Trek to Sakleshpura - Saturday, 22 Jan 2005
(Hangover - All through Sunday, 23 Jan 2005,
After-effects - All through Monday and Tuesday 24-25 Jan 2005)
After-effects - All through Monday and Tuesday 24-25 Jan 2005)
Had the privilege (= lots of free time!) to trek to Sakleshpura and Kukke which is somewhere near Mangalore (or that's what I was told) with my friends and friends' friends (10 in all). Went by a cool Karnataka State Transport bus (yup! one of them red-painted dustbins they call buses). After 4 hours of near-death experience and lot of rocking about like witch-doctors, we landed at Gundiya checkpost. Towards the end of the journey, we saw some 4 accidents, what with buses and lorries kissing each other in the dark. We were saved from death during the travel only by the cheerful spirit we had and all the Koundamani jokes and Vadivelu jokes we recalled. At Gundiya, all was dark, and happened to notice stars all over the sky after years in the city.
Trucks trudging along the uphill road, and three sleepy checkpost-guys was all the company we had. It was forest area and we were told that elephants frequent the place. I was praying that no black elephant comes clothed in the pitch darkness that was all around (A white elephant would be fine though). We got back an hour of lost sleep till dawn.
I was awakened (as usual, last to rise) when There Was Light (I didnt hear anybody saying "Let there be light" since I was sleeping. I was praying "Let there be no light for one more hour"). But some hot tea from a dingy "restaurant" got a zero-watt bulb burning in my brain (or is it "the zero-watt bulb that IS my brain"?) I was about to drink it and get into my sleeping bag, but peer pressure and some self-respect stopped me from giving the check-post guys a day of company. Alrighty then.... Time to start the daylong trek...
Got my share of food and fruits (and LOTS of common stuff) into my backpack. Like a grand marriage procession, we started walking. Yup, we had the perennial photographer Saravanakumar (Gujju) with us for the procession, covering every step (okay, ALMOST every step) with his cool digicam (felt like celebrities being hounded by the paparazzi ;-) We come to The Bridge Across The River XXX, a decent-sized river. We probably had to say 'cheeeez' 5 times there.
This place looks a lot like Kerala to me, with the big gardens/"thoppu"s around small oatu-veedus (whats english for that?) and the general greenery quotient (YES! I coined a new term!!!). We have walked about half a km and I already feel I am carrying a bit too much weight.
I stumble along (now that's my refrain for this piece of poetry), it is quite uphill. We see a man in his house which is about half a kilometre from his compound gate, and check if we are on the right track. (He can actually play a cricket tournament inside his compound. If I own so much space in Bangalore, I can resign my job here and now) He shocks me by letting us know that our first destination (it is the railway station) is a stone's throw away (=12 kms UPHILL most of the way) I am wondering if I could do the trek in a jeep....
So we all walk, some of us are almost running all the way to reach the place. I am steadily walking near the tail end, all the while exhausting my supply of bananas and fruit juice to give me energy. It is becoming sweaty and I have to remove my jerkin (why did I bring that???) and soon enough my shirt too. Anyway there are no people around, leave alone girls. All I hear is the constant howling of the wind and the occasional chirp of an enthusiastic cuckoo, not to mention the distant roar of the river we crossed. After an infinite number of stops on the way, I join the others on the railway route. It is an abandoned track and I dont think any non-crazy person would dare come here alone. These are tracks spanning hills with tunnels and bridges.
We take rest there for about half an hour while we finish up some food (mainly from others' bags), Gujju Saravanakumar gives his camera good workouts while we are all lying on the ground, worked out. Thats when the fancy dress party begins, with each of us changing to fashionable clothes (alas! there was not a single girl to whom we could show off throughout the trek). We are told by "Been Here, Done It, Got the T-Shirt" Gujju that the tracks and fishplates? date back to colonial days (trivia of the day - 1887 precisely). I am also told that this is the Point Zero of our trek (I am asking myself "Then what was I doing so far???"). We start from there on our journey like a human train.
