Chikmagloor Trip - Day 2

First day

Next day Psycho started his day with early morning walk in the chikmagloor's dense forests. Among us, few were still struggling to fetch unproductive sleep for few more seconds and rests were getting ready for Manikyadhara Falls. We took some nice shots of wild flowers and plants which were fresh like us at the start of the day.

We drove to down hills and after a small distance driver told us to hire a Gypsy as it was not possible for him to drive further. WTF, why can not you go? But as instructed, we hired it to reach to the falls. So hiring the Gypsy was the beginning of the most troubling road journey.

Our downhill road was little like road featured in Mountain Dew Ad campaign (Darr ke age jeet hai...). The road did not have concrete dammar path, whole path was rocky and above to that Mr. Driver was taking sharp turns as though Schumacher was driving his Ferrari in Chikmagloor GP. All of us could not enjoy the green on the roadsides to keep our head away from Gipsy's roof. While driving Michael pointed out the little stream of water, which was suppose to be most charming fall @ Chikmagloor. I was asking myself, did I waste so much of my energy for such a tiny stream of water? Was it a repetition of Waynad's abby falls? Why on earth I came to see this fall. But there was no return, so we kept rolling down the hill. Finally Mr. Schumacher stopped 2KM away from the fall and asked us to walk.

Manikyadhara fall was in middle of dense forest. Environment was so calm that running water was also creating a rhythm and Ashish sanyaas plans were straightening more. In such a peaceful jungle we crossed rivers, crossed big stones and finally reached to the spot. By now I was tasted from 3 blood sucking leeches. Seeing these stuck to my legs, girls screamed first, I almost jumped, gulti lost his motion (Most scared too). It was terrible to see these species sticking to your body and sucking your blood. You could not just take a second to throw it away.

Finally our jungle walk was finished; we were in front of the fall. To see the height we need to stretch our neck 60*, such a huge fall in the wild (Can’t be at my home for sure :)).

Thanks to our early morning efforts the fall belonged to us for next couple of hours (We were the only and lonely group there). Rocks were slippery, Water was freezing and wind was adding spice into it. But it took few thoughts to enter into the water. ASA I could get a place, I was welcomed with a splash of water on my face, in the same way I replied without loosing a second.

Garima, Vidushi were just sitting and video tapping five half naked guys :).

Wild has a problem, it makes people Jungly. So in its effect we were screaming, shouting and enjoying the moments there. After spending couple of hours the wildness came to an end. We returned back to our car in an hour.

Next destination was the Karnataka’s highest point. First we targeted highest peak seen from the parking. It took few minutes to reach to the peak.

That's it, is it? So were we standing 1926 Mt's above sea? No clouds, nothing like so high, where are we? I dint have either an inch tape or a barometer to measure the height, but I looked around to find out, am I on the summit of the mountain? No, this was not it; there is one more peak which is higher, a lot higher. So we still had lot to cover. Psycho did not have courage to move, but it was impossible to return without meeting to the clouds. We convinced vidushi to accompany us, so psycho was alone and bound to come. Here we started, first rolled down, then climbed up, climbed more and was reducing the gap with the summit.

We were above Clouds, breeze was cold and wet. Would you believe we had our lunch at the highest point of Karnataka? Locals there inaugurated one temple there and were distributing Prasad. Our lunch of the day was biryani with pachranga pickle (Truly earned lunch: P).

we were still few stairs away from peak. After lunch break journey was resumed. We were walking in the clouds and Clouds, that were covering the whole place, were growing denser. Downhill view was just stunning. My words may not be able to fill the cavity between what I watched and what I wrote but that experience of watching the world from this height was great. We stayed there for a little gossip and took some souvenir pictures before returning back to the parking place.

There was nothing much left in folks, so moved to Bangalore. On the way we had our dinner at chikmagloor that was sponsored by ashish, reached back to Bangalore 11 o'clock in the night. Chikmagloor trip was a great trip, all the members of the trip had great time together and at least I did.

I am looking forward for next trip very soon in future. More pics