Narasimhaparvata - Beauty in the peril

[April 22-24, 2005]

Trekologue Route: Agumbe - Malandur - Narasimhaparvata - Kigga - Shringeri - Bangalore

Duration: 2 days

Travelogue Author: Santonu Ghosh, Metallurgy Department, IISc, Bangalore

They say mid April is not a good time for trekking, but when the spirits are high and challenges abound, one can certainly beat the heat. Our trekking group was a five man army: Ravisankar, Santanu, Kiran, Srinivas and me. For 2-day treks, this is approximately the number you look for. Just before a week of the trek, we had decided on the place. Since our last trip was towards Coorg, this time we planned to go to Agumbe, and Narasimhaparvata was the obvious destination. Our plan was to reach Agumbe, trek upto Narasimhaparvata, camp there for the night, trek down to Kigga, visit Shringeri and then return to Bangalore. Agumbe is around 385 km from Bangalore by bus. Agumbe is a place where the famous “Malgudi Days” was shot. Nearest town from Agumbe is Shimoga which is around 275 kms away from Bangalore. Most of the travelogues mentioned that a guide is a must to trek in Narasimhaparvata and a person named Raghavendra Pai, working in Syndicate bank, Agumbe, helps trekkers in getting a guide and also gives proper information on the route. So, before we started from Bangalore, we called him up and informed him that we are coming, but the first damping response came from him when he mentioned that trekking in Narasimhaparvata is not possible as the place is having naxalite problem and guides won't be ready to take people there. In addition, one has to take special permission from the police also. Still we decided to go ahead with our trip. We had all the necessary stuff for the trek: rucksacks for each one of us, 2 tents, sleeping bags, MTR instant foods for breakfast/lunch/dinner, lots of fruits/fruit juice and a kerosene cooking stove. Quite a number of buses are available for Agumbe from Bangalore. Along with our back packs and enthusiasm exceeding the uncertainties, we boarded the Rajahamsa bus for Agumbe at 10:00 PM from platform no. 4 in Kempegowda bus station on 22nd April (Friday). The bus goes via Tirthahalli and reached Agumbe around 6:00 AM. There were very few passengers in the bus when it reached Agumbe, probably people got down on the way. It appeared that it had rained the previous night and it was cloudy in the morning. around 5:30 AM and as usual we were back to our regular chores. Our first task was to find Raghavendra Pai and it was not very difficult to locate him. As mentioned in several other travelogues, Mr. Pai was on his morning stroll and he welcome us on seeing our heavy bags hanging from our backs. The few things you notice in Agumbe is a police station and a school. Though the meeting with Mr. Pai was pleasant, the discussion dented our enthusiasm. His version was like this: You go there on your own, the place (Narasimhaparvata) has quite a number of naxalites lurking around in addition to the police task-force who are there to catch them and both these groups of mankind can trouble us. Since we were decided to go for the trek, we went with our plan and requested Mr. Pai for the minimum help possible. He told us to go to Malandur village, around 6 kms from Agumbe circle and find Krishnappa who, if at all we are lucky, may agree to take us to the peak. After thanking him, we started walking towards Malandur. On the way, we stopped for sometime and served ourselves with hot idlis in a hotel owned by Guruprasad. We resumed our walk and after around 1.5 kms, we came across a bunch of cops, who were on their routine exercise and they asked us to register our names in the police station which we had left behind. We started our way back. The police station guy was cool and on seeing proper students ID cards from IISc, Bangalore, he left us without much of a trouble. In fact, the coming back from to the police station was a blessing for us since we realized that we do not have kerosene for the stove. After a little bit of struggle we got the kerosene and some other required stuffs, and then started walking again towards Malandur. It's an asphalt road from Agumbe to Malandur and you will surely like to walk on this stretch of road as thick rainforests on either side of the road creates the perfect blend of peace and serenity. On the way, we kept on asking whomever we met about “krishnappa mane” and the distance to Malandur. On one such questioning, the person answered that he was Krishnappa and that he was going towards Agumbe for some work. He told us that he cannot guide us, but he recommended us to contact his brother Thimmappa who was in the village. We were welcomed to the village by the constant barking of the dogs. The village did not look very prosperous and that shows why naxalite movement is gaining mileage there. Somehow, we could locate Thimmappa's house and requested him to guide us to the peak. Initially, he was hesitant and scared to guide us, but we convinced him that we are students and that we have nothing to do with naxalites as well as the police and so finally he agreed to take us to the peak. He demanded Rs. 300.00 