Trip to Heaven - Day Two

There's somethin' in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothin' short of dyin' that's half as lonesome
As the sound of the sleepin' city sidewalks and Sunday mornin' comin' down.

Johnny Cash was walking through the city then and fortunately we were far away from the city. I woke up to an argument next morning at about five.. it was Latheesh arguing against Siril who wanted to go out to attend another of nature's call. He needed some company to get out there in a cold frosty morning and do it.. I cant blame him for that.. the pleasure of a PPT is altogether a different feeling. But I was in no mood to spoil a sunday morning by getting up so early and slowly retracted my head into the comfort of the blanket. Bijeesh was sleeping like a child, unaware of all that's happening around.

After couple more hours of sleep we finally got up at eight when the pujari came inside to clean up the temple. It was still windy outside and freezing cold too. I could see an uneasy Siril pacing here and there, murmuring something to himself. I thought he was doing his morning prayers while actually he was cursing the misfortune that awaited him. The evening before onwards Siril had one troubling thought with him.. where to download all that stuff inside his stomach. The pujari had categorically told him that he can go out to the grasslands on the otherside of the temple and get rid of it and he was not at all comfortable with the idea. All our philosophical talks on 'enjoying nature while donloading' fell into deaf ears. So I understood the desparation on his face..!!

Having no choice infront of him he finally joined us all for a date with nature.. and oh boy, it was one hell of an experience..!! We had to park our ass in front of the fire for the next 30 minutes or so. People had started to come visiting the temple in the morning and the pujari was well into his morning rituals. We packed our bags, changed into the day before's damp clothes and got ready to start the day's journey. Breakfast ws ready by then... tasty 'pulihora' and coffee.

Bijeesh & Siril were incharge of communication throughout the journey - Siril could read and Bijeesh could speak some decent Kannada. Together they became the spokespersons for the group. Our plan for the day was to trek to Babbudangiri,another hill in the same mountain range. There was a trek route from the temple which takes you through the mountain ridges to Bababudangiri and Bijeesh collected information on the route from a local help at the temple. Though we started on this way initially, we had to abandon this attempt due to heavy winds and poor visibility. It looked impossible to fight the raging winds with the bags on our back and a slippery trail ahead.

So we decided to climb towards the other side of the hill taking the flight of steps and then proceed towards Bababudangiri. But something happened then, that changed our plans for the day.. the mist started revealing the beautiful valleys and hills covered in lush green vegetation. We could not resist the tempatation and decided to climb another hill opposite to Mullayanagiri and as we did, it opened up new possibilities to us.

We abandoned our plan to go to Bababudangiri and decided to spend some time climbing the adjacent hillocks, finding our way back to Chikmagalur. There were a bunch of cows grazing on the pastures there and some of us started showing our real selves. New age incarnations of Lord Krishna were seen roaming around amidst the cows for the next 30 minutes or so. The cows also seemed to enjoy the game, especially when we opened our bread packets and Siril handed out some to them. We soon discovered Dr. Siril Dolittle, who could effectively communicate to the herd.. calling them aside and shooing them away at will... all the while talking to them in some strange language. Latheesh and Bijeesh claimed that they even heard the cows talking back. (Latheesh later clarified that it was actually a bull who talked back and that it sounded more like a warning..!! When asked about this, all we got was a frown from Dr. Dolittle.) We spent a good amount of time there enjoying the good weather and the scenery... ofcourse some had more fun with the cows.

We climbed down the hill and took the jeep route towards Chikmagalur. Every possible occasion we took the shortcuts that cut across the zig-zag road and this lead us through some interesting locales. After climbing two more hills and crossing a dried out stream, we reached Sitayanagiri and had a brief stop. There was a temple there overlooking the mountains and we took another short cut through the woods to rejoin the road sometime later. The next shortcuts we took were through coffee plantations and were realy adventurous. The first one was too slippery and we ended up about 20 feets above the road and no options but to slide down to it. All of us ended up with painted buttocks at the end of this exercise.. the rain and mud did a decent job painting our asses in all shades of red..!! The second route was right through the middle of a coffee estate.. a long narrow trail which seemed to go on and on without an end. There was nobody around to ask whether we are heading in the right direction, still we walked on. After about 20 minutes we could hear sound of vehicles and it was such a relief..!!

Rest of the walk was pretty much through the road.. the milestone read "10 kilometers to Chikmagalur". We reachd 'Kaimara' by evening and all of us were feeling damn hungry. We walked into a restaurant nearby who served us some hot idlis and tasty chutney. We had some 10 idlis each and Siril suddenly stood up.. his stomach had started troubling him once again. The tea shop had an attached toilet and the guy was kind enough to open it up for Siril. He wouldn't have done that if he knew whats gonna hit him. Siril came out of the bathroom after 35 minutes and he looked like he just invented electricity.. his face was glowing like a 500 W bulb. It was Mission Accomplished for him.. kudos to him for controlling it all for two days. Who said you need to do Yoga to achieve control over your body..?

When we reached Chikmagalur bus station finally, we still had three hours to relax and do a rerun of the significant moments of the trip. After dinner at the hotel in the bus station, we finally boarded our bus to Bangalore.. end of another satisfying trip. Tired and happy, we soon slipped into deep sleep and dreams started flowing in..!!

Some pictures here.