Kolli hills, weekend getaway

way back in January 2013...

While browsing through some of fellow travelers blogs, I stumbled upon the place called Kolli hills, a hill station nestled in the Eastern Ghats located in the Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu about 300kms from Bangalore.

(a hairpin bend view)

Itching to venture out somewhere and had to test the Xylo for its ride and comfort, raja agreed to come along with his wife and nag pitched in too and as always guru ditched us at the last moment choosing not to come. Another aspect that lured me to plan a trip here were the inviting 70 hairpin bends to negotiate, a driver's delight in store!

The NH7 was as good as it could get with constructions and repairs in patches till Krishnagiri and from there its a cruise and after visiting a couple of temples at the small town of Namakkal, we drove towards Kolli hills or Kolli malai as its known as.

Route: Bengaluru-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri-Salem-Namakkal-Senthamangalam-Karavalli-Kolli hills
(Namakkal can be completely avoided as there is a diversion before Namakkal towards Senthamangalam-Karavalli). Ask for directions from the locals as its a little tricky and most of the sign boards are in Tamil language.

Good time to visit Kolli hills would be during the months of November-December when there are rains due to the North East monsoon and the hills is resplendent in a cover of green all around.

(view from the viewpoint from the highest point in the botanical garden)

Kolli hills is not as famous as other hill stations in Tamil Nadu and is famous for its herbal plants that are found in the mountain range and hence known as Herbal mountain. But what I saw in and around Kolli hills made me think it more as an garbage mountain, read this post here. Also, the weather was cooler on the top and remains pleasant throughout they year drawing lot of local tourists mainly for a weekend party or a drive to this place.

(another view from Sekuparai viewpoint)

Negotiating the 70 hairpin bends was a real treat with some wonderful valley views in spite of the mid-day heat, we took umpteen number of breaks to savor the beauty. But you need to drive with caution as some hairpin bends are narrow and the trucks, minivans just appear out of nowhere in full speed and the road is bad in patches.

We stayed at 'Nallathambi Resorts', a decent place worth the money and supposedly the best of the lot, and incidentally we enjoyed the food served. Here again, note there are hardly any eateries out of your resort and the best option would be to have it from the place you stay.

(view from Sekuparai viewpoint)

Places worth a visit when staying at Kolli hills:-
> We visited the lake (where raja and wife went on a paddle boat ride), 
> the viewpoint in the botanical garden / park (got excellent views from here),
> Sekuparai viewpoint (again for some wonderful sun setting vistas)
> Akash gangai falls (need to get down the steep steps and climbing up was a herculean task), and the

(roughly 100 steps to climb down, climbing up was very tiring and exhausting)

Akash Ganga falls

> Arappaleshwar temple (the famous temple) over the one and a half days we stayed. 
> We missed the Masila falls due to lack of time.

(as the sun goes down...)

(out of sight into oblivion...)

(the moon comes out in full glow!)

Overall to say, Kolli hills has the potential to be an excellent weekend getaway location if managed and maintained properly, else it's another disaster waiting to happen!

Kere Thodanur - a lake near Pandavapura

5th July 2009 A short visit to Kere Thodanur.... A lazy weekend and just called up Raja for planning for the weekend, planned to visit Mysuru for the weekend birding activity. The plan was to reach Mysuru by Saturday evening and go birding early morning on Sunday. As we set out, reports were flowing in of the communal clashes in Mysuru continuing and thinking it would not be safte going there now, we enroute stopped for the halt at Mandya itself... (Hotel Amravathi - 08232-224412 / 13) just before Mandya town). The plan going haywire, we were scouting for some place to visit the next day, and as suddenly I remembered reading of this place "Kere Thodanur" or "Kere Tonnur / Tonnur Lake" or "Kere Thonnur" on some blog somewhere near to Mandya / Pandavapura; instantly called up Naga who was working on that day to find out the directions to this place. Asking the locals didnt help much as they could not guide us and Naga helped us with some directions and spent the night at the hotel in comfortable AC rooms at nominal rates. Woke up lazily on Sunday by 10am, our plans of early leaving out of the window; got ready had the mandatory breakfast and left searching for the place. The route (as seen on a blog) that is more or less correct is as below:

Driving directions from Bangalore: (roughly 3.5 hours)

1. From Bangalore, after Mandya, just 2 kms before Srirangapatna, need to turn right (a direction board is very clear) going towards Bellary / Shravanbelagola / Beluru / Halebeedu / Melukote / Pandavapura.

