After loads of research we finally decided on a place to get away from the chaos of city life (at least for a day). Varun, Viinayak, Shailesh and me decided to go to Sangama a place around 95Kms from Bangalore on Kanakapura road and trek to mekedatu from there.
The initial plan was to meet up at my place by 7 in the morning, but like in all tentative plans there was a change. We met up at 8 and by the time we had breakfast at Adigas and left Bangalore it was 9 o clock!! (We blamed the cricket world cup finals for the delay but Vinayak who was the only one among us who watched the entire match was the first to arrive). The journey to Sanagama is very scenic and there are a lot of photo opportunities along the way but the road is not too great with many potholes and in some places the road is very narrow with deep cuts on either side. Considering this, we covered the distance in fairly good time; and we were in Sangama by 11.30. I feel that my excellent driving in some very difficult terrain played a part in this though my friends might not agree on this point.
Sangama means union in Kannada and this place is called so because the river Arkavati joins with Cauvery here. A friend of us had told us of a secluded spot near Sangama and we made our way to this point first. We were not disappointed as there was not a single soul to be seen in this beautiful place on the banks of Cauvery and that too on a Sunday. The water is not too deep here with very less currents and is ideal for people who want to get into the water. There are some really old boards warning people of crocodiles but I had read somewhere that crocs also live for a very long time so we were careful. We did some fishing from a discarded paper cup, as my friend Vinayak wanted a couple of fishes for his aquarium. As you probably guessed, we were not very successful.
After this innovative experience, we were off to Sangama where we have to cross the shallow river to begin the trek to mekedatu. When we reached Sangama we were again harshly reminded of the population problem facing our country. It was jam packed with people and the irony is this crowd from the city had probably come here to beat the city crowd. Anyway there was a new hotel named Tender Coconut in Sangama and as it was already time for lunch we found ourselves in this restaurant in no time. The heat was such that we first asked for tender coconut and for our surprise found that they don’t serve tender coconut in tender coconut.
After a humble meal of chapatti and dhal we started our trek to Mekedatu. There is an option of taking a bus to mekedatu but we wanted to experience the journey on foot. Varun and Shailesh even wanted to jog to mekedatu. (Ah the exuberance of youth) It’s a different matter that 100 yards further Vinayak and me found them catching their breath under a tree. Somebody heard of the story of the rabbit and the hare??
It is a 4 km trek amidst the forest and its really good. We could hear some monkeys giving some calls and being a Kenneth Anderson buff I interpreted it as an alarm call and was on the lookout for a panther. But the only animals we met on the way other than the monkeys were a couple of thirsty dogs. It was the middle of summer and we were trekking in the hottest part of the day, and naturally we were bushed by the time we reached mekedatu.
There is a gazebo kind of structure as soon as you reach mekedatu where you can replenish yourselves with some soft drinks and biscuits if needed. But on this day there was something interesting happening here. There was a person sitting here who was playing a game where there are three tokens and one of the token has a marking on it. He keeps interchanging these tokens and we have to guess which of these tokens have a marking on them and we get 100 bucks if we guess right and we lose our money if we guess wrong, Well it was a sort of gambling where your observation skills were tested and yours truly was also tempted into applying his abilities and in the process losing a 100 bucks. In hindsight I realized that there were less powers of observation being tested than there were a group of people making money by cleverly conning people like us. My friends had a good laugh at my expense but I guess that’s normally what people do in hindsight when something goes wrong or when some one is taken for a ride.
Mekedatu in Kannada means the point at which the goat crossed. The Cauvery river here becomes very narrow and flows with a lot of force, at one point it flows so close that the legend has it that a goat jumped across the river at this point and hence the place got its name. There is a deep gorge here and standing on top of this we can see water gushing at tremendous force beneath us and I could not help but imagine the plight of anyone slipping and falling here. This place somehow reminded me of the place in “Paatshala” song of the movie “Rang de Basanti”.
After spending sometime here we unanimously decided on catching the bus back to Sanagama (Case of the heat sapping our exuberance of youth I guess). When we came back near the Gazebo structure to catch the bus we found the cops arresting (read as belting) the con group which was a very bollywood style ending for the financially unfortunate set of events. The bus back to Sanagama took only 10 minutes, which made me think of how the concept of distance varies with our mode of transport.
After an eventful trip it was time to head back home and we were a tired group of people who sat in the car in the evening. We tried to play some car games to make the journey interesting but after a while I guess only Shailesh, who was driving the car was awake enjoying some supposedly competitions with other cars on the road. Having said that we reached Bangalore pretty early in the evening due to some good safe driving by him and thus came to an end a very satisfying and eventful but in no way relaxing weekend getaway of four old college friends.
