Hogenakkal Falls - My Weekend getaway 2

[@400Kph]

Hi everybody.Here goes my second travelogue.My mom was visiting me from udupi and i wanted to take her somewhere as
she had not seen any places around bangalore.since i had already visited shivansamudra , we decided to visit Hogenakkal , a long pending trip i wanted to take.
I did some researching from Team-bhp blogs and google and decided to leave early in the morning.The google map showed the distance as 128 Kms if we take Hosur-Denkanikottai-Anchetti Route and as 165 Km if we take Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri route.Reading the blogs i got a feeling that the first route was OK since they menitoned the route was good and not so bad (Which was contradictory to what i experienced later).
I wanted to leave at 7:00 AM since i did not want to drive in the sun and wanted to reach the falls as soon as possible.But as with all indians we ended up leaving at 8:30.
So here goes the experience :


Route taken --> Signasandra-Hosur-Denkanikottai-Anchetti- Hogenakkal
car --> 2003 maruti 800 DX
number of people --> 3
Distance --> 120 Kms
Money spent --> 800 Rs (Petrol) + 20 Rs (Entrance fees) + 15 Rs (Parking) + 10 Rs (Supposedly Development fees)
duration --> 9 hours
Ideal Time --> Start of rainy season to see it from bottom , Peak of rainy season to watch it from the drop i.e at the top of the falls.
Ideal for -- > Large group, Family (If they can withstand the heat), Alone
My rating of the destination --> Coracle ride (5/5) , Falls (4/5) , Surrounding (2/5)

About the place -->
Hogenakkal Waterfalls often referred to as "Cauvery" or "Kavery" or "Kaveri" by locals and the people of Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts in tamilnadu, India where it is situated. Hogenakkal is also described as the 'Niagara' of India, offer an exciting holiday destination for Indians and foreigners alike. Hogenakkal is located about 750 feet above sea level amidst the Melagiri Hills. The route to Hogenakkal Falls is scenic, with lush mulberry fields and giant terracotta guardian deities (Aiyanars), as you approach Hogenakkal, the roar of the Cauvery river and the abundance of vegetation in the area is sure to catch your attention. Hogenakkal is a beautiful place with picturesque scenes (Excerpt from Internet).
IMO this place is little bit overhyped except for the coracle ride which was awesome.You will be breathless watching the falls up close from the Top when it is flowing with full intensity.

On the way to Hogenakkal -->
We started from Singasandra fully loaded with food since i had read that there are no good hotels or eateries at the spot.This is true if you are a vegetarian.However if you are non vegetarian you can manage without anything packed from home.I reached Hosur City and needless to say the road was good except some stretch inside karnataka where the Fly over work and road widening is going on.You can distinctly make out as soon as you cross Karnataka border by the quality of road.The stretch upto Hosur was really good with 4 lanes.I cruised at 100 Kph and reached hosur with minimum traffic early.You need to take the exit after the flyover as soon as you reach hosur city limits.I dont remeber a direction board but i had done the homework through Google maps.Hit the Railway station road.From there it was SH17.Since it was a state highway i did not expect the roads to be good
compared to the NH7.But to my surprise the road was well maintained and i was very happy.There was no traffic on that road and the weather was very pleasant.since it was state highway i did not want to travell at high speed since you can expect villagers to jump right in betwen the road with occasional Cows and JackAss coming in between .
It is a sigle straight road till anchetti.You will not be confused since i did not see any crossroads.All the milestones, road signs were in Tamil and i found this verrry frustrating.As i said luckily i did not run into
any crossroad else i would had to search for somebody to explain me the right way.I wish they had put all the directions in English.Maybe they are very proud of Tamil.
Anyways i reached anchetti with few stops in between for clicking photos of the beautifull fields and the landscape.You will encounter 3 or 4 downhills as in Ghat section and you may want to click few photos here as the view is beautifull.We saw some Seethaphal trees enroute and plucked few.
Sadly after ancehtti , the road uptill hogenakall was verry bad.Maybe it was damaged due to rains or it was ill maintained, i did not enjoy the ride even a little bit.Since it was a maruti 800 , the journey tiredness was quadrapuled due to the bad shockabsorber.So i wasted lot of time to cover the distance from anchetti to the falls which was roughly around 30 Km.You need to pay and sign at 2 registers enroute at 2 different places.Dont pay at the first stop since it is a bribe and i told him i dont want to pay since he was not giving any reciept.He grunted but let me go.At the second checkpost i got the reciept for 20 Rs.




