A monsoon expedition at Agumbe and Sringeri

Travelling in bike is my passion, heard someone saying  "travelling" and "bike" can be seperated, so this time i left one word "Bike", yes one of  my first travelogue without bike.

Happily chose KSRTC Rajahamsa, on friday evening 20th September myself with my 3 friends Chandramohan, Karthik and Vinay departed to explore one of the most rainy part of south India "Agumbe" which is also called as" cherrapunji of south".


Agumbe (ಆಗುಂಬೆ) is a village located in shimogadistrict, Thirthahalli taluk,Malnad region. Agumbe is among the highest rainfall receiving region in westren ghats, earning itself the name "cherrapunji of south".The only rainforest researchcenter in India -- source : wiki 

We reached Sringeri by 6 30 am, inquired about buses to Agumbe, from sringeri we need to go to a village called Bidirugoodu and from there we get bus to agumbe which arrives via thirthalli. it was a wonderful saturday morning, far from dusty, traffic busy town, we reached agumbe by 7 30 and we were welcomed by heavy rain. a perfect start.!! 

  We decided to stay at Kasthuri akka mane and take their guidelines to visit different places in agumbe. Got the info about barkana falls and Jogi Gundi falls, also an auto was arranged for us, we were all set to explore the falls and forest. 

our first destination was Jogi gundi falls, as we reach the path to falls it again started to rain and we started waking towards the falls, its 1km walk into the forest and few steps down to reach the falls, 

we stayed n enjoyed the falls for few minutes as we were told by the auto driver to come soon as he will be waiting by the side road,also if we stand in a place for more than 30 secs, the leaches will definitely feed on our blood. yes !! if you want to visit these places in monsoon be ready to be bitten by leaches.

 After about 10 min of ride in auto  we reached a place where we have some green grass land at the left , few huts and forest at the right, there we met our guide who took us inside the forest on a small walk path. The path was getting interesting with more leaches, water crossing, trees and bushes obstructing the way. on the way we found foot prints of wild pigs. it was on and off raining, the forest rustling sound, the fear of leach biting, the light jokes and laughter on the way made the 3 km walk fun filled and joy full.

Although we could not see the Barkana falls as the place was covered with full of mist. we waited for 45 min with no luck, n returned to the small village. we spent sometime in paddy fields while we waited for auto.

it was noon by then and we were all hungry walking in the forest, the delicious food was waiting for us in Kasthuri akka mane. 
the food in Doddamane is one of the best Malnad food you can taste.

  we rested for one hour and planned for the rest of the day, we decided to visit Kundadri betta. 
it was raining heavily and the view from kundadri betta was almost nightmare with mist around. we reached top of kundadri betta, the rain paused for a while n we could get a sneak view from the top only for a while.
took few pictures and enjoyed the rain on top of the hill.

Back in agumbe by evening n spent the beautiful evening walking around the place and chatting.
ended the day with delicious food at Doddamane.


Next day we got ready and had breakfast, took few photos around the home and all set to leave for sringeri as per our plan, just as we stepped out of the home heard someone calling me, it was a guy whom i spoke to last night regarding snakes at agumbe, he spotted a green wine snake, clicked few snaps and left for Sringeri. visited temple and had one more round of breakfast.

it was around 11 30, we were as per our schedule , we managed to book tickets to Bangalore from hornadu. after temple it was sirimane falls, one of the beautiful falls to play and spend time in water.
we spent  a playful one hour in the falls.

Lunch was at Chandra Mohan's aunt's place, it was a wonderful path to walk to there home need to cross fields and a river to reach there and the hospitality was very good. had lunch and some fun filled moments in beautiful place.

Took bus to hornadu, i should not forget to appreciate the driver of the bus who drove from sringeri to Hornadu, amazing control over bus in extreme ghats, (may be we noticed this coz we were sitting beside the driver seat ). Reached Hornadu temple by 7 30pm, did darshana and had dinner in the temple itself. our bus to Bangalore was waiting and we departed to Bangalore by 9 45.

it was a wonderful trip with lots of rain, green mist and adventure. anyone planning to agumbe stay in doddamane, contact me for contact details of kasthuri akka, you will have memorable hospitality and not to forget best food.

