Another hastily planned trip, last Saturday. I guess we can owe it to Mrunal, who forwarded an .xls, containing a list of nearby places to Bangalore. Although not the right season to hangout at a river side or falls, but enthusiastic we were, for a day long trip. Also, felt like taking a
much needed break from our routine.
Now I can't help stop myself from narrating the manner in which we
fell upon this place. It was 16:00 hrs on Friday and we were not yet fixed with a place to go. "Hognekkal", was ruled out, owing to the cost factor. And we were a little skeptic about other river side places, due to the non-availability of water at this time of the year. A quick consultation with friends and colleagues led us to many places, with 'kanva' reservoir being one of them. Little was written about this place in blogs, so wanted to explore it and called up KSRTC enquiry, about the bus timings."Yaake ri allige hogthira? alli neerey illa !!!! Naavu allindavare, nannige keLi" (Why do you want to go to that place, there is not water there at all. I hail from Chennapatna, I know about this place pretty well.), said the enquiry person. I was little surprised, at the same time amazed at him taking out time to help people planning trips. "Sangam matthu Mekedatu hogi banni. Alli neeru idhe." (Go visit Sangam and Mekedatu, they are better off at this time). After a quick note of thanks and pleasantries, I went with his idea, which was not that bad afterall, as we saw later.
Booked an SRS travels cab, and planned to start early next day. :-) Unusual, but we almost started the same time we had planned. This place, Kaveri Sangam, is about 90 kms from Bangalore, via 'Kanakpura'. Getting to know that there would hardly be any food available there, we decided to get something packed at Kanakpura. The road till this small town was nice. We reached a small hotel there, with 'Puliyogare' seemed to be the only feasible option to get packed.
Reached 'Sangam' at around 10:00 in the morning. This is the place where the 'Arkavati' and 'Kaveri' meet to form a still bigger river. The scorching heat was too much to bear. But, it all subsided when we entered the water. We played in the water for a really long time.Our next halt as well as planned lunch spot was Mekedatu. This is about 4 kms downstream along the river. Cross the river Arkavati and you would find a road (if that's what they call it). I swear the road is really bad and not at all walkable, if you want to dare going by walk. Go for the bus/jeep available there. (40/- round trip)
The river Kaveri flows through a deep ridge at this place, the ridge bring very narrow, thus the name 'mekedatu' (Goat's Cross), synonymous to the width of the ridge. Well, not don't look out for the actual statistics there :-) since the ridge is no longer that narrow. We could see small fishes trying hard to swim upstream near the fall (as in the pic below)
One can also find many monkeys at this place, greedy for your packed stuff. Needless to say, we never got a chance to open our bag and eat something. One monkey was outwitting us every time. Decided to go back to Sangam and have there.
We enjoyed the 'puliyogare' very much, with curd and kesari bath along side.We started from that place and figured out that 'Talakadu' might be a better place to visit during the rest of the day. The river drops down to plains at this town, and the whole town is filled with Sand. You can find more about this place in one of my previous blogs "Sivasamudram and Talakadu 18 Aug 2007".
Started late from there, around 19:30 and stopped at a dhaba on Mysore road.
Reached Bangalore at 23:00 or so. Altogether a wonderful trip again.
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