At Hogenakkal -->
I feel that the main attraction at hogenakkal is the coracle ride to the edge of the falls from top rather than just wathcing the falls from the hanging bridge at the bottom.Just before 1.5 Km from the falls , you will find a right diversion where the Coracle ride to the top of the falls begins.
You can park your vehicle either at the private parking area , 10mins walk to falls or go till the Tamil nadu tourism maintained parking space ( Inside Hotel tamilnadu compund ).



You have two options of enjoying the falls which are listed below :

1) Take the right diversion mentioned above , park your vehicle there and negotiate for the coracle ride price which is typically around 200 Rs per person (Although they will quote 400 Per person) and take the coracle ride.The catch here is you will have to take a rickshaw ride or walk 1.5 Kms to the place where you have parked your car once your coracle ride is over.



2) Go to the TTD maintained parking area , negotiate for the corcale ride.But the catch here is you need to pay 100Rs for Rickshaw charge which will put the coracle on top of rickshaw and you will be taken to the right diversion menioned above. At the end of the coracle ride you will be left at the rickshaw boarding point i.e where you have parked the car.

As i had already done my homework i decided to park at TTD parking area since i thought i would get good deal for coracle ride over there instead at the top of the falls where the corale ride starts.I was able to negotiate for 600 Rs for 3 person , even though the coracle person needs 6 person in order to start the ride, he agreed after lot of persuasion.

The surrounding area as a whole i found to be ill maintained , lack of good hotels , poor cleanliness , lot of confusion since you will have no clue where to begin your exploration.I was totally confused and after
consulting with the local coracle person found that we have 2 options.You can take the coracle ride at the bottom for Rs50 and view the falls from bottom from certain distance. This is tamilnadu side falls.
Second option is you can take the coracle ride at the top where they will take you to the edge of the falls ( Karanatak Side falls ) and also you can take a dip in the water at some place.I found this to be intersting since i thought watching the falls from the top would be more exhilerating.True enough i had one hell of a view elaborated below.
You can also do both by first going for the Top ride and then go for the bottom ride at fixed price of Rs.50 Per person.I did only the top ride.

Coracle ride experience -->
Oh man !! this is the part i loved the most.This was my first time in a coracle and its simply amazing.We had to sit as per the direction from the rower so as not to tilt it one way and fall into the river !.My mom was particularly scared after seeing the currents.



The ride starts 1 Km from the falls and he will take you to the edged of the falls.You need to get down near the falls and take few steps on slippery rocks to go till the extreme end of the falls.Be very carefull as one wrong step might send you to one way trip to the heaven !.I am not kidding here.It was very scary but breathtaking at the same
time to watch the drop from that place .Now i understood why it is called hogenakkal since the water after hitting the bottom rocks created an impression that the rocks were literally giving out white smoke !.Taking snaps at this point was very risky and also the water droplets were constantly falling on the lens , fogging it.Still i managed to click some.Also please be carefull and keep all the electronics items inside a polythene bag because if you drop it in the water then say goodbye to it.The coracle will be leaky and water will get into the coracle easily.So people who think they will stay dry even though they dont plan to take a dip ,think again .There were many people in their own coracle ride at the same time and this created a kind of Coracle-Traffic-Jam. It was very funny with rowers guiding
their coracles skillfully and carefully.There were some currents on way which tilts the coracle and he skillfully avoids these currents.

YouTube - MOV01593

YouTube - MOV01603

Once you finish viewing the falls , he will take you to a place where you can take a bath if you feel like.I would advice you against doing so since the weater is not so clean and believe it or not people use shampoo and soap while taking the bath !!.Here itself you will get Oil massages from trained persons.I guess its some kind of auyverdic oil massage.
After this he will take you near the bottom of the falls i.e where the TTD parking space is.I deeply admire the rowers because the skill and the stamina with which he was rowing , i felt 200 Per person was very less.I tipped him 100 more for his effort and our coracle ride was over.
I dont think i can do justice to the ride, just by using some exclamation marks on this blog.You have to personally take it to believe it.I suggest you spend more time at the top of the falls than at the bottom.The water droplets hitting your face is more blissfull than you think.
My Mom was pretty tired after this ride and she did not want to take the bottom ride.Even i was very hungry since the ride lasted 2 hours and it was 3:00 PM.There is no good place to have your packed food at the spot hence we hit the road thinking we will stop somwhere else to have food.

