7th June 2011, 02:43
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| BHPian  | Of Beaches, Waterfalls, Rivers, Forests - All in 2 days Before I start my travelogue, let me mention that this trip was done in February 2011. We had done innumerable trips on the Safari. But come March, the safari is going to be a city dweller for a long time due to 3 reasons.
But the first two reasons are enough for us to take the White beast out on the highway again. No Plans were made, no preparations were done but we had only one thing in mind – a road journey The beginning: 11 AM Friday: Six of us met Friday for lunch and it was decided we had to go out. Each one had a different choice of destination. One wanted to go to forests, the other wanted to see waterfalls while some of us wanted to spend some time at the beach and the rest wanted to swim in a river. But none of us were ready to compromise. This means only one thing. Beaches, waterfalls, rivers and forests - everything must fall in the itinerary. And all of it is limited by time. Monday everyone must be in the office at 10 AM. 1 PM Friday: The Planned Itenerary (Based on Team-bhp inputs and google maps) Leave at 3 PM Head straight to Karwar. (Would reach there by 3 AM or so.) Take a beach hotel. Sleep for a couple of hours. Spend time at beach. Leave at 10 AM to Jog Falls Reach Jog Falls by 4 PM. spend 5 to 6 hours there and leave for Agumbe Reach Agumbe by early morning 3 AM. Take rest. Get into the forests and rivers close by. Enjoy the stay there and leave for Hyderabad by 7 PM. Reach Hyderabad at 8 AM. I immediately called ExtremeTorque for information on routes and stay at Agumbe. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...mpt-ruins.html The above travelogue from ExtremeTorque was part of the reason why we did not want to miss out on JogFalls and Agumbe. Thanks a lot to him. I did not personally call him and thank him after the trip. ‘Sorry about that as I lost your phone number’. This plan to me when I think now is practically impossible as it did not take into account lunch/breakfast/dinner breaks, neither did it take into account the time we would spend at every beautiful place enroute. Also with only 2 out of 6 people who can drive, this would be extremely exhausting. We had done many exhausting trips but this over the limit for us. This we discovered on Monday at the office. Every minute at the office was a nightmare. All of us just wanted to go home and crash on our lovely welcoming beds. Some of us did get lucky by escaping office, but most of us had the stupid timelines to meet. Needless to say now that the above itinerary was an utter failure, but we covered everything we wanted – Beaches, waterfalls, forests and rivers. Below are some of the pics for the start The Beach  The Waterfall  The River  And the Forest  |
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7th June 2011, 09:44
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| BHPian Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Goa
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7th June 2011, 09:52
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7th June 2011, 15:21
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| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Bangalore
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7th June 2011, 15:32
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| BHPian  Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Highway
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8th June 2011, 01:10
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| BHPian | Re: Of Beaches, Waterfalls, Rivers, Forests - All in 2 days And so we started our journey Route to Karwar: Hyderabad – Jadcherla (NH7) – Palamooru (Mahbubnagar) - Raichur – Gangawati – Gadag – Dharwad (Hubli) – Karwar The NH7 is a treat to drive on, but this drive was short lived as we had to take a diversion at Jadcherla to Mahbubnagar. The rest of the route was two laned. The road upto Plamooru is in good condition. But make sure to drive carefully on this route as it is quite a twisty narrow road. At one place, we could not judge the curve properly. So we entered the curve at a much higher speed than required. And Safari being an excellent handler (pun intended), we managed to drift the vehicle. Quite a scary moment for us, especially for the last row. Overall the road condition is pretty good except for a small stretch after Gangawati (Do not remember the exact place). The total drive comes out to be around 700 odd kms and it was done in a little over 12 hours. Since most of the drive was at night, there were not too many places we could stop enroute. Night journey comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage being, it will be quicker