Humble Request:
Please DO NOT THROW PLASTIC/POLYTHENE (NON BIODEGRADABLE) WASTE ON THE HILLS. Bring the unwanted/waste materials of your trip down and dispose them properly.
Started from : Bangalore
Start Time : 7:30AM, July 15, 2006
Total Duration: 13 hours
Total Distance: 140 Km
Trekking : 3 Km uphill and 3Km downhill
Transportation : 2 cars – our own
Drivers : Suresh and Prasad (Sachin had appointed :-))
Our group : Ankur, Anshu, Mulla, Nasa, Prasad, Renju, Sachin, Suresh, chenti, Ravi (our little Guide in Savandurga).
Total Expense: less than Rs.350 apiece.
Direction :
Onwards: Bangalore Kantiverra stadium -- Vijayanagar -- Magadi -- Savandurga
Return : Savandurga -- Manchinbele Dam -- Big Banyan Tree -- Mysore Road -- K R Market -- Bangalore M G Road.
Dress code:
Shoes with high grip sole.
Any sports/gym suit or their likes.
Absolute no for tight fit jeans.
Must take :
1 litter of water per head from the bottom of the hill for trekking.
Still cameras with fully charged batteries.
One video camera is better.
If you respect nature you don’t need first aid kit.
Shouldn’t take:
Umbrellas/rain coats (You will miss the fun).
Alcohol (You will miss your life).
The trip itself if it is raining continuously.
Nice to have:
Some fruits/biscuits/cookies.
Life stocks:
Absolutely no wild life (including monkeys and birds).
On the hill we saw one chameleon and a wild lizard(?).
Four friendly stray dogs that escorted us to the top of the hill and back to the bottom just for one small bread slice.
Some domestic goats, buffalos and cows at the bottom of the hill that are owned by the people who live there.
Guidance:
Local kids waiting to take you to the nandhi statue at the top of the hill and back (for less than Rs.50).
Arrows marks painted in white color on the rocks.
Electrical line that ends at the nandhi statue.
There is no way to get lost if you follow the arrow marks/Electricity line.
Other groups of trekkers behind and ahead of you.
Salient Features:
All Time:
The granite Savandurga hill.
The two temples at the bottom of the hill
The nandhi statue at the top of the hill at a height of 4000 ft above sea level.
The awesome view and the sceneries you relish all way along.
Trekking on the 60-80 degree steep hill with nothing to hold – a life time experience.
The speed of the pollution free, salubrious wind at the nandhi statue that occasionally touches frightening speeds.
Our trip:
For the first time in our life we saw the rainbow beneath us from the nandhi statue. It was like we where above the sky and we had to bend down to see the rainbow.
The drizzling every 30 minutes made sure it kept the steep hill wet, more slippery and a challenging, life threatening environment for us to trek.
We brought some of the plastic/polythene waste from the hill top (that where dumped by some senseless anti social humans) with us to the bottom for proper disposal.
The Karnataka’s biggest Banyan tree that we came across accidentally on our way back to Bangalore from the Manchinbele dam. Our sincere thanks to Bank Of Maharashtra for maintaining and safeguarding this tree.
Our trip in detail:We planned to leave Bangalore at 6:30 in the morning and started our trip an hour late at 7:30.
We had breakfast in a hotel in vijayanagar. The iddly/vada and masal-dhosai with sambar/chettnee was very tasty. Thanks suresh, for taking us to this hotel.
At around 8:45AM we left the hotel and drove towards Magadi. The road was very much like Bangalore roads with only potholes and traffic jam. Once we crossed Magadi the scenery was very good. We got sucked into beauty of the natural green along both sides of the road leaving the horrible potholes to Prasad and Suresh to take care of. We enjoyed by shouting (not singing, though Renju tried a bit) songs in all languages Hindi (Nasa), Marathi (Prasad), Malayalam (Renju), Telugu (Mulla) and Tamil (chenti). Most of the best all time hits where ruthlessly murdered by us without any language discrimination. The most affected were those songs that where dubbed in multiple languages.
