Kodachadri & Mookambika

Kodachadri and Mookambika is a famous tourist and religious destination situated in Karnataka, India. Kodachadri is a mountain peak with dense forests with altitude of 1312 meters above sea level in Western Ghats.

The place is gifted with several endemic and endangered species of flora and fauna.There are different routes to reach the Peak of Kodachadri and the difficulty varies highly with respect to the route chosen. Mookambika Devi Temple is one of the most prominent temples in Karnataka. The temple is surrounded by the beautiful and astonishing Kodachadri hills. Whoever visit Mookambika temple usually visit Kodachadri Hills which is nearly 25 km far.

It’s was August month when me and friends planned to visit this outstanding photographic place. Don't know why, At first I was not mentally prepared for this trip. But by seeing friends arrangement and excitement to go I too had planned to join them. Later by seeing the stupendous place, I understood it was not at all a bad conclusion to join with them. We were about 15 in numbers, so intended to book a small bus and did the same. Early morning about 4:00 AM the bus inwards hostel gate of my engineering college. Keeping all luggage in the safe area of bus, we took our seat. There are many numbers of luggage as we are trying a big tour. For a better travelling, always try not to keep much luggage. But our luggage mostly packed with foods. I remember we got a bag full of bread, one full of biscuits and jams and some other bags filled with clothes and mobile chargers. Hey smart phone users, remember not to use your phone for other than calls and sms. You need to save the battery, it really sucks. Use some Sony walkman for hearing music’s, but please no mobiles for music’s. It’s about 4:40 AM, time to depart. We started our journey in a pleasant mood. Even in the cold morning no one felt sleepy, everyone just waiting for the excitement. After a while we reached in the forest boundary. There comes beautiful deer’s and peacock along the road. At 6.30 AM we found clouds filled between mountains. It seems like the mountains are floating on the clouds. The first heavenly scene excited all of us. We stopped our bus; everyone placed this beautiful place under their camera lens frame to shoot the best picture. I am sure everyone will definitely love to take the picture of this stupendous place. And definitely we altogether took more than 5000 pictures. We continued the drive to catch up the Kodachadri hills. Even we are first time; we got the idea how far the Kodachadri is. But travelling for long time we realised we are leading either in a wrong direction or we pass the exact place. We continued the drive until we saw a junction to ask someone about route. After enquiring the route we understood we pass the place, but this junction is one another way to Kodachadri. Since the bus driver got some other situation he told us to leave at junction since he can’t continue anymore. Now we were alone in the junction having our breakfast. Further we planned to walk through the road leading to Kodachadri. It was a great walking through the forest road by shouting with friends. We 15 people walked a lot and more, but still no sign of Kodachadri. Even while shouting with friends in high pitch, everyone was checking for an engine crackle. Soon we hear an engine sound which was coming closer and finally when it reaches near to us, it was a bus, the one and only bus which goes through this road to Kodachadri once in a day. Oooh ! Such a lucky we were. Otherwise we should have walked 6km through the road to reach at another junction which lead to Kodachadri hills. When bus reached the junction we took rest for a while and collected some more foods from the nearby shop.

Now here the trip starts. The place was not that much isolated or dangerous since tourists usually come here. 4x4 jeeps were available at the junction for picking tourist to the top of Kodachadri hills where the temple and govt guesthouse situated. We are 15 in number; we don’t want to explore the place fast. So decided to walk over the remaining long 8km hairpin bend road. But we crossed through the forest whenever a hairpin bend comes, so we get another end of hairpin bend. Everyone is getting excitement now. We started breathing cold air. More we leading through muddy road, greater the beauty of forest arise. On the way we captured the photos of scenery, flora and fauna. Even we got many great chances to shoot the sexy snows. We walked more and more to reach the destination. While at a corner, we noticed the temple and govt guesthouse too far away from us which encouraged all of us a lot. And finally walking little more, we reached at the top taking about 4 hours of gorgeous journey. It was an astonishing moment for all of us being reached at the top of Kodachadri. At the top, the atmosphere was really freezing; we can even shoot the mist and fog with our camera. The place got a govt guesthouse, a shop, a temple and a small malayalee dwelling. We roamed the surrounding and captured it in the camera as much as we can. It was something like we reached in heaven. We could see the entire part of Kodachadri and Mookambika from the top. Meanwhile we booked the guesthouse and planned to stay there since they charged a lesser amount when compared to the nearby house who allows staying there. Even the guesthouse look horrific from exterior, it was really awesome indoors. The guesthouse even serves food from dawn to dusk. But we friends were unhappy since we can’t express our great feeling to someone else. So we made call to the college hostel and describe whole situation which leads to the arrival of 3 more friends. The time was noon. We ordered for lunch and started exploring Kodachadri and explore the hidden beauties of Kodachadri. We came back soon to guesthouse after slight exploration because of mist and fog. The lunch was ready at guesthouse. It was really a yummy food. Just after lunch we find some time for resting. Meanwhile our 3 more friends arrived by evening. We were shocked to see them very soon, and realised they took another way to reach here which was really very shot with the way we travelled. Anyhow we both started enjoying together. At night we spent some time around cam fire. After dinner we went for sleeping.

