Mekedatu

Kiran,
Ramesh,
Hemanth,
Myself,
Gurivi,
Ajay







My room mates were interested in going to some place near Bangalore. I planned for Mekedatu, this was long pending trip and we postponed it many times. We were six members in total. We planned to go there on bikes. We were ready with one Bajaj Caliber and two pulsars. Our plan was to start very early in the morning to avoid the traffic in city.

Morning we were getting ready for trip and it was raining. Going by bikes was any way not possible and we had only two options, one is to wait for rain to stop and second is to go by taxi. We waited for a while but looked like rain was not going to stop. We decided to go by taxi and I booked a quails from Geo travels.

We started around 8:30. We are almost 2-hours late because of the rain. We crossed some villages and stopped the vehicle to relax and to take some snaps. The weather was excellent and cloudy and it was not raining.

We reached sangama (Palce where Arkavathi and Cauvery joins) by 11:15. To go mekedatu we had to cross a river. In summers this is easy to cross, but it was rainy season and river is in full flow. There we can hire Coracle to cross the river. We hired the coracle and crossed the river. The other side of the river is Cauvery wildlife sanctuary. I came to know after I crossed the river. It is protected area and it is home for wild animals especially for Asian elephants. From that point mekatadtu is around three km. From there we can walk to mekedatu or we can take mini bus. It is private bus from this point to Mekedatu. Interesting thing is how the bus crossed the river because there is no other way from forest. Only way is to cross the river.

We decided go by bus and while coming back we thought we could walk the 3km stretch. We reached mekedatu and it was excellent site because the river was in full flow. Here river squeezed through a narrow ravine. We spent some time there by talking some photos and discussing about the area.

A person from other group fell down in the river while we were taking photographs. He was flowing through the river and luckily some people were swimming there and they saved him. That guy had a really bad experience.

The place is really dangerous for two reasons one reason is that the river has sharp rocks in ground and second is that this place has crocodiles. People come to know these things by seeing the warning boards near the place. Here one more danger is there that I will tell you later which we found by experience.

We had taken enough photographs and we wanted to walk to the river where we can cross the river from sangam. We started walking. Kiran said we will spend some time near river. We selected a random place and we spent some time there.














The interesting thing is that we saw some elephants dropping there and while coming back. We had seen fresh elephant’s pugmarks. I told the guys that we have great chance to see wild elephants here and I was telling what we have to do if we see elephants. These people were not that much interested in this topic except kiran. We had spent some time and started walking. Suddenly I found a herd of elephants near to the road. I told everybody not to talk loudly. Everybody was surprised to see elephants. We had enough distance, in case elephants attack we could easily escape. Ramesh had video camera, he was shooting elephants and I have 300mm zoom lens. I was trying to take photographs. We were silently observing the elephants. The mini bus was passing by and people in mini bus shouted seeing elephants. One elephant looked at our side started running towards us. We stared running and went some extent when elephant stopped. If it is a single elephant it is more dangerous. This is the one danger here but there were no warning boards about elephants here. Anyway elephants are most dangerous animal in India. We can see elephants by maintaining but never take photographs with flash; generally elephant get irritated by flash (not only elephants any animal wildboar, leopard etc…). People have false impression that elephant is soft animal and can’t run fast. This is absolutely false. Elephant can run faster than humans and easily get irritated by camera flashes and sometimes seeing humans.















We crossed the river and had some bajjis and other stuff. We wanted to go to Chunchi falls. This water fall is very small and not so good. We reached the place and spent some time. A Kannada TV serial shooting was going on there. We started back to Bangalore by 5:00 clock in the evening.

But seeing elephant in wild is really good experience and same time it is very scary, we were chased by elephants. If you go to Mekedatu don’t swim in this river as it is really dangerous.

We reached home by evening 7:30.

Other information:

Distance from Bangalore: 90km

Route from Bangalore: Take kankapura road from Bangalore. Need to take left turn after kankapura.

This is good one day trip from Bangalore. You can visit this place from Cauvery Fishing camp in case if you stay in Jungle lodges and resorts

Photo Gallery

See Photo galleries here

Kemmengundi

Madikeri

Red Hills

Mudumalai

Kakkabe - Tadiandamol

Kodaikanal

Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

Mekadatu

Nandihills

See My Photo Gallery here

Place: Karnataka, India
Camera : Vivitar 3800N with 28-70mm and 100-300mm lens

I was looking for a day trip. This time i want to go Nandihills. I have not decided till 10'o clock. Finally I asked if Sai and Gurivi were interest in coming to Nandihills (I lied to sai and Gurivi that Kiran is on the way to our home to go Nandihills. Sai is my roommate, Gurivi stays nearby, and Kiran is staying with his parents). They looked interested and immediately called Kiran and told Sai and Gurivi were ready to come to Nandihills. It was already 11:30Am. Kiran started after 10min from his home (Bannerghatta) to our house (in Koramangala).
Finally we started on two pulsars, one was kiran's one was mine. Kiran and Sai on one bike myself and Gurivi on my bike. Lack of information we took very long route, Since we didn’t have breakfast we were hungry. We stoped on highway dhaba to eat some thing but was already 1:00 clock.
We started by 2:00 Clock. There was a ghat road to nandihills. The hills lie 1400MSL. We have to strain our vehicles to go top and the road is very unsafe, also we have to be very cautious at curve's. On the way we could see good views of landscape. We stopped to take some photographs this time we only have my Camera (Kiran forgot to get his digital camera). We reached the top and it was raining. It was stopped after some time. We just wanted to explore the hill. There were steps to reach the top. Finally we reached the top and the view was exciting.
