Back to Bangalore -->
We made a quick stop , 10kms from the falls where the river was flowing calmly.We decided to have food and started unpacking.To my utter surprise there were few monkeys which were conviniently hiding inside the trees , one of which came barging at us and dirctly entered the car !!. I was freaked out and started yelling at it.It started to search for food.It did not find any open food items and took the tissue pack , smelled it and threw it away in anger (Maybe it uses a different brand ). It came out eventually and i packed everything , rolled up the windows and drove away and stopped at a place where there were no trouble makers.Please be warned of this as i found out later this is very common at that place.We had puliyogre and lays and started back our journey. There is nothing much to mention about the reuturn journey as it was uneventfull and we reached home at 6:30 PM.

It was a very different experience for me with the coracle ride, watching the falls upclose (Scary i would say) and the encounter with the monkey.
Thanks for reading and i hope you will get some usefull information from this travelogue.

[ravibhat]

Excellant report, I loved hogenkal in rains although coracle ride is risky when there is full slow of water. Water falls is very beautiful at the moment. I understand about heat, its very hot there. Good Tamil Nadu roads makes me feel revisit there again and again!

Regards,

Ravi.

[deky]

Are these things safe? No life jackets, no safety precautions? I would be definitely be scared to board one of these in flowing water.

Neverthless great write up, thanks for sharing.

[sabsubs]

Originally Posted by @400Kph

It is a sigle straight road till anchetti.You will not be confused since i did not see any crossroads.All the milestones, road signs were in Tamil and i found this verrry frustrating.As i said luckily i did not run into any crossroad else i would had to search for somebody to explain me the right way.I wish they had put all the directions in English.Maybe they are very proud of Tamil.

This happens everywhere. Even in Karnataka at some places I have seen only Kannada mentioned on the sign boards. Can't help it. You need to live with it. Every state is proud of it's state language

[@400Kph]

@ravibhat, I completely agree .Tamilnadu and kerala roads are awesome !!

@deky , True , its verry risky. Thats the reason my mom was so afraid. Especially when you stand near the top , it scared the hell out of me.I stood there only for 2 minutes.

@sabsubs, Ofcourse every state is proud of its mother tongue . No offense meant in my post.

[gomzi]

Originally Posted by deky

Are these things safe? No life jackets, no safety precautions?

+1 to those questions! heh, i'd logged on just to ask this question. It looks pretty unsafe to me, if there are no life jackets. They are life savers.

Nice write-up though, and good pictures too!

[Fordy]

I had been there and I say it is very scary. I would never try again. BTW did you take the same route while coming or the KrishnaGiri route?

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by deky

Are these things safe? No life jackets, no safety precautions? I would be definitely be scared to board one of these in flowing water.

deky this is one of the worst tourist locations which is shabbily maintained and the crowd is the el-cheapo types. Youngsters come here drink, break bottles and discard them into the water, pass lewd comments at women and what not.Only reason why you should be here is to admire the beauty of this place,coracle ride and the masseur's who provide an excellent massage.

[@400Kph]

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

deky this is one of the worst tourist locations which is shabbily maintained and the crowd is the el-cheapo types. Youngsters come here drink, break bottles and discard them into the water, pass lewd comments at women and what not.Only reason why you should be here is to admire the beauty of this place,coracle ride and the masseur's who provide an excellent massage.

+1 to that !!. As i mentioned it is very ill maintained and also my reason for giving 2/5 rating for the surrounding and 5/5 for coracles

[snaronikar]

Deky & Gozmi: Looks like you people have not rode/travelled in this. It is so exiting, fun and thrilling. Yes, there are no life savers..so what? It is meant for the people who wants to ride in coracles in other words people who wants to take risks. I had been to this place couple of times and I did not feel anything as such. Even my wifey liked this..It depends on person to person and that's it.

Its a nice writeup and good pics. Post some more if you have.

[joecherian]

Originally Posted by @400Kph

Route taken --> Signasandra-Hosur-Denkanikottai-Anchetti- Hogenakkal
car --> 2003 maruti 800 DX

Did you go through Pennagaram or is there a route from Anchetti directly to Hogenakkal ? I thought the correct route would be Denkinikottai > Anchetti > Pennagaram > Hoganekkal ? Which route did you take for the return journey ?

[srishiva]

The place is not well maintained and smells.

But the falls itself when there is lots of water is really beautiful.

[Gandhi]

Nicely written Travelogue.

The falls do seem scary.

[@400Kph]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Nicely written Travelogue.

thanks gandhi even though its scary , its worth trying as you can see from the snaps.

[k149in]

It would be nice if you can confirm if you actually took the route Anchetti-> Pennaguram in reaching hogenakkal and if this is the route that you have confirmed to be in bad shape at the moment. Can you also let know how much time did it take to cover this particular stretch?