My Runcation diaries

Going by the heading you might think I joined a new company and I trekked with my new team 🙂. That’s not the case here, actually I joined this team in October 2021, but as you all know wuhan virus forced us to be at home, and we were working from home, meeting virtually over Microsoft Teams, until our management forced us to be in office because after 2 years of business as usual even while working remotely, management thought productivity is not up to the mark and only way to increase productivity is face to face interactions. So, we started going to office since June 😶.

Coming back to trek, I would say there are 2 main people because of whom this outing happened. One is Victor, who always wants to explore the places. Actually, in October he even planned for a trip to Madikeri but we dropped the idea because of circumstances. Second person is Ramdas, he joined the team recently, he is an outdoor person, even though he is from Kerala he knows many places around Bengaluru. I think may be Nirmala is also reason for this trip 🤔 because she arranged a birthday celebration for Adarsh and after birthday celebration, we decided to do Potluck and during Potluck we discussed about team outing! or even Adarsh is culprit, from his birthday celebration all started 😜. As the tag line of Karnataka tourism says “One state. Many worlds.” I would say one outing many initiators 😁

As I said earlier, there were talks of team outing during the potluck, I thought people will just talk in josh and then forget after some time, but many things were happening in background, Ramdas created a WhatsApp group, they started discussing about date and places, I got the invite to the group on 8th December which is just 2 days prior to outing, God is great 🙏🏾.

Before I joined the discussion, they have almost finalised on Mandaragiri, which is a nice place for half a day outing.  This place has a Jain temple, a giant monolith, and a lake. We have to climb around 500 steps to reach the hillock. But for me climbing 500 steps is not trekking so I suggest either we go to Shivagange or Siddara betta. Ramdas said he visited Siddara betta recently so all agreed to Trek Siddara betta. HURRAY 🥳

One day to go, weather forecast was not in our favour, there was 80% chances of moderate to heavy rain. So Victor, Ramdas and started discussing about plan b, I suggested Devarayana Durga, because I have been to this place many times on my bicycle and couple of time in car with family. There is not much to walk, vehicle will go to the top of the hill and may be 5 minutes of walk will take you to this breath-taking photo spot. After seeing the photo plan B was set. Ramdas suggested we should meet by 5:30 at Nelamangala, we communicated the same to everyone.

Devarayana Durga is not just about this spot, there are two main temples here. Bhoga Narasimha which is located at the foothills and Yoga Narasimha at hillock.

Got up at the first ring of alarm, I was getting ready and message tone of WhatsApp! its Ramdas the farthest person he supposed to reach Vinay’s place from there both will come to Nagasandra where I will be joining them, then further to Nelamangala where Nirmala and her brother will join us. Victor, Kantharaj, Sharan and Tushar will all be in another car.

As planned, we all met exactly at 06:30! 😜 ok ok we decided to meet at 05:30 just delayed by an hour. We briefly discussed about Plan A and Plan B, since it was not raining all agreed on Plan A!! We had coffee, tea as per individuals taste and started journey 🚗🚗

After about an hour of journey, we reached Koratagere. At a junction we saw fresh breakfast dishes were getting prepared, we all decided to have sumptuous breakfast for the big trek. Another 20-30 mins drive we reached Siddara betta base, heyyyy…

It was drizzling so everyone started packing themselves in a jacket and an umbrellas in hand, suddenly Ramdas started taking off shoes when asked he said it is believed that we should climb the hill bare footed, even though I had climbed Siddara betta I didn’t remember this fact, because that was in 2004 😁 Few of us took off footwears and few continued, after reaching the entrance we read “ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಚಪ್ಪಲಿ ಮೆಟ್ಟಿಕೊಂಡು ಬೆಟ್ಟ ಹತ್ತುವುದು ಮಹಾ ತಪ್ಪು” which roughly translates to “Climbing with footwears is sinful” so everyone took off the shoes and we started the climb.