View From Top

Next we visited Tippus drop point. Some ruins of the fort walls are still visible. since we started late we are unable to cover the all places on top. we spent some time on top.

If we had started in the morning we could have covered all the places. This Day trip was good. I recommend this a daytrip.


Other Useful information:

Distance From Bangalore: Aprox 60km

Transport : There are KSRTC Buses avalable from Bangalore.

Madikeri

Place: Karnataka,India
Date : August, 2004
Camera : Vivitar 3800N with 28-70mm and 100-300mm lens

It was Friday and i decided to go some where to explore. I enquired my friends/colleagues but none were interested. Finally i decided to go alone to Nagarhole by bus. But i didn't enquire about bus timings.
I started morning 6'o Clock and reached Majestic (Bus Stand) by 7:15.I enquired about the bus to Nagarhole. They suggested to go to Mysore and take a bus to Nagarhole. I took a bus to Mysore rand reached there by afternoon enquired again about Nagarhole bus they said there is was bus available at around 4:00 evening since i didn't have any reservation i called forest department to book a forest cottage or dormitory but in vain. I had an outlook's 'weekend breaks' book with me.I was looking for any alternative place. Finally I changed plans and decided to go Madikeri. There are frequent buses available to Madikeri, so I called to Mayura valley view hotel to check the availability of hotel accommodation. They said accommodation were available.
I took a bus to Madikeri which is a passenger bus seating was not comfortable. I thought there would be some forests on the way. But I couldn’t find any forest or hills till kushalnagar. Its almost same land scape and climate till Kushal nagar. Buts the things started changing from Kushalanagar. To my amazement there was a bamboo forest with very large green bamboo bushes which looked very beautiful and some sign Boards which warned about wild elephants. A small ghat section started with so many coffee plantations. Everything was green and beautiful (i like orchids and heard there are so many orchids there in coorg district) I was looking on tree tops to find some.(Orchids grow on tree tops which does not take any thing from supported trees but just moisture from air) Surprisingly i found many orchids on tree tops, almost on every big tree around.


Orchid Growing in Tree

I couldn't observe any flowers. i thought it was not a season for flowering). I finally reached Madikeri and took an auto to Muravalley view hotel. The hotel was good ( not a deluxe hotel as I was looking at budget accommodation).Accommodation in off-season is Rs.275 (double bed room). I took the room. Its was approximately 4:00 o clock. The weather was chilling. I wanted to take some photographs of orchids and some scenic views. I have a manual SLR camera with 70mm and 300mm lens. I was just walking through the roads to find orchids and finally found a big orchids on a tree I took some photographs and reached the “Raja's seat” where we can have exotic view of mountain's.



Mountain View From Raja's Seat

I spent some time there. The place was very calm and extremely beautiful and there was toy train for children near by “Raja's seat”.


Raja's Seat

I had dinner at a restaurant. There were so many restaurants that serve South Indian food. Food was good. Next day morning i decided to go to abbey water falls. It is around 6-7 km from madikeri. I enquired in hotel about it .They said I can hire an auto. I walked to rajas seat, where I found a taxi (a Black color maruthi old modal) The driver said it costs 300/- and he would wait 1hour there. He was very amiable and had good idea bout coorg and orchids .He told me that he used to write with orchids on slates when he was in school. Finally we reached Abbey falls.



Abbe Falls

Falls were in the middle of some private coffee estate and I found condominium plants. The water fall was very beautiful and surrounded by very think Green Vegetation. I found some patches of forest which were extremely thick and had never seen any like that before. It was like rain forest, where even sunlight cannot reach the ground. The Driver said there were leeches here. He asked me to check for leech bites on my legs. I spent about 45 min's there. Finally I decided to return. On the way I found an yellow color orchid on a fallen tree. Finally i started in the after noon to Bangalore. There was a direct bus to Bangalore via Mysore.I reached Bangalore by night

The trip was excellent even i was alone and enjoyed the scenic beauty of Coorg. This was the first time i have seen such a climate in India.


Other Useful Information

Distance : Approx 260 km From Bangalore

Transport : There are frequent buses available from Bangalore

Stay : Plenty of options there. Mayura Valley view is good budget option. In Season need to book in advance