Bandajje

We were sweating like hell and breathing heavily. The weather was dry and humid with absolutely no breeze. Then there came a place in the middle of the forest where there seemed to be many paths (or no path?). We somehow managed to find the right path and reach up to the grasslands and kept walking. There in the distance, we all saw it. All of us shouted and fell to the ground in joy. We at last had reached there...... Had we?

It was my third trek in as many weekends. I was debating with myself whether it was wise of me to have come along rather than rest over the weekend. I had rested only 2 days (in office) after my trip to Tadiyandamol. Still debating with myself, I got along into the Vishal Travels night bus, which would take us to "Ujire" near "Dharmasthala". Our plan was to freshen up at Ujire and then start the trek at around 8 in the morning. But at 8, we fould ourselves still sleeping, with the bus caught in the traffic jam on the Charmadi Ghats. The Shiradi Ghat, which should have been the normal route was closed for repairs, forcing all the traffic to be diverted to the Charmadi. We did finally reach Ujire at 930.

Ujire is 10 kms from Dharmasthala and is a descent sized town. We had our breakfast in a small hotel and caught an oversized rickshaw to Bandajje. We could have taken a jeep and travelled in relative comfort had we payed Rs50 more. But stuppidity prevailed and the seven of us reached Narayan Gowda's house in Bandajje crammed in the poor auto rickshaw. On the way we could see the Bandajje Arabbi (Arabbi is falls in Kannada), which was where we intended to reach on that day.
We started the trek at around 12 noon from behind Mr Gowda's house, with the sun beating down heavily on us. We walked along his farm, crossed a very small stream and jumped his fence and joined the normal "Kaldari" (Walkin Path in Kannada). The huge mountain stood majestic in front of was, enticing us to scale it. After walking for a while on flat land, the route forked and we took the right path on the advise of an old lady sitting there. The humidity and the steep route made us rest after every few minutes. It was not too pleasing to walk along the thick forest as there was neither any breeze blowing nor any scenary. But we continued, chugging along.

It had been Pavan's initiative, starting a long string of mails listing the places we could go to. We were supposed to vote for a place and confirm the weekend we would be free on. The word "challenging" always fascinates me. This word appearing in all the blogs on Bandajje made my vote simple. There were others who voted for KumaraParvata and Brahmagiri. We finally zeroed in on Bandajje. Pavan had gone through all the blogs on Bandajje and collected a lot of information. He had also got a print out of a crude, yet useful map of this place from one of the blogs. The author of the blog had apparently got lost at this place and created a map to help people like us. Pavan and Janardhan had also got inputs from their friend, who they lovingly call Chota Chetan, who has reportedly visited this place a whopping 7 times. According to Pavan and Janardhan, we were to find a stream on the way, which would tell us that we were on the right track.

After walking for about 1.5 - 2 hours (I do not wear a watch), Pavan, Janardhan and me(Shreyas), the front runners reached a small stream. We were really happy to see it and we relaxed for 20 minutes there before the others joined us. Pavan disagreed with me that this was the stream that we were looking for, saying that the photo of the stream in the blogs was much bigger. We then walked along for another 5 minutes when we got the bigger stream. This is the stream which is formed from the water directly falling from the Bandajje Arabbi. There was a person there near the stream who was assigned by the forest department to make the path to the peak more clear, as the path was taken over by plants. He told us that taking a left from the stream would lead us to the bottom of the falls and walking across the stream and up into the forest would take us to the peak where we could be at the top of the falls. He also told us that it would take us a further 2 hours to the peak. Exhausted that we were, the dip in the stream was really replenishing for us. After enjoying ourselves for 45 minutes, we finally left the stream at 3pm and continued on our way to the top. We could walk much quicker now and we spent lesser time resting. We met more people on the way who were clearing the path for people to walk. We walked and walked uphill, stopping only to eat and sip water. We could hardly see the sun because of the thick canopy. We were sweating like hell and breathing heavily. The weather was dry and humid with absolutely no breeze. Then there came a place in the middle of the forest where there seemed to be many paths. We somehow managed to find the right path and reach up to the grasslands and kept walking. There in the distance, we all saw it. All of us shouted and fell to the ground in joy. We at last had reached there at around 415. The water falls were in sight. What a relief it was for us. Just 15 mins back we were walking in the middle of nowhere, seeing only huge trees around and wondering whether we were on the right track.

We stayed there for 10 minutes taking a few snaps and enjoying the valley views and the glipmse of the water falls. We thought we could reach there in half an hour but how wrong we were. It took us another hour's walking uphill in the direction of the falls. We decided that we could not visit the falls on this day as it was getting dark. Our aim was to find a suitable place to set up out tent to stay overnight. We finally came across a small flat patch about 10 feet by 10 feet on the grassland. This place was a little away from the place where water swooped down. The water stream which fed the falls was flowing through the thick forest adjacent to our tent. Since the ground at this place was very hard, Janardhan and me went down to the forest to check of we could stay in the forest right next to the flowing water. We actually managed to find an amazing place to put our tent and sleeping bags. But the others did not approve of this place because of the danger of wild animals, since it was a thick forest and there was water there. So we finally reverted back to our original place and spent the night there. The only worry here was of that of strong winds during the night, which would pull down the tent. However our fears were put down when we came to know that the wind speed was not too high as the adjacent forest checked its speed.

The next morining, we had planned to visit the falls and leave as soon as possible. We had to catch a bus to Bangalore and go to office the next day. The falls were an amazing sight. We sat at the edge of the cliff and watched water flowing past us and falling into the gorge. We crawled as close as possible to the edge to have a look at water falling down. The valley view was simply mindblowing. I had never seen anything like this before. We stayed there for probably an hour before returning to pack up our things and leave. The return route was a different one. It was to the other side of the mountain range. All we knew was that we had to walk towards North.

We crossed the forest besides us and rejoined the grassland. We kept walking towards North, avoiding evergreen tree patches. Our objective was to reach "Ballalrayana Kote" (Ballalaraya's Fort). After an hour's walk, we reached the end of the range of mountains. Beyond this, there was a valley which looked very thickly forested and we could hear water running through there. Beyond this forest, there were more mountains but the Fort was nowhere to be seen. We went right but came to a sort of dead end. We felt lost there as we could not see any place where we could cross over to the other side of the valley. I was contemplating crossing the forest, but then felt it would be too dangerous. A few in the group were thinking about getting down in the same route as we came up, but for me that was not an option at all. How could we have gone back on the same route without trying the alternate route of going left. Janardhan and me left the guys to wait there and set out to the left ie direction West. We had been walking for about 20 minutes when we saw the fort. We started shouting at the others asking them to come here as the fort was visible. But they could not hear us as they were at a visible distance but not an audible distance. At last they started comming towards us. We later learnt that they had managed to catch some moblie signal and call up Chetan(Chota as they call lovingly). He had told them to walk with the forest to their right. Whatever, Janardhan and me were happy that they were actually comming.

We continued West to find a place to cross the valley. We did not find a pass until we reached the end of the mountain range, where the two ranges joined and there was no forest. We crossed it and it took us another 1.5 hours to reach the Fort. At the fort, we met a few people from the adjacent estates. We were surprised to find that they had come armed with shotguns. They said that the guns were for protection. One of the estate owners, a very nice guy, arranged a jeep for us to take us to "Sunkashale ". The scenary from the fort was really amazing. We walked down for an hour from the fort, where the jeep had come to pick us up. We travelled by the jeep for 13Kms to reach "Sunkashale". From here, we caught a bus to "Kottigehara". From Kottigehara, we went to "Hassan" and from "Hassan" we reached "Bangalore.



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