2. Pandavapura road is good and need to drive straight to reach Pandavapura railway station.

3. In front of the station, take the road going right (road on left leads to Halebeedu/Beluru).

4. Thats the SH 19 and after 4 kms, you will reach Pandavapura bus station, drive past and take a right and followed by a left.

5. Drive straight and after 3-4kms, you can see a white board that says "Venugopalaswamy temple" and few others(Check with the locals, they will definitely show the way).

6. Take the left here and keep driving straight.

7. After 8kms you will arrive at the Kerethodanur village.

8. Drive straight past a few temples and a small lake to your left and you would see a huge hillock also to the left.

9. Continue driving and drive up the hillock (manageable mud roads, i managed comfortably in my alto) and you would be parking next to the reservoir bund.

Even after getting down, you wont notice anything except a petty shop there....walk up the ridge and you will be amazed by what you see....A huge body of water spread as far as you can see amidst the hillocks!

Your first impression would be "WOW" - I promise!

All that we could see was water water water till your eyes could stretch... and the breeze was heavy being the Aashada maasa - heavy gusty winds blowing hard. Its not a sight seeing place or for activities, just a calm, serene place to chill out and relax. You can climb up the rocky hill on the left of the reservoir bund or get down and walk around the boundary of the reservoir with some adventure walk. On the right edge of the lake, there is a beach like place with lots of sand where you can relax and have food under the shade. You can reach this place either by walk or driving your vehicle around the hillocks (be careful of the rocky stretch). The water at this end was full of algae and slush and fit to get into. We walked along the rocks and reached the opposite of the reservoir bund that is at a considerably low level just above the water. Overall with packed food and water, you can just laze around the place, do some adventure walking / climbing, visit the temples nearby or just relax!

Being a sunday, we saw quite a few hordes of people (mainly locals) turning up with "bottles" and "bottles", but weekdays would be preferred with absolutely no disturbances. Till now, this place has evaded visitors from Bangalore and confined to locals and people from Mysore only, place remains unexploited by the huge crowds that throng every other weekend place around Bangalore! Wish this remains the same!

Care for the nature and the nature cares for you!

Chunchi falls - Sangama - Mekedaatu

It was almost fifteen days since we had been on our last adventure (@ Maidenahalli), we were again searching for some getaway place nearer and finally we decided on Chunchi falls near Sangama for a short visit. I had good vague memories of Chunchi falls which I had visitied on a office trip somewhere in 2003! (the splendid falls was etched in my memory which made us decide on the venue this time).

