Blue Skies

Solur, near Masinagudi.

The best laid schemes o' mice and men, gang aft agley. Robert Burns must have been talking about my plans for the year-end closure at work. Every plan seemed to be falling apart as the holidays got closer. For want of anything better to do, I even volunteered to work through some of the holiday. So when a plan to camp somewhere in the Nilgiris came up, I jumped at it.

The guide met us at Masinagudi and guided us through lunch, tea breaks and gardens to Solur. From there, after a rather long discussion with the owners of the tea garden about whether or not it was permitted to camp in the hills, we hiked to a large grass field where the tents were pitched. Notice that I do not say that we pitched the tent. Anjali, Manik and I shirked our duties and headed up to the top of the hill to catch the setting of the sun. Suffice it to say that the sun has a lot more practice getting over hills than us city-slickers. As we stumbled our way down, we watched the campfire flicker to life and the stars follow Venus' lead in punctuating the deep indigo sky.

Sneha joyfully took charge of the supplies (Chinese camping and supplies joke's making me smile) that Ashwin and Roshan had lugged up and handed out tuna, luncheon meat and cheese sandwiches to go with the rum and coke. I can't remember what the conversation was about, but it was warm, in sharp contrast with the air which was beginning to bite. The cold chewed through the tent, through my sleeping bag and chomped on my toes, making the night rather restive.

We woke to see the sun rise and then decided to go up the hill again, and with Manik around, there's always a higher hill to climb. There were stone walls built at various levels on the way up, and near the top, there were some large flat pieces of granite placed so that people could sit and admire the view. I wonder what the walls are for - not supporting anything and too low to keep anything in or out. And I wonder who made those seats.

And then it was breakfast and the hike back to Solur. For the crazies in the bunch, it was walking all the way down to Masinagudi. And then surviving a hair-raising drive back to Bangalore so that I could make the airport in time.

AWOL Clouds

Skandagiri.

Fashionably late, we piled into Dillu's Safari and, stopping only to pick up supplies enough for an army to march on, we drove to Chikkaballapur and the temple at the base of Kalwarbetta. It took just a couple of hours to follow the moonlit path up to the top of the hill and the remnants one of Tipu Sultan's forts.

It was a quiet night on the hill as we ate our tuna, turkey, chicken, cheese, cucumber and tomato filled sandwiches. With sated belly, I collapsed and let the old light from Orion, Taurus and Cassiopeia impinge on my retina. A couple of hours of stargazing later, I ducked out of the chilly breeze into the tent and pretended that rocks make good mattresses. My snoring soon announced the success of the sandman.

My repose was unkindly intruded upon by a screaming horde of invading Huns. Wait, perhaps they were a troupe of monkeys leaping from rock to rock in the moonlight. Or maybe I had fallen asleep in a fish market. My sleep confused mind struggled with these possibilities and came to the conclusion that I was actually in a stress-induced nightmare. And I slept.

I awoke as the sky turned from black to indigo and scrambled out of the tent. Whoa! The nightmare was still there! Then, with the day, realization dawned. The clouds that were to greet me were AWOL. Instead there was a TV9 crew shooting the loudly chattering crowd of people that had gathered to watch the sun rise.

At least the sun didn't disappoint, and I watched the miracle of day unfold before me.

Mamta, Mamta and Mamta

Mamta, my very sharp-witted and equally sharp-tongued travelling companion. The provider of much entertainment through the entire trip.
Mamta, the girl that put the beauty of the Himalayas in the shade with her smile. Halfway through the first day of the trek, we stopped close to a village for lunch. There was a bunch of kids playing there with a carefree joy that made me wish with all my heart that I was one of them. They politely and discreetly kept their distance while we ate and then shyly answered our questions about their village and their lives. She was one of these kids.
Mamta, the girl that held a stranger's hand for protection from a darkness far more familiar to her. I was the first one to get to the camping site on the last evening out on the trail, and I was greeted by the kids of the village of Brrlay. "घूमने आए हैं", they told me and spoke to me about school and goatherds and black bears lurking in the darkness. They then asked me to take them home. I must have looked much like the Pied Piper with a bunch of happily dancing kids walking off into the darkness. Mamta held my hand the whole way home. One of the kids also offered to drop me back to the campsite! She was back the next morning to say goodbye to us.
Mamta, the thread that ran through my Himachali trek.

Of Clouds and Leeches

Agumbe.

I'm pretty glad Siddharth made it to the bus seconds before we left. So much would have been lost in translation had he missed the bus. Reminder to self - learn Kannada.

