School reunion at sidhara betta
Trip Start
Feb 21, 2010
1
Trip End
Feb 21, 2010
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Sunday, February 21, 2010
finally we had it ....after being postponed umpteen times finally it was decided that reunion would be on february 21. and now biggest challenge was to decide what to do on reunion.vikram came up with an idea on spending time in guhantara which is a cave resort which was priced little high.so i proposed this place called sidhara betta which is around 100 kms from bangalore. i had been to this place before and had enjoyed it thoroughly.so many of us wanted to go for this as we want to trek .
finally after running a consensus 10 people were ready to come .vikram and srinivas dropped out because of their tests in training.sandeep dropped out because it was his sister's birthday(what a reason!!!) raghuveer dropped out because he was representing his company in cricket match!!!.....anyway hope all of you join us in next reunion
so 10 of us were pramitha ramya ashwini supala v vikram kiran adarsh ajith pavan abhishek and myself.adarsh had booked a tempo traveller which was very comfortable.driver was very co-operative.we decided to leave at 6 in morning and left only at 6 45.the last night i had sent a sms to all my friends telling them wear jeans pants as trek will involve lot of sliding on rocks but by mistake in sleepy eyes i had sent an sms telling to them wear 2 jeans pants!!!!. .next day i punished for this .i was totally made fun of.i realised my mistake only after pramitha told me .kiran even joked that my son will send sms to wear two chaddis!!!(good one)..should be very careful in sending sms's that too to my school friends.
finally we started off.had good coconut water somewhere on magadi road . from magadi road we went to tumkur road and head breakfast at agarwal's .its very good place slightly costly but very good taste considering it a highway dhaba.[PHOTO_ID_L=peaks-around.jpg i had proper heavy breakfast as we wont get anything till 5 in evening .started driving on very spoilt nh4 . abhishek entertained us with his songs.we asked for directions small village just before tumkur.and went on madhugiri road taking right after tumkur city.
finally we reached base of sidhara betta there quite few people as it was sunday.we started the trek after shopping few dozens of bananas. first 20% are steps which are basically stones slabs haphazardly placed.it was quite steep and we had tough time convincing ashwini who was ready to go back to tour tempo any moment .all of us getting tired only because of hot sun and lack of water.somehow pushed ourselves to midway of path where there is bamboo hut offering refreshments to piligrims. from here is steep accent without any steps and any small mistakes and you could go rolling back!!.seeing way ahead we took a long break.ashwini declared that she will not continue anymore and would go back!!! and pavan encouraged her in a wierd way!..he showed women carrying a child who was climbing and told her if that woman can do u can also do !!!!and this led to next line of jokes on pavan....kiran said she will also climb like that when she gets a kid!!!.....and again started big line of jokes... entertainment for all of us
you can also see how adarsh is catching his stomach and laughing in one of the photos.
after going to toughest part of climb we reached the temple.as per previous experience i felt it was better we goto top of mountain first and then goto temple .so we continued to tip of mountain we went through small and dry path made between dry grass which more than our height.it was scary as there was board earlier claiming that there are snakes in forest .we came across small fort in middle of forest which was lying discarded.finally reached top of mountain which offered 360 view of mountains around it.there is small fort used tippu sultan for putting army post as this is heighest mountain in that area.had amazing photo session with kiran.we started our decent back .everybody's patience was out now and totally hungry.
we sat below a huge rock and finished whatever we had from bananas to water.and now we were ready to take on biggest surprise of the trip the caves!!!! these caves natural and a sadhu lives there .there is natural water geyser where u get cold water throughout the year.water is belived to have medicinal powers . all of us had water poured on our heads . it was a very refreshing feeling.it totally energized us to handle challenges ahead.this guide took us the in route exactly opposite way i had taken last time.this was pretty easy compared to older route.
crawled at some places and reached a small gorge .this was of three sharp rocks slanting against each other with deep crater below.we have to keep legs on two rocks totally stretching our legs to extremes at once slide ourselves to third rock .this was difficult .considering there was no support to hold on to and any mistake we could have fallen into gorge in between the rocks!!! we took lot of time there slowly all 10 of us passed it.then there where lot of small openings in the rock where we have to fit ourselves.it was an amazing experience.we had to go in caves jumping from one rock to another for next 45 minutes to reach the end of the caves.
we started descending .vikram was complaining about his floaters not giving enough support and grip to him .at bamboo huts he made a mistake by going into hard and slanting rock and lost his balance and hence fell down rolled and little .luckily he had only small cut on his right hand and after little relaxation we were ready to go . climbed down without further any incidents.stopped at reliance fresh at dabbaspet for afternoon lunch cum evening snacks at 5 30 in the evening.at 6 30 started back to bangalore and reached at 8 30.
so this was our reunion.totally went back 5 years!!!
thank you guys for make it a success...hope to have lot of such reunions in future