for his services and without hesitation, we agreed on the amount. So the plan was to trek till Barkhana Falls and have lunch there, then proceed towards the peak and reach there before dusk. We decided to rest for a while at Thimmappa's palace. From Agumbe we had started walking at 8:15 AM and reached Malandur at 9:30 AM, it was around 6 km. Mud houses, nice sheds gave us a chilling effect before the start of the real stuff. There was a small shop which was opened just in case we require to buy something, We had enough of food stuff along with us, so decided against increasing the weight. Thimmappa was on his chappals and the path was also not very difficult for him, but it was for us! For the first half an hour of trek, the forest was not thick and for the first time I thought probably April is not the time for this trail but I was proved wrong very soon. The thick vegetation started after a while and the defined path slowly disappeared under a thick layer of dry leaves. There were places where it looked like day light has never penetrated through, but water surely does. These are the places where leeches will be ready to welcome you. After few leech attacks we put our pants under the socks in order to discourage unauthorized blood sucking. As we kept on walking, we realised that there's no defined route at all for the trek in the thick jungles and that's the reason why a guide is a must here. After walking for about 2 hrs, we found a thin clear stream under a dense jungle. Thimmappa told us that we are very near to Barkhana waterfalls. We started walking again and after a up and downhill, we reached Barkhana falls, it was 12:15 in the afternoon. On seeing the surroundings, the most important question which came to mind was where is the falls? I could see a rocky river, and then we realized that we are actually on top of the falls. It was a breath taking view! Huge hills surrounding the valley and the river falling from a height of 300 m. We could not see the bottom clearly as it was just straight down. Surrounding the river, there were hills which we were planning to climb, and this sight was really majestic. It was just green all over the place. We had our lunch here. High food value bread with cucumber. We had biscuits that sucks very little water, had fruit juice and mostly some other dry items. We took a nice bath in the river, though it was not very neat like our IISc swimming pool, but the water was good for drinking. After a quick rest, we filled our water bottles and started our onslaught towards the peak. Thimmappa told us that it’s a steep climb and it really was! Unlike other trails, there were no flat surfaces where you can take a breath. This stretch of forest was really the thickest one I have encountered; even if you are 20 meters away from the guide, there was a finite possibility that you might have lost your way in the jungle! Fortunately we traveled without any such problems. On the way up, we met some wild animals also, Kiran told that they looked like "junglee cows", some of us thought they were bisons, finally we settled the matter by accepting that the animals were actually "white bisons". After some distance of steep trek, the forest gave way to a place without any trees. It was a rocky grass land. By that time we had trekked for almost 2 hrs and it was difficult for us to make out the distance to the peal as there was no proper tool with us to approximate the distance. The 2 hrs did not provide us with any flat land so we took a long rest before leaving for the last stretch. We finished the last stretch without much trouble. We had finished quite a bit of water and our bodies started slacking a bit. Thimmappa though did not show any signs of tiring! Before we reached the top, there was a forest office slightly down below. The place was flat and the office was deserted, so we decided to pitch our tents there. From this forest office, there was a way down towards Kigga and on this way, you can find the source of water in the form of two natural wells. The left well was for taking bath (not so clean) and the right one was for drinking water. We reached our destination around 4:00 PM. After reaching there, we bade goodbye to Thimmappa who went forward towards Kigga from where he wanted to reach Malandur the same day. People were extremely hungry and so we lit up the stove and started preparing noodles. Before dusk, we had noodles with gongura pickles (you can't avoid eating some hot andhra stuff when gults are in majority in the team) and boiled eggs, and to be honest it was a superb combination. It suddenly became cloudy, rain started pouring and we found ourselves in the midst of clouds. Before dark we put our tents in place and after a chatting session with warm tea prepared by Santanu, we started preparing our dinner. It was a grand dinner, MTR ready made vegetable pulav, chana masala and ufff, again gongura pickles. It was a full moon night! The heavenly ambience took away all our tiredness we had gathered during the whole day. We chatted for a while and then decided to part for sleep. The moonlight was quite bright and it was penetrating the magnificent tent