Trip to Shivanasamudra

Most of the times, we plan a lot, and end up not going anywhere. Last Friday evening, as we were heading back home, I just said “Why don’t we go to Shivanasamudra tomorrow?”, “Not a bad idea” G said. I was already super excited. The last time I visited the place was a decade back. We decided to hit the bed early, but then there was a HP movie on TV, and I dint want to miss it. Anyway, we had decided, if we could wake up by 6 we will go, else cancel the plan.
 
Saturday:
 
5.00 AM: Alarm rang. I woke up G and asked him, if we are going. He said no. I was disappointed and slept again.
5.30 AM: G wakes me up and says, go and get ready. I was super happy. Initially we argued over who would go take bath first, that way other person could get around half an hr extra to sleep. Since, he is the designated driver, I accepted.
7.30 AM: We were out having breakfast in BTM Layout. Then we took the kanakpura road and headed towards the destination
 
Please have your breakfast, before you leave Bangalore. Unlike Mysore Road, there are not many hotels. There are only roadside tea shops, where you get bananas, biscuits, chips. There are no hotels in that road. But road is awesome. Not road bumps/humps, no potholes. It was smooth like butter. G had a gala time, driving on those roads. I am not sure about his average speed, you see I having my nap. But anytime I woke up, found him in 120 or 140. In between he would nudge me, to see the beautiful surroundings. Indeed, a pond and a small hill in the background would make such a pretty sight.
 
At one point there is dead end leaving you with 2 directions, you take right to head to Mysore, so we took the left which would take us to our destination. You will find directions to the place, every few kilometers; it’s a little hard to get lost on this road. Even if you do, the villagers are pretty helpful.
 
There are 2 falls, Gagana Chukki and Bara chukka , around 2 kms apart.
Finally, by 9.30, we reached the viewpoint of the Falls. This is probably a few kms before the falls; from here you get to see a beautiful view of the Gagana Chukki Falls. Since we had reached early, the crowd was less, hence enjoyed the view for quite some time. We sat there on a bench, sipping hot tea. It was such a beauty. Though I wonder, why is this place called Bluff?
 
We then left to go near the falls. It’s around 6kms from the view point. As we headed towards the falls, there is a deviation, one going towards Gagan Chukki and the other BaraChukki. Since we had seen the first one from far, we visited the latter this time. We parked the vehicle, and looked at the falls. The water looked so mesmerizing. In one view you feel, water from all the directions, merging into one waterfall. I like this better than the view of Gagana Chukki.
 
There are steps to go down till the river. After initial fun getting down, the steps become steeper. All along, I was wondering, how much effort would be required to come back up? But the view of the falls on the side, make you forget all this.
 
Once you are down there, there are coracle rides (in kannada: Theppa), which you can take. They take you for a round in the river, close to the falls. We din’t opt for that. There are multiple falls around. There is a point where, you can cross the stream, though it knee deep or more. A lot of people were crossing the stream to go under the falls. We sat there on the banks and were having fun, looking at people trying to cross the stream. A lot of them fell in water, due to the slippery rocks. One good thing which can be observed here, it doesn’t matter, who you are, where you are from, which gender you belong to, you could see people helping each other cross the river. If one was about to slip, you could see another person helping them avoid falling down. As I was sitting one of rocks, with legs in water, was passing mobiles, holding somebody when they were slipping. It’s such a great gesture, we could see there.
 
Just next to this, there was a small pathway. G and I headed there, we had to catch hold of the roots and climb a little bit. From there we could get a beautiful view of the falls. We took a couple of pictures and headed back. Not many people venture there, so there are some thorny plants which have just grown in the wild. We ought to be a little careful.
 
After this, the climb back to the parking began. Every time I was panting for breadth, I would sit on those steps and look at the view, which would probably fill me in with energy to finish the climb. Once we reached the parking lot, we had tender coconut and corn.
 
We headed towards the Darga, which is near Gagana Chukki. It seems people are not allowed near the falls, since its very dangerous. The rocks are too slippery. On that day, there was some kannada movie shooting going on, so we were not stopped from going near the falls. Ofcourse, the shooting area was still not accessible. We took a few pictures, but the fun part was going down those rocks and coming back up. There was too many monkeys in this area. I had given the camera to G, so that monkeys don’t come near me for the camera. They were least bothered anyway. We dint spend as much time here, since you can’t even touch the water here. Also, it was getting really hot in the afternoon.
 
There are 2 temples nearby, one is a famous Ranganatha swamy temple, it’s a part of the 3 Rangas. This is called the Madhya Ranga, other ones are in Sriranga and Srirangapatinam
 
We were thankful that it didn’t rain. We headed back to Bangalore. For a minute we thought we’ll visit Somnathpur. But then thought we’ll leave for another day. On the way we bought biscuits and then non-stop to Bangalore on the kanakpura road. Reached home around 4.30 and had lunch and had a nice satisfying short nap, and in the dreams, saw the falls, yet again.