The initial plan was to meet up at my place by 7 in the morning, but like in all tentative plans there was a change. We met up at 8 and by the time we had breakfast at Adigas and left Bangalore it was 9 o clock!! (We blamed the cricket world cup finals for the delay but Vinayak who was the only one among us who watched the entire match was the first to arrive). The journey to Sanagama is very scenic and there are a lot of photo opportunities along the way but the road is not too great with many potholes and in some places the road is very narrow with deep cuts on either side. Considering this, we covered the distance in fairly good time; and we were in Sangama by 11.30. I feel that my excellent driving in some very difficult terrain played a part in this though my friends might not agree on this point.
Sangama means union in Kannada and this place is called so because the river Arkavati joins with Cauvery here. A friend of us had told us of a secluded spot near Sangama and we made our way to this point first. We were not disappointed as there was not a single soul to be seen in this beautiful place on the banks of Cauvery and that too on a Sunday. The water is not too deep here with very less currents and is ideal for people who want to get into the water. There are some really old boards warning people of crocodiles but I had read somewhere that crocs also live for a very long time so we were careful. We did some fishing from a discarded paper cup, as my friend Vinayak wanted a couple of fishes for his aquarium. As you probably guessed, we were not very successful.
After this innovative experience, we were off to Sangama where we have to cross the shallow river to begin the trek to mekedatu. When we reached Sangama we were again harshly reminded of the population problem facing our country. It was jam packed with people and the irony is this crowd from the city had probably come here to beat the city crowd. Anyway there was a new hotel named Tender Coconut in Sangama and as it was already time for lunch we found ourselves in this restaurant in no time. The heat was such that we first asked for tender coconut and for our surprise found that they don’t serve tender coconut in tender coconut.
After a humble meal of chapatti and dhal we started our trek to Mekedatu. There is an option of taking a bus to mekedatu but we wanted to experience the journey on foot. Varun and Shailesh even wanted to jog to mekedatu. (Ah the exuberance of youth) It’s a different matter that 100 yards further Vinayak and me found them catching their breath under a tree. Somebody heard of the story of the rabbit and the hare??
It is a 4 km trek amidst the forest and its really good. We could hear some monkeys giving some calls and being a Kenneth Anderson buff I interpreted it as an alarm call and was on the lookout for a panther. But the only animals we met on the way other than the monkeys were a couple of thirsty dogs. It was the middle of summer and we were trekking in the hottest part of the day, and naturally we were bushed by the time we reached mekedatu.
There is a gazebo kind of structure as soon as you reach mekedatu where you can replenish yourselves with some soft drinks and biscuits if needed. But on this day there was something interesting happening here. There was a person sitting here who was playing a game where there are three tokens and one of the token has a marking on it. He keeps interchanging these tokens and we have to guess which of these tokens have a marking on them and we get 100 bucks if we guess right and we lose our money if we guess wrong, Well it was a sort of gambling where your observation skills were tested and yours truly was also tempted into applying his abilities and in the process losing a 100 bucks. In hindsight I realized that there were less powers of observation being tested than there were a group of people making money by cleverly conning people like us. My friends had a good laugh at my expense but I guess that’s normally what people do in hindsight when something goes wrong or when some one is taken for a ride.
Mekedatu in Kannada means the point at which the goat crossed. The Cauvery river here becomes very narrow and flows with a lot of force, at one point it flows so close that the legend has it that a goat jumped across the river at this point and hence the place got its name. There is a deep gorge here and standing on top of this we can see water gushing at tremendous force beneath us and I could not help but imagine the plight of anyone slipping and falling here. This place somehow reminded me of the place in “Paatshala” song of the movie “Rang de Basanti”.
After spending sometime here we unanimously decided on catching the bus back to Sanagama (Case of the heat sapping our exuberance of youth I guess). When we came back near the Gazebo structure to catch the bus we found the cops arresting (read as belting) the con group which was a very bollywood style ending for the financially unfortunate set of events. The bus back to Sanagama took only 10 minutes, which made me think of how the concept of distance varies with our mode of transport.
After an eventful trip it was time to head back home and we were a tired group of people who sat in the car in the evening. We tried to play some car games to make the journey interesting but after a while I guess only Shailesh, who was driving the car was awake enjoying some supposedly competitions with other cars on the road. Having said that we reached Bangalore pretty early in the evening due to some good safe driving by him and thus came to an end a very satisfying and eventful but in no way relaxing weekend getaway of four old college friends.
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