Ravishankar took. We went to sleep pretty early, it was around 9 and its unusual for nocturnal animals like us who prefer to stay awake at night and sleep during the day. We were all enjoying the night out of the city civilization nose and cell phones, but then Oh no! Not out of Cell Phones! Around 11:00 PM in the night, Santanu’s cell started ringing, it was one of his friends, we though it must be a great Hutch ad line for Air Tel connection - where ever you are our network follows! Night was quite warm. The sleeping bags were of no use. We woke up a bit late it the morning, sun was already in the sky but it was very soft. All the small hills were covered by white clouds with their peaks peeping out of it. As Kiran said, if you look suddenly at them they appear like still sea waves. Our activity started immediately as we wanted to climb down early so that we can spend some time at Shringeri. We had a nice breakfast of Maggi noodles with boiled egg along with a cup of fuming cappuccino. We finished our packing, took lots of water and started walking back It was 10:15 AM by my watch. Our first destination was Kigga, a small village around 5-6 kms from Narasimhaparvata. The downhill way was quite broad and clear, so our average speed was also quite high. There were few nice spots from where we were able to see the villages in the valley. We took around 1& ½ hrs to reach Kigga. Kigga boasts of the famous Rishi Sringa temple and we spent a little while in the temple premises admiring its architecture and beauty. This was the end of our trek but not the journey. It was around 12:00 noon and we decided to leave for Shringeri. Shringeri is around 30 minutes journey by bus from Kigga (around 20 kms). These two places are well connected by bus and tempo. We boarded the bus, it was almost empty probably because it was a Sunday. The road from Kigga to Shringeri was quite good as god has ornated the place with greeneries. Shringeri is a big temple town and you get in touch with all the city effects immediately. First we booked the tickets for Bangalore, it was Rs. 255/- per head and the bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 PM, so we had solid 8 hrs in hand. We decided to visit the Sharda Devi temple for which Shringeri is famous for. Before that, we wanted to take a shower and refresh ourselves. As mentioned in many of the earlier travelogues, we started our search for the TTD (Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanam) lodges, which is supposed to be cheap for poor trekkers like us. That was not too difficult to find and we booked a room in the lodge at the reception of the Sharda Devi temple. The room was enough for at least five people and facilities were also good. We had a proper bath after 2 & ½ days. We went for lunch a bit late. There are lots of hotel near to the temple and you can have lunch in the temple also if you reach there before 2:00 PM. It was now time for a temple visit! Normally temples are the places where people leave the dirt of their mind and make the place really Dirty! Shringeri temple is really an exception, its an extremely neat temple on the banks of River Tunga. The old temple is made of granite and it resembles a lot with Hoysala architectures, although Hoysala temples were built from soap stone. The temple inside was very cool but not so calm. Steps have been made from the temple straight to the river. Tunga was infested with fishes, not the tiny ones you see in the aquarium, they were of the order of 2-3 kg and some are so big that you will feel they can match your size! Crossing the river, there's an animal park and residences for big “Math” guys. After a successful effort to capture the silhouette of the setting sun, we came back to our room to pack our things for the journey back home. Pulled each other for a while and then went for dinner to the temple. The dinner hall was literally huge and probably it can accommodate around 2000 people at a time. The food was not so nice, but still we had the pleasure of dining with 500 fellow citizens! It was dark in the bus stop and we somehow managed to postpone our sleep till we were allowed to enter the bus. Rajahamsa was packed and except the one seat next to Ravisankar, we started our way back. The last thing I remember was the passenger who sat next to Ravi. Next morning we reached Bangalore. Mission accomplished.

Some important details

PLEASE DON'T TREK ON THIS ROUTE WITHOUT A GUIDE, YOU WILL CERTAINLY GET LOST

Bangalore to Agumbe: 385 kms, Fare Rs. 275.00 [Rajahamsa]
Contact person in Agumbe: Mr. Raghavendra Pai [Phone No.: 08181-233023]
Agumbe-Malandur: 6 kms [walk or take a tempo]
Guides for the trek: Thimmappa/Krishnappa [Phone No.: 08181-233213/233219 [speak in Kannada]
Guide charges: Rs.300.00 - Rs. 400.00
Malandur-Barkhana waterfalls: 8 kms [approx. 2 & ½ hrs of trek]
Barkhana waterfalls-Narasimhaparvata: 5-6 kms [approx. 2 -3 hrs of trek] Narasimhaparvata-Kigga: 6 kms [approx. 1& ½ hrs of trek]
Kigga-Shringeri: 25 kms [30 mins. by bus, bus fare Rs. 5.00] TTD lodge: Rs. 25.00/day [booking at the Sharda Devi temple reception]
Shringeri-Bangalore: Rs. 255.00 bus fare by Rajahamsa