Sringeri, Hanuman Gundi and Sirimane Waterfalls

This was like a mini class trip. I was asked if I am interested in coming to Hanuman Gundi falls and I, obviously never miss an opportunity to see new places, and Hanuman Gundi had been on my wishlist for quite sometime now, and what better way to go than with a group of 15 guys. They were me, Aslam, Varun, Mishra, Soumyajit, Sorabh, Pavan, Abhishek, Sethi, Nandu, Priyam, Bharath, Kamath, Sushant and Hemagiri. We started off early in the morning at around 7 o' clock, we hired a mini bus, which had capacity of 15. It was pretty good, had DVD and audio player, and the seats were pretty comfortable. The place is around 2 and a half hours from our college. It falls in Chikmaglore district, and is in the heart of Kudremukh National Park. We took the way from Padubidri, and then NH 17 via Karkala. We stopped just outside Karkala for breakfast. After having breakfast, we stopped to get a pass for entering Kudremukh National Park, which was valid till evening 6 o' clock. Just after around 10 kms from there, we reached our destination - Soothanabbi Falls or more famously known as Hanuman Gundi falls. It is named after Hindu god Hanuman, and Gundi means a deep descent, like a gorge or something. The water falls into this hole, from a height of 22m.

After reaching the falls, we bought entrance ticket of Rs 20, and then we had to go down the steps (around 380 of them). The steps had recently been made, otherwise people had to trek down to see the falls. It was a beautiful sight when we reached down - waterfalls right in middle of the forest. I had read few blogs about this place, some days back, they scared me a lot. They said that the place is infested with honey bees, crabs and snakes. But, none of us found anything close to them. Guess, the developments made way for their extinction from the place. But, nonetheless, it was a really good hangout spot. We had come all prepared - we had towels, extra pair of clothes and inner wears. After taking some snaps of the falls, it was time to get wet. So, I changed into my shorts and jumped into water (not exactly jumped, I exaggerate sometimes). Viewer discretion is advised in some photos, they contain unintentional partial nudity. :D

The water was freezing cold. After shivering in the water for first 5 minutes, I got adjusted to it. The rocks were very slippery, we had to be careful while walking inside the water. We then decided to go near the falls, right under where the water was falling. As we went close, the splashing of water made it even colder. But, standing right under water falling from a height of around 70 ft is something unexplainable. It was an amazing experience. After Sita Falls, this was the second place where I took bath directly under the water falls. We stayed there for sometime, and then relaxed just around the falls sitting on some non-slippery rocks and posing for some photos. After that, some guys discovered a pond on a little lower level of the falls, and decided to swim there. The water was pretty deep over there, and it was uneven too, and since I did not know swimming, I decided to stay out of it. Then, climbing back to top was a pain, it was exhausting. While coming down, I never felt that there were so many steps, but while going up, they were just never ending. Somehow, we made it to top, and then had Puliyogere, a traditional rice made with tamarind. After all the hard work, the food looked too delicious. We didn't care about plates and spoons, had it directly with our hands right from the container. Pavan had got it from his home, and we thanked him for saving our day. Since, it was just 12 o' clock, some of us suggested visiting Sringeri which was just 30 km from there. When asked the gate man of the falls about places to see in Sringeri, he suggested a temple and Sirimane waterfalls.

On the way, we stopped at a place which overlooked a valley and had many shades of mountains visible from it. We took many photos over there, and then headed to Sringeri.

We also found many monkeys on the way, and some of them were funny and candid.

We continued the same NH 13 and reached Sringeri, it is a famous place for Sharadamba Temple, which, they say, is more than a thousand years old. The temple was beautiful, and there were some expansions done to it on the inside and outside. It was very hot and walking bare foot inside was very uncomfortable, there were mats put on some places, which did help a little. All other guys took prasad and applied teeka(kumkum) on their foreheads. Then, we had lunch in the temple itself. The food was very simple - white rice, daal and sambar. Later, we went to a pond which was connected to the temple premises. It was a relief keeping your foot on the water, after walking bare foot in the scorching heat. The pond had insane number of fishes, all of the same kind and almost same sizes. Everyone was feeding them something like roasted rice(murmure/bhel) and some fruits. We didn't have anything, since we never knew something like this existed. One guy who was feeding banana was gracious enough to give us one, which we divided amongst ourselves. He also showed us how to feed it to the fish. I held a small piece of it on the edge of four fingers of my palm, kept it stationary for sometime, and then woah, I get a sudden shock, a sweet one though. A fish just came and grabbed it out of my hand. It didn't have teeth, so it didn't bite, but I got a shock when it clutched my fingers. We thought camera would not be allowed in the temple, so we didn't take one. Although, we realised later that the camera was restricted only inside the temple where the gods were kept. We did take some photos from mobile camera.

Then, we headed off to Sirimane Falls, which is like 13 km from Sringeri on the way back. We had to take a deviation on right on NH 13. The road was very narrow and bumpy too. We paid the entrance fee of Rs 5 and entered the falls. It was just a few steps down. There were too many sounds of people screaming and shouting, and only after reaching down, did we come to know the reason as to why they were so excited. There were these 4 foreigners - 2 guys and 2 girls, who were also present over there. Just to attract them, these guys were over-excited. Okay, lets not deviate from the falls. Sirimane waterfalls was pretty ok, nothing too extra-ordinary. But, the good thing about this falls was that the rocks were not slippery, so some of us found a place under the falls, where we wouldn't get wet. Since, we didn't have much time left, we decided not to take bath and just took some snaps over there, and decided to head off. On the way back climbing the steps, we struck a conversation with the foreigners, they said they were from UK and Australia. They had come in Enfields all the way from Goa. In fact, they bought the bikes in Goa, and rode from there to Karwar, Jog Falls, Sringeri (I remember seeing the same bikes outside the temple) and were here now. There were 3 bikes, which meant that a girl was also riding a bike, well not just a bike, but a 500cc Enfield. I was like WOW.

We left from there by around 4.15 pm and crossed the limits of Kudremukh National Park at

around 5.30 pm (which was well before 6pm). Then, at a place called Bajegoli, we

stopped to prepare Maggi, which we had kept delaying. There was a Jain temple, from where

we could get water. We prepared it just before the sunset and it was just enough to satisfy

the 15 of us. Got tea and coffee from the nearby canteen. Then, we headed back and reached

college by 8'o clock.

The best thing about this trip, for me was that, it was the cheapest one I've

had till now and one of the best day trips. I just spent 300 Rs for the whole trip.

Isn't that awesome! Just 300 bucks for a day full of fun and adventure.