Funners at Brahmagiri

Brahmagiri, widely heard abt n talked abt, had been a dream location to trek for months. Though we were more of executing spontaneuous plans, this one slipped the criteria. Finally a group of FUNNERS(that’s what I can call, means to create fun from everything, name coined by Abraham Menacherry) from Bangalore avoided parties, get-togethers and other engagements that this obstinate task can be made a submissive. Put the plan on the Monday of 16th jun weekend to conquer this gargantuan hill. The Funners @ Brahmagiri : Abraham Menacherry, Shyam chand, Sandeep Raja, Nazeeb. A gang of 6 took the participation on the project a week back. All enthusiastic and adventurous minds were setting up the backpack for the trek. Towards Thursday, Jean John got feverish, and signed himself not fit to exert hard in the trek. Jean being a slender thin guy, we also admitted his condition. So the Funner list came down to 5. At the end of Friday, me went to KSRTC booking office at Madiwala to book 5 tickets to Gonicuppa, place on the way to Kannur(Kerala) b4 Virajpet. The tickets costs jus over a 100, as we got only the lowest economy class in KSRTC heirarchy.
A paragraph is surely required to blow the image of the 5th Funner. Named Jagadeesh Bhaskar, a highly enthusiastic guy, who can even setout to clobber the Mt Everest tomorrow. Grown up with the passion of photography bought a Fuji Digital camera for this trek @14000 INR. He was so much into this plan that, spent nearly 3000 rs more in making other preparations. He had also bought trekking shoes worth 6000 bucks foreseeing the trek. In effect spent a solid 20000 INR in preparation for this trek. Tragedy struck when somebody from his native called up to say that his cousin@bangalore is seriously ill with high degress of fever and has to be with the sick. All the icebergs of enthusiasm and spirit melted off in a second hearing this 'unopposable' command from his parents. Poor jack sat along with his sick cousin as we boarded the Bus for the trip trying to finish up the chocs he bought as energy bars. He was more flattered by seeing his cousin well OK next morning and rode out on his bike. This feeling might have breezed thru his mind- y the hell this happened to me???? Later heard that he made the weekend a weekday, probably thinking that the nex weekend wud be turning up with yet another pleasant trek.

We, the group of 4 boarded the bus from Majestic Bus-stand at 10PM. We had Puffs n some crap sweet from the bus stand, to quench the thirst of hunger devils sitting in the stomach. Nazeeb said the bus was perfect for a trekking expedition. It gave us the warmup excercises and fat loosing jerks. The conductor was seen yelling inside the bus, tho we couldn't understand to whom he was pointing his shouts to. Later we made out that we were a 10 minute late to the bus n he was frustrated coz of that. His slang was so funny that, we were giggling at his words and accent. Somewhere on the way Sandeep and Aby(Abraham) fuelled up with pooris. Nazeeb was happy with Lays. I slept in the bus. Gonicuppa got us around 4 in the morning. Empty street welcomed us.

We enquired abt the bus to SriMangala Forest Range Office, and the accessibility to the office to a Tea vendor. Knowing that the Office will open around 10 and only half n hr to reach the office, we planned to sleep. People spoke a mixed Kannada malayalam in the area. We walked thru the streets to spot Yatri Nivas. Rammed at the shutters of it, hearing it, came out the manager. We requested for 4 beds. It was a dorm. A bed 40/-. Descent Sponge bed. Slept like hibernating bears till 8AM. Got up, did our morning ragas sluggishly. Thanks to Yatri Nivas for providing such a facility. Checked out the room to fetch a hotel. Had light breakfast in a “seen to be descent” hotel. We looked and tasted the curries in aversion, as all of us hated the kannada style of curries, but this was more extreme. Spotted a Margin Free Market and bought bread, jam, biscuits, chocs for the trek. Later we set out to SriMangala by 9:15 AM. Though we were from Kerala and already seen eye-widening beautiful nature, we still admired the charming herbage. Reached the Office around 10:15AM. We gave the requisition letter to the officer in-charge, paid a sum of 220 rs for an individual. That included trekking fees, forest entry fees, iruppu falls fees, guide fees. Good package. The forest officials told to carry rice and other vegetables as there was cooking facility at the Narimale base camp. So we bought a kg of rice n some potatoes n onions to be cooked and mixed with chicken masala powder. They also asked us to buy “HIT” which is an excellent leech repellant. Unfortunate we were, that we had been hit by a scarcity of “HIT”.From SriMangala we started off to Iruppu in an ambassador taxi. Paid 150 bucks.

