Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Dandeli - 26th and 27th June, 2004

Team :
Move Mouse over the persons Name to see the Photograph
Praveen Herur (pravi)
Pramod C (modi)
Harinarayana Mulukunte Lakshminarasimha Bhatta (hari)
Manjunath Parashuram (manja)
Bhargava Narayana
Shankar Narayan (shanka)
Amit Eshwaraiah (kanne)
Jaikumar B (kuduka)
Pradeep Chinnaswamiah (moods)
and yours truly(...)
Dates : 26-Jun-2004 and 27-Jun-2004
Location : Jungle Lodges and Resorts, Dandeli
Background:
It all started with we not being able to go to Lakshya... Instead we roamed around Lalbagh and sat down for a long chat. Shanka brought up the idea of having a weekend trip to BR hills and within no time it was unanimously agreed that we would go to BR hills the coming week-end. After a stroll later that day on Thindi Beedi we went home thinking that we would go to BR hills. Some where during Wednesday afternoon amidst Kenry's remarks Hari got too nostalgic about Hubli and threw up the Dandeli idea and kept quiet after that... This created a full fledged debate as to where we have to go... BR hills or Dandeli or Siddara betta or no where at all... GB and GJ wanted changes in time... and Andy got a late appointment with some one... Finally the hari-kanne combination laid all speculation to rest by booking bus tickets to Dandeli... Pravi-Modi combination booked the lodges on Thursday.

We left Bangalore at around 9:00 PM... I am guilty of creating some anxious moments for those who cared by waiting in the wrong travel office. However, once we got going the ten of us easily became a noisy lot in the bus disturbing every one by our typical loud nature. When the bus stopped for the first time, hari got his first wish fulfilled. We all had one plate of "Jolada Rotti" and then Kanne started talking... talking... talking... incessantly... without meaning or context.. But nobody could deny the energy he had brought into the group. Once he stopped most of slept or hoped to get some sleep... The Bus did not seem to have a suspension and threw us all around every now and then.

It was raining when we reached Dandeli. We were hoping that it would not hamper our "adventure" plans. We had breakfast in the local restaurant and proceeded to the Jungle Lodges and Resorts just a kilometer away on the other side of river Kali. The guys there were very courteous. We quickly settled down in our respective tents and freshened up. We all had the river view tents.. each furnished with attached toilets, electric connections and a hammock. In front of our tent was a tree house... climbing the tree house was more fun than the view from there... By 10 O' clock every one was ready and we arranged for a trip to "Sintheri Rocks". Two girls who were already staying there joined us for the trip. [By joined I mean that they were on the same bus... not that we talked to them].

Sintheri Rocks:
It is about 32 kilometers away from Dandeli. The driver of the van was no Schumacher... but still the journey seemed to be an extension of the previous night's torture. At the end of an hour of drive through winding roads among lush green forest dominated by Tectona Grandis (teak) we reached end of Jeep track. From here, we had to walk... We were accompanied by Pramod, an employee of JLR and a guide on this trip. The walk was not tiring at all... it was like a stroll in the bamboo forest. It seems elephants are fond of the bamboo... Our guide also told us that an elephant has passed the route earlier from the aroma it left behind.
Marching towards Sintheri Rocks Bamboo forest on route to Sintheri Rocks

At the end of the trail were 275 steps that we had to climb down to see the rapids on the River Kaneri against the back drop of the huge Sintheri Rocks. I had never known that such rapids do exist in South India where the rivers are not fed by snow melting on top of mountains... they are usually only many small rain water streams joining together. I am sure my well informed friends will differ from my belief. The backdrop of such a huge rock with caves carved out by gushing water even made it look wonderful.
Rapids on River Kaneri
The other bank of the river Kaneri was outside our bounds since ample warnings were given that swimming here was fatal. It was told that during summer the currents of the river are mild enough to cross on foot. That explains a small Ganesha statue on one of the rocks on the other side. Apart from that, the rock surface was decorated with a huge colony of bees... there were at least 100 different honey combs of various sizes. The lack of human interference had to have an effect on their seemingly ever expanding population. While we were watching the rapids, we spotted kind of fish that swims upstream. It sprang out of the rapids and tried to go up... don't have a clue whether they are common sightings or not. However, even though we saw some fish of that kind, only one of them was more than a foot long. Another myth that I had about salmon being the only fish that swims upstream was cleared. Or was it salmon?? I am confused.

Director-Cameraman Modi was in his full swing covering the reactions of everybody. Khanne was talking... nonsense. Bhargav had tough time at times to complete a sentence properly in Kannada. I must commend him for honestly attempting though. Pravi and Kuduks had minor bruises after slipping on the rocks... that made to walk even more cautiously. One bad thing was inspite of many many notices put up by Forest department regarding plastic disposal in right places, lot of ghutka wrappers could be found behind every rock. There is simply no solution to this problem of littering. The fact that there was no garbage in the main accessible area and only behind the rocks that were inaccessible, means that government effort of conveying the message was successful. People have read that the place is not be littered. But the intent is not understood. They think that by throwing it behind the rocks, they feel de-linked with the problem and keep a clean conscience. I do agree with my adversaries when they say that a common man can think of such antiquates only after he is reasonably prosperous. But my argument is that it could be too late... Obviously if some one can take his time and money apart to visit a place of interest, he is prosperous enough to act on preserving it for his children. I believe it is just got to do with attitude and NOT level of education or prosperity or simply bad company. Any way, whilst all these thoughts were going through my mind, It was time to go back.

