The endless monotony of a routinely drab Bangalore work life compelled me to look for a weekend retreat away from civilization. The idea germinated on Wednesday(1st Jun,05) and any trek had to be done by the same weekend before the pending monsoons(due to arrive on 7th) made it impossible for the next few months.
So I contemplated a host of destinations, each 1 of which got cancelled due to some reason or the other – BR hills and Bandipur due to the inability to camp out, and then Kudremukh had to be cancelled due to Naxalite combing operations in full swing; just then on Thursday night a very helpful Mr. Madhusudan from Woody Adventures (woodyadventures.com) came to my rescue and suggested Tadiyandamol peak in Coorg.
Though the original plan was to catch the last Volvo on Fri night(as most ppl do), yet the unavailability of tickets for Fri turned to be a blessing in disguise, since it saved us from starting the trek in the hot early afternoon, and making to the top with the sun blazing with it’s wholesome fury.
So on Sat morning me and my 3 friends- Ratnakar Sinha, Jeetendra Melwani and Anantha started off at 5:45 am sharp.
We reached Virajpet at 12:00 and spent the next hour shopping for Bread, biscuits, booze etc. (we could not find butter anywhere here ! ) then had our lunch, and then caught a taxi to Kakkabe. It’s important to note here that you should buy whatever you need from from Virajpet itself, since hardly anything is available in Kakkabe.(mercifully water was available)
We saved 4 worthless kms of steep road climb as the taxi dropped us right to the foot of the trek at the palace lodge. We decided to drop a few unnecessary things in a house just next to the lodge(the old lady was really helpful) and then finally started off on the trek at 2:45 pm.
The initial stretch is relatively boring as it took us through a km of road upto a fork from where a jeep track began. Here we took the right side of the track which again led to a 2nd fork some distance ahead. This time we took the steeper left track and from here the foliage got more dense and definitely more interesting. We hardly took any breaks and carried the heavy tent by taking turns among each other.
Now at 5:30 pm we reached a really beautiful landscape with open grassland on either side and a huge rock on the left, and from here the track again forked into two, with the left going inside thick jungle and the right going further uphill. We decided to take the left this time to discover a bit in the jungle, and lo and behold, we reached a fresh water stream! Since our water resources were already almost depleted, we decided to drink to our fulfillment here, as the water at this height should be free from any contamination. Beware of the blood sucking leeches inside this forest trail – there were hundreds of them on the sides. An excellent way to get them off is to either sprinkle some salt on them or spray a Deodorant.
So after refilling our bottles we got back on the track and trudged further up the previous trail, but at around 6 pm there were clouds all around the area so we decided to pitch the tent for the night in an open area nearby and to reach for the top in the morning.
Now this part was the most exciting for me, since this was the 1st time I was staying out in the wild. Jeetu was the only 1 among us who knew how to put up a tent so the rest of us helped him with it. As soon as it was done we threw our backpacks inside to prevent it from being blown away in the wind. Now we all started off to hunt for some firewood, luckily there was a bush nearby and we got enough to last us 2 hours. Starting the fire could’ve been a problem due to the intense dew in the air (our hair looked thoroughly gelled) , had we not had the foresight to buy some diesel from virajpet.
Now we 1st had sumthing to munch – a few packs of biscuits and chocolates, and then decided to have the vodka near the bonfire.
As the sun set it got really cold with clouds covering us all around….the bonfire was very helpful 2 warm up now…..and getting ‘high’ in such an environment is a different feeling altogether – no words can do justice to it’s description.
After about an hour and a half of boozing and chatting aimlessly, it started to drizzle outside so we decided to get in. The tent was so cozy that it completely stopped the wind and cold out (though the space was a little cramped for 4 people) and we lit a candle for some candlelight dinner. Since we had 2 loaves of bread and some local namkeen (neither branded namkeen nor butter was available at Kakkabe), we decided to use the namkeen as the stuffing for our sandwiches. Jeetu’s spicy and delicious sauce saved the day here as we used it to garnish our dinner. After some more healthy banter we decided to have the lights out at 10 pm. Sleeping was a little difficult because of the uneven ground underneath and the a little leg space, yet the day’s efforts sent us all into a deep slumber in no time.
The funniest part was when one of us(let’s not say who :-P ) had to take a leak at night and had to wake the others up, since it was pitch dark outside( it was a moonless night- maybe amavasya) and the other person had to hold the torch while he relieved himself.
The next morning we got up at around 7:30 am( too bad i missed the sunrise but according to anantha it was cloudy earlier) and decided to leave our bags in the tent and climb to the top.
What we had anticipated as a 15-20 minutes climb turned out to be almost an hour more of tough trekking.
We started at 8 am and almost immediately we entered a very dense patch of forest. We tried to cover this part non-stop since it would surely have been full of leeches. As soon as we crossed this we were again in the open grassland and now was the steepest climb of the trek.
Finally at around 9 am we reached the summit and we all felt as if we’d climbed Everest or something! We spent half an hour admiring the scenery all around as we could see clouds and all other peaks at a level lower from us.
After taking in those beautiful sights we started downwards and reached our tent in about half an hour. Here I discovered 2 leeches on my socks and immediately removed them with the salt while Ratnakar had already been sucked on by a leech and his foot was still oozing blood – he used some Savlon and Bandage to cover it.
Anyways we packed the tent, collected the empty bottles and plastic wrappers, bid a goodbye to the peak and started our way down. The trek downhill seemed easier than the way up, though we had to be more careful to control our pace since one could easily slip or sprain an ankle.
As we reached the big rock we again stopped and refilled our bottles from the stream in the jungle. Then we paused by the rock to have breakfast with the remaining bread.
When we started again we met a hunter carrying a rifle and some wild hunting dogs, and he told us that there were tigers and wild animals in the jungle, though they rarely came out. I don’t know if he was telling the truth but it surely sent a chill among us.
Anyways from here it was an uneventful trek down to the foot of the hill where we decided to stop at one King’s lodge for some tasty Coorgy lunch.
After this we were told there were no more buses to Virajpet for an hour, so we took a bus to Madikeri. Even there the buses to Bangalore were full so we took a bus to Mysore and then reached Bangalore at 1:30 at night.
All in all it was an amazing trip and I would highly recommend it for anybody looking for a refreshing weekend break from Bangalore!