to drive, especially near towns and villages which during day time, we will invariably loose an immense amount of time. The disadvantages include heavy truck traffic, dangers from dacoits (though not so much relevant in most of routes in south India now a days) along with the dangers arising from sleepiness. However, I really enjoyed the last stretch to Karwar. It had potholes, but overall it was a treat to drive to Karwar. A couple of Pics on the Onward Journey The Narrow 2 lane route near Palamooru. It is in good condition though with the odd pot holes  Thermal plant near Raichur  We finally reached Karwar in the night at 3 AM. Luckily we found a decent hotel at this insane time which is right near the beach. This hotel is right after the port as we continue on the highway. It is not necessary to go inside the Karwar town. Our plan was to get up at 5 or 6 Am and enjoy the beach. But this plan was a failure. Only one of us woke up and the rest did not even bulge.The lone person who woke up had the enthusiasm to go onto the beach and click some snaps. Early morning Beach view - Calm and serene  Just before the sun rise. Wrong place to see the sun rise. The West coast is mostly for sunset. But the sunrise anywhere is an awesome sight in itself.  Very fine sand at the Karwar beach, still unspoilt by commercial tourism.  We have got to respect the discipline of the fishermen. They wake up every day at 4 AM. Waking up at 8 AM on one day is a distant dream for all of us. Let alone 4 AM. One such fisherman on his way to work  The rest of us gradually woke up at 8 AM. The first glimpses of beach were magnificent. One one side of Karwar is this magnificent Arabian sea  and on the other side are the majestic Western Ghats.  The hotel is right beside this highway road somewhere before the Devbagh resort.  All of us went straight to the beach immediately after breakfast. The waters here are not harsh and one can go quite a lot inside the waters. This is very unlike the Bay of Bengal where the waters are quite rough. Moreover the depth of water in Bay of Bengal increases quite rapidly which is completely in contrast with the Arabian sea where depth of water increases at a much gradual rate. That said, I would advise some caution for the people going into the waters in Karwar. Any unknown water body for that matter is quite dangerous to get into and proper information needs to be gathered before anyone attempts to go deep into the sea. Enough of the details and I will let the pics do the talking. All of us checking the beach before plunging into the waters  The mild and shallow waters allows us to go quite deep inside  Another view of the sea  The following photographs are some from the newbie photographers among us. I will be glad to hear expert comments on the picture quality. Any other advice on how to take the same pictures in a better way are truly welcome. Lovely fine sand on the beach. As I mentioned earlier, this is amongst the finest beaches i have ever seen.  A bunch of Sea Shells  A crab with eyes wide open  Lovely Flowers - 1  Lovely Flowers - 2  One of the best pics from Nikon D3100. This camera is truly powerful.  And finally, one of my favorite pics. But, I cannot pinpoint on the reason for liking it so much.  Last edited by himavanth_m : 8th June 2011 at 01:14. |
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8th June 2011, 06:19
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| BHPian  Join Date: May 2011 Location: Bangalore
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10th June 2011, 03:45
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| BHPian | Re: Of Beaches, Waterfalls, Rivers, Forests - All in 2 days We had some lovely time at the beach. After coming back from beach, we were raring to go our next destination. We started towards Jog falls at around noon. Some pics of the drive through the twisty road   The original route planned: Karwar – Ankola – Kumta – Take a diversion near Kumta towards the state highway (Kumta Siddapura road) – Mavingudi – Jog falls The above route was shown in Google maps. The drive was so splendid on the NH17 that we missed the diversion near Kumta.Additionally, none of the local people seem to know the route to Jog Falls.If one looks at the Google maps on the aforementioned route, there are no villages mentioned apart from Mavingudi after the Kumta. Luckily for us we had the print out of the maps and decided we will now take diversion at Honavar as it was a highway. So we continued on NH17 upto Honavar, and then took the NH206 to Mavingudi. This confusion in the route caused further delay in our plans. Hence we finally reached jog falls at 6 in the evening. The 150 odd kms journey which was supposed to take no more than 4 hours, took us 6 hours to reach. This includes break for some snacks etc. The last leg of the drive is over a bridge that heads towards jog falls. We stopped here and took some pictures before starting our last lap to the Falls. A view of the west side of the bridge to Jog falls. Beautiful sunset near Jog Falls  The Bridge that leads to Jog Falls  The other side of the Sunset. View of the Eastern side of the Bridge.  