Halfway through a tunnel, we notice a trolley racing towards us threatening our limbs. The human train disassembles and runs helter-skelter to the dark walls of the bat-infested tunnel. Speaking of bats, I am reminded of all those gory ghost movies. I dont know if they really are bloodsuckers. It is slightly scary, but I have seen Discovery Channel too where a man holds one of the flying rats and studies its wings while it watches helplessly. I make up my mind and follow the group, groping around in the dark tunnel, my foot stumbling at every possible stone worth the name. Above us, the bats are also excited and communicate among themselves about us boring humans disturbing their peace. I hear lots of shreiks from them, and I know very much that they might be also shreiking ultrasonic messages to attack us.
At last, there is light at the end of the tunnel (They say God was there just 10 minutes ago and he had ordered for some light there). We now come to the first of the numerous bridges (I mean railroad bridges across huge chasms, not rivers). It is quite a thrill to walk across them, with the ever-present fear of falling into a hole through to one's death or lameness - depending on the depth). It is just alternating emptiness and flat iron bars where you must land on the latter to prevent your bones sent home on a platter. There is Yama to your left and Yama to your right. I manage to cross the first one with a lot of confidence though (depth must have been about 5-10 feet below - now you know why)
There starts an unending (at least till 4.30 pm) series of tunnels and bridges that we crossed. We stop by on the way to rest on the mound of gravel (felt like a sanyasi!) that is at the valley-side of the track and look at the Bridge O'er The River which is by now far far away. We meet a man on the way, who is adept at walking on the rails, a feat I tried and almost broke my feet at. He tells us that there is a place to eat 3 km from there. Mind you, it is 3 km of walking on gravel, or on the rails if you want to avoid being hurt by every stone (so you can get hurt REALLY well when you fall off the rail :-) ). We stop by a place and gobble some chapathis with tomato sauce, and guess what? We continue walking.
The most thrilling moments were when we crossed a bridge about half km long, with a 300-400 foot fall staring us in the face. It also had a great view of the mountains and valleys till the far and wide horizon. It was so thrilling, beautiful, bewitching, and no person can afford not to get contemplative there. It was about 2 pm, and the sun was right above us beating down a 32 deg. celsius heat on us. I was so tired of the walk till then. But we could not resist going back halfway through the bridge after we had crossed, such was the charm of the place.
After we rested by a cool stream and had our bath, we continued trekking for an hour or so more to reach Siribagilu. Then we started the downhill walk and after another hour and a half, were back on the roads. We took a jeep to our next destination, the Subrahmanya Temple at Kukke. It was a half-hour ride, with us cramped into a single jeep. Three in the front, and the driver, a puny localite halfway outside his vehicle (a la Ace Ventura). Still he drove at 50+ kmph and we reached Subrahmanya. The place is quaint, with a clearly preserved culture without too much commercialization, and takes one on a time-travel to a different age. The temple itself is reminiscent of the Guruvaayoor Temple, in architecture and the people who come there. It feels really like Kerala outside Kerala. The deity himself was scarcely discernible in the dark except as streaks of golden light.
By now, I am limping all my way because of some to-be-blisters in my feet. But the pain is forgotten once I have some good food in a small hotel adjacent to the temple. Food there is better than what I expected. Bangalore hotels are no good compared to the food there (to my Tamil tongue at least). Then we board the 9 pm bus (yup! the dustbin again) back to Bangalore. It is a 5 hour journey, mostly unnoticed because I was sleeping like a dead man.
We reach Bangalore, the land of crazy auto-wallahs at 3.30 am. Gujju and I settle for 'double the meter rate' and reach our respective places. It is finally sleep, sleep and more sleep, all through Sunday for me and till Monday 9.30 pm (I have a friendly manager at work, do YOU?)
Trekking team:
Avinash, Gujju, Dhamu, Satya Ghosh, Nagendra, Sathish, Hari, Krishna, Shreekar.
(I am missing one name, wonder which one....)
--
Tiredly yours,
Subbu
