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-   -   Heat, Humidity, a Tortoise & a Stove – March 20-21, 2010 – A Trekkalog (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/79517-heat-humidity-tortoise-stove-march-20-21-2010-trekkalog-4.html)

lovely travelogue , enjoyed it throughly , thanks for sharing :thumbs up

Fantastic Travelogue Addy.Really deserves a *****. May be we can plan a Team BHP trek under your guidance. By the way nice to see fog in the middle of hot Indian summer.

Casio has some G shock wathes which show Altitude and act as a Barometer.
PROFESSIONAL SERIES - G-SHOCK - Watches - CASIO

Kudos mate, that's a fantastic writeup. I enjoyed reading every bit of it.

thats a nice travelogue and an excellent narrative. Good place to trek i guess.

Thanks Schumi, even i enjoyed sharing my experiences

OT: Why r u still holding a Punto? Shouldn't you be using a Mercedes now?:D

Thanks MCR. We can definitely plan out a trek.

Under my guidance??lol: You must be joking, right?

The watches look good, but I guess they will be expensive

Thanks guys. It surely is a lovely place to trek. I'm happy you guys enjoyed it. There's still one part to come.

Awesome thread!
The closes I have been to trekking is to ride an HM trekker in 80s. :D
5 Stars!

Nice trekkalog,
you are my kind of trekker,
i also need that altimeter, @ mx6, if you find that anywhere, just pm me.

Again, monsoon and trek, not so good timing though weather is good.

Lovely. BTW is there a thread anywhere compiling list of all treks available with rating on toughness scale? Any one to start such a thread?

Atlast you came up with the travelog, rather it should be called TREKALOG ;-)
Fantastic narration and equally good pics.
I know you have done the YEDAKUMARI trek too, why not open a thread on the same.

Thanks sen2009.

:uncontrol

Thanks Ashish,

I'd suggest you take a look at the meter before you buy. eBay is very misleading on quality. Even though I paid 1.5k against a listed price of 3k, I felt even that was a waste after seeing the quality.

Ideally, the post monsoon period is the best time to trek. But, monsoon too has its own charm & challenge.:)

Thanks sudev. Good idea. But I guess, my perception of toughness could be different from others even if it is for the same location. It might just add to confusion.

Thanks sush,

Hmmm, now that you have reminded me, maybe, I can start that too. Let's see when I can do that.

The next morning.....

It was not actually chilly when we slept, but by the time we woke up in the morning, it was pretty cold. Good thing we had our sleeping bags. We woke up at 6.30 and went to the eastern part of the mountain to view the sunrise. We waited and waited and waited for the sunrise. Slowly, the sun started coming out behind Ettina Bhuja. The weather was just lovely.


The first pic of the morning






We clicked a few pics here and came back to the campsite. Chennappa had prepared some black tea by that time. We had the black tea and watched the sun rise over the Ettina Bhuja peak. It was a bit hazy at the time and could not get the perfect view. But hey, the view was still worth the effort we put in the previous day.


The sun as viewed from the campsite




After the sunrise, we immediately packed all our things and got ready. It was still early (I forgot the time). Initially, we had thought of cooking breakfast and then starting down. But, Chennappa said, that if we leave early, we can reach Shishila by breakfast time.

So, we chucked the idea of cooking and started down towards Shishila, hoping to reach there as early as possible to have breakfast.

The peak in the morning sun


Climbing down the treacherous rocks





Boy!!! Climbing down is not too easy at all. Our feet were hurting pretty badly. Although our shoes had ABS (read as good grip), the brakes did fail a couple of times due to overheating:D. So, we had to take breaks to cool down the brakes!!! As soon as we were near the base of the mountain, we were near elephant territory. A few elephants had passed by the route which we had taken the previous day.We walked non stop to enter the canopy. Just after we entered the canopy, we started to feel the effects of humidity. Somehow, we picked up pace and hurtled towards Shishila.




The last view of Amedikallu


I was leading the way and missed the trail at a couple of places. There are many trails cris-crossing this area and it is easy to get confused. The guide had to call me back and show the right direction.

