Hogenakkal trip

I am bloggin after a long time.. Many other things had occupied my time..

I am writing this after a long time I visited Hogenakkal. Well, It remains still in my memory afresh as I saw those things that day. ( A trip worth remembering..) Felt like writing it today only.

Me and my friend Maria christu raja started off by evening around 6.30 in my Unicorn on a full moon day in april ( dont remember the day). Going out of Bangalore was a headache..

We preferred the Anekkal-Thenkanikottai (தேன்கனிக்கோட்டை beautiful name)-Hogenakkal route.

By the time we were at the outskirts of the city, it was around 8 pm. Moon was rising.. Beautiful sight. Never been in highways at night, before.. so couldn't go beyond 60. After we took a turn from Hosur road from chandapura towards Anekkal ( meaning elephant stone), the roads were calm - not much traffic, narrow with lot of trees on both sides.. not much humans around.. We drove slowly (30-40 kmph), and reached anekkal.. had our dinner there and then set out towards Thenkanikottai. We had planned to stay there in a lodge for the night. On our way to Thenkanikottai we had to pass through many villages and uninhabited places. Moon was around 60 degrees from the vertical... We switched off the headlamps and drove in the moonlight.. beautiful experience... Our retinae got adjusted to the available light and we were able to navigate without any hitch...

Reached Thenkanikottai and stayed there for a night.. Lodge was pretty decent ( there was only one in the whole town).. Started off to Hogenakkal early in the morning.. We passed through villages, stopped by lily ponds. I can't describe them. It was like a painting.. Cranes flying around, fishes jumping out of water, frogs over the lotus leaves, flowers at various stages of bloom, cattle grazing around and peasants bathing them. Heaven on earth..

Then we entered into reserved forests and stopped by small streams passing by... they were clear and place around were great other than the mineral water bottles and lays packets thrown around by humans passing by... I pity those mindless creatures..

Rest of the journey towards hogenakkal, we saw lot of forest birds and trees.. Here I have to mention something.. Maria Christu Raja is a ardent lover of nature and is good in identifying trees from their barks, flowers and leaves and birds. He knows a lot about animal's behavior and food habits as he volunteers often for surveying preys, predators conducted by NGOs. Nice that I joined that trip with him.. I learned a lot.. After sometime we had to climb small hills and the roads had lots of hair-pin bends after which came the amazing view of Kaveri flowing amidst hills.... Lovely sight. It divides Karnataka and Tamilnadu for a stretch of few kilometers.. We stopped few kilometers ahead of hogenakkal to wet ourselves in the river.. I parked my Unicorn at the banks of Kaveri( was worried a little about my best pal's loneliness, But a lady's cycle gave him good company till I came back). There was this Parisal. We hired one and waded the river and reached a small island... We both got into the river and started playing...

இயற்கை தாயின் மடியில் பிறந்து

எப்படி வாழ்ந்தேன் இதயம் தொலைந்து

சலித்து போனேன் மனிதனாய் இருந்து

பறக்க வேண்டும் பறவையாய் திரிந்து

Later Raja told we can climb a hill nearby so that He can study some trees in that forest. I had never trekked like that before.. there were lot of holes in the slopes of that hills where I suspected the presence of snakes.. National geographic snake documentaries flashed before me very often... We went to a certain height.. It was twelve in the noon and the summer sun was burning us.. I gave up and told let's get back to the boat... He said ok and we started getting down..

When I was about to alight the boat I had to remove my sandals... I bent to remove that and the sony ericsson in my pocket ( was singing that time ) fell into the river... :) oops.. The boatman looked for it and took it outside.. It was singing still with an infection in its throat..LOL.. I removed the batteries and put it into my bag.. We got back to the other shore... Raja attempted rowing the parisal for a while.. Nice experience.. We took off in my unicorn ( He had to leave his newly got girlfriend there itself) towards Hogenakkal..

Reached hogenakkal.. we hate crowd and decided not to boat once again... Civilians visiting Hogenakkal were having a good time.. some were drinking and massaging besides the water falls ( What a bad taste!)

Two eyes were not sufficient for me to watch the magnificence of the water falls.. we went by foot around various falls and finally had a so called fresh catch fish toast in a hotel.. it was good...

Return also we drove slow.. reached Thenkanikottai and took rest for sometime.. Back to Bangalore in the same evening... Had dinner in Malgudi that night...

The day was worth living!