Plan was to leave by 8PM on Saturday 30th October 1999 and the destination was Mudumalai. Information I had about Mudumalai was that it was a forest reserve of Tamil Nadu government, that is all. I also knew that we were going to make our journey through Mysore road. My friend had made reservations for us at Mudumalai. He had also gathered information from his friends and colleagues. I also knew that this place was around 200 Kms from Bangalore. With this we planned that if we left by 8 PM then we would be at Mandya by around 11 PM, so that we could spend the night in some lodge with another friend’s help, since he hails from Mandya. As usual there was lot of changes to our plan. I went to my friend’s place 15 minutes late by 8:15 PM, but others were still getting ready. Finally we left by 8:45 PM and had hot Badam milk at Kaggis bakery. So the team of 9 of us left. We all got into my friend’s new jeep, a commander from Mahindra, which could accommodate 10. So we could dump all our belongings at the back and we took off towards Mysore road by 9:30 PM. First stop was for fueling at Mysore road and then it was at Roseland Dhabha near Bangalore university entrance for our dinner. By this time I decided it would be better if we can go and get some more cash from nearest Citibank ATM, just to be safe. After calling up Citibank customer service we confirmed ourselves that the nearest ATM was at Vijayangar. Instead of all us making the trip, myself and another friend made the trip to the ATM and by the time we got back, others had finished their dinner and Dhabha was closed. But we could still manage to get some hot rotis and fried rice and peas palak masala and 7-up. So finally we took off at 11:15 PM and reached Nanjangud by 3:15 PM with a break for tea at one of the Dhabhas in between. Since everyone except myself and Yogi we expert drivers we had no trouble, but the trouble was the road. At Nanjangud, all the temple choultries and also private lodges were full due to two marriages. So we had to sleep in the jeep itself. While six of them stretched themselves in the jeep, myself and Krishna prasad ventured in the cold. I thought my jacket was good enough, but soon realized that I was being too optimistic that too with nature. Since it was the wee hours managed to have a brief cold nap till 5:15 PM, but then could not, while others got into the jeep to continue his sleep I had two cups of coffee, from the hawker who actually opened the shop by 3:15 PM. By 6:15 AM All others woke up and managed to get us a room in one of the temple choultries. We freshened up and had bath and were all set by 8:30 AM and we had a peaceful darshan of lord Shiva in Linga incarnation. We were fortunate to have one of friend’s know this place who managed to get us two packets of special prasadam, which was panchamrutham, with banana, honey, cobra and kalsakkare as the ingredients. After this it was breakfast time at Udipi tiffin room. We had hot idlis, vada, dosa varieties and ofcourse sambar, chutney and coffee. Some of them also had 7-up also instead of coffee. So we took off from Nanjangud by 10:15 AM. We were now heading towards Mudumalai, I realized that Nanjangud was on the way to Mudumalai and Mudumalai itself was after Bandipur. Actually, it is the same forest reserve which called Bandipur in Karnataka and Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu. On our way to Mudumalai we went to Gopalaswamy betta. We reached this place by 12:00 PM and spent near about an hour. This place is really yet another ultimate creation. I enjoyed every second of our stay on the hill-top. This place is actually on a top of the hill and the road is near about 45 degrees. S did a real good job driving up the hill and we all had the darshan of Gopalaswamy here and the priest also narrated the history of this place. Let me try to recollect his words, “This temple was built in the 13th century by one the chola kings. It has seven sarovaras around the temple which has water in them 365 days. The lord here is Sri Krishna with Rukmini and Sathyabhama and also there is sarpa on the head and cows (gomatha) around. Krishna here is with kolalu and with legs crossed. Also, though there is a gopuram to the garbha gudi, there is water that flows through this which is also there for 365 days.” People could really feel this and I saw them touching this water right in front of the lord. Though I could have touched the water source, somehow I did not feel like doing so. I enjoyed the darshan from outside the main garbha gudi itself. Also, inside the temple it was really very cool and the ambience is just beyond my limits to explain. It is really a must place to be visited.Now we were again on our way to Mudumalai. On the way, one of my friends made a stop to purchase some booze. C was busy shooting the drive, and since we were in the forest we restrained from music. We were fortunate to spot a herd of elephants on our way, they were actually crossing the main road. Then we were at the Inter-state border check-post between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. We were stopped by the forest officials (who were actually fully boozed on-duty. He frisked our belongings and found the Beer bottles D had purchased and he started making a fuss out of it. Finally we spoke to him and he said if we can leave the bottles there we could proceed and according to them it was against the law to booze in the forest!! Since we did not want an argument we just left without the bottles. There was a Tata-Sumo in from of us which was also caught but with more alcoholic beverages. We were lucky because the official could not find the Vodka bottle. Also, initially itself the officer caught C who was on the foot-board of the jeep with the camcorder. He snatched the camcorder and we all skipped a heart-beat, with G skipping two. So we just left without any argument, since we got back the Camcorder. Actually, might have been concerned that we might have shot him frisking bottles from the Sumo ahead of us.We reached Mudumalai and the Masina log house where we had reservations for 3 rooms – Dove, Shrike and Shringle (rooms were named after birds here). G had sent a DD for 1026 rupees for one day for these rooms. We ordered lunch and by the time we refreshed ourselves lunch was ready. We were really fortunate to have really delicious typical south Indian lunch on plantain leaf. Everyone one of us enjoyed the food. After relaxing for half-an hour we came back for the Safari into the Mudumalai forest. We could spot peacocks and deer’s on the Safari. We then got back to our rooms and watched the video captured till now and also our previous Hampi trip video while guys boozed and had snacks. Dinner was ready by 8:00 PM. We had our dinner and then slept with the promise that we would get up early by 5:00 AM since we had to be back at the forest office for Elephant ride booking by 6:00AM which was 7 Kms. This is the same place from where we went for Safari.We all woke up by 6:00 AM, had hot tea and enjoyed the early morning birds sounds along with exquisite sun-rise and left by 6:45 AM. Though we were late we were fortunate to get the Elephant ride because of Baby madam at the forest office. But, we could not two elephants together, so we had to split our rides. But that was good. We got back by 10:00 AM and had our breakfast of hot idlies and dosas with delicious Sambar and coconut chutney. While relaxing boys came up with the idea of going to Ooty which was 29Kms from there. So we ordered lunch for the afternoon at the lodge itself because food was really delicious and left by 11:15Am to Ooty. We reached there by 12:15PM after some mind-boggling driving on the steep ghat section by S. The curves were really steep and sharp, it was an ultimate challenge for any driver, but S was ready for them with all his experience. Actually there is a longer route to Ooty with about 30 Kms more which is supposed to be far easier to drive.At Ooty we went to boating and had Ooty apples, carrots, fried jolas(maize) and frooti. We refueled our jeep and started back by 2:15PM to reach the lodge by 3:15 PM. Had our lunch and started towards Bangalore by 4:30PM. We took a break for coffee at Amaravathi hotel on Mysore road and again with S’s excellent driving skills and so many others helping him, we were back by 10:30PM. I took my bike from C place and was home exhausted but with yet another memorable trip, in the days to come.
Kannan's Blog 