Mugilu - Beyond the clouds

It had been a long time since we had made a weekend trip. This time we wanted to pick a place where we could drive to, in about 4-5 hours. So, Sakleshpur was an obvious candidate. After researching a bit, the two places that stood out in Sakeshpur.

First was Kadumane. While every place in Sakleshpur talked of coffee estates, this one was about a heritage tea estate dating back to British times. This was ruled out since it was closed for maintenance this weekend.

The second was Mugilu, a plantation stay  run by a couple - Chandan and Sapna. This one stood out by the sheer quality of reviews that it had received from guests.

Mugilu has just 4 cottages. So, it was unlikely that we get a place there given that I was calling as late as Friday for a booking on Saturday. With fingers crossed, I called up Chandan. Luckily for us, they had one cottage free and and we booked it right away :-)

We started from Bangalore at 7 AM on Saturday and reached Mugilu by 11:30 AM and were welcomed by Chandan and his pets, Shunti, about which a lot has been written in blogs and Keechu.

Mugilu does full justice to being a "homestay", be it the cottage, the people, the conversations or the food.

As we took our first walk in the plantation, a series funny looking spider webs caught our attention . These were very different from any spider webs we had ever seen. Each web was like a thick pipe with a huge spider within. We learnt from Chandan that these were funnel spiders.

Funnel Spiders

We had lunch in the common dining area which also doubles up as a mini library, rested for a few hours and went for a walk just in time for sunset.

Sunset at Mugilu

Sunset at Mugilu 

Smoke caught in the valley looking like clouds

The next morning, we started the day early around 6:30 - 7 AM and went for a longish walk accompanied, rather guided by Shunti. We had the company of Girish and Sushmita, who we had met the previous day.

Walking into the clouds at Mugilu

For a small walk with our guide

The huge meadows around Mugilu were gleaming like pearls in the early morning Sun rays.

Early morning Sun

Walking into wilderness

Paddy fields after a harvest

After the walk, we had a delicious breakfast, had some more conversations with Chandan and headed back to Bangalore. This time of the year is probably not the best time to enjoy the beauty of this place, but this visit has let us get a taste of this place, let us venture into places we might not be able to reach during monsoons and of course left us wanting to come back for more - a longer visit to this place, probably around the post monsoon season.

Bhoga Nandeeshwara Temple - 01 June 2013

We had seen and heard references to a 1300 year old temple in the Nandi village near Nandi Hills. But, in spite having made innumerable trips to Nandi hills, we had never got around to exploring this. This time however, we were determined to make it to the Bhoga Nandeeshwara temple .

The weekend trip to Nandi hills was set up nicely with the monsoons hitting Bangalore with heavy rains on Friday. So, when we started from Bangalore on Saturday at 7:30 AM , it was pleasant all along the way. We reached the hills by 9 AM and were welcomed by chilly winds. This time again, like the last time, we were pleasantly surprised by some new additions to the place. The new  additions were a number of new view points (See picture below).

We spent a couple of hours inhaling the fresh air, paid a visit to the temple atop the hill and then headed down and got on our way to the Bhoga Nandeeshwara temple. The temple is about 7-8 km from the base of Nandi hills. When you start back from the base of the hills towards Bangalore, at Karahalli, instead of turning right (for Bangalore), continue straight for a few kilometers to reach the temple.

The temple complex was much bigger than we had expected, with large, well maintained lawns on both sides of the walk way.

There were a few huge stone wheels at the entrance, possibly part of a chariot in the past!

The section right after you enter is the main temple area with the sanctum. The main temple deity is Shiva Parvati and Nandi (Shiva's mount or Vahana)

Apart from the main gods, the temple houses a idol of Ganapati, in a unique form, Ugra Ganapati.

There was also a window with an interesting design which looked like creating a silhouette of Nataraja

To the right of the main temple, there is a structure similar to a Kalyana Mantapa (marriage hall).

Further right, is the temple lake (Kalyani), a huge structure with the hills in the background.

We heard that, thrice in a year, 1,00,000 lamps are lit in the temple. Our next visit would be on one of those days :)

Lonavala - 19 April 2012

I just spent a nice little vacation week in Mumbai. When starting from Bangalore, I was mentally prepared for the scorching Mumbai heat. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when the two day visit to Lonavala from Mumbai planned.