We reached a small junction, where we refueled ourselves with a tender coconut so that we can do full justice to the remaining songs too…
Then we stopped for a brief photo session before Savandurga, unable to resist ourselves. We parked our cars on the road and ventured in to the woods a bit to get good snaps. The place was so good we kept moving further that we lost site of our cars. So Prasad, our guard went to the cars, locked both the cars and came back. That turned out to be fatal. Suresh had left his car keys inside the car and without knowing that Prasad had locked the car from outside. What is the best way to get the keys which is locked inside a car in a jungle? Break the windshield? Luckily Prasad unknowing had left one of the four doors unlocked. Thank god!!!
Finally we reached the two temples in the hill top. We prayed. We hired Ravi a 12 (?) year old local kid to guide us to the nandhi statue. The hill was too steep and to look down was frightening initially. After climbing for about 15 minutes we had good news coming in. Guess what. We didn’t lock Prasad’s car!!! Solution – go back, lock the car and come. But is it easy??? Prasad and Ankur proved they had good stamina. We where waiting for them to lock the car and come back. It started drizzling. The hill became even more slippery. Two of our friends found it very difficult to make it to the top in such conditions. So they decided to stay in the shades of a roof like structure over four pillars.
The rest 7 of us continued. The hill was too slippery, and we removed our shoes to get a better grip barefooted. We enjoyed a real trekking experience. We were not all alone, there where other groups before and after us. We didn’t go for any cave exploration as we where running out of time. There was not a single monkey or birds. The scenery was compelling. The earth was beautiful indeed. After a short struggle we reached a place where lord Hanuman was carved and painted on a rock. Awesome!
No time. After few quick snaps we continued. To go near the edge of the rocks and see down was frightening. I refrained from and had maintained couple of foot (there was no room for safer distance) away from the edge of the rock. We occasionally came across small water logs. None of them was useful for swimming. The swimming trunks and towel we carried was of no use in savandurga.
After going under the rocks, over the rocks … finally we reached the top of the hill. The electricity line ends. Hurray!!! The nandhi statue is here. Got to be very careful. As the total flat surface here is 20(?) Sqft. After that the rocks have a 90 degree slope. You slip from this place you will evaporate before you could reach the EARTH.
Here the wind god (Vaayu) joins hands with the rain god (Indra) to entertain(?) us. Such wind speeds on a normal land itself is little frightening. Imagine at a height of 4000ft, in a total area of 20 Sqft, the rain, the wind, the mist, the silence, the sound (of the wind and rain), the natural lighting … my heart rate was increasing, adrenaline pumping. But we still enjoyed. Time for photo session, groups helping other groups to get a complete group photos. The wind and rain stoped in five minutes. The sun came out. Ankur is shouting “see this, see this!!! Rainbow below us”. Unforgettable. We saw the rainbow below us from the edge of the rock. I was only used to a blue(sky) background for a rainbow. But now the background was green (the forest below). We tried shooting this and where fairly successful. The rainbow lasted for just a few seconds. And then it was gone. We declared the trip 100% successful.
We eat some biscuits, cake, bun, had some water. Made sure we don’t throw any the waste wrappers and water bottles there. We in fact picked up some waste materials left by people who had been there before. This is such a beautiful place please don’t spoil it.
We started descending. It was relatively easier and takes less time. We joined our two friends and came back to the base. Paid Rs.50 to our little guide. Bid ad due at around 3’O clock. We wanted to go for rafting.
There where some rafts kept in the park/lake near the two temples. But the guy in the counter was talking in typical kannada, so we where not able to understand all that he said. But we where convinced that rafting was not possible there. But we didn’t wanna give up. So we headed towards Manchinbele dam.
The dam was about 11 Km from Savandurga and the road was pathetic. I wouldn’t be exaggerating by saying there was no road. We lost Suresh and gang on the other car. We even planned to return back. Prasad managed to drive all the way to the dam. The dam wasn’t big. It is 40 feet deep. The dam was almost empty. No rafting or boating there too. Again there was rain for 5 minutes. It was only 4:15 but it was little dark. We decided to complete the trip and head for Bangalore.
On the way to Bangalore we accidentally came across a huge Banyan tree. This tree was made as a park and is maintained well by Bank Of Maharashtra. We stopped there. We where not able to enjoy it fully as that was the parks official closing time. Within 10 minutes we started from there.
We reached Mysore road. This was the only good stretch of highway in our entire trip. We reached Bangalore by around 8:00 PM.
All of us thoroughly enjoyed the trip.
