A blog of my feelings…ranging from commenting about other's blogs to commenting about stuff which happens in life and from posting mails which I like, to ranting on stuff.

This was a trek that I would probably never forget.. Just the second trek of my life.. and the first after being employed – can you imagine? The first trek after 7 frikkin years of earning!!!

My first trek was the famous “Green Route” between Kukke Subramanya Rly Station and Yedakumeri in Karnataka, during the break of the millennium in Y2K, which taught me a lot of lessons and helped me get a different view of life.. this second trek just strengthened my resolve to become a social animal and not remain reclusive.

The similarities between both the treks were:

1. Lack of prior experience
2. Lack of preparation
3. Haphazard planning for the self
4. Fear – of life, of death of every other damn thing in life
5. Painful bus journeys
6. Peaceful return journeys
7. Loads of Fun to and fro
8. Atleast one mishap!

Though we started planning for the trek more than 15 days prior to the May Day weekend when we actually had the trek, we were tense till the last moment.. people confirming participation, ditching, again confirming etc etc.. nothing worked out. (Note: All the events are still etched in my memory as if this trek happened just yesterday, though it happened more than a month back… That shows how enriching this experience was!!!)

We decided on the logistics, the tents, the sleeping bags. Me and Srihari went and rented TWO tents and one sleeping bag. We then decided to go by bus to Mysore and take RKPs car to Kakkabbe, the base camp of Thadiyandamol.

Me, Nidhi and Hari, the three of us started from my place in Basaveshwaranagar, Bangalore and took an auto to reach Majestic. Though it was b4 6 AM, there was a favorable sign that the auto guy did not ask for extra fare! There, we met Vinay after a considerable wait and decided on taking any available bus to Mysore. I feel that was a wrong decision.

We thought of a Rajahamsa or an Airavat bus to have a “comfortable” journey to Mysore, but at the ‘n’th moment, took a normal Karnataka Sarige “red bus” that was on its way via Mysore and Madikeri to Mangalore. This bus,

unfortunately, had a lot of frikkin stops.. stopping at almost all the places and getting folks in and out of the bus. It was more than 15 years for me to have seen someone travel standing in a bus, other than BMTC and this was a (not so) nice experience.

It, ultimately, was a good choice for us to take RKPs car from Mysore coz the road condition from Mysore to Virajpet and further there on was awesome and also, this ensured that we reach the final destination of the Nalknad Palace to park our car without much difficulty. The car also helped us to reach our destination and come back without getting more strained by waiting for a private cab / bus and trek some 4 or 6 kms additional.

During our (not so) eventful journey to Mysore, we had a lot of laughs talking abt “Encounters of wild animals”, “Encounters of humans” and another great discussion that these folks had during their previous trip about the population explosion that was happening due to these “encounters” and some very interesting statistics, courtesy Mr. Madhukar, whom, I unfortunately, have not yet had the pleasure of meeting.

The bus journey also made me realize that this is a very very cool gang of folks with whom I can boldly hangout without having any reservations of any sort. So, I am now opening up to the world!!!

Talking about “Encounters” here… I recently underwent a training session on a new Hospital Information Systems product and I was told that in the US, a session between a doctor and a patient is known as an “encounter” while the same is an “episode” in India!

Also, the reason why I have been mentioning “Encounter” in quotes is, that the meaning, as discussed, during this trek is one of having a Sexual Intercourse a.k.a Mating. (Now even you know!!!)

In the journey from Bangalore to Mysore, we also read a story about how AIDS is spreading in Mercara which caused me to think more about “encounters” happening freely there and though it was a season of swine flu and we were visiting a place famous for its pandi curry, the report was of AIDS and not swine flu!

Also, there have been innumerable number of “humps” that the bus had to “encounter” during the journey from Bangalore to Mysore, and the 5 of us in RKPs Santro had to “encounter” during the drive from Mysore to Virajpet. Effectively, we just “humped” the “humps”

Continuing on the journey, The 4 of us from Bangalore landed in Mysore and after some confusions, we decided to take two autorickshaws to RKPs house, meet up wid him and start in his car towards Mahesh Prasad, the hotel, to have our breakfasts. After breakfast and some snacks and packets of lassi and “masala majjige” we finally left towards Virajpet by 1115 AM, a delay of 45 mins from our planned time of departure.

We reached Virajpet by 2PM, fed our hungry stomachs and called Mr. Chengappa of Honey Valley resorts to confirm the route.

