Malpe, St.Mary's Island and Udupi Trip

After a lot of confusions, and lengthy discussions, and around 300 mail discussions we decided upon Malpe, St. Mary's and udupi. Started from Bangalore on friday night for the first time with a group of 12. After a sleepless journey, reached kudremukh early in the morning when sleep was about to conquer us. The scenary brought us back to our senses but soon we lost ourself in the virgin beauty of mother nature. We could see green tea plantation on one side and a pool of cloud on the other side. The whole journey through kudremukh was like that but we missed a bit of it because of the tablet that was taken to get rid of the vomitting sensation managed to successfully put us into sleep. Could not avoid taking the tablet, since the sleepless night journey combined with sharp turns in the ghats did a lot of damage.

Finally woke up at Udupi where we booked a room in a decent hotel. First visit was to St. Mary's Island near Malpe beach which is famous for basalt rock deposits which look like hexagonal cylinders. From Malpe the isle can be reached by ferry. The island is small and secluded and the serenity is disturbed only by the noisy tourists like us. We had a good bath there in the sea waterddddd. The waves seems to love visitors and When the waves recede they try to take you away with them. After a long time i had opportunity to take bath in sea like that. After spending one hour there we returned back to malpe and went to have lunch. We tried fish there but it did not meet our expectations.

Next halt was at Maravanthe beach to see the sunset. Once again there was little human activity in the beach, which meant it was time for some football action. Next one hour was devoted to football. As usual it turned out to be interesting. End result: Arsenal beat Manu 5-3. Funny, anyway thats how we named the teams. I contributed two goals to the winning side :) One hour of football was too much for people like who rarely involve in physical activities. After the sunset, we went back to hotel after having dinner at Udupi.

Next day i.e sunday, we went to the world famous Udupi Krishnan temple. The architecture looked different. It has a history associated with it which i am not aware of. Anyway after visiting the temple, started to Kaup beach. Kaup was not an exception, and there was not much human inhabitation except for tourists and couples who donot want to be disturbed. It remained comparatively clean. We could not visit the Kaup lighthouse since it is opened only between 4 to 7 in the evening. Around six of our people started playing volleyball, we resorted to cricket with plastic bat and ball. One good thing about cricket is that you can convert any available wood to stumps and bat. Only thing you need is a ball, but we have also played cricket with something that looks like a ball :) This time, we had a plastic bat and a plastic ball, and water battle served as the stump with cap serving as bails. Still it was good.

We decided to go to kodachadri after that, but decided against while on the way to kodachadri. Thoughts about office next days always disturbs and the same thoughts managed to reconsider our decision. Soon we decided against since we might not have enough time to go to kodachadri and return back. So we restricted ourselves to a visit to River Tunga at Teerthahalli and came back to Bangalore. Once again it turned out to be a fun filled trip as it is always. Digi cams gave us the liberty of clicking everything that we thought would be good. People looked a lot generous while taking pictures, and here are the links,

http://picasaweb.google.com/sens2003/MalpeTrip#
http://picasaweb.google.com/kpraveen85/Malpe#
http://picasaweb.google.com/rajesh.kalaivanan/MalpeStMarysIslandMaravanthae#

Kollimalai - Serene and Splendid

Visited kollimalai last week along with seniors, and it turned out to be a great one. Kollimalai was not a well known hill station in Tamilnadu. Not much visited by tourists i guess. Located at around two hours from salem, kollimalai remains undisturbed from tourists harassment . Serenity lends beauty to the place. No traffic, not many people around to disturb you. You are alone with your friends to enjoy the beauty of the hill station. You also have an opportunity to capture the untouched nature in your digicam. The most interesting spot in there is the "Athisaya Aruvi", the waterfalls. To enjoy the the waterfalls you have to climb down around 500 steep steps. The cool water drops falling from the steep rocks looks marvellous and so is the feeling when it falls down and splashes on your body. Few other places include

Arapalliswarar temple
vasalurpatti which has a small lake with boats
Semmedu where there is a small statue of Valvil Ori statue.
A small lake, i forgot the name.

There were few more temples and spots. The most interesting part of the stay in kollimalai is the early morning trekking which we had. Roamed around the gardens and hills there in kollimalai enjoying the early morning chillness. On the return trip went to Hoganekkal, the ride in the calm waters of the cauvery water was great. This happened to be the first trip with super super super seniors. The showed a lot of maturity in organizing the trip, and the trip ended with out any problems.

Snaps at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sens2003/KollimalaiTrip

Trip to Shivasamudra, Bandipur and Mysore

Atlast found some time to blog about few notable things that happened few weeks back.  Should be the second trip where we ventured out of bangalore with a reasonably good crowd we decided to spend the weekend with a short trip to Shivasamudra, Bandhipur and Mysore. Started at 6, and after a swift journey through the smooth Mysore highway, reached Gangana Chukki at around 10. Not much water so the view was not so pleasing there. Next it was time to drench our bodies in the cool waters of Cauvery at Bharachukki. This was the second visit to Bharachukki, this time there was very little water and we used the opportunity to take a nice bath in the cool waters. After the bath and after a little struggle through the rough roads without brakes for the back wheels, managed to reached Bandipur Sanctuary near Tamilnadu border. The forest looked treacherous and trepidation was increasing as the Van moved deeper and deeper  into the forest. But once the safari started in the morning one thing was obvious, only animal that we could sight is spotted deer. During the return journey we stopped at Mysore to explore the architectural beauty of the Mysore palace and at Tipu's museum to revise a bit of history. Few names in history like Haidar Ali and Mysore War lingered for a while during the short visit.

Check out these links for few shots from seniors.

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sens2003/BandipurTrip
http://flickr.com/photos/saponniah