Quite frankly, Jog Falls was disappointing in February with minimal water. But it was Majestic none the less. The height from which the water falls is quite amazing. Just imagining to be at the bottom of the falls when the water is in full force sends shivers down the spine. Truly incredible. But the truth is, it was nowhere as beautiful as in the pics of travelogue by ExtremeTorque. We decided to skip going down the bottom of the jog falls. Moreover, it was getting dark. So there was lack of time as well. Added to that, there was no point staying there as there was pretty much nothing to do. A view of the Majestic Jog Falls during the dry season.Notice the small building at the top left corner of the picture  A zoomed view of the building from previous pic right on top of Jog falls. I would like to stay at this place when Jog Falls is full of water  Another view of the Jog falls before signing off from this place  So we decided that we would straight to Agumbe by night. Then came the shock for us when we met a policeman there. Us: How much time will it take to reach Agumbe? Policeman: Laughs. Agumbe Us: Yes Agumbe, we want to go there now. Policeman: Laughs again. Easily 4 to 5 hours. Us: Ok Thank you very much Policeman: Wait, but why do you want to go there at this time? Us: We want to visit the 2nd wettest place. Go into the jungles. See the rainfall research centre and so on. (We used all our knowledge of Agumbe and gave him a dose of Wikipedia about that place) Policeman: Did you say you want to go into jungles and drive down there now? Us: Yes. Policeman: Are you crazy? They will shoot you!!!!! Us: !#@$##@# What are you talking? Who will shoot us? Policeman: It is an agency area(Naxal infected area). Do not travel in those areas at this time. If you miss any turn and go into jungles by mistake, police or naxalites can shoot you. Stay at Anandapuram at night and go to Agumbe next morning. Us: Thanks for the information. But let me clarify here, Agumbe is not dangerous to go. The police people just exaggerate always about such things. There were some naxalite activities going on there, but not anymore. However, if you are travelling with wife and kids, to be on the safe side do not travel at night into these forests. Anyway, this came as a shock to us. The policeman we talked made it out to be a very serious issue and looking at his reactions we were scared now to go to Agumbe. But this scary feeling also led us to a sense of adventure and excitement. We decided we will head towards Agumbe in the night and once we feel it is too dangerous we will look for a roadside hotel and stay put there. We were so foolish, that we expected we can find hotels midway in forests. The only good thing we did before starting is that we ensured that we knew the exact route and all village names enroute by talking to the local people. Jog falls – Sagar – Ullur – Anandapuram (Take a right here) and leave NH206 – Gathikere – Thirthahalli – Guddekeri – Agumbe . There are no pictures of this journey, but the road on NH206 is quite good. The road after Anandapuram was also in good condition. Once we reached Anandapuram, we decided we will dare to go further even though the police advised us not to for the second time. By the time we reached Thirtahalli it was quite late (Around 9:30 PM). We asked another police officer here and he too informed that there is nothing to do there now and it is not advisable to go there. 3 people scaring us in a row did not seem like a coincidence. Heading further into the unknown roads and forests just seemed too risky. So we started looking for accommodation for the night. At Thirthahalli, there were a couple of lodges that we saw and they were pretty shabby to be frank. We went to a hotel for dinner and the hotel owner started talking to us.He confirmed that it is infact an agency area but it is quite safe to go there even at night and the police just exaggerate the things. The biggest learning we got on this trip was 'Never ask a Policeman for routes. He will either rob some money from you seeing an outstation vehicle or exaggerate things and make sure that you are afraid.' However, the discussion with the hotel owner was the best thing that happened to us as he informed us about a great resort of some type in Thirthahalli itself where we can do many more activities than we would at Agumbe. Also if we dint like, we can head