10th august 2008: As strict as I am ever, never mind the "aah not again" chores from my regular group of Raja, Guru and myself, we left bangalore by razor sharp 6:30 am on a dull saturday morning towards kanakapura, with the regular fuel filling exercise at talghatpura IOC pump and with a small tea break there. Guru had another reason to be tired because of the severity of the toothache he had added with fever (poor chap! he struggled for almost the entire morning, still put up a brave face), we breezed past kanakapura and stopped at a small village enroute for the much needed breakfast. Still we had quite a slow drive with neither my eyes nor the body willing for the drive but being forced to till we had breakfast. The breakfast was pretty good added with a good cup of hot tea propped us up. Just before 15 to 20 kms before sangama is a huge arch to the left which is the deviation to Chunchi falls and a board is also put up notifying the same. Another 5-6 kms through this road landed us at the edge of a cliff from where a little bit of walking is required to reach the falls. There was a old man there issuing tickets and collecting parking fees and we were the first ones there as it was quite early in the day. We spotted a watchtower to the left in the opposite direction of the falls and we walked up there first to get a view of the valley through the fields making our own path. The view from the watchtower was good with a cool breeze blowing over. Spent a lot of time lazing at the tower and after an hour of idling time decided to trek up to the falls. From there no definite path was visible, we started walking on the banks of the river Arkavathi, on the boulders, b/w the shrubs literally wherever we could place our feet firmly. We were able to hear the sound of water falling from quite a distance and was like solving a puzzle to reach the falls. Well when we reached there, we could see the silver drops of water falling graciously from the top, in two stages or rather because the water flow was very less so much that the inner rocks and the parch green was clearly visible. Overall we were dissappointed having see the same falls in full flow last time and later when we got to the place where we had parked the car, got to know that the water is diverted to a power plant and is released to the falls only on few days. Still putting the dissappointment behind we enjoyed the mini trek and the bumpy walk.

As we were back much earlier than expected, we decided to head towards Sangama and if possible Mekedaatu. Even the water flow at sangama was moderate but the crowds were more as also the plastics and the drinks. Incidentally I have been to sangama around 3-4 times but never ventured out to Mekedaatu. This time however as none of us had been there, we started our walk crossing the river towards Mekedaatu. No difficulty is crossing the river as the water level was only upto knee height and at the other end of the bank there are 2 buses which ferry people to Mekedaatu and back to the river bank for 12 rs per person. We heard its about 4-5 kms away and decided to walk rightaway upto Mekedaatu. Empty stomachs, hot sun and a dry muddy road made it tiresome and we took more than a hour to reach there and the distance was 6kms. Many groups who had started walking behind us in b/w changed their minds and had boarded the bus, but we kept on moving as we had decided to walk irrespective of how far it ever would be! On reaching

there we could spot hoardes of people there almost covering every inch of space available. Here the main attractions are the rock formations and the force of water flow. On one of the boulders we could see hardly any people and rightaway decided that would be our territory, as we tried reaching there realized the difficulty and the reason for no people swarming there :).

Mekedaatu instantly impressed me on my first time visit itself - the gushing water, the amazing cut in the

rocks & boulders, the scenery, the lush green surroundings and heard its abundant in wildlife too. Sitting on the edge of the rocks and peeping down to see the water is itself an experience that cant be described with the water sprinkling onto the face and sometimes scary too (one small slip and you are gone for ever!). We spent as much time as we could watching the rivers flow in such force and carving out various shapes in the rocks which dare to stop their flow and later we chose the easier option and came back by the bus till sangama. Played for very less time in the water (i'm scared of drowning in the water from previous experiences!) and started searching for food as our stomachs started crying. There is only one dhaba kind of a hotel where we had some food (but expensive) to appease our grumbling stomachs. All the while one thought was running through the mind of a few display boards which we had seen. The boards are actually "Warning messages" put up by the friends and families of the victims who were washed away in the waters at Sangama and to warn people of the dangers (Swimming, swirls/whirlpools, crocodiles) but people care a damn and regularly the victim count is increasing (hope the government does something!). Mid evening and the crowd had considerably reduced and the rain gods made their presence felt with heavy lashings and finally we decided to head back to the dry, safe confines of our homes. Heard there is an old guesthouse there at Sangama (plans for utilizing that has already started in my mind)!

Overall a nice, good, not so clean, crowded still space for everybody, adventurous, beautiful place and a worthwile trip very closer to our namma bengaluru.

Route: Around 90 kms from bangalore on Kanakapura road on the way to Sangama / Mekedaatu. About 16kms before 'Sangama' you have to take a left turn to the Yeleguri village to go to the Chunchi waterfall. The waterfall is about 6km away from the deviation.

Tips: Play safe in water as the currents are very strong. Don't litter. Avoid plastics / liquor. Dont leave traces of your visit. Preferred to carry own food and water.

Care for the nature and the nature cares for you!