I was a little sceptical when Kasturi Akka told me over the phone, in a mixture of Kannada, Hindi and English, that all I had to do to find the house was to ask for where Kasturi stays. But Dodda Mane was exactly that easy to find. Just around the corner from the bus stand, and everyone knows Kasturi Akka.

Stepping into the house is almost like stepping through a window in time. A hundred and ten years, the house has stood; stone, supported on ornate wooden pillars, built in the traditional style of the people of the ghats. In the middle, the courtyard that once had been the place where the head of the village had dispensed his justice was being pounded by the monsoon. We were directed to a large room upstairs with windows that seemed to glow with the emerald green of the rainforest.

After a breakfast of Neer Dosas and too-spicy chutney, we headed off to Jogigundi: "find electric pole 67 and turn right off the road and follow the path. And watch for the leeches." The road wound through the greenest green accompanied by butterflies fluttering whimsically from flower to flower. The rain stopped and started, drizzling sometimes, pouring sometimes. The birds took every pause in the rain to break into song, teasing us by flitting about in the leaves, just out of sight. Frogs, toads and grasshoppers leapt joyfully by the side of the road. The unfortunate ones had been run over by the overnight traffic. We saw a malabar pit viper, a checkered keelback, two caecilians and hundreds of frogs dead on the road.

A little way down the road, Nisha snorted disgustedly at what looked like fruit packing on the side of the road. As she bent over to pick up the litter, her expression changed to wonder. It was the most amazing mushroom any of us had ever seen; a peach-pink lantern on the forest floor. As we walked along we caught little glimpses into what must exist deep within the rainforest; the beautiful purple plant parasite, the yellow succulent flower, the wood-ear mushrooms, the orchids in the trees.

And then we were at electric pole no. 67. The path to the right was there, leading invitingly into the forest. My research before the trip had taught me that insect repellents do keep leeches away, so we smeared some on our feet and stepped in. The first thing to greet us was a bicolored frog, confident in its camouflage sitting on the forest floor. And then there were leeches everywhere. Stopping only to pull the leeches off our ankles we were very quickly at the waterfall. The water falls through large boulders on the side of a wall of rock into a pool from where it continues down to where I know not. We spent an hour exploring the rocks around the waterfall and a little way downstream. On the way back, Rohan and I saw a Malabar Trogon, one of the birds on our wish-list. There were so many birds in that one place that we decided to come back there if we could; electric pole 42.

We slept through the afternoon and then went to the edge of the Someshwar Ghat to watch the sunset. There wasn't a sunset in the way of a traditional sunset, but the view was breathtaking . The clouds looked like they were pouring down the ghats on our right into the valley below. Little clouds between the trees on the forest floor looked like puffs of smoke. And this green and white carpet spread out before us as far as we could see. A bright red crab sat on the rock with us as we watched the light fade behind the clouds.

Undeterred by the lack of a sun in the sunset, we set out early the next morning to see the sunrise. The Jain temple on top of the hill had been built of stones quarried from the rock it stood on. One of the pools that had formed was full of huge bull frogs croaking their hearts out. The clouds swirled around us and the rain beat down heavily. The sun must have risen behind all that. There's an indescribable peace standing on top of that hill in the pouring rain

Nisha and Siddharth went to Sringeri to see the temples there while Rohan and I decided to go back to the electric poles to see if we could spot some birds. And spot some, we did! Racket-tailed drongos, scarlet minivets, pompadour green pigeons, white-bellied treepies, black bulbuls, black headed bulbuls, dark-fronted babblers, malabar parakeets, malabar gray hornbills, hill mynahs were the highlights. There were so many others which we didn't identify because we couldn't keep up with them. I finally saw the malabar whistling thrush which has been teasing me with it's schoolboy whistle through so many forest hikes. And we saw the malabar trogon again! On the way back, we had to take shelter from the rain in a cowshed. The owner of the place saw us standing under the eaves and invited us in. They were a most jolly family, thoroughly amused at our inability to understand a word they said (learn Kannada). On the way back, we were startled by a barking deer and our third malabar giant squirrel. My good deed of the day was to pick up a pill millipede off the road and put it back in the leaf litter.

Lunch was special - mango curry, bamboo shoot curry and a snack made of acacia leaves wrapped around something I can't remember. Rohan's appetite wasn't tickled.

Onaki Abbe was our final destination. The path was a carpet of leeches. We moved swiftly through the forest till the path disappeared in the undergrowth. It was getting dark when we finally turned around. By then, we had surrendered to the leeches and were letting them have their way with us. Back on the road, a truck driver saw the blood on my feet and stopped to tell me to put salt. 'Uppu Illa' I told him and asked for a ride into the village, and so we rode atop a sand truck to the nearest restaurant where I asked for salt and watched as the bloated leeches dropped off my feet. We walked barefoot back to Dodda Mane, stood outside and washed the blood off our feet. Tissue paper served to stop the bleeding. There were so many leeches in Nisha's shoes that she decided to leave them behind.