By the time we reached Nalknad palace, it was 3 30 PM and we started the trek by 4PM. The first half of the trek, till we reach the forest guards house / check post / horticultural gardens, was too tiring… Though the distance was traversed majorly by asphalted road, the curves and the incline made it difficult for us to walk. We had two tents to carry and I had goofed up by carrying all my luggage for the next one week. WTF was I thinking when I packed? I dunno.. but am now a learned guy.. and experience teaches you stuff the hard way!

I was dressed in a t-shirt and a jeans.. imagine.. a jeans pant to trek! WTF? Half way through, I had to change on the roadside. Thankfully, none of these guys or the other trekkers were Voyeurs to take a snap of me in my underpants!

Starting from there, I had a lot of inspirational thoughts in my mind and some extra inspiration (read beautiful gals!!) We were adviced by the forest guard not to camp near the “bande” (rock) which is considered the half way point between the peak and the basecamp of Nalknad Palace. We were audacious enough to put our camp there.. which is a completely different story.. and the reason we did so was something different too..

While on the trek, Mr. Murphy showed us his blessings and the Rain Gods poured their showers on us. Into the bag went the DSLR cameras of Nidhi and RKP, the Digital camera of Vinay and out came my cellphone camera FTW!!!! That is when I realized that having a cellphone camera is advantageous too at times!

Instantaneously, the solution that came into our mind was to undo the tent that we were carrying. We did that, held it as if we are carrying a dead body, and then put the same on top of all our 5 heads, various hieghts not coming of account and continued on the trek. We then had a wonderful idea of making a roadside shelter and for that sake, we all walked into the shade of some trees, lifted a tree from the bushes and put it on a fence to make way for pitching the tent.

Little had we realized that the leeches would be hyperactive due to the rain or that leeches would have already made their cozy lil homes in the tree that we lifted. We were showered with leeches, RKP being the least affected, Next was Vinay, Next were me and Nidhi, but Hari took the brunt of the leech shower. The leeches were benevolent on the brothers and gave them not less than 10 – 12 of the leech family members as a boon and the brothers too acted generously and donated their blood for the “noble cause” of feeding the leeches.

Post the leech rain, the natural rain too had stopped and we started again, Vinay having smeared limestone all over his shoes, Nidhi and Hari having almost used the limestone as a sunscreen lotion. Hari, coz of him binging on sweets, took the brunt of the attack and lost half of his banian. It looked as if someone had “back stabbed” him and the blood stained banian, I guess, might have been discarded by now, though the brothers were all for making it as a testimonial to the trip!

It was 645 PM when we reached the “bande” – half way through the trek and it was getting too dark for us to venture ahead. Though we were warned about elephants having been sighted there just a couple of days back, Vinay was desperate to have an “encounter” with the elephants and we decided to camp there.

We ran helter skelter to collect some grass to add as timber for the fire. Experience now has taught us to carry some timber and some kerosene oil or such inflammatory articles to have a campfire, and also carry some camphor to help us in our endeavors, but then, we had just a lot of tissue papers, some dry grass (which was also rendered wet due to the rain), one small bottle of coconut oil, two wet logs left for us by some previous campers and a place-marker, if that is what you call a couple of logs stuck to the ground to indicate that this place is ideal for camping!

We had a tough time to put up the tent for the camp after checking the same twice and multiple times and to get rid of any existing leeches. Post that, three of us snuck in by 9 ish after a plan and a joint venture with another group who camped with us. We made an agreement that the 9 of us (5 of us and 4 of them) would spend 2 hours per couple in the night as a lookout.

Hari, me and Vinay took the first break (meaning we snuck in the tent) leaving Nidhi and RKP to man the fire. Having left both singers outside, I enjoyed their lovely tunes of classical hymns and b4 long, I had navigated to some other world. I was awakened by Nidhi who wanted to take his share of most wanted rest. Vinay and Me did not want to disturb Hari, our Leech hero and we took the next two hours (was it two hours??) watch.

Fortunately, (or Unfortunately) for me, I turned out to be a chicken and mistook a shrub with brown leaves to be a wild dog.. that was the beginning of a new “encounter” with a wild dog.. which am sure Vinay would be ROTLFing even to this day. Vinay wanted some “elephant encounters” to happen and b4 we could even think further, the campfire, which had been maintained by RKP and Nidhi with great caution, went out.

Me and Vinay were in a very strange (romantic) situation.. full moon light, nothing for company for miles and fireflies doing their mating dance around us providing luminescence through the night. The moon went out too.. the stars were asking us to stay back and gaze at them.. The both of us being straight, we could not do anything much than curse our fate as to why we were not accompanied by our GFs.

Eventually, the chicken in me took over and after having a small discussion with Vinay as to whether we wake up the other guys and we take rest, we decided to enter the tent and slept for glory.