We stayed at the Club Mahindra Lake Pavna Resort in Tungi. This is one of Club Mahindra's newer properties and not fully occupied yet. Since the resort was not really "in" Lonavala but more than an hour's drive from there, we didn't do the normal touristy stuff and instead decided to stay in and around the resort.

Here are a few of the stand out attractions of the trip.

1. Pavna lake
A beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and had a decent water level for this time of the year. The resort did a great job of providing some amazing views of the lake with the hills in the background.

 

2. Shivling
This is a hill in the shape of a Shivling near Lonavala. It is best viewed from the Shivling Darshan view point on the way from Lonavala to Tungi. The panoramic view from this point is simply breathtaking.

3. The infinity pool at the resort
The pool is built in such a way that it gives you the feeling that it merges with  lake Pavna.
 

An interesting coincidence occurred when we were at the pool. We saw a cloud that looked very much the same shape as the Shivling peak.

 

Jog falls, Ikkeri and Murudeshwar

A neat little combination for a weekend away from Bangalore.

We started from bangalore Friday evening towards Shimoga on the inter city express train (leaving Bangalore city railway station at 4:30 PM). This turned out to be a quick and comfortable way to reach Shimoga from Bangalore. The train reached Shimoga by 9:30 giving us enough time to grab dinner and find a place to stay.

The next day, we hired a cab to take us to Jog falls. Jog falls is about 100 KM from Shimoga and take a bit more than 2 hours if you head there directly. We stopped on the way to visit a temple at Ikkeri, a 3KM deviation from Sagara town. This 15th century temple is definitely worth a visit.

The temple was supposedly built during the reign of the Vijayanagara chiefs and follows the Nayaka style of Architecture.

We spent an hour at the temple and moved on towards Jog falls.


The first sight of the water fall was breath taking. There is a stairway to take you to the base of the waterfall. We took the stairs and reached the base of the waterfall. Watching the falls from the base is even more stunning. It rained on and off during our climb down and we could see a rainbow in the water fall.

We spent some time playing in the water at the base of the waterfall and started back. The climb back was daunting but we managed it with a couple of breaks.


From there on, we headed to Murudeshwar, which is about 100 KM from Jog. The roads are bad, especially the ghat section and it turned out to be a two and half hour drive.

By the sea at RNS residency
At Murudeshwar, we stayed at RNS Residency. This is probably the best place to stay in Murudeshwar located close to the temple and beach and with beach facing rooms.

Observatory atop the gopuram
Both the main temple and the Shiva cave temple are beautiful. The temple gopuram also doubles up as a 16 floor observatory to get a birds eye view of Murudeshwar. The views from the top are amazing.




We headed back to Bangalore by the KSRTC Volvo bus that leaves Murudeshwar bus stand around 8:40 PM. I think the KSRTC buses come into Murudeshwar only if there are passengers boarding there. If you haven't booked a bus in advance, it would be better to take an auto to the highway and look for buses there.

The Hyderabadi Experience (15 Dec 2010)

In December 2010, I got this opportunity of traveling to Hyderabad for an official cause. I had recently watched the movie 'Angrez' and had been totally fascinated with Hyderabad's old city culture. So, I grabbed this opportunity with both hands.

It was a short trip and I didn't have much time to roam around the city. We flew to Hyderabad the day before the work day and settled into a guest house in the IT area by 6 PM. We were to fly out immediately after work the next day. So, I only had that evening to experience the city.

Fortunately, I had the services of a local guide, my friend Siddharth.

We shot into the old city area an auto and went straight to charminar. Let me tell you one thing - a simple auto ride can be pretty entertaining in Hyderabad.


The charminar area and the adjoining Chudi bazaar are almost exactly as they were potrayed in the movie Angrez. An interesting thing that I noticed at charminar was that there is a Bhagyalakshmi temple at the base of charminar.


From there, we headed to the Gokul chats. What amazed me here was the scale of preparation of chats (see pic below)


We then went on to Nilofer cafe, an Irani Chai shop. I an a tea addict and it was a great experience to sit there with a cup (or maybe 2) of Irani Chai and a plate of biscuits.


On the way, I bought biscuits from the Karachi bakery to bring back home. These are delicious. Don't miss them whenever you go to Hyderabad.