Reached Iruppu around 11:15 am. The road was not very bad, but wasn’t that good too. Got in touch with the ‘foresters’ there. There they introduced Laxman to us. He was assigned the duty to accompany us in the trek to Brahmagiri. He was a forest guide. About 40 years old. The guy was very helpful; n legibly cleared all our doubts and also helped in cooking food. At Iruppu there was a Rameshwara Temple which is built in Kerala style. Sandeep n me had a roundabout in the temple around the sanctum-sanctorum.

Then we started of for our real ordeal in the jungle around 12.

Iruppu falls is on the way to Narimale base camp, but told would take a relinquishing bath during the return journey. We proceeded forward to walk 4 kms to the camp and were more entering the thick forest.

We were told about the leeches. “The leeches were all ready to suck our blood, and we were there to get sucked”. But, those were taken as part of the adventure and we went on. The trek thru the jungle is really cool, and equally adventurous. There were couple of deer sightings, not by us, but Laxman told us. On the way, passed thru small streams of cold water, elephant dung, fallen trees, leechy rocks.

When we reached the grass lands, the sight surrounding was stunning. We were somewhere around 800 mtrs above sea level. Please enjoy the pics, I cant explain with words, what we felt. Forests and grass lands came intermittently. By all these treks, we were really tired and hungry that, felt like eating the grass even. Laxman kept going and we followed him. The inclining grass lands were covered with 4 limbs. It was tiresome. You shud hav had better strong brkfst.

Finally at 2:15 pm we reached the Narimale camp. We ate the chocolates and bread as if we were seeing food for 1st time. The camp had 2 bedrooms, a hall, a kitchen, a verandah. An outhouse is were u cook food. Kitchen, used as store room had plates and other utensils, also it lodged rat families.

We took rest till 2:45pm and set out for ‘Munekkal’ caves which is 3 kms from the camp. This kannada terminology changes to ‘Pakshi-paathaalam’ if they are named in Malayalam. They are actually at Kerala. The foresters mark the border by pruning 2 thick lines in ground on these grasslands. Looks like a railway track in red color. On the way to caves, we saw the mammoth Brahmagiri Peak. Seeing it at a distance, I was dis-heartened and lost confidence on conquering it. The caves were exciting, risky, adventurous and “leechy”. I was so cautious that I went tucking my trouser legs into my socks. It was a wonderful experience. Laxman told about animal sightings near the base camp. So we left caves around 4:15 pm, so as to see them. We reached camp back around 5 pm. Had a refreshing bath in the freezing waters of stream down the camp. Around 6:15 pm, Aby and me set off to watch Wild animals grazing thru. But mist came down clogging the view, and we had to return disappointed.

Though we took some Misty pics of ourselves. Enjoying the beauty, we concluded that the place for a honeymoon wont be anywhere better.

By the time we came back, rice was on its way to boil. We also made the curry with the vegetables, though masala powder was accidentally put to a sickening degree and made it spicier.