We said goodbye to Kasturi Akka and headed to the bus stand, just in time to catch the bus back to Bangalore. I broke out in rashes because of my allergy to leech-bites, making me look rather scary, but that subsided halfway back to Bangalore. And I found a last couple of leeches; one on my ankle and one on my arm.

The infection from the leech-bites has gone away now after a heavy dose of antibiotics and the wounds have almost healed. It was quite an adventure, and methinks it's time to plan a trip back there. I still have to visit Onaki Abbe and Barkhana.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

Bandipur and Wayanad.

Labour Day fell conveniently on a Thursday this year. Conveniently, so that we could take Friday off from our labours to make the weekend four days. Add to that the enthusiasm of Anureita because of Priyanka and Martin's visit from Amsterdam, and Bangalore was positively kicking us out of town!

After an incredible number of emails discussing where we should go (and some which had nothing to do with the weekend at all), we settled on a day at Bandipur and two at Wayanad. And so we set off, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, precisely at seven in the morning or thereabouts (read eight thirty). The well-laid road to Mysore flew by below the rumblings of nine hungry stomachs. Lokaruchi could not come soon enough.

Down the Ooty road we went, or so we thought, until we realised that we'd missed the turn towards Bandipur and were almost at Wayanad a day before time. The detour through some village roads in the dust and the heat started murmurs about losing precious holiday hours. The bright eyes had dulled over and the bushy tails were anything but. We finally made it to Tusker Trails at three, in time to swallow lunch, minus the recommended masticating, and to head off for a van safari into the national park. Peacocks and spotted deer were plenty. Bison, elephant and sambhar a little rarer. The Changeable Hawk Eagle and the Crested Serpent Eagle were the raptor representatives.

Back at Tusker Trails after the safari, the more aquatically inclined swam with the toads in the pool. The entertainment followed in the form of Jerry's insistence on a game of dumb charades and word building. And what entertainment it was! By the time I stumbled off to bed with my gut aching from the laughing, almost everyone had backed out of the next morning's safari.

Ben was, to my surprise, the only one awake bright and early for the morning safari. The Asian Paradise Flycatcher and the Indian Roller at close quarters coloured the morning, but the sighting that dwarfed everything else was the leopard sitting on a rock. It looked at us through the dry twigs with these incredible eyes, gracefully got to its feet and stepped off the rock and disappeared. Anureita didn't want to believe that in all the trips we've done together, it was the one time she didn't go on safari that the leopard showed its face. But, hey, life's like that!

And so, with paisa already vasool (for me at least) and two and half days still to go, we headed off to Wayanad and Marmalade Springs. The manager met us on the main road and guided us to a house at the foot of a hill and told us that we would be leaving our vehicles there and continuing in jeeps. Okay, I thought, the road mustn't be too good. But, whoa! even off-road rides would have been less treacherous. The path up to the resort was more a dried up stream-bed than a road, complete with tiny waterfalls and plunge pools! Brilliant fun! The rest of the day was spent in camp chairs surveying the coffee shrubs around us. And, oh yes, the basketball was fun with Kurush and Manik throwing their weight around.

Day three - I completed a climb I started three years ago - from Edakkal caves to the top of the hill. A determined Dileep clambered to the top wiping out the ignominy of the not making it to the top of Chembra peak. The view from the top was breath-taking. Coming down is always harder, but Priya made it look easy. Manik's ankles didn't fare too well though.

The beef fry in Wayanad is to die for.

Martin had never seen a tea estate before, so we decided to go to the foot of Chembra. Driving through the estate we stopped to watch the employees play football, and were invited to join the game. We got back to the Marmalade Springs exhausted.

And then, it was time to drive home. The Malabar Giant Squirrel was probably hit by a vehicle that was just a minute or so ahead of us. The Oriental Honey Buzzard watched me as I picked up the poor creature and put it on the side of the road.

Holidays end too quickly, and with them go the bright eyes and bushy tails.

Round The Bend

and over the hill...

Summer. Seven years ago. How we laughed as we hiked around Nainital! The winding road to Kilbury took us round many bends and over a few hills.

That summer was like something out of one of Gerald Durrell's books. Idyllic - is that the word I'm looking for?

Our ages said that we weren't children any more, but for those two weeks, in our hearts, we were. The blue skies, the breeze through the trees, the butterflies dancing in the garden. What wouldn't I give to be that person again!

Well, I've gone round many bends since then, and over many hills....