Driving through forests and trekking to waterfalls ~ Travel diaries from the Western ghats of India
The hills fascinate me. Avenues of curved roads bring forth views and horizons of unassailable beauty. Couple that with a welcoming breeze which the dense forests sway to and you are amidst the perfect road trip. The last couple of months being busy, left us no room for planning. We decided it best to hire a car for four days and intended to drive till Agumbe through the beautiful Western Ghats.
The train we boarded arrived at Bengaluru at precisely 7am and we headed straight towards Chikmagalur through the Hassan highway. Our first stop en route was Sharavanabelagola, where a 58 feet tall statue of Gomateswara is located amidst other sculptures. It is believed that Chandragupta Maurya died here in 298 BC (Yeah, I’m a history buff). The hill is a tough climb, but the views atop made the climb worthwhile.
Post lunch, we stopped at the twin cities of Belur and Halebidu, the finest examples of Hoysala architecture. The Halebidu temple complex is huge, hosting two temples, which are made of soapstone with ornate designs on the outer walls and ceilings. No two sculptures out of the thousands are the same and the temple took 86 years to build, which is why it took us more than an hour to explore the majestic temple with a guide.
A twenty minute drive found us at the Belur temple at around 5pm where we were met by the Chennakeshava Temple which took 103 years to build. The intricately carved black pillars, each of them the work of a master craftsman from the era are a testament to that. It is the only Hoysala temple still in active worship. We could have spent hours admiring the workmanship, but still had to drive a few hours before we reached our hotel.
Day 2 found us eager to to trek to the Mullayanagiri peak so we started off early in the morning, after a breakfast of Benne dosa, a Malnad speciality. The drive to the base goes through beautiful ghat roads, with some of India’s best coffee plantations as company on either side. The area is sparsely populated and has dense untouched forests the further you go.
The trek took us four hours through beautiful, yet steep pathways and the presence of mist in the first hour made visibility low. Curvy roads took us through forests. The final 30 minutes of the trek was rather challenging but the panoramic view from the top was well worth it. We had officially conquered the highest point in Karnataka.
Soon after we fueled ourselves with lunch, we drove up to the Baba Budangiri hill, yet another beautiful view point. After spending some time at the top, a local suggested Kalhatti falls, which was just an hour away. Upon reaching there, we were told that the waterfall was two kilometres within the forest and the only way to get there was by foot. Tired after one trek in the morning, we were in two minds but decided to carry on nevertheless. It was tiring but a dip in the waterfalls saw us through all the body aches.
We started off at around 5 pm and decided to halt at Horanadu for the night, located midway to our final destination, Agumbe.
Day 3 began with a drive to Agumbe through the Kudhremukh forest reserve and Sringeri. Kudhremukh was an iron ore mining town in the past but was abandoned after the practice was banned a few years ago. The area is protected due to the existence of wildlife and for bio diversity conservation. Apart from the this, the Thunga and the Bhadra river originate nearby. The drive through the forest on the single road was stunning as we stopped at different spots just to soak in on the beauty that surrounded us.
Our next pit stop was at Sringeri for lunch, finally arriving at Agumbe at around 2 pm. We came across tea plantations on the way, the only ones in Chikmagalur. We had arranged for tents through a friend, who also told us about another secluded waterfall nearby, to which we drove for a while, before walking the rest of the way. The water here was clear and being the only people around, we unanimously decided that another bath could do us no harm. Soon after our refreshing experience, we drove down to the Agumbe ghat road to view the surreal sunset. 9 pm, and we were back in our tents.
The biting cold at 4 am kept us awake and the thought of the sunrise kept us going. We trekked to a nearby hill to watch the sun come up. It took us an hour to walk 3 km up the hill but the magnificent sunrise did it justice. Keep an eye out for the ISRO rocket right above the sun in one of the pictures.
Back to camp at 8AM, where we had breakfast for one last time in this beautiful coffee country before we started off on our drive back to Bengaluru.
About the author
Pranav is a sales-guy working with India’s fastest growing B2B start-up, Freshdesk. When not closing deals across Europe, you can find him sitting in a corner reading a book, practising the violin or planning his next travel.
