Bishu’s Blog

18th Oct:

As planned earlier to leave Bangalore in early morning , Karthik picked up Jagaadish & headed for R.T.Nagar to pick me up, then went to Cox town to pick Madhu(Kutty) and Prasanna. And our last pick up guy was Vasu in Indranagar. Picked Vasu and the headed for Muthatti. On the way other gang(Madhu,Prabhu, Sharvana, Saket,Aloke,Natraj & Rajesh) was waiting for us near Banasankari on Kanakpura road. Stopped near Sri Ravi Shanker ashram for breakfast, had idli vada, dosa …etc. As we have not got the permission from forest dept. we need to collect it from forest range office in Kanakapura, for camping in the forest area. It took some 15-20mins to get the permission, and headed for our destination.

You have to go straight on NH209 till Satharur and take left turn for Muthatti which is about 20+ KM from the highway. Reached Muthatti forest guest house at around 11am. Got the forest guest house room key and dumped all our luggage. As we have almost half a day left with us we thought to do a small trek near by hills. Everybody got ready with their gears – camera ,hat..etc and ready for trekking. Local guide was heading the group and Karthik was telling all about the birds found in Muthatti forest. As we were half way up the hill, it started raining….kept camera inside waterproof cover and stayed under the trees. The rain was playing hide an seek….raining sometime and stops……once again starts suddenly!!. The view from the hill was beautiful….We reached the top of one hill and decide to stop & had lunch there.

Guide told us that one more view point is near by only, so decide to head for it. Once we reached there the view was awesome!!!…. everybody were excited and tired also.. but we wanted to go to one more hill top, form where the view is excellent . You can have a whole picture of the kaveri river flowing through the hills. Once we reached the spot, it was worth it for that pain to climb up to top. We spotted 2 lungur (long tailed monkeys) near the top. After mesmerized with view from top for half-hour, we decide to climb down and head for Kaveri river for a kool bath in cold water.

As we were climbing down the hill, me, madhu, Karthik and guide in front heard sounds breaking branches in near by bushes. We got alerted and look for any thing visible from where the sound is coming. Initially we couldn’t see or make out whats there in the bushes, we walked carefully without making any noise, so if there was anything it can’t notice us. Suddenly the guide spotted the herd of Elephant …tusker ,baby elephant!! around 9-10 elephant, everybody got excited as always as were afraid !!! ….as the bushes were thick we couldn’t get a clear view of the herd. I climbed up a tree to get a clear view of the heard and everybody were anxiously waiting down to get a glimpse of the herd. As we were looking at the herd hiding behind the bushes, could make out they were heading towards us , every body run for their life downhill……..i jumped from the tree …make effort not to disturb the herd…and run uphill with karthik. Now we were divided in two groups, me & karthik uphill and rest of the groups downhill. It just scared the shit out us, looking for bushes and tree to hide behind. Still wanted to get a clear view to get a snap of the herd. But couldn’t get a single shot!!!! luckily the herd moved back in opposite direction, and we run downhill ………all were waiting anxiously for both of us this was the first time in my life real encounter with with the wild animals. Man you never forget this moment!!!

After this encounter with the wild, we decide to take bath in kaveri river to kool our selves. We looked for a good place where the water current is less, guide spotted one place for us. Played with water for 45 mins and it was getting dark by then and it was time for us to head back to forest guest house. Around 7pm we started to cook for dinner, guide had arrange a big around 5kg fish for us. They prepared fish kebab and served it us near the bonfire. It taste of fish kebab was mouth watery, finished dinner and headed for bed to get early, catch a glimpse of sunrise.

More photos

Route: Bangalore-57kms-Kanakapura-16kms-Satharur-23kms-Muthatti

Distance : 96 KM