Stay @ Rippon Mount Resorts, Wayanad

During last October we with other couple went to Wayanad . We initially thought to stay at Green Paradise Resorts. As we did not get Kabani cottages in Green Paradise, we choose Rippon Mount Resorts for our stay at Wayanad.

Our decision to choose Rippon proved to be correct. The whole experience at Rippon Mount resorts was awesome except the journey to the resort.

It was almost 6 or 6.30 pm by the time we reach Meppady. We did not estimate that it would be dark by that time. It was too dark added to that it was heavily raining. We took lil halt in Meppady as it was dangerous to drive in that heavy rain. Then we started our journey to reach the resort enquiring the localities about the route. We are almost reached the resort with the help of localities and Resorts’ sign boards.

There we saw a mud road with no proper way; it was a sharp slope and was very difficult to take reverse or U turn. As it was dark, rainy and no proper road ahead in that forest area and could not see any one else in that place we thought we missed the route and landed in the deep forest. Thankfully we had our Airtel signal, then we called resort enquiry twice and they came till our vehicle with torch lights to take us to the resort. These torch lights are like sun rays some timesJ. This was a thrilling experience

By the time we reach the resort it was almost 8.30 as it was too dark we did not adventure to see the surrounding places. We had good dinner in Kerala style and took rest.

We wake up lil early in the morning and went to see surrounding places with our Cams. The Resort is on top of the Rippon hill facing the famous Soochipara waterfalls. The view is breathtaking from the suicide point.... it’s really nice to see the mist moving around and the sky touching the mountain, where the mountains are partially seen.

We took many photos in the resort and ventured to walk outside the resort for some time. This forest walk was a nice experience. We could hear live screaming, roaring of many animals from long distances during our walk. After walking for some time we came back to the resort had our breakfast and started back our tour from resort to see other places in Wayanad

I will write a Travelogue on This Kerala Trip soon. And check http://www.ripponmountresorts.com/ for more details on this resort.

Siddara Betta - Trekking and Cave Exploration

Our Project team was planning to go out from long time.. finally the day has come... we checked with many options like Wonderla etc.... I suggested trekking... then we googled for some good place ... after reviewing some blogs we finally decided Siddara Betta as it has trekking, temple and most importantly Caves.

The Place...

Siddara Batta is a rocky hill 3660 feet above sea level. It is Sacred Place where many sadhus/Holy spiritual men made meditation and worship of Lord Shiva. We can still see some sadhus meditating here and some more are in samadhi state. Here is a famous temple situated at the Top of the Hill. Though the major crowd which visits here are pilgrims, this place is also interests for trekkers and other nature lovers. The main attractive spot here is the Lakshmi Cave, which is more than a kilometer deep and a visit to this cave is an adventure in itself.

The Plan...

Our Team members - Ramesh, Kharibam, Mahesh, Preetam, Swapnil, Kowsalya, Vinod, Kavya, Sachin and me planned to meet in office near Mekhri circle on Friday, 10th Dec 2010 @ 7.15 AM. Other team mate Rimple missed this as he was on vacation. We all met at the office by 7.45AM. Mahesh arranged a Tempo Traveler for this purpose. We all get into this and started our journey.

The Route…
Siddara Betta is around 12 Km from Koratagere in Tumkur district and is around 85 km away from the Bangalore (Mekhri circle).

We had our breakfast in Kamath hotel in Tumkur road on the way to Siddara betta. Nice Idly Vada and Dosas available there. We enquired for rice to parcel for lunch at hill top; we knew that there are no hotels available around Siddara betta. But it was not available at that time. So we started our journey back hoping to get lunch parcel in some daba on the way. We reached the flyover before Tumkur in a short time and started enquiring this place.

Important confusing fact is that there are two Siddara bettas .. One near dobhaspet and one near koratagere. Our destination is Siddara betta near koratagere. We need to take service road at this flyover (this place name is Dobhaspet) and take right turn to reach koratagere and then Siddara betta. We reached Siddara betta around 11 AM. We did not get food on the way. We checked for the food at the base and ordered at a small hotel to have it after coming back from trekking.

The Trek…

There are steps till the temple. We started going in that route to the hill top, meanwhile we met a localite/guide he said there is another way to trek which pass thru many other places of hill. Then we hired his service (for `400/-) for our trek and started trekking with him. The trekking was thru steep hill rocks, there is no path and it is lil slippery. On the way we saw some small cave and spent some time over there. Then we started our trekking again and in middle the guide forgot the route, after searching for 5-10mins we were in the right way and joined the steps path to the temple after almost 1 hour trek.

I’m already exhausted even though we took frequent intervals, as it was taking time for me, so I asked other team members to go ahead with the trek. I took almost 15 mins rest and started trekking again. Meanwhile other team members reached temple had bath and completed puja (it’s good to carry another pair of dress). By the time I reached the temple they were in Cave exploration. I had Quick darshan and hired other guide service (for `50/-) to join the team members inside the cave. There are many guides available near the cave. It took just 5-10 mins to meet other team members in the cave. Then we all started the Cave exploration.

The Cave ...

