Departure : 5:30 PM from college gate
Duration : 1 and 1/2 days
Three of us (Choukkar, Sathya and me) left college campus at 5:30 PM. Took a bus till Udupi. Reached Udupi at 6:15PM and waited for a direct bus to Kollur. These are about half hour apart. The bus goes via Kundapura and then to Kollur. We reached Kollur at 8:30 PM. and checked into the Temple Guest House Lodge at the bus stand itself. It charges Rs.10 for bedding to sleep in the common hall. We took a room for Rs 60.
For dinner we walked to the main city about 200m down the road to Archana hotel and had awesome parathas followed by dosa. After this we walked back to the room, chatted a while and decided to retire with plans of leaving the city for the trek at 8:00 AM.
We got up the next day a little too late and went behind schedule by an hour. We left the city at some 9:00 AM. Also we did not get a bus to KariKatta gate, where the trek to Kodachadri starts and decided to walk (about 12 Km to gate) till we got a ride. After 3 Km we managed to stop a OMNI guy who dropped us off at the gate.
So at 10:00 AM we started our trek. The initial part seemed to be simple as it was a down slope. But we were just dreading that on the way back, when we are all tired it would be an up!
We saw a langur right at the beginning of the trek, and a jackal a little later. We also observed a chameleon! Soon we reached the much awaited ‘mallu’ place of which we had heard alot about from Choukkar. We had refreshing lemon sharbat there and rested a little only to think of when we would get back here on the way back to have the same again!
We left the mallu place (which is little less than mid way to Kodachadri) and soon entered dense jungle. Choukkar told us that this place was full of streams and loads of leeches during the monsoon when he had come last. But luckily as it was JAN we missed the leeches. The trek soon got a little tough with slippery tiny rocks on the path. We entered grassland terrain soon and it had gotten really hot. But we continued only to take small 5 min breaks at times.
Every time Sathya and me looked at our destination, which looked way too far, we said no way we our going up there. But Choukkar was sure that the peak which looked far far away was where we were heading! After two hours of trekking we reached our last pitstop – the PWD bungalow area. This place had a nice aunty welcoming us tired souls and giving us buttermilk. We had our lunch here itself as it was already 2.We rested a little and headed back up to the peak(about a km or two away), leaving our bags at the house and carrying only water and ‘chikki’ that we ad carried from College. We reached the peak by some 3:00 PM where there was a small Shankaracharya temple. We looked around and the view was awesome. It seemed a little different as I was used to seeing mountains in the morning, covered with fog and in the clouds. But still the view here was breathtaking. They say if one is lucky, the Arabian Sea can be seen at the distant horizon. We were not :-( Enjoyed our chikki and a couple of calls to all those who ditched us by not coming and we were ready to go.
We headed down at some 3:30 PM to the house took our bags and left after having buttermilk at 4:00PM.
We were keeping good pace. But Choukkar had a leg injury so we slowed down. But still our pace was decent. We reached the mallu place by 5:30 PM. It was getting dark so we had some lemon sharbat and omelette,vada ; played with the puppies there a while and left. The ‘mallu’ place being referred to has a name btw – ‘Santosh’ hotel.
We saw small groups of people walking in the opposite direction. A guy on the way told us the Kara katta gate is 1.5 to 2 km away and we should hurry up as it was getting darker. He also told us the next bus was at 7:00 So we did! But by 6:00 PM it had already gotten pretty dark so we hurried up. Choukkar’s leg started hurting by now. Luckily he had remembered to get a torch with him which was very useful, as by 6:30 PM it got pitch dark in the forest. The last dreaded ascent seemed never ending and we kept pushing each other to move on. Finally we reached the gate only to find no bus coming. A jeep driver passing by told u the bus is at 7:30 PM and he said it would be better for us to walk down back one KM to a small town to the bus stop instead of waiting in the middle of the jungle. So we walked another km to a checkpoint where the guard told us that this is a Naxal area and that is why they were checking all the vehicles passing by. We waited there till 8:00 PM and then we got a lift in a jeep till Kollur. The driver was awesome and he drove all the way down, 10 Km with the engine OFF! The jeep kept great momentum all the while and we finally got off at the Kollur main city near the Mookambika temple. The jeep driver told us there is no private bus back to Udupi and the only bus out is a Kerala KSRTC at 9:00 PM. So we hurried back to our room in the guest house, checked out and got on to the bus. It was a direct bus to our college and we slept of very soon. After all it had been a tiring day! We got off the bus at 11:30 PM at the Girls Block gate and soon met our college friends coming back from there own little party at Sharath... and soon we were back in the hustle and bustle of college life... Of course only after a well deserved 12 hr sleep!