a roadside hotel and were back on our journey. Tired we all Dozed off in the cab and when we were 45 kms away from bangalore suddenly we felt like the cab went over a rock.And the Vehichle started to shake, we stopped
the vehicle and got down to find a flat tyre.it seemed like the vehichle did not want
the journey to end.The driver and us tried to remove the tyre with the jack or other equipments but the tyre did not budge and we were stranded at this place over 2 hours until the owner of the cab turned up with somebody to help us change the tyre and put us back on track. We reached Shanks place at around 3 am and parted ways.

Guys, we had an excellent trip even with the rain pouring down during the entire journey. Hope you guys enjoy reading this log as we enjoyed the trip. Also hoping that we will be going on more trips like this and more people would join in.