Mekedatu
It had been a long-time since we had planned a weekend getaway from Bengaluru and hence, last sunday, Pinkesh and Aashish (along with their wives) and me, decided to drive down to a spot called "Mekedatu", situated about 90kms on the outskirts of the city.
A little online research about the place revealed that the place is a little-known, local tourists spot. Mekedatu is the location where the might Cauvery river passes through a narrow gorge, after its confluence with another river called Akruthi. According to some legend, the gorge was so narrow that Goats could leap across and hence the name Mekedatu (Meke=Goat and Datu=cross). But over the years, the constant erosion of the rocks had opened up a wide enough gap and had become a tourist attraction. How wide the gorge had become....I only realized once we reached there!!
The preparation for this trip began much earlier than the actual drive. Infact, it started a day before on Saturday. Pinkesh had been to the place a few years back and told us that it would be difficult to get any food over there. Hence, Ami and Rupa decided to cook something nice and pack-up for the trip so that we could enjoy a small picnic type of atmosphere once we reach there.
Ami had decided to make some Puri bhaji for the trip and due to an unexpected gas shortage at the Hegde residence, the act of making the puris had to be shifted to my bachelors' pad. This gave me the perfect reason to clean up my kitchen, because the state that it was in at that point of time, Ami would have never even entered inside.....forget cooking puris!!
The kitchen was cleaned and in a few hours, the puris were made. Aashish and me had the unique pleasure of eating four or five hot puris, fresh out of the cooking vessel. I was eating some nice puris after a long long time and hence enjoyed them thoroughly. Aashish and me were given the meagre task of packing the puris in an Aluminium foil and like very good engineers, we managed to screw it up so badly that in the end we not only shredded the foil in pieces but also used up 2 - 3 metres of foil to pack 50 puris.
Come Sunday, our first task was to drive down to JP Nagar to Pinki's place. We had decided to have breakfast there at Woody's and then start our drive, for the rest of our journey, in his Swift. After a little delibration between Aashish and myself, we finally decided to take-out his 1985 model Maruti 800 for the 18km drive from Jagadish nagar to JP nagar. We reached there around 10am and a slow breakfast meant that we could only start out at around 11am from Bengaluru.
As we drove down the Kanakpura road enroute to Mekedatu I noticed the first distance stone, which read "Mekedatu - 89kms". Here I must mention that the Karnataka Tourism department has done quite a good job of putting up sign-posts every few kilometres and clearly marking the distances for special tourists spots in yellow as compared to the other smaller towns and villages, which are marked with white background.
We encountered some nice scenery along the drive and reached our destination named "Sangam" at precisely 1pm. We learned that our car coudn't go any further since we had to cross the river up ahead and then make our way upto Mekedatu. We parked our cars there and walked a small distance to realize that this was the spot where the two rivers met. People were being ferried across the river in small round boats, called Horigalus.
It was quite an exciting adventure to try and get into a horigalu and still keep it afloat. The boatmen guided us one by one. The trick for each person to sit in the opposite corner as they enter. The ride acorss the river here costs Rs 40/- per head for a return journey and is really worth its while. It was the rainy season and this meant that the water levels were quite high. We could also feel a strong current in the river showcasing the real might of the Cauvery river.
As we reached the other bank of the river, thanks to our very interesting ride, we realized that the adventure was not yet over. Our final destination was still around 3kms away and we had two options to reach there. One was the "trek on foot" and the other was a ride on a bus.
Since we had two ladies with us and were also carrying our lunch, we decided to use the bus route. We were told the bus would arrive in 10 mins and hence we were just roaming around, checking out the picnic spot that was created. Somewhere behind us, we heard a strange and pathetic sounding noise and on looking back we, unfortunately, realized that the source was our "so-called" bus!!
Again the ride across the bus cost us Rs 40/- per head and as we boarded the bus, we realized that it was nothing bus a steel body covering the chasis of a mini bus. There were no windows, even the glass in front of the driver was missing, none of the dials on the dashboard worked, the bus was literally stinking and for sure hadn't seen the back of a garage in atleast 10 - 15 years.
It took was approximately 20 minutes to reach our destination. The road was quite rocky and steep. Along the way, we passed many people who had taken the "trek" route and they waved and shouted as we passed them. As we approached our destination, we heard the sound of water in a distance. It was the distinct sound of a large river crashing against the rocks and mountain cliffs. I wondered if there was a waterfall nearby.......and I wasn't totally disappointed.
A short walk off the road and wollaahhh.....there we were standing in front of this mighty view of the enormous gorge. The river was flowing throught it with all its' might and as expected there was a lot of turbulence to the flow of water there....sort of like a white water rafting stream. The banks of the river we lined up with huge, boulder like rocks and yes the water fell about 10 - 20 feet as it flowed from our left to the right. The whole sight was literally awesome. Here we were, once again, enjoying nature in its' true beauty.
There were some steps created that could take you literally to the river bed and we rode down a little bit and took some rest on a large rock overlookng the Mekedatu spot. A light rain arrived out of nowhere and disappeared in a while as the grey clouds disappeared behind the mountains ahead of us. The beauty of the place cannot simply be described in words, it must be felt......