Best time to visit agumbe is post monsoon ( December to March). If you want to explore by  getting drenched in nonstop rain, then try monsoon season.


  

A view from Sky

Traveling one of the best addiction. i enjoy traveling in two wheelers, buses , sometime by walk too.
few  occasions i got to travel by flight too, and here are the few pictures which i took while returning from Australia to India.

A day in Paris

It was an official trip to Germany in the month of April, from 7th to 12th. our flight back to Bangalore was on 14th morning. i was wondering how best i can utilize one day in Europe, initial plan was to just roam around the city and end the day. but a wild thought came to visit France, Paris to be specific.

we are skeptical about the tickets and the way of transport to reach there and of all the things apart we actually had hardly 7 hours to spend time in Paris. Finally we are happy to get tickets at DB Bhan, stuttgart railway station, the lady at the counter understood our requirement and gave a discounted price of 200 Euros each with return ticket to paris from Germany in high speed train (TGV).

Myself and Manjunath were all set to visit the most romantic city in the world Paris.our train was at 6:55am from stuttgart to Paris Est. it was 3 n half hours journey, where train was at max speeds of 320km/hr. it was an amazing experience. we packed some food for the day on the previous day itself, so that we don't waste time n money in search of food in a new place.

we reached Paris by 10 30am and started our exploration by walking down the streets of Paris. The problem is only very few, very very few people know english and can reply in english, even though they understand what we are asking they refuse to reply in  english, so learn basic French language before you go to France. some shopkeepers helped us to locate the underground metro. we took a daily pass in which we can travel in metro, buses and in regional trains, took a map of city and started our journey.

Our first point of the world famous Eiffel Tower. we got down at Trocadero station and Eiffel tower was very hard to be hidden from our eyes. The pics talk about the beauty of the wonder of the world.

Me 

Road directions on the roads

Carrousel opposite to the tower.

Lovely couple posed for me near the fountains

After spending enough time around the tower clicking lots of photos, we decided to head towards the next must see place in Paris. we had a city map given at Metro station, the important places are marked in the maps and tracing the train route and the station to get down was  made easier. walked to near by metro Dupliex  and took train to Charles de Gaulle Etoile. 

Arc De Triomphe : 

as we dint hire any guide we got to  know ourselves about the place we are visiting and the speciality of the place. but this was simple it was an arc built for the remembrance of the war happened in France.

After the Arc De Triomphe we started towards Musée du Louvre. we are unsure whats there in the place but something marked in bold on the map made us stand in front of a very big building. it was a palace built in 1400- 1500. one of the world's largest museum.

The Louvre Museum or simply The Louvre—is one of the world's largest museums, and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, France, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (district). Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st  century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet). With more than 8 million visitors each year, the Louvre is the world's most visited museum.[5]
The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) which began as a fortress built in the late 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682,Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of antique sculpture.[6] In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years.[7] During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum, to display the nation's masterpieces.  -- source : wikipedia. 

seriously we had very very less time to just look around the place, it was a huge palace and museum.

we covered as much as possible with brisk walking and came out of the place and rested in the near by park. beside the road we saw a cruise on the water, we just crossed the road to see the beautiful seine river.

we walked beside the river it was almost evening 5, while crossing over the bridge saw many locks locked to the bridge panes.  Love locks..!! belief of  people that write the name of the loved one on the lock, lock it and throw the key into the river forever.

it started to rain n time was very less, we need to catch our train back to stuttgart, which was at 6 50 pm from Paris Est. we took metro towards Paris Est station and luckily we wee on time for the train.

it was a very short trip to world famous city, yet we saw max out of 7 hrs we had, and bought home lots of good memories of the beautiful place.

Everyone, if you get a chance please visit with your loved one to this city. you will have the time of your life. :)