We ate rice with the spicy curry very impatiently, simultaneously wiping flood from nostrils and eyes. By this time I realized that I have donated a considerable amount of blood to a sucker. Blood was oozing out from my left leg jus under the knees. I had a blood-fall as an analogy to waterfall. I wondered how it reached the spot despite my cautious act. Sandeep escaped spurious bites, though he wore only shorts in the jungles. How did he manage? Later at Bangalore I did a research on leech and its mouth, I am more scared now.
We slept around 9 pm setting up the alarm after a long argument on getting up at unchanged 6 am of 18th June. Got up at 6, made noodles. Ate it fast and left to de-feat the gargantuan peak, Brahmagiri at 7:15 am. The peak is at distance of 5 kms from the camp though it doesn’t look so. We crossed a thick forest on the way, really frightening. U have to be really swift in these jungles as the leeches are sticking around in thirst of blood. They were the vampires and real nightmares of our trek. While moving towards the base of peak, we saw deer herd on the way and on the peak. Seeing us they flew off, sorry for using this term, meant, they jus vanished. Why don’t they understand that we carry cameras and need to take a couple of shots?

Please take the natural beauty into account as highly contrasted and colorful by default on the way to the peak. Be there to feel it.

At 8:25 am reached the foot of the gr8 peak, Laxman rested at the base of the hill as he was bored of climbing it over a 100 times. We started off. I was carrying a small back-pack with 2 ltrs of water, biscuits, chocs etc for every1. Aby was climbing with all the 4 limbs. If he had more enough long limbs, he wud have definitely used that too. All of us started, with different routes. I used Nazeeb’s club to climb, as he felt its of more use when coming down. I set the record of reaching the top first among the 4 guys with me.

The border cuts Brahmagiri into Karnataka and Kerala. We could see the way to Tirunelli form there. It was jus 6 kms away. But the route was more of leech rather than soil hence dropped the idea of showing our presence there. Also it was difficult to reach Banglore from Thirunelli. We started descending at 9:15 am, where Nazeeb took the lead. Reached Narimale base camp at 11:15 am. All our fuel tanks were filled with biscuits and chocs. So none was hungry. We bid good bye to Narimale camp after Nazeeb penned down a 4 line description abt the forests and trek and trip and beauty. Descended towards Iruppu falls at 11:45am unbelievably fast that we reached falls at 12:45 am.

Seeing the falls Nazeeb jumped in. As other 2 also slipped into the water, I was hunting for photographs with sandeep’s canon power shot A610. After seeing them mad in waters I couldn’t resist. Next scene, I was under the falls massaging my back with a half pant. All the tiredness of 14 kms of trek on that day washed away with the water.

We got out of water after enough enjoyment and left to the place where vehicles are parked at 2 pm. We were told about a bus which takes us to Gonicuppa from Iruppu. We were so hungry that, we couldn’t wait for the bus at 3:30 pm and ordered for a Jeep to move to Kutta. At 2:30 a jeep came and we were seen traveling to Kutta. Nazeeb started of with his experiences with worm friums, grasshopper fries at Thailand. (One info: at Thailand they eat it as we eat nuts on the road). At 3 pm we were at Kutta. Ate rice at Madeena Hotel. We measured our appetite there, even the hoteliers did it. We were told that there is a KSRTC bus to Mysore from Kutta at 3:45pm. The villagers tempted us telling that it will go thru Nagarhole Wildlife reserve, where animal sighting is common. We boarded the Mysore bus at 4 pm and were already rolling thru

Nagarhole. I haven’t seen dogs so frequently running anywhere as I saw deer flirting around the roads. It was again a good sight. We also spotted elephants, both tamed and wild. The whole trip was worth, as I could take pics of deer and elephants on the road.

At 7:30 pm we landed at Mysore, had dinner at a malayalee hotel near KSRTC bus stand. We were calling jagadeesh, who was missing the whole show jus for a crap unworthy reason. We ran into a Bangalore bus and comforted ourselves with plush seats. Left Mysore at 9 to reach Bangalore at 12 midnight. We were at home by 12:30. The whole programme worked as a properly scheduled trip. We could give our brains and other parts of the body a thorough rest, so that at office the nex day, we wont be like zombies.