to Agumbe. We headed towards this resort at nowhere in hope to find a decent place to stay for the night. This place is supposed to be 20 kms from Thirthahalli, and it is supposed to go through the jungle and Katcha roads. As per his directions we kept going on and on and on. After sometime we realized that we had come 30 kms inside the jungles. There was no one around. Our cell phones had no signal. Suddenly the road gets narrower and narrower. The right side of the road had a rows of tall trees(like a wall) and to the left side there is a stream flowing. To add to all this, there is loose mud on left side of the road. One side tyres have to go on this surface as the road is very very narrow. Add the humungous safari dimensions (especially the width) and we realized we were in a spot of bother. If the mud fails, we will be heading straight into the stream below (Do not expect a huge valley that can take lives, but if we are down, well we will be stuck there for night). What we also realized is that the closest village that we left behind was about 10 kms back. As if this is not enough, our brain started to work. All we could remember is 'They will shoot you' or 'It is an naxalite area' etc from the policeman earlier. Now we all started to get worried. And to be frank, very very scared. Since we are not sure how far in front the next village is, we decided to go back 10 kms where we saw a village. Once in the village our plan was to check for some local people and request them to make a call for us to the resort guys. Oh wait, we cannot do a U-turn now. The road is just too narrow. There was nothing else we could do but go straight. We drove on for another 2kms. And there we found the narrow road opening a bit wide and there we did the U-turn. Again carefully drove the Safari back in the same route. I did not care if safari had scratches on one side, but I wanted to be as away from the loose mud as possible. This whole journey was just 20 kms in the jungle road but it took more than an hour to reach the village back. This seemed like an eternity for us. Once we reached the village (Gadag if I remember correctly), we saw something that we never expected. We found some Sadhus out of nowhere staying in a small room and the most surprising this is they had BSNL cellphones which had signals. We used their phones and called the resort guy and we told him, we are not moving an inch from this place and he would have to come here and guide us to his resort. Also while waiting for the resort guy, I made sure that all of us were locked inside the Safari, I put the safari in 1st gear in anticipation to run away incase anything unexpected happens suddenly. After a long wait of 15 minutes(which again seemed like an eternity), he finally emerged in a crystal white Ford Fusion which is in the best possible condition. (wow I was surprised with his choice of vehicle and the way he maintained it, but I guess it suits his needs). We realized that we took the wrong ‘Right’ turn at the junction while following him. In another 15 minutes, we were at his resort. And boy oh boy, the resort is one of the finest places according to me and to find it at such unexpected time and unexpected place especially after seeing some worthless lodges at Thirthahalli and all the scary moments we faced, it was nothing short of a Miracle for us. The resort person’s name is Nischal and the resort name is Kolawara resort. It is more of a homestay maintained by Nischal and his family. At that time, it costed us 2500 Rs for the 6 of us which we felt was very reasonable. Link for the homestay at Thirthahalli Kolavara Heritage- now, holidays have a new meaning. The rooms are in great condition and it is an excellent property. Apparently many people from Bangalore come over there for weekends. At the resort. After the scary moments we had, everything looked scary, event at the resort.Even this harmless piece of metal  The very useful hammock for a quick nap.  We spent the rest of the night at the resort playing poker for fun and discussing some of the scary moments. We headed to bed really late in the night and thanking GOD many times. But the next day morning what we saw of the resort truly amazed us. The below pic is what we saw First view of the beautiful resort in the morning.  More pics of Thirthahalli and the river in the next post. |
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21st June 2011, 01:46
