Monday, February 11, 2008

500 Kms Drive........

After watching "Galipata" movie i wished... i would go to kodachadri again... last time i visited kodachadri in summer.... however not many of the team members were ready for the same and i had to switch to new plan at the last moment.... Well planned for a drive towards shivanasamudra via kanakpura, muttatti and Cauvery fishing camp area... well well that was a blessing in disguise.....


I started very early in the morning at around 4 from my home... after a refreshing bath and a small pooja.... picked up friends and started by 5 and started moving towards the kanakpura road..... It started raining at around 6 it was simply what we wanted.... it was amazing.... the new laid empty roads and huge trees on both sides of the road along with rain... the perfect condition for a drive....

After we reached kanakpura we need to take a left towards Cauvery fishing camp... This stretch is simply amazing..... a feel of freshness in the air... dried leaves.... all along ..... it was perfect scenic beauty..... the sign of how to come out of sarrowness in life.... the trees had just shed their old leaf and were getting ready for the new ones...... what i wondered was can the trees really forget the attachment it had with the old leaf, when new ones come? I stopped my car and came out to have a feel of the air.... had a small walk on the empty roads..... on bare foot... wanted to feel the sweetness of the moist ground....... Some when i come across such places i love my freedom and independence...... the most..... i like to be left alone........ but my friends always make me realize that i am with them ........

We reached cavery fishing camp and enquired with the authorities over there regarding fishing.... wooow... its not something which will fit into my pocket........ we need advance booking in bangalore and also its 5k per head for one day...... didn't feel like spending so much for man made things...... we drove another 1km ahead of fishing camp and then we found a spot good for ourselves to feel the beauty of river cavery ... Well getting into water could be very dangerous.... and this place is full of rocks...... also they have put up a board saying there are crocodiles in these places..... however it was drizzling a bit.... i had a small walk in the rains along the roads.... trying to sink into the situation what i was experiencing..... i wanted to spend some time sitting on the banks....left alone....

The trees along the banks of the river were beautiful..... we continued in this road and then reached Malavalli... here we had our breakfast and then started towards shivanasamudra.... its around 27kms from here..... it was not in its best of form however it had its own silence and beauty hidden in it..... and again a spot easily accessible and badly spoiled by throwing of plastics and all other non bio-degradable materials all around.... it hurts a lot when we come across such places...... however i traced some spots were in i could go however it would be bit risk to be taken to go to these places.... but felt would be worth going there........would be enjoying that risk......

The road between malavalli to shivanasamudra and from there again back to somnathpur is simply horrible.... i was totally exhausted driving in these roads....After shivanasamdra we went towards somnathpur.... i had been to this place once and remembered the beautiful temple..... This temple is one example of structural brilliance of monuments in india....... Its not just difficult but looks impossible that such carvings were made by hand on stones..... amazing is one word to explain the same......

From somnathpur we reached mandya and took the route towards bangalore... We reached back bangalore at around 10... all in all it looked to me like non stop drive from 4 -10 in the night almost 500kms in all and every moment of which was throughly enjoyed by me..... i would love to drive .... however i wanna visit this cavery fishing camp spot again probably alone... or probably on a bike :-) wanna try out this sooon....

I wanna give one message in all my blogs of visiting various places please don't spoil the beauty of these places.... be a sensible citizen .... try to keep the places clean.... don't throw plastics around.....

Friday, February 01, 2008

Hogenkal Falls......

Planned to drive to hogenkal with friends on an early sunday morning.... had heard a lot about hogenkal falls but never got opportunity to visit... Well since it was more of an unplanned trip i didn't even fill fuel for my car thought would fill up in the morning.... well bad luck struck in the early morning it self, my car stopped near netkalappa circle without fuel.... i managed to find petrol bunk which was open for 24hrs and some how with some difficulty managed to get around 2lts of petrol.....


We wanted to start at 5 however we started at aroun 7... hogenkal is around 170kms via hosur,dharmapuri route however there is a shorter rout which is around 140kms for which you need to take a right as soon as you get down from the flyover in hosur... however this road is not very great since its a single road...but you can avoid lots of traffic.....

We managed to reach hogenkal at around 11... the place looked overcrowded that was a big turnoff for me..... it has become a thought for me that i have started hating places where in the human inflow is high.... i have good reasons for the same and which was justified immediately.... Felt very bad that even after charging around 100rs for the parking,village panchayat development and the entry fee i didn't see any steps thats been taken in order to improve the beautiful place.... if it continues in this way the beauty of hogenkal would not last long and it would be a big dump of plastics all around......

4 of us got ourselves a teppa(a small circular shaped boat ), in which we need to go in order to have a look at the falls..... Well to be frank i didn't like this place at all at first instance and the only reason was the level at which its been exploited.... you could see people eating and throwing paper plates everywhere.... we could see people drinking liquor in the small boats and then throwing the plastics into the river..... i felt its insane to have such people at such beautiful places we need to have very strict laws to avoid these people exploiting the same.... felt very bad looking at the plight of such a beautiful place......

The basic thing is how responsible are the civilians to maintain such a beautiful place, why does this happen only in india.... why don't everyone understand that these places are very special... and needs to be taken care..... felt very sad....

however i plan to visit this place very soon again however this time i would go very early in the morning and also probably on a week day in order to avoid all the humans..... i need to explore this place a lot more, like need to get into the water a lot more and also i need to go around and explore on top of the falls and stuffs.... in one word this was a spectacular place being spoiled at its best.... and one main reason is its accessibility.... to everyone.....

We took a shorter route on our return and were back to bangalore pretty early..... and one main reason for the same is just after looking at so many people on a weekend we straight away decided we gonna come back again ........and on a weekday....

Other things which attracted the most was a small kid who was sleeping in the middle of the river on a small rock... we remembered the movie "tare zameen par" when we saw this kid in his own world... sleeping on the rock and playing in the water was just wondering what would be the kid thinking in his mind....... and the other thing was small kids diving from the height of around 30feet from the huge rocks for mere 5 bucks ...felt very bad...as the risk involved was very high.... felt bad that people enjoy such stuffs putting a kids life in danger for a mere 5bucks.... :-(

Lots of things could be changed.... but its only like how much we wanna do.... nothing is gonna happen until we take the initiative to do something rather than just blame the government...for not doing anything.....

Route:

Bangalore - Hosur - Dharmapuri - Hogenkal -- 170kms
Around 3hrs....... drive... Return take a left after 5kms from hogenkal and then drive for around 140km and reach hosur....

Team: Poorna,Loki,Shilpi and prabodh..... with my baby swift :-)