After spending a few hours, we returned to our car parking base for lunch. Ohh yes....before I forget....on our return journey, our horigalu boatman was kind enough to give us multiple 360 degree spins which was again a 'kodak' moment, as we spun around at a single spot in the middle of the river. If you ever get to ride a horigalu, you should try it....it will only cost you a small tip of Rs 10/- ;)
All in all, our sunday drive was quite wonderful and memorable. It is really good to know that such scenic spots do exist in the vicinity of India's IT city. Given a chance, I would definately drive back there some day........with someone, ofcourse!! ;)
Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/prasan.sh/Mekedatu#
A little online research about the place revealed that the place is a little-known, local tourists spot. Mekedatu is the location where the might Cauvery river passes through a narrow gorge, after its confluence with another river called Akruthi. According to some legend, the gorge was so narrow that Goats could leap across and hence the name Mekedatu (Meke=Goat and Datu=cross). But over the years, the constant erosion of the rocks had opened up a wide enough gap and had become a tourist attraction. How wide the gorge had become....I only realized once we reached there!!
The preparation for this trip began much earlier than the actual drive. Infact, it started a day before on Saturday. Pinkesh had been to the place a few years back and told us that it would be difficult to get any food over there. Hence, Ami and Rupa decided to cook something nice and pack-up for the trip so that we could enjoy a small picnic type of atmosphere once we reach there.
Ami had decided to make some Puri bhaji for the trip and due to an unexpected gas shortage at the Hegde residence, the act of making the puris had to be shifted to my bachelors' pad. This gave me the perfect reason to clean up my kitchen, because the state that it was in at that point of time, Ami would have never even entered inside.....forget cooking puris!!
The kitchen was cleaned and in a few hours, the puris were made. Aashish and me had the unique pleasure of eating four or five hot puris, fresh out of the cooking vessel. I was eating some nice puris after a long long time and hence enjoyed them thoroughly. Aashish and me were given the meagre task of packing the puris in an Aluminium foil and like very good engineers, we managed to screw it up so badly that in the end we not only shredded the foil in pieces but also used up 2 - 3 metres of foil to pack 50 puris.
Come Sunday, our first task was to drive down to JP Nagar to Pinki's place. We had decided to have breakfast there at Woody's and then start our drive, for the rest of our journey, in his Swift. After a little delibration between Aashish and myself, we finally decided to take-out his 1985 model Maruti 800 for the 18km drive from Jagadish nagar to JP nagar. We reached there around 10am and a slow breakfast meant that we could only start out at around 11am from Bengaluru.
As we drove down the Kanakpura road enroute to Mekedatu I noticed the first distance stone, which read "Mekedatu - 89kms". Here I must mention that the Karnataka Tourism department has done quite a good job of putting up sign-posts every few kilometres and clearly marking the distances for special tourists spots in yellow as compared to the other smaller towns and villages, which are marked with white background.
We encountered some nice scenery along the drive and reached our destination named "Sangam" at precisely 1pm. We learned that our car coudn't go any further since we had to cross the river up ahead and then make our way upto Mekedatu. We parked our cars there and walked a small distance to realize that this was the spot where the two rivers met. People were being ferried across the river in small round boats, called Horigalus.
It was quite an exciting adventure to try and get into a horigalu and still keep it afloat. The boatmen guided us one by one. The trick for each person to sit in the opposite corner as they enter. The ride acorss the river here costs Rs 40/- per head for a return journey and is really worth its while. It was the rainy season and this meant that the water levels were quite high. We could also feel a strong current in the river showcasing the real might of the Cauvery river.
As we reached the other bank of the river, thanks to our very interesting ride, we realized that the adventure was not yet over. Our final destination was still around 3kms away and we had two options to reach there. One was the "trek on foot" and the other was a ride on a bus.
Since we had two ladies with us and were also carrying our lunch, we decided to use the bus route. We were told the bus would arrive in 10 mins and hence we were just roaming around, checking out the picnic spot that was created. Somewhere behind us, we heard a strange and pathetic sounding noise and on looking back we, unfortunately, realized that the source was our "so-called" bus!!
Again the ride across the bus cost us Rs 40/- per head and as we boarded the bus, we realized that it was nothing bus a steel body covering the chasis of a mini bus. There were no windows, even the glass in front of the driver was missing, none of the dials on the dashboard worked, the bus was literally stinking and for sure hadn't seen the back of a garage in atleast 10 - 15 years.
It took was approximately 20 minutes to reach our destination. The road was quite rocky and steep. Along the way, we passed many people who had taken the "trek" route and they waved and shouted as we passed them. As we approached our destination, we heard the sound of water in a distance. It was the distinct sound of a large river crashing against the rocks and mountain cliffs. I wondered if there was a waterfall nearby.......and I wasn't totally disappointed.
A short walk off the road and wollaahhh.....there we were standing in front of this mighty view of the enormous gorge. The river was flowing throught it with all its' might and as expected there was a lot of turbulence to the flow of water there....sort of like a white water rafting stream. The banks of the river we lined up with huge, boulder like rocks and yes the water fell about 10 - 20 feet as it flowed from our left to the right. The whole sight was literally awesome. Here we were, once again, enjoying nature in its' true beauty.
There were some steps created that could take you literally to the river bed and we rode down a little bit and took some rest on a large rock overlookng the Mekedatu spot. A light rain arrived out of nowhere and disappeared in a while as the grey clouds disappeared behind the mountains ahead of us. The beauty of the place cannot simply be described in words, it must be felt......
After spending a few hours, we returned to our car parking base for lunch. Ohh yes....before I forget....on our return journey, our horigalu boatman was kind enough to give us multiple 360 degree spins which was again a 'kodak' moment, as we spun around at a single spot in the middle of the river. If you ever get to ride a horigalu, you should try it....it will only cost you a small tip of Rs 10/- ;)
All in all, our sunday drive was quite wonderful and memorable. It is really good to know that such scenic spots do exist in the vicinity of India's IT city. Given a chance, I would definately drive back there some day........with someone, ofcourse!! ;)
Pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/prasan.sh/Mekedatu#
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