We were moving pretty fast and suddenly we heard a big sound of a branch breaking off a tree somewhere to our left. I immediately, thought "Oh s***, it's an elephant". I was getting ready to drop my bag and run. I had already unhooked the clips on the bag. Just then, we all stood still for a minute. Again suddenly we heard a sound. This time we were relieved because it was nothing but a Sambar deer running away from us.

Finally, we reached Kombaru at 10 am and the auto was supposed to pick us up from there. But, the auto wasn’t there and Channappa went to his relative's house there to call for the auto. The auto came & we went to a hotel in Shishila for breakfast. We had nice idlies and Uthappam for breakfast. Then we went to the Shishileshwara temple for darshan.

Waiting for the auto

A dried up stream

In the auto


Shishileshwara temple is nestled on the banks of the Kapila river/Shishila river. The area around the temple is notified as a fish sanctuary. Fishing is prohibited within a radius of 2 kms around the temple. Those who have seen Sringeri, may remember the fish in the river Tunga. The same types of fish are seen in the Shishileshwara temple. We bought 250 gms of rice and fed the fish resulting in a feeding frenzy. For more info on the Shishileshwara temple, check out the following link.

http://www.shishileshwara.templeinfo.in/routemap.htm

Shishileshwara temple


The fish in the temple


The Shishila river


The route back

Wide enough only for an auto


Then, we got back into the auto and went back to Mr.Gokhale’s house. We dumped our bags and headed to the river to take a bath. After a refreshing bath, we were treated to a simple but sumptuous lunch, rice with jackfruit sambar known in kannada as ‘Halasinakaayi saaru’.

We had planned to take the 3.40 bus to Kokkada and catch another bus to Dhamasthala. After lunch, we started calculating the expenses for the trip. To our horror, my friend had not brought any money. I thought that he had money with him he thought that I had got money. I had just 1k with me and we had to pay the auto guy, Mr.Gokhale and Chennappa and still have some money to pay for the bus tickets to Dharmasthala. We paid the auto guy Rs.150, had to pay 600 to Chennappa and 400 to Gokhale.

There was no ATM nearby, and the closest ATM would be in Dharmasthala. So, we asked Chennappa to accompany us till Dharmasthala. He agreed, but we had to leave with the next bus so that he could come back before the last bus to Shishila leaves.

We slept for an hour and got into the 2.45 pm bus to Mangalore. This bus goes through Kokkada, Nelyadi, Uppinangadi and BC Road to reach Mangalore. But, since we had already booked tickets to Bangalore from Dharmasthala, we got down at Kokkada. From Kokkada, we caught another bus to Dharmasthala and reached at 4 pm.

Immediately we went to an ATM and withdrew money to pay Chennappa. He left immediately as he had to catch a bus back to Kokkada. In Dharmasthala, we checked into the Sharavathi guest house (choultry) which is quite far from the temple & the main street. The rooms resembled a jail cell more than a choultry room.

We dumped our backpacks in the room and headed out to explore Dharmasthala. We went to the car museum. They really have a very good collection. This was the first time I had ever seen vintage cars and was surprised to see that they were very very huge. We roamed around a bit and went back to the room and slept for an hour or so. Got up, had dinner and went to the old bus stand to catch a bus to the new bus stand. But, we missed the bus and had no time to wait for the next one. So, we had to do another small trek to reach the new bus stand and catch the Bangalore bus.

We caught the bus right on time and made our way back to Bangalore. We were very tired, so we catch up on our sleep very quickly and by the time we woke up, we were already in Bangalore.

Pictures of the map we had taken



Finally, a panorama from the peak



That was the end of a lovely weekend. Hope you guys enjoyed the trip. Cheers!!!

Great Trekkalog & very well written. Thanks for sharing!

~Gops

Again nice photos. Do they allow fishing there? anyone can demonstrate fishing expertize there, even with bare hands :uncontrol

Have you two heard about a great carnivorous creature from hell called the "leech"?

Addy,

as i said before great trek, morning photographs have come nice
which camera you used during the trek ?

the thing with the money is very common when friends go on the trip/trek.

Everyone thinks someone would pay, someone would think anyone would pay, anyone would think every one should have paid, eventually no one pays

it is good of your guide to travel with you to Dharmastala to collect his money. it was only possible because he was a guy fromt he village. if he would have been a city guy it would have been difficult for you.

any way great experience, thanks for sharing