JOG Jalapaata....... :)

Manavanagi huttidmele En En kandi... Saayo tanaka samsardalli ganda gundi... Herikondu hogodilla sattag bandi... Irodrolge omme nodu Jogad gundi......
Remember that kannada song from rajkumar... Yepp i did too... Finally i made myself watch JOG FALLS.... Atlast... I saw jog falls.. Infact i wanted to pen down things, beforei forget everything... Have soo much to write.. hope atleast i will write down everything atleast a glimpse of whatever i have thought of writing....
This trip was not at all a planned one.. Thanks to sheethu... she made my mind... I was successfull in dragging anala too.. :) Infact could not belive even the day i started.. Saturday had to leave early in the morning at 5.. All sleepy me and anala left home, managed to get an auto to majestic, met sheethu and hey we were ON..... To reach cheelur(sheethu's place) we had to travel in a train from bangalore- beerur( dont read it as beer ooru please) then from there another bus to shimoga and from there another bus to cheelur... Belive me on our way throughtout our trip there was nothing other than green... it was green GREEN and only green(all shades) All excited we reached cheelur at 12.... On our way(in the train) learnt to say cofeeeee,chaya,masala dooooza, badam milkeee.. lol
As soon as we reached, bisi holige was waiting for us... Aunty had prepared deliciuos holige... Ate couple of them.. ;) Relaxed for a while and yup Officially started with the TRIP:)

First thought we'll go vist tungabadra river, then we would go and see the temple.... But we started with sheethu's adike tota(Beetlenut farm)... Beautiful place(All greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen).. We got drenched in rain, enjoyed the nature.. walked all around... it was simply more than fun... we tried to take as many snaps as possible(tried to be proffessionla photographers without SLR camera though).. I am sure we were successfull too. Finally after that we moved on to the temple where resided a ganesha(on ocasion of ganesha chaturti). Poor god had to listen to the songs which were no where even near devotional ones( I'm afraid cant even say which ones :P) Then we went for the Coracle ride. Was expecting a small coracle which would hold 4 people max. But the scenrio was totally different, the coracle was too big, they said they take as many as 40 people in it... Infact i saw a guy put his bike into it to cross the river. We had walk in water filled in with loads of mud.. One guy managed to move his bike from the bank to the coracle and they put that bike into teh coracle. we were surprised because we had to balance soo much while walking near the coracle, mud was too slippery too... But then i got to know the reason why that guy took so much of pain in getting his bike there. To cross that tungabadra river and reach baagwadi it would cost them 3 bucks where as going by road would be taking 45 kms to reach baagwadi.. saving both money and time ;)
We went on a ride to baagwadi and came back by the same coracle to cheelur. Do you belive it costed us only 12 bucks for all the three of us... It was a great ride though....
After that we were quite tired walked back home, had a royal lunch and then relaxed for a while. There was no network for airtel. If wanted to make a call or so had to go running to the terrace speak and come back.... i did it thrice( had to call up my mom and my fren)... Evening just wanted to relax... we were lying on terrace, enjoyed the moonlight, counted stars, spoke and laughed a lot.... Then we all sat and finalised about the whereabouts of next day.. The next THE DAY..... Finally managed to get a car for the next day's journey...
Mornign we were suppose to get up and get ready and leave by 5.30.. Guess what, we left home at 8 :)..... Borrowed one of sheethal's brother's fren's car.. left home...
All the way it was nothing other than green... It was slightly drizzling there and the climate was really cool and good...

On our way we crossed shimoga and were on the way to sagara... Half way we stopped at one place had our packed bfast(aunty packed soooper shavige uppit).... Took couple of snaps, and started.... We were singing singing and singing the whole while.... On our way we saw a place called sirivanthe(which means rich lady).. i told anala that nanu neenu sirivanthe ge hogidvi... laughed at it... It took us around 3 hours to reach sigandoor... Though we wanted to take the car along in the LAUNCH( its the boat which is used to cross the SHARAVATHI river) counld not take it... We finally parked the car there and waited for half an hour for the launch to come.... SHARAVATHI was full.... Wherever we saw could see loads of green... it was really "NAYANA MANOHARA"(Beautiful!!!!!!).......... Ellello hasiru... ellelllo neeru.. abba... eshtu chennagittu andre sakat kushi aytu... :)

