One fine day, in the 3rd week of July we decided to see Jog. It was all planned by Manju. My job was to buy tickets. Plan was to reserve one day for Jog and another to some other place(Sat & Sun). It was all dependent on ticket availability. We decided to spend one day in Sirsi. Since only onward tickets available to Sirsi, I booked return tickets from Shimoga.
on 21st, Friday night bus left Majestic at 9:15PM and reached Sirsi at around 8:00AM. This portion of Karnataka called MalenaDu, alaways amazed me. I always wanted to live in such places. Rain does not stop life here. People are just used to it, what can they do if it rains almost everyday during rainy season. We too did not care. We got drenched everytime it drizzled/rained. Within no time our clothes were dry. It is so amazing.
Anyway, coming back to reality, easily got hotel in Sirsi. It has got good hotels. After getting ready at around 11AM, we headed to Yallapur(Around 2 hours journey). It was raining heavily at Yellapur. We made a deal with a Maruti Omni driver to take us to MagoDu Falls, Jenu kallu guDDa and KavaDi kere. I had heard of Falls but had no idae of what the other places were. All that for Rs 550. The driver, Ravi, seemed to know everyone and every road in the area. He had amazing control over the car. magoDu falls is about 1 hour from Yallapur(20 km). A portion of the road is unpaved, but Maruti Omni's tyres rolled on bouldered road. Finally we reached a dead end, and I could hear roaring of water falls nearby, but could not see anything. It was dense fog around the trees.
We walked further and for few moments falls was visible. Suddenly fog raised from bottom. It was frequently drizzling too. It was tough to protect camera and still click some shots. It is just amazing, mud color water jumping from lush green background, with fog playing hide n seek. I could manage to click some good photos.
Our next stop was Jenukallu GuDDa. As I have already told, I didn't have a hint of what this place is. This is a view point which is just amazing. It brings memories of great river Amazon that we have seen on NGC or Discovery channels. It is a scaled down version of it. mud color water cutting across luch greenery, splitting and merging. I don't have words to explain this view. I just stood there watching the river lost somewhere. By the time I came back to reality, fog started to play its part and I could capture only this photo.
Next spot was kavaDi kere. It history dates back to Dwapara yuga. When pandava came here, Droupadi was thirsty and asked Bheema to get water. Bheema brought water from river Ganga and formed the lake here. Localites say that the lake never dried since then. Our driver, Ravi, also told nobody has ever challenged and conquered the perimeter of the lake.
With all this wonderful memories we headed back to Sirsi. Tried our chance to watch a movie(Manju wanted to watch Fanaa!!!), but they don't have a concept of second show in Sirsi!! Found out a place where we get bisi bisi bajjis. It started raining too. It is wonderful to eat hot bhajjis when it is raining....
Then visited maariKamba temple, it is a very big temple and quite famous too.
Day 2 :
From Sirsi one has to catch a bus to Sagar and get down at. Alternately reach Siddapur(frequent buses available) and from here there are many maxi cabs to Jog. I hadn't got a faintest idea of how Jog looks, except some pictures. River Sharavathi jumps from a height of ~950 feet to make this world famous Jog falls. There wasn't much water during that time.
We trekked down in less than 30 minutes. The sound was deafening there. It was too crowded there, so we decided to sit on a secluded rock. I almost lost my camera there.... a monkey opened the zip of the bag and threw everything out in search of food. My camera was just hanging on the rock by the strip. A slight touch was enough for it to fall into the water below. Oh boy, I was so lucky to get my camera in one piece.
Amazingly I could climb up within one hour. One good thing to see when water is less in Jog is the view from Raja point. There are few rocks just before sharavathi jumps, beyond which is the precipice. One canlie down on the rock and look down. Oh, this is an unfrgettable sight. I was imagining of falling into the ravine along with the rock!!! I tried to capture it in my camera, but it is no way near to what I saw...
Came to Sagar and visited a place called Hikkeri(About 3km from Sagar). There is very big temple of Shiva. As usual, enjoyed hot bhajji's once again in rain. Reached Shimoga in time to catch out bus to Bangalore...
So I put a tick mark on my list of "To see" things while humming Mugur Mallappa's "Manavanaagi huTTida mele enen kanDi..."