The next day arrives with a fresh cool mountain air. The time when we come out of guesthouse to see the surrounding, we were really shocked by seeing such a vivid beautiful atmosphere. We really loved the place than anything. Then we had our breakfast and scheduled future exploration. Firstly we planned to visit the top of Kodachadri were one temple and some cave exist. The place where guesthouse and residence remains are not exactly the top, it’s just near to top. Leading to the temple at top we saw cave named GANESH GUHA, we didn’t stay there for a while as we sensed some horrific disturbances over there. We continued to the top temple. The way to this temple was really narrow with one side a downstream. While we reached near to temple we felt like floating in the sky. We could see the clouds below us. It was like we are flying in the aeroplane. We couldn’t see anything else other than clouds. 

It was really a heavenly seen. To the side of temple there was a very narrow road which leads to a cave where an old lady used to THAPAS for long years. We couldn’t see her when we reach at the cave she lives. But her belongings are there and we know she lives here as our friends saw her once they came here. The cave she live is really dangerous. It’s even not possible to sit inside the cave. And we were actually judging how she is living in such a cave for long years. Anyhow we should support her for her courage. Now after capturing some more pictures we leaved from the temple to guesthouse. There our lunch was almost ready. Some started resting and remaining started further site exploration. After lunch we planned to leave Kodachadri, and then only we will get the return bus to Mookambika. We returned through the way our 3 friends came to top. This way was not that much beautiful, but it’s easy to walkover through this road. Meanwhile in this way we saw a small village furnished mostly with woods and leaves. Just after the village there was a malayalee shop. From shop we had tea, some food and had some conversation with the malayalee shopkeeper. We continued on foot to reach the main road where we get the bus to Mookambika. The time was about afternoon. After a lengthy walk we reached the main road. We waited for the bus like a hell. Only vehicles we used to see is some private cars or jeeps. But they are helpless as they cannot give room for such a large crowd. We waited for bus again and again. Later we decided to catch Mookambika by walking. While walking through this state highway we bathed in a small waterfall nearby road. Meanwhile the bus arrived. Everyone started dressing in hurry. But the bus driver just waited for us until we were dressed. We get inside the bus with our wet garments. But who cares? We are in govt bus. No care, no worry. After sometime we reached the Mookambika temple. We visited the Mookambika temple and surrounding. We could see many malayalees came for worship in the Mookambika temple. We stayed in Mookambika temple for a while. At last we took the bus from Mookambika temple to our great Bhatkal. Return journey to Bhatkal was also interesting as there are many malayalee girls and families inside the bus. So we guys never wasted the chance. Everyone started putting mark for the girls in bus. This helped us to forget the journey time. And at last we all reached in Bhatkal safely.

to view and download more pictures visit following link:

http://www.4shared.com/folder/-BgiQeLi/Kodachadri.html

Kudumari Falls

Kudumari Falls is a beautiful waterfall in Toodalli Village of Shirur town, Karnataka, India. You can also avail Indian railway to reach Shirur town. Shirur is a small town with little availability of commercial goods. So food and other stuffs should be carried before reaching here. Before going to describe the place, I would prefer a group of at least 10 members to visit this place safely.

long view of waterfall from road

Get an autoriksha(taxi) from Shirur town to reach near the waterfall in Toodalli village. The good news for the malayalee community is that you can see many malayalee taxi drivers here. The road leading to forest is little bit bad, but acceptable.

 

After some distance the taxi driver will drop us in a small junction and will guide or instruct about the road(muddy) leading to Waterfall. From the junction and up-to waterfall get ready for hiking and trekking.

Walking through the road you can see a petite malayalee shop and many malayalee community homes. It’s better to have a small interaction with these loving native, so that they can help you in some case. Kudumari Falls have long eleven steps of waterfalls shaped like L. The 6 waterfall step which forms vertical side of L and the remaining 5 forms the horizontal side of L. With some adventurous hiking and trekking one can reach at the 6th waterfall. If you are really professional in trekking and adventurous travel you can really reach at the 11th waterfall, but it is really dangerous and try not to visit there.