The other group was extremely professional and they kept up to their words, they stayed back up till 6 AM from 2 AM, thereby ensuring that only me and Vinay were the culprits. To this day, RKP is angry on me for having acted irresponsibly, throwing caution to the winds, ditching the entire group of 9 and having put us all in grave danger.. but I hope he understands that lack of experience would cause this to happen. I, however, am now sure that the next time I go on a trek, there is nothing (hopefully nothing) that I would get scared of.

On day break the next day, we started looking out for water and found a wonderful waterspot not even 150 mts from the place where we had camped. That reminds me, we had been to the spot the previous evening, but then saw a snake (actually, a vine creeper having a creepy look like a snake) and rushed back to the campsite. We went to the waterspot, got a few more leeches on our shoes / legs, but thankfully, the sun was out and the leeches are not effective under the sun.

We started on the trak, the harsh part of it. We were warned earlier by Mr. Chengappa that the other half, after the rock, would be the worst part of the trek. After we traversed quite a distance, we refuelled ourselves with some glucose packets and proceeded further. We were accosted by one of the forest dept guys and his two kids along with some visitors and one dog. The dog was hyperactive and before we could go further, it had almost completed two treks to the top of the peak and back!

The forest dept. guy, (I never thought of asking his name ) adviced us to leave our “equipment” (camping tents, bags etc etc) behind and walk freely. Being the doubtful characters we are, we decided to leave only one of the tents behind, the heaver one, and we carried on further, stopping every 250 mts or so to check if the tent is visible for anyone else.

Just before the penultimate climb for the peak, we had to traverse through dense vegetation for abt 20 mins and then go to the peak. That, by far, was the best part of the entire trek. You could sense the awesome beauty of the natural western ghats, the denseness of the vegetation which allowed very less sunlight to reach the ground and the greenery around.

I got completely exhausted and just abt 200 mts to go for the peak, I decided to give up. RKP stood by me and asked me to take some rest, he too stayed back and after a good rest of 30 mins, I was all set to conquer the peak.

We dumped our bags there and saw that the place could be seen from the peak, but not from some place nearby and having satisfied ourselves that the bags are going to be safe, me and RKP started to the peak. On the top of it, we met the other 3 guys, had a couple of group photos and they started the descent.

They went to the place where we had left the bags and waited for us to reach the place. All the 5 of us, then collected some sticks to help us on our descent and walked back. The threesome (Nidhi, Hari and Vinay) reached the place of the tent, collected it and then reached our base camp (the campsite where we had pitched our tent the previous night). They would have to wait there for almost 45 mins for me to cope up with their speeds of descent.

While descenting, we were attacked by elephant flies.. the flies which might even devour a carcass completely within 20 minutes (as per a report of NGC) and these flies were found only in the Western Ghats it seems. Gosh.. Check the size of the fly and then, tell me how it would be if these sat on ur back and bit u! As per the forest dept. guy, these attack only colored clothing and would leave white clothes. That is a tip if you want to get rid of the bites. Needless to say, with my dark Red T Shirt, I was a victim.

We had asked the forest dept. guy to have made some arrangements for food for us at his location. We got lovely rice, rasam, buttermilk and pickles. We had a moderate meal there, thanked them for all their suggestions and help and started towards the car. We reached the car by 230 PM, reached Virajpet by 4 PM, had some fried rice, gobi manchuris there and started towards Mysore by 5 PM to reach Mysore by 8 PM.

On the way back from Thadiyandamol, everyone was going through a mixture of emotions and the common feelings were, IMHO, Tiredness, Sleepiness and a sense of exhiliration that we conqured the peak and did not have any other extra casualties. Vinay, Nidhi and Hari were supposed to leave to Bangalore that evening itself and me and RKP decided to stay put in Mysore for a couple of more days.

In the exhiliration and excitement of the conquest, we were going in a pretty good speed in a road that could not contain Two maruti cars side by side. Having let go of all the vehicles, we ended up smashing our right mirror with the right mirror of a swift.. Santro Right Mirror with Swift Right Mirror. The two mirrors made love and cracked, ensuring that all the occupants in both the cars experienced the after effects!

Post this small mishap, we were more careful, and as RKP put it, we lost our “meter” and drove in a normal speed back home. By the time I reached home, it was 9 PM. Exhausted, dirty, smelly, sleepy, happy, excited, relieved and fit to spend all the night telling the story to my sister and mom, if they could have listened to my adventure.

Finally, after more than a month, the trip has made it to my blog… Would this trip report too be experiencing the same set of emotions for having finally made it to the blog? I have absolutely no idea!