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| BHPian | Re: Of Beaches, Waterfalls, Rivers, Forests - All in 2 days Sorry for the delay in completing the travelogue. Another trip to Munnar is the culprit The next morning we got up, we were pleasantly surprised by the surroundings. The Kalavar resort is quite neat and clean. Some pics of the resort below First view in the morning from the room  Entrance to the resort  Dining area  Neat tidy rooms  Safari resting in the parking spot.  Around Thirthahalli there are various places where people can go and trek. There is an elephant training camp and most importantly a River. Since we wanted to go to the river, we decided to skip other activities and just go to the river. Thirthahalli is on the banks of river Tunga. The road to the river is just a normal village road.  Narrow roads with farms on either side.   The narrow road opens up into the river.  Since we went in February, the water was just subsiding. We were informed that if we visited during the summers, the river would be much shallow and it would be possible to cross the river in a safari. As such, the water was not rough and it was perfect for us as we all could go inside and have a nice dip. The river was quite shallow in February and we can reach the other bank of the river by walking inside the river. The beautiful river.  The perfect setting for a quick dip. A dip in this water was enough to refresh us all.  Due to the lack of time, we decided to skip other activities at Thirthahalli and leave for Hyderabad. Such narrow roads imply difficulty in doing U turns in a Safari  A little care is advised as there are quite a few snakes around here. One of us spotted a snake while reversing the car and needless to say, everyone jumped inside the car and headed straight to the resort. It was a green snake and it fell from the branch of a tree on the ground. I am not a wildlife expert to comment on the species of it or whether it was poisonous or not. Yes, this is the home stay.  Simply Perfect  Now we have covered it all, the beach, the forest, the river, and a waterfall. Lack of time, Lack of time and lack of time was the only thing that was in our head. We had office on Monday. It was already 12 Noon at Thirthahalli ( A place 800 odd kms away from Hyderabad). Time for return. Since we wanted to make the most of Sunday as well, we decided to reach Hyderabad via Chickmagalur and visit some coffee plantations if possible and reach Hyderabad by 3 AM. Another plan that failed. Even though we missed the 4 AM mark by a huge margin, it was totally worth going through the Chikmagalur route. The pics below are enough to suggest that Beautiful route to Chikmagalur from Thirthahalli       The route we took was via Koppa, Sringery , Chikmagalur. I forgot the rest of the places enroute. On the way, we found a coffee plantation where we also could have a quick snack. The coffee plantations  Coffee seeds  Photography!!!!!   I enjoy taking the pics of the Safari. It is just unbelievable how good it looks at any place.  Sunset at Chikmagalur  Now it was time to reach Hyderabad. We decided to take the following route to Hyderabad. Chikmagalur - Chitradurga - Bellary - Guntakal - Gooty - Hyderabad. Closer to Chikmagalur, the road was quite good. Some snaps.   We knew that the route was very bad. But I was not sure of an alternative route which was going to be very good without too much addition to Kms. We had an option of going via Bangalore, but we decided not to do it as it would mean another additional 150 kms. I was so confident that the 150 kms of good road would not offset the bad route of the Chitradurga. And we were mistaken. The return trip was full of going through bad roads/no roads. We could hardly maintain 30 kmph top speed, forget about even average. And these stretches were really long. Additionally we did not know where we were and neither did the locals knew the roads to the next town that we were asking. In addition to all this, there were innumerable times where we went on wrong routes. This wasted a lot of time and by the time we were on NH7, it was 7 AM, i.e at Gooty. And we still had 300 more kms to cover. Beautiful NH7. But we were very tired and were in no position to enjoy the morning.  This was an absolute horror to each and everyone of us and we were helpless. We had to go to office and work. That is what pays for these trips. We finally reached homes and offices at around 1 PM. And needless to mention everyone was very tired. I still do not know how half of my meetings went and how half of the day went away in daze and drowsiness. Overall the trip was a great experience. Will we do such trips again - There are no second thoughts to this question. Yes we will in future as well. And if I may add, we already managed to pull of a similar trip to Munnar where the planning went horribly gone wrong even after considering a 24 hour buffer in overall travel time. I guess for some people, the plan for a trip never works out, but somehow, the travel becomes just as much fun and just as much interesting. |
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