The cave is starts from the temple (near the Shiva linga) and ends outside the temple. The cave was long and the cave exploration was thrilling. There are some Samadhis of sadhus inside the caves who meditated here some time back.

We started to move inside caves. The passage was very small at some places; the rocks were quite slippery and sharp. At some places we need to cross big rocks... there were some real low rise rocks where we had to literally crawl to pass thru ...It was awesome !!

We also reached a few open areas with vegetation. One of these areas housed large roots which are good enough to be a nice swing. We had some group photos over there... and finally we manage to reach end of that cave after passing thru some bees :-(. It is good to carry Torchlight with you that helped us a lot in these caves.

There are many monkeys around this hill like in many other places which take away if you carry any plastic bags (i think it’s a nice way to reduce the usage of plastics :-) ).

From here we can trek to the hill top where we can see another temple and some meditation points and good 360 view of surrounding places.

But we could not go there as it was already 3pm to start the journey back to Bangalore. This time we used the steps to come back to the base unlike the trek path we used while going to the top. On the way we went to a place called Pyramid where two sadhus are still meditating. We did not disturb them and came down to the base and started our journey back to Bangalore. On the way we passed thru the Elevated expressway in Tumkur road that was newly opened on that day, which saved almost one hour of our journey.

Other places to see nearby - Devarayana Durga and there is a hill nearby with a fort at the top

Accommodation – no accommodation available, you need to carry tents if you want to stay night

Food – Kamath Hotel and some Dabas available on the way in Tumkur road. But no food is available at Siddara Betta. Good to carry from Bangalore.

Transportation - Self

Sadhasiva sanyasi from Khaleja

Movie - Khaleja
Lyrics - Rama jogayya sastri

Nandi hills and surrounding places

It was a long pending trip with entire family. As my youngest brother coming from Hyderabad to Bangalore for holiday we asked our parents also to come here so that we go somewhere around Bangalore

We initially thought to go to Nandi hills but later thought about other places too, after thinking of many places and searching in internet and blogs we decided 3 places – Nandhi hills, Bannergatta National Park and Sivasamudhra. Ha.. finally freezed to the initial place Nandhi Hills as it is nearby from my place, Sahakara Nagar. We decided to go early morning to see sun rise @ Nandhi hills and then visit to Bogha Nandheeswara Temple, Mudhena halli and Devanahalli fort.

We started around 4.30 am from home and reached Nandi hills by 5.30 am. It was butiful and my parents could not come out of the vehicle as it was too cold and totally covered with fog. We waited in the vehicle for some time as the ticket counter was not yet opened to go to the top of the hill. It was 6 am by the time we reach th top of the hill after getting the ticket.

Just after coming out of the vehicle, we went to the back side of KSTDC's Hotel Mayura Pine Top for proper view of Sun rise... But as we are not sure of the sun rise view point we came back to the initial enquired for the Sun rise view point after having hot tea. They said it would be 7.00/7.30 Am by the sun rises. So we had an hour or so to roam around before the sun rise. We left our parents at a hotel as they were feeling too cold in that environment and went across the temples and parks. We could not see others/places clearly as there was too much fog.

It was almost 7.30 am, but still no sun rise... so we had our breakfast and then waiting for sun rise... Around 8.00 am we could see only partial sun rise. It was Okay. We waited for Sun rise at Tippu drop till 10.30 am, but still no luck. Then we decided to go back... We went to Yoga Nandhiswara temple and Tippu Summer Palace while coming back to the base. Check some more snaps below.

Bhoga Nandhiswara temple is in Nandi village which is around 8Km from the base of Nandi hills. This is historical temple with high architecture values. This temple constructed in ninth century in Dravidian style and upgraded by 5 kings in different periods of time. The courtyard surrounding the temple is huge and the temple itself has several separate areas with small temples. During our visit, surroundings were too oily may be because of Karthika Pournami festival. The main complex of the temple houses a statue of Shiva and Parvati in the same stone with a intricately carved Kalyana Mantapa in front and lots of pillars; the Kalyana Mantapa in front of middle temple looks similar to the Belur/Halebidu built by the Hoysalas with micro carvings. A separate area has a dance platform and a place for the king to sit and watch the performance. The large peaceful tank/Kalyani is in the next area. There is good garden maintained outside the temple. You can spend at least half a day here visiting temple and enjoying the nature outside the temple.

Our next destination was Mudhena halli which is around 5Km from Nandi village. It is the birthplace of Sir. M. Vishveswarayya. His ancestral home, where he was born, has been preserved for public viewing. There is a small museum with the items he used. We can see his Bhata Rathna medal in this museum. And there are many photos of him with historical leaders and kings of that time. And Vishveswarayya's samadhi is also nearby.

Initially we thought to go to some small waterfalls near Nandi village while coming back as pointed by my younger brother. But as we are not sure of the route for this waterfalls plan and started journey back to Devanahalli.

Devanahalli fort is a small fort with only huge walls covering small village. We can just go to the top of these fort walls and spend some time over there. Then while coming back to Bangalore we visited Tippu's birth place near by the Devanahalli fort.