January 3, 2009

AGUMBE – ‘in the skies’

Posted in Trips tagged Adventure, agumbe, barkhana, hill station, holiday, jogigundi, kundadri, sunrise, sunset, tourist place, trek at 3:56 pm by suhonnet

This was a one day one night trip to Agumbe. Agumbe is 103 kmfrom mangalore. In Agumbe we visited Kundadri (to see sunrise), jogigundi, barkhana point, vanake abbi and sunset point.

The trip to Agumbe was as unexpected as was thrilling. Till that fateful day on the 8th afternoon we guys (myself suhas, harsh and viney)  from NITK, Suratkal had planned to go on a weeklong tour of Kerala. But unexpectedly one of the guys pulled out and on the spur of the moment Rajpal gave this idea of going out somewhere for a day or two as he had to catch a train on the 10th afternoon. So it was that in 2 hours we decided and planned the logistics for the agumbe endeavour. We stuffed one change of clothes and headed out to the bus stop outside the main gate. (anyway in this place the bus stops wherever you put your hand across)

From Suratkal we first went to Udupi which is a journey of about one and a half hour. From there we took a bus to Shimoga and dropped down at Agumbe on the way. We had left Suratkal at about 5pm and reached Agumbe at around 8pm. The journey throughout was pleasant and charming to the eye though we could not look around the winding path up the hill on our latter part of the journey.

We had earlier called up Kasturiakka and booked our accomodation at ‘Doddamane’ which is sort of homestay. The bus stopped for us at Agumbe in front of the house. That night after having a traditional dinner (which included a drink of ‘kashaya’) at the house we visited the Gopalakrishna temple which is about a stones throw from the house we stayed at. The temple is believed to be of 14th century Hoysala architecture. There was some kind of puja going on at the temple and it was all lit up brightly and beautifully by oil lamps. We watched the proceedings for some time and then went out to have a long walk under the brightly lit up night sky.

The next day we all woke up early morning at 5. We had hired an auto the previous day and the fellow took us to Kundadri which is about 22km from Agumbe. It was quite chilly in the morning and we headed in the dark to the hillock(kundadri). At the destination a fascinating sight awaited us. Overlooking the lowlands from our vantage highpoint the view is beyond words to describe. You have to be there to experience the beauty of the sight. We roamed about the place and a few minutes later were greeted by one of the loveliest sunrise i’ve ever seen. That is an experience that is to be treasured for a lifetime. The valleys below us were covered in mist and our guide (the one we had hired to drive us around)  told us that in summer the view would look like an ocean with all the waves crashing up and down. We savoured the moment and clicked many photos. Also the spot had an ancient Jain temple and a lake beside it (that stayed at the same water level all the time). We had stayed at Kundadri for about an hour and then we headed back to doddamane to have our breakfast.

After breakfast consisting of poories we headed back in the auto to a place called ‘Barkhana’. On the way we stopped at another place called ‘Jogigundi’. It was basically a small kind of pool with water falling over a huge rock face (in the rainy season). Anyway it was the right place for a relaxing swim. According to folklore a rishi by name ‘jogi’ sat under a tree over the rock that i mentioned above and meditated. To get on top of the rockface there was a cave that led upwards toward it but our guide discouraged from entering it (it is possible to make a journey through it) as there was a lot of water at the time we visited the place. One another feature that was interesting over there was a very tall tree which seemed to challenge the height of my friend ( he is 6′ 5”).

After Jogigundi our guide dropped us at a place from where we had to trek about 3 to 4 km into the jungle to reach the Barkhana viewpoint. Everything was fine for us as we walked through the jungle enjoying the green cover, passing streams and being fun until a group returning from the other side warned us about leeches. From then on all our eyes were trained on our pair of legs and poor Harsh! (he only had his slippers on though in a way that is kind of good) Screaming at false starts and donating some of our blood to the forest dwellers we made our way to the Barkhana viewpoint. The viewpoint consists of a simple platform that gives way to a breathtaking view of the valley below and a pretty long waterfalls (the waterfalls when we saw it was size zero). And also as in the advertisements on this top of the hill, desolate place i got a signal of BSNL (best hai mere liye!!!). Apparently BSNL has a microwave tower in Agumbe. I called up our guide from atop thanks to the signal and he picked us up from the spot he had left us back to Doddamane. It was 1.45 in the afternoon.

In the afternoon we had lunch. Immediately we left to our next destination. It was a place by name Vanake Abbi where there was a waterfall and also a perpetual rainbow in the afternoons (this was the water that supplied water to Udupi). This was another walk more difficult than the one we had done in the morning. The path throughout was tougher with fallen logs and dense growth of shrubs and other vegetation. Most challenging were the leeches. There were hordes of them (pardon my english). The moment you removed one 3 more would have started sucking on your blood. Finally we surrended to them and didnt bother about them. We walked on for more than an hour in the jungle but unfortunately we couldnt find our way after a certain point and had to give up and return back. It was most disappointing.

To round up our visit we visited the sunset point. Unknowingly we climbed up  a hill near the sunset point and reached the perimeter of the restricted area of the BSNL microwave tower. At the front gate was a tarred road and it led to a police checkpoint. We fled back the way we had come (along with a foreigner from London who had tagged along with us at the Sunset point). With a icecream in hand we watched the sun set its different hues, shapes making our experience colourful.

We returned to Suratkal by the 7.00 pm Mangalore bus on what rounded off a short but delightful trip.

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