We rounded of the hectic evening by going to necklace road and then watching Harry Potter in 3D at Prasad's IMAX. That was my first IMAX experience.

Hogenakkal and Yercaud (13 Aug 2011)

It was a Friday evening before a long weekend and the search for a suitable getaway had to start...

Any search of this sort involves answering 3 questions
1. Where to go ?
2. How to reach ?
3. Where to stay ?

The impending long weekend meant that most touristy places would have absolutely no accommodation available. Dipti and I went through the above list of questions for 3 places and found no accommodation.

1. Shimoga and jog falls
2. Waynad
3. Kemmangundi

We finally settled for a road trip on NH7.

We started from Bangalore on Saturday morning and headed to Hogenakkal falls. The safest route is to take Hosur Road towards electronic city, go past Attibele, Hosur, Krishnagiri and reach Dharmapuri. At Dharmapuri, you have to go under the fly over and take a right. You then continue straight on this road for about 43 Kms to reach the falls.





The best way to enjoy this place is to first walk around for a while and then take a boat ride to the main water falls. You would have to haggle with the boatmen to stike a deal. Something like Rs 500 for a coracle for a group of 6 should be reasonable. However, even if you are just 2-3 people, it might be hard to strike any better deal than this.


We spent time at the waterfall till 3 PM and then started towards Yercaud through Salem. We hadn't managed to find any accommodation in Yercaud because of the long weekend. So, we had decided to stay in Salem for the night and start early next morning to Yercaud. It was good to roam around in a new city and enjoy some good food at Saravana Bhavan. However, I would suggest the best option would be to look for accommodation in Yercaud so that you can enjoy the hill station early morning.

We started from Salem towards Yercaud around 7:30 AM the next day. Its a distance of 30KM and an hours drive. The drive was pretty scenic going through coffee plantations and we got glimpses of fog even though it was late.

Yercaud is a typical hill station in the Ooty model with some view points (Ladys seat, Gents seat, Childrens park, Pagoda point etc.), a lake with boating and a water fall (Kiliyur falls).

We spent some time at the view points, did boating and then went to the water fall.




The water fall was interesting. It is apparently formed by the Yercaud lake overflowing. To get to the falls, you need to climb down a few hundred steps into a valley. The water is extremely cold and refreshing.


After the visit to the falls, we headed back to Bangalore, stopping only for a late lunch at Salem. We covered the 200 KM from Salem to Bangalore in about 3 and half hours and reached bangalore around half past 7. The road is great but it comes at a price. The one way toll fee was Rs 228 :(


All in all, I think this route is a good option for a weekend getaway, especially during monsoons when hogenakkal falls is full.

Trek to Brahmagiri, Coorg (23rd, 24th Oct 2010)

This was my first trekking experience with BMC. Knowing how tough it is to get a group of friends together for a trek, I decided to go ahead and take a shot at going with a new and unknown group of people through BMC. It turned out to be a very good idea and I had an amazing experience.

Our group of 16 started from Bangalore at 10:30 PM on Friday night. We reached Madikeri at 4:30 AM on Saturday and settled into a home-stay about 8 km from Madikeri. We got fresh and had breakfast there and drove towards the base of Brahmagiri (about 80km from the homestay) around 7AM enjoying the amazing weather. At the forest office in Brahmagiri, we were delayed for a couple of hours in getting a guide and we decided to use that time in Irupu falls.

We finally started the trek around 12 noon. Thanks to the leeches which were all along the path, we made quick progress through the forest, with nobody stopping for a break because of the fear of leeches getting into the shoes. We crossed the forest stretch in good time and reached the grasslands and were greeted by some breathtaking views of the hills covered with mist. Since we did not have permission to camp in the hills, we had to start back by 3PM due to which we had to be satisfied with reaching Narimale peak and not Brahmagiri peak.

We trekked back to falls and "washed away" our leeches in the water there. I had about 20 bites on each leg :( . In spite of that, the trek was most enjoyable.

Out host at the home-stay was kind enough to setup a warm campfire for us. We spent a couple of hours a the campfire and then settled into tents that we had pitched in the estate.

Sunday morning, we spent some time walking in the estate through the coffee plantations and then headed back to Bangalore. We visited the Tibetan monastery (Golden Temple) in Kushalnagar on the way to Bangalore.