Mulliangiri - 2

I had other trek plans, but did not find company as all others quit at the last minute. I asked Rajesh if I could join them at the last minute. Fortunately I could get in with them. It would be my second trek to Mulliangiri.
I met up with Rajesh and co. for the trek at the KSRTC bus stand. We got a small intro about each other before we got into the bus. Once in the bus, we started interacting with each other and then went on to sleep. The bus was to ChickMagalore. We reached ChikMagalore at around 4:30am. I recalled that the first bus was at 7:00 a.m. (from the last experience) and told it would be better searching for an alternate mode. We had our coffee at the hotel in the Bus Stand and then finished our morning wash there.
We then set out in search of a mode of transport, some suggested taking auto's to the place... but all of us wanted to go together, so we searched for a Jeep or a Sumo. We finally got one, and after some discussion over the price, the driver agreed to drop us at the "SarpaHadi entrance."
We unloaded our luggage... just looked around and then after some 15 min started our trek from the Sarpahadi. This time over the climate was much better. We started some time after the sun rise and it was a nice time to begin with. Once on serpentile route to the peak… take most of the turns to the left than the right this will take you to the peak more easily. We did loose our route for some time but then we got back to the main foot trail that would take us to the peak. We climbed slowly but steadily.
As we trekked to higher altitudes, the view got panoramic; we could spot villages in the distance when clouds did not cover them up. Just a bit higher and we found the milk white clouds came in to speak with the mountains; it looked like a sea of milk. We were fortunate enough to be above the clouds so it was clearly visible for us. The sun was just above these clouds as well - it was like the sun had opened the door of the cloudy house and just come out to do his days duty. This view is sure to make anyone happy - a really good one.
As we continued our uphill trek we found the rain clouds gathering nearby. We reached the peak in about 1 hours climb. The rain clouds were making the winds chillier. Some of us were a bit quicker than other and so we reached a small shelter where we waited for the others behind.. All of us got together and then we continued again till we reached the "Nandi temple" We took some food there and then continued till we reached the caves - yes caves just below the temple at the peak.
The last time I had been to the peak I did not attempt entering deep into the cave, this time I had company and so decided to explore them. We split our self into 2 teams and went exploring with torches in our hand. One of the caves is deeper while the other one is not all that deep. We found bats in there. We picked up some snaps there. The caves had patterns of sediments that had gathered in over the years. They looked really beautiful. For a moment I felt I had seen then patterns of Jupiter there, they were so similar in look.
After the cave expedition we got out to have our breakfast. We find water in the temple premise so we can use this place to wash our selves... but its going to be very cold out here. One of our companions Raghavendra had brought chapattis with him, and we were busy eating them. We got our FM mobile hand set and we could here the FM channels from Bangalore... in fact more clearly than we can hear in Bangalore. We took some time off before we continued.
We resumed the trek after a break of about 1 hour. The clouds got denser now, but not yet like the last time I had been to this peak. The course was the same; we wanted to reach the road, as I had done this trek earlier... I could guide them on the correct path. I remembered the place where we had faltered the last time and so could easily trek the correct route. We got down from the peak and walked through the small flowery plants. There plants were purple in color and bloom once in twelve years, we were very happy to get a sight of the vast mountains in the surrounding all of whose peaks were covered with these flowers. We stood in between these flowers and picked up some real nice snaps and then continued on our trek.
We reached the Vivekananda Statue View point at around 12 noon. We took a brek here and looked at the awesome surrounding view. All of us decided to continue on to BabaBudangiri (DattaPeetha) form here.
Now comes the most exciting part of this trek for me, we had heavy luggage along so when we hat to get into the bus that was bound to the BabaBudan Peak, we had trouble getting in... We chose to get over the top of the bus and enjoy this ride. All of us got over the bus with the entire luggage. It was a first time for all of us and it was just so thrilling.
The winding roads, the view we could get of the valley, the far off peaks, and the people on the way, the turns the bus used to make on the winding roads all this increased the excitement of being on the top of the bus. We almost fell off the roof at some of the curves but it was still some excitement in all that.
Around 30 min of roof top journey from the bus and we reached BabaBudanGiri. BabaBudan was instrumental in getting the coffee seeds to this coffee land -> great work man!!! Well now this is a controversial place... This place is held sacred by both Hindus and Muslims so generally there is tension that prevails during the functions... When we reached this place there were some preparations for "Datta Male" functions.
We reached this pace some and had our lunch packed at a small hotel there, and carried on our trek futher. From this place we decided to go to a nearby falls - "Manikya Dhara". We decided to trek till the falls, and may be spend the night there and trek the next day to "Kemmangundi". Well but as God would have it, he decided to make the weather bad. It started raining really heavily and we decided to cancel the trek to "Kemmangundi" and get back home.
We had carried along the tents to pitch for the night as well and erected them, but then all that went a waste. We had to pack up. We had pitched the tent beside a tree, and a lake... The bad weather just made the look very beautiful; it’s been a memorable scene. I think the lake had some special significance, a lot of devotes used to come there and dropping something in to the lake and then leaving it... We had our lunch besides this lake and then some of us went further to look at the "ManikyaDhara Falls" from the lake. When we reached there we were struck by the changes that had been done to this Natural falls.
All the naturalness of this beautiful falls seems to have been lost, there are steps built to get to the base of the falls, some sort of reservoirs to hold the water that falls so that people can have a bath there - Another surprising custom I found there was that, the dress in which you wet yourself at the falls is thrown out into the deep abyss that is in front of the falls. I don’t get the point as to how these clothes get disposed? Are they burnt are they left as it is? I don’t know... I some what was not happy with this setting. We have a small view point on the way to the falls from were we can actually get a nice view, but unfortunately due to bad view we could not sight anything. The place has been commercialized a lot - a lot of shops, a lot of plastic all around.... don’t feel comfortable some how.
We got some water filled front he waterfalls and started on our way back, we reached the camp that we planned and then decided we would get back. We reached the BabaBudan stop in at around 5:15pm. The bus started at 5:30 pm and we reached ChikMagalore in about an hour and a quarter.
Surprisingly the climate of this town was normal, when compared to the bad weather of the BudaGiri Peak... Well it may be due to the altitude. We rested in ChikMagalore for our dinner and then set back to Bangalore....
This was a memorable trek for me considering the But roof ride, the climate change that occurs, the cloud and sun view that I got in the morning, The serene lake - beside which we camped for some time... really an everlasting memory.