We took a steep trail instead of the stairs to come up. On the way back, we had an interesting discussion on the size of the heart relative the left fist. Pravi surprisingly has a big heart to his body size... Man with a big left fist. I wonder why?? Hari I guess had a bad heart to body ratio... He only has a healthy hair to body ratio... I doubt if you can call it healthy? Any way, Pramod - the guide realised that he was bit by a leech. Automatically we started walking faster for no reason... We came back to JLR tired and hungry.

We had a heavy lunch... played 28 for a while and crashed later... Our next task would be a safari in the Dandeli Reserved Forest ending in a visit to Kavala Caves.
Against the backdrop of the huge rocks  

Kavala Caves:
It was already 15 minutes behind schedule while we left on the safari. It was not that important since we did not expect to see anything extraordinary either. Any way all through some 20 KM of so-called wilderness all we saw was 2 monkeys and a peacock. At some point, the driver of our Jeep, Mahindra decided that it was enough and we had to walk the rest of the way. Mahendra told us that last time when he was here, he saw a leopard pass by. We had no reason to believe him... no reason to disbelieve him either... We were now acompanied by Shivanand - another employee of JLR. He was our guide for the rest of the evening. He told us that no body had gone to Kavala Caves since 3 months because of its tough terrain. People usually come here to relax and rewind than charge themselves with tough challenges. Any way we started walking on the treacherous jeep track that was getting worse with every bit of rain. Shanka soon started a conversation with him... Even after half an hour refused to tell me what it was about :-) I got lonely for some time when shanka sped off with the guide and the rest of the group was way behind. I enjoyed the solitude... hearing my own foot steps... listening to my own thoughts as if somebody else read them aloud to me... It was short lived as the group behind me started closing in...
Jeep and the Boss Whats with Pravi... he was chasing everybody.
The final stretch was a steep descent of about 375 steps... much deeper than the one in the morning. At the end of the steps was a cave temple. The stench from the bat droppings deterred some of us from entering... but those who did got used to it pretty soon. Shivanand showed us a snake which he called Viper. We were happy that was on the roof... He said that snakes find it a nice place to hangout because of the coolness and unlimited prey in the form of bats. Then he opened the doors of the cave and rang the bells at the door. The door bells are an indication to the bats that may be lying around on the floor of the caves to fly away from our sight. The instructions were simple... keep your head down... and don't panic if a bat passes pretty close to you.. trust them... they can see better :-) Each one of us lit a candle. Shanka volunteered to be the last one to go in so that he could have a torch. Any way each one of crawled behind Shivanand for some distance before we reached a small open space which served as the Sanctum Sanctorum of the temple.
Moods crawling through... Kanne behind him
In the middle of the open space was a Stalagmite that resembled a "Shiva Linga". On the wall were stalactites that looked like Lord Ganesha's face for a creative devotee... On the walls were naturally formed streaks that resembled a snake. All in all it was Kailasa made up in stalagmites and stalactites. It was believed by the local devotees that the chemical that drops over the stalactites was milk. However, latest attempts by forest department may have cleared them of their myth. They might even know that the reason why the Shiva Linga grows over the years is more geographical than divine intervention. I do not mind any faith as long as it is no enforced over others.
Shiva Linga [Huge Stalagmite]
We came round the Shiva Linga and entered into even smaller tunnels... Moods had a tough time moving so low... He even had Kanne behind him. At the end, we reached a more open doom, where we could stand. Shivanand asked all to sit and relax for some time. We blew out all our candles and sat in the dark. It was my first experience of total darkness. There was no difference in opening or closing my eyes... Hari started contemplating about the oxygen level in the cave. Well a big man with small heart has his own problems to deal with. We had five minutes of utter silence. The only sounds that were heard were that of hari urging pravi to get out of there and bats flying past too close... Amazingly bats make their way through in such darkness... I wonder what they mean when they say "as blind as a bat".
Gathering in the dark.

After we came out of the cave we described the experience to those who did not come in... Shanka felt he had seen better... Kanne said Siddara Betta was much bigger and much more mysterious... Moods was still to recover from this ordeal in front of Kanne... Hari kept his silence... All said and done, we had a truly up hill task ahead of us... we had to climb back all the 375 steps... there was no trail or pathway like in the morning... It took us about 20 minutes and all the fluids in our body to finally come on top of the steps. To our surprise, Mahendra had precariously driven all the way up the jeep track and waiting for us at the steps with a wide grin over his face. He gave us water with a smile and started driving back. We sang all along the way back to the JLR dedicating one song each to the super heroes of Kannada Film Industry. At the camp (JLR) arrangements were going on to welcome the DIG of Bangalore. He was on his way home from Goa... This seems to be only star accommodation available on the way and the SP made all that was necessary to please him... May be because of that, the dinner was very good. There was katla fish sliced vertically... among others. After a heavy meal, a game of TT and watching the Westindies - England match I crashed into my room. It had started to rain again. The booze gang was enjoying in its own way.

The next day was boring... we woke up late... continued on a disappointing coracle ride and that's it... By 12 noon, we settled the bill and left the place to Hubli.

We Leave Jungle Lodges and Resorts after 2 days of fun and "adventure"
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