Just after 5 mins Nirmala started complaining to Ramadas that he didn’t mention that there will not be any hand rails to climb and she was saying “if I knew we have to climb without handrails then I wouldn’t have come” 😂 and 5 more minutes few more members were tired, to motivate everyone Victor mentioned a famous quote ‘If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together‘ 🤘🏾, by then I think we reached half way point. and from here there were handrails to climb further. Nirmala was like ‘now I will be the first person to reach hilltop!’

Just when this steep climb ended, there was a mantapa to sit and rest, Victor looked exhausted he sat inside mantapa and told us to carryon because he needs some rest, instantly we all shouted ‘WE WANT TO GO FAAAAR‘ 😂🤣😂

After some rest we started again, Ramdas and I reached Siddeshwara temple aka Siddara betta cave temple. While we were waiting for all others to come, Ramadas checked with the priest about temple, they were yet to start the pooja.

Quick detour from trek to tell you the speciality of this temple or the whole place for that matter.

Most of you might heard the epic Ramayana, Rama was sent for 14 years of Vanavasa, his wife Seetha and brother Lakshmana followed him. During this time all three were staying in forest, while they were in Panchavati Ravana kidnapped Seetha and took her to Lanka in pushpaka vimana. In search of Seetha, Rama and Lakshmana travelled all the way to Lanka. Hanuman, an ardent devotee of Rama and his Vanara sene helped Rama and Lakshmana to cross Indian ocean by building Rama setu between today’s Rameshwaram/Dhanushkodi in India and Mannar island in Srilanka.

During the fight with Ravana, Lakshmana was hurt so badly that he was about to die. Rama orders Hanuman to bring Sanjeevini a lifesaving herb from Himalaya, when Hanuman was not able to identify the Sanjeevi he uprooted the part of hill and took it to Lanka!

Lakshmana was cured, Rama killed Ravana to bring back Seetha to Ayodya. Killing of Ravana by Rama is celebrated as Dussehra and return of Rama, Seetha & Lakshmana to Ayodya is celebrated as Diwali.

OK back to Siddara betta! Legend says when Hanuman was taking Sanjeevini Parvat from Himlaya to Lanka a small portion of that hill fell at this place, and knowking the importance of this many sages lived here hence the name Siddara betta – Hill of sages. Even today there are several herbs available here are used to cure many diseases.

Let’s continue our trek 😉 since priest said it will take some time for preparation of pooja we decided to continue further to see the Siddara betta fort.

Even though it was just drizzling all the way, we took roughly one hour to reach here, so we all were wet, all the umbrellas were back in backpack!

Siddeshwara temple was the peak point, from here on route was mostly flat but a single walkway. For rest of the route Ramdas was our guide.

Ramdas took us to some places which we would have never attempted!

Few more minutes of walk we landed at a beautiful place with a small lake and a shack. Locals say sages meditated at this place. Location was breath-taking, below images does not justify the beauty of the place.

After taking some photos we moved further, may be in 10-15 mins we reached at the fort, I should say ruins of the fort. Ramdas said there was a lake where he and his friends took bath when they visited this place last time. In search of the lake, we walked further but since it was raining and all are completely drenched and some even shivering, we decided not to venture further and return back. Took some photos, videos and headed back to Siddeshwara temple.

While on our way back we stopped at the same location where we found herculean, this time we had an arm-wrestling match – Ramdas vs Sharan and Ramdas vs Vinay and the winner is Raaamdaaaas 🤘🏾

After a short break, we continued further and reached Siddeshwara temple, Vinay wanted to take some video for his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@CloudDaily, while waiting for Vinay we had some bajji and then started descending.

At the foothills, everyone who brought extra cloth changed it (except me everyone has got an extra pair ) and had lunch at the temple’s DASOHA.

Before starting the return journey, we were discussing about if we should visit Devarayan durga and decided if no rain we will visit and take some snaps. Vinay’s car was leading and Kanakaraj was following. When we started ascending the DD hills Kankaraj was not able to drive the car because of some issue, so we cancelled DD hills and returned.

On the way we had coffee/tea as per individuals’ choice some mangaluru bajji and mirchi bajji. After reaching Nelamangala we said bye and dispersed.

On 13th we had a poll in WhatsApp about next trip date, 8 people are ready for 21st Jan and 2 voted for 28th, excited for the next trip!!!