We were dying to get into the launch, managed to get in to the launch.... It was one of the best time i had ever had... nice view, nice water, it was more than what i expected.. It started raining... :D hurrah.. people hurried below the shelter, me and sheethu enjoyed the rain, crossing the sharavathi by launch and ofcourse beautiful green environment!!!!!!! Reached sigandooor, alli we had to take the jeep to reach the temple... Sigandooreshwari is famous and powerful goddess who protects the property..... There were a lot of boards also sold there, which says "ee jameenannu sigandooreshwari kaayutiddale"....... It seems that board protects the property from evil.. Belief.... :)

After darshana, we missed all the jeeps... had to wait for atleast another half an hour to get jeeps, and even get the launch.. We had nice tea at one of the hotels(sigandooreshwari hotel)... Managed to get the next possible jeep and reached the banks and got the launch.. But this time vinu(sheethu's bro) asked us to stand at the end where the launch will be open to the river.. It was wonderful experience.. Nice trip back... We got into our cars and rushed to JOG...

Another hour we were in jog.. On our way we were hungry still didnt stop for snack.. Rushed to jog.. Oh Maaaaaaaaaan it was beautiful, marvellous.. i haev no words to expaling the beauty.. We had lunch in a smallest possible hotel there.. good dosas... :) We were wondering whether we would go down the jog or to the otherside of the jog.. Beacause we had time constratint, it was 4 already and we were suppose to reach back shimoga by 9 so that we catch the train.. Still we made our mind to reach the place where the jog falls.. all the way 400 ft down.. :D We could see steps down... believe me we were thinking whether we can really make it bcoz it was the matter of 1500 steps down.... We climbed down soo many stairs, climbed down, climbed down and on on and on.. the steps never got over... Half way through fews guys said "dont go, you would not be able to come up"... But even i answered, we are trekkers... you know what we were dead tired by the time we reached down... Belive me, all our strain just flew when we saw jog... Then came another hurdle.. hurdle of rocks. had to cross it if needed to reach the falls... I did fall badly once while crossing the rocks, slipped :P... There it was raining, it wasnt the real rain, it was the water sprinkled from the falls... JOG Looked beautiful... I was THRILLED... All THRILLED... loved it for the view... All smiles.. May thats the energy i got to climb back.. climb back was faster too.. On the whole all this just took 1 and half hours... 3000 steps and we were back... :)

All tired we started back from JOG... We reached shimoga by 8... Me, Vinu and Anala rushed to hotel, hogged and hurried to the railways station to catch the train..... Vinu's friend had taken the tickets and infact had kept place for us too... Belive me.. Here started one more fun.... We got into the train :)..... Yippie.... we had two seats(above the regular seating where the luggage is kept) in a general compartment... :D :D

The whole train was more than filled... atleast me and anala on one side of the berth.. poor guys( vinu and 2 of his frens) on the otherside... I could not even think of sleeping.. Body ache all over on that what a place to sleep.. FInally got adjusted and managed to put ourselves to sleep... Bhooooom one Big fight started.. One lady started fight for a seat which she wasnt using.. Just for the sake of seat she fought, literally hit that guy.. now why will that guy not hit her back... The FIGHT Started.... It lasted for 3 long hours.. everyone in the train were tired of the fight.. but that lady filled with all energy fought fought and fought.. managed to get that guy out of train and handed over to the police too.. I had never had an journey so colourful before.. heard few of the worst kannada scoldings.... Man.. That lady was toooooooooo much... Finally she kept quite... we could think of sleeping... 4.30 in the morning we reached banaglore.. BODY ACHE... i couldnt even lift my hands or even move an inch.. Me and anala managed to get a bus and reached back home.. slept for half an hour and my usual day began....

THIS WAS ONE OF THE BEST OF THE TRIPS I EVER HAD!!!!! With the best of memeories be it the coracle, be it the adike tota, be it sharavati river, and JOG...... WOWWWWWWWWWWWW.... Thannks a lot sheethu... it was all because of you... :)

THREE cheers to SHEETHU, VINU, ANALA and ofcourse ME....