Trip to Sringeri, Kudremukh and Hornaadu

First of all I would like to highlight the fact that this was a trip basically. It was kind of outing arranged from BASC. The main organizer was Vinay and totally 20 guys had gone. I went to Vinay’s house at around 9 and we boarded the bus there only. That was the starting point of the trip. We reached Shanthala silks at around 9 30 itself and were waiting for others to join us. Everyone eventually came and we left from Shanthala silks at 10 30. There were some hiccups during the start of the journey itself with the bus. Whenever the bus was stopped, it was not restarting on its own, so we had to push it and make it start. It was kind of warm up for us. We pushed the bus couple of times and then we strictly told driver not to switch off the engine. We picked up last 2 guys from Jalahalli point and we were all set to go non-stop to Sringeri. At exactly midnight we were at some toll gate in the mid-way and Pallavi took out the cake from some hidden location and announced that it was my birthday. I was shocked and I could not say no to cut cake in a moving bus when they have done so many things just for me. I cut the cake and gave the cake pieces to each and everyone in the bus. This was the best experience for me in this whole trip. Later we ate cake and tried to sleep in bus only but we dint get any sleep. Thanks to the quality of bus and the quality of roads. We reached Sringeri at 8 in the morning. Vinay and Vishwanath Banakar went in search of a room. After some difficulty these two heroes in the team got some room somewhere. I must say if it was anybody else they would have returned back without finding the room. We put the entire luggage in the bus only and went to take bathe. We had got 3-4 bathrooms. So we had to be very quick as there were totally 20 of us. Vinay and Pallavi had forced me to bring some ethnic wear for the trip; Vinay had called me the day before and told me to get some 2-3 pairs extra. After taking bathe I wore Panche and Shalya and I was the first guy in the group to take bathe and wear this. I was thinking I would be the only one wearing these things, but thankfully many guys wore Panche and Shalya. I gave the extra Panche to couple of more guys. In the group few guys had misunderstood the whole idea of this trip and might have felt bad to know that visiting temples was the main intension of the trip. We all (apart from few) went to the temple. The temple was very good indeed. We visited all the temples there and took many photographs. Later we went to see the fishes in the river. People were feeding puri to fishes and the fishes were tired of eating the same puri from ages. Many fishes were not even touching the puri. The fishes were very big in size and I did not see a single small fish there. After fishpond we went to the Guru Nivas where there was a big Veena. After all these temple visits we outside the temple to have breakfast in some hotel. After Sringeri we went to HanumanGundi where we had a chance to play in water. There was a place where the force of the water falls was very high and only few of us experienced that. I and Varun had gone to that point and we were enjoying, when some other guy tried to come there Varun gave his hand as a support. But something happened and Varun slipped and fell on his face. At that time I was the only person who was there. When he fell the blood came running from his nose and there was a big swell near his right eye. As soon as this happened we two somehow managed to go back. Thankfully the bleeding stopped immediately and we ate chapatis and headed towards Kudremukh. As soon as we reached Kudremukh we went to hospital and consulted doctor about Varun’s injury. The doctor told to use some ice cubes. In Kudremukh thankfully we got a 2BHK house to sleep. Jitendra’s uncle and aunt were staying in Kudremukh only and they only had made all these arrangements. Also they provided us food for the night. After dinner we all sat together for the intro session. People were supposed to standup and tell their names, hobbies and basic stuff about themselves. Later others will ask that person to do something, like saying ‘a’ for apple, ‘b’ for ball; till z, or singing a song, something funny. My turn came at the last just before Vinay’s chance. Pallavi set the rules for me, after my introduction each and every person should ask me some question and I should answer them publicly. But fortunately after 2-3 guys’ question I forcefully sat down. After this intro session we all slept soundly. We woke up at 6 in the morning and took the Kudremukh trek pass. There was a forest department guy who accompanied us as a guide to reach the peak point. We reached the peak at 10 30 in the morning only. After reaching peak the actual photo session started. Guys removed their shirts, pants and started taking photographs. After all these photo sessions we started going down. When we reached down there was a water stream and we ate our lunch there. I must say after the intro session we all started being together like friends. From this Kudremukh we headed towards Ganga moola. Ganga moola was the birth place of Tungabhadra River. From Ganagamoola we headed towards Hornaadu. In the mid-way we stopped for shopping. We purchased tea, coffee powder, honey and stuff like that which are famous in that region. We reached Hornaadu at around 6 in the evening and visited temple. In Hornaadu the Prasad was to have dinner. Going to Hornaadu and coming back without dinner is like coming back without taking Prasad in temple. So we had our dinner in temple only and did some shopping again like purchasing massage oil, Aloe Vera cream etc. We started from Hornaadu at around 9 in the night and we headed towards Bangalore without any stop in between. We reached Bangalore at 5 in the morning and many guys got down in majestic. But since the bus was going towards Banashankari we continued and got down in our respective stops. The main intension of the whole trip was to visit temples and not to have a hard core trek. It was absolutely wonderful to visit temples on birthdays with friends and I got the chance to experience that.