Walking through the muddy road, we reached in residential area. Reaching nearby a dwelling we asked a women “where is the water”. She pointed us a strait far away. We start walking through this dangerous water strait hoping to see waterfall very nearby. The size of rocks in strait was pretty small  initially for easy walk, but as we move on we experienced bigger and bigger rocks in strait and it became dangerous to walk through. Meanwhile everyone start making natural hiking sticks ;).

The time was around 4:30 in the evening, and the forest start becoming dark making a scare feeling among all our hearts. Someone decided to go back. But our over confident friends didn't allowed them to do so. We believed our over confident friends because we trust and know them deeply. So everyone continued walking with an extra gadget, the torch, just to push the darkness away. But a peak time reached where the torch light can’t show us the way more.

Now the only option yea the only option is to take rest in the dense forest hearing the jungle sounds. After much opinion we decided to stay beside strait with less water flow. It’s always good to respect opinion when you travel group wise. The time was about 7PM night. We felt the time is moving so slowly than usual. Everyone start resting and laying on rocks checking cell phone signal and discussing future plan; not career plan, future trip plan. We planned first to make us secure. Someone moved to the nearby forest with torch and fire light for collecting some woods to make cam fire while other start making tea and preparing foods. Interesting thing is most of the kitchen utensils were made with rocks and sticks. Like us, our other group of friends also came to the place on same day, But we didn’t met together. We guessed either they or we are leading through a wrong way. When large quantity of woods are brought we started making huge cam fire in order to keep us away from wild animals and cold. Food preparation was going well under the guidance of our chief chef. The menu for the night was chicken fry and bread with hot coffee. Since we got less amount of food we made ration for all. After a good dinner everyone start resting on rock maintaining the cam fire beside us, talking each other and waiting for the next sun rise. But as I told the time was really moving so much slowly.

I remember everyone felt asleep, but no one slept because of scare. Some take cared of cam fire when others were sleeping and vise versa. While talking everyone slept unknowingly and opened the eyes watching a clear morning sky. We checked the surrounding and understood that we were in the safest place ever to sleep in the forest. We understood if we had moved little bit straight away from the place that we rested, we might have been in some dangerous situation. The fresh morning made us feeling happy. Everyone was busy with brushing, bathing in cold water, taking photograph of beautiful scenery and having cup of hot tea. After breakfast everyone start moving taking all our gadgets like torch, rope, knife, hiking sticks, food and clothes. Just moving little bit it seems difficult for us to move over the big rocks.

So we planned to walk through the forest parallel to the strait, thus we can assure we are not moving in wrong direction. But it was terrible walking through a forest making way by cutting plants. Moving further we found the forest became so difficult with hard terrain, leeches and we felt strait seem much easier. So we continued through strait.

Leeches

The rocks were not that much slippery and the water level is low. I prefer anyone to visit here from October to February as this is more safer than visiting in the monsoon season. Even the rocks are less slippery many fell in water, but experienced divers within our friends were there to help us.

At last in strait we found rocks thrice bigger than our size which was harder to do. I thought not to  continue but my friend was trying to convince. But when I disagreed, they told they will come back and tell me if the route is safe. But those people who were capable to climb over the rocks continued. Meanwhile me and my another friend utilized the time to bath in the cold water. After finding waterfall and safe route, as agreed my friends came back and instructed us to move in different way through forest. Walking through the forest keeping the waterfall as the destination we moved as we were controlling by some GPS.

The smell of animals, animal cave and some other strange trees on the way felt little adventurous. But we were excited to see the waterfall and also thought we discovered Kudumari Falls as someone discovered Everest mountain. With this feeling we moved to the waterfall defeating all adventurous challenges. When we reached at the waterfall we were really shocked by seeing a married couple sitting with their little baby nearby.

We understood that we discovered the waterfall taking 7 hours of journey with an extra night stay was all through a wrong route. There's a direct way from down to the top of waterfall which can be traveled within half an hour. But the women to whom we asked at first 'where is the water' was not answering incorrectly because she answered our question and showed us the water strait and its we who guessed that's the way to waterfall. Either we didn't asked her the question correctly or had any communication problem. Whatever, we were not disappointed because all our last night experience and others were unforgettable moments in life. While reaching the top we saw our friends code '06' carved on a big rock giving us a sense that our friends visited and returned through the right route last day.

When return we choose the correct way and it just took half an hour to get out of the forest. The moment when everyone reach outside, everyone was flattering,  mocking on others, describing about the last night blah blah blah.

We walked through the muddy road and while reaching the diversion area we tried to get autoriksha(taxi) drivers on phone and couldn't get them due to low signal. We waited for any taxi to come and meanwhile we bathed from the nearby strait. But we couldn't find any taxi to help us. But as God's gift a truck with full wet bricks was arriving the way. When we requested them for a lift, as every Karnataka loving people they too never hesitated to help us. From there took the bus to the hidden beauty Bhatkal.