This was an unforgettable trip of 2days and 1 night. Finally we were able to break the evil spell on us and plan the trip. This particular place – MM hills was there in our to-be-visited list from long time and for many reasons we were not able to plan our trip properly. Each one of us were busy in our own work leaving ma bored in doing her routine household work.
Finally when my CAIIB exams were over(in which I fared so bad that I didn’t think about writing a blog for that) I made it a point to visit the place atleast now. I drew a firm plan- start early morning on Saturday,visit couple of more place on the way to MM Hills, stay that night on hills and come back next day. Bingo! Everyone gave their consent to my plan and I was looking for 6th june to come ASAP.
As planned we started from home early mrng on Sat – 8am!!!! Well not everything goes according to plan and 2hrs delay from planned departure time is excusable in India. My mother with her long vision as always had prepared dosa for Breakfast which helped us not to waste any money and time for Breakfast by stopping in any restaur. We just stopped at Kamat LokaRuchi for a tea break, parceled some snacks to eat on the way and continued our journey.
Near maddur we took a left turn to proceed towards Kollegal. On the way we stopped at Shivanasamudram aka Shimsha, the waterfall. Since the monsoon was yet to start, there was not much water there. But the view was really superb. We spent some time there and then continued journey towards Kollegal. At around 1pm we reached Kollegal-the town famous for black magic. Even with lots of resistance from my ultra clean bro, we had lunch at a restaur there since we didn’t had any other option. Post lunch we started our journey towards the MM Hills. When we were just 10mins distance from kollegal town, it started raining cats and dogs. Throughout our journey to and fro MM Hills the rain didn’t stop. Every inch of distance was such a beauty that I find it very difficult to explain. Never in my life had I ever watched so much of clouds flowing over the roads, hills, trees. The chilling cold make me shiver everytime I remember the moment. The frequent stops on the route to take snaps was really awesome. I had a great difficulty in driving too as the view was not clear. The never stopping rain added its own contribution to it.
We had darshan at the temple at around 5.30pm. there was no rush or q in the temple as we made it a point to visit the temple on non-spl day to avoid problems in finding accommodation on hill top. But when we were about to reach the car after darshan, ma came up with a brilliant idea. She told that it is not worth staying on top of the hill when it is raining so continuously. We will just get bored. Instead it will be good if we go down to Chamarajnagar (aka Nagar) so that the next morning we can leave to BR Hills from there. We consulted a few ppl there about the routes and distance and came to know that it is nearly 110 km from hills. We decided to move!! Around 8.30 Pm we again came down to Kollegal , had dinner there and left to Nagar from there at 9pm. It was 10 pm when we reached Nagar! We managed to get an accommodation there where we spent our night.
7th june- 8am. We got ready in our hotel. Checked out from there and left to the Chamarajeswara temple- the town diety. Around 8.30 am we had breakfast at a nearby restaur and left for BR Hills. When we enquired the hotel owner about the route to BR Hills he told that there are two routes which leads to BR Hills. One is thru the Yelandur town and the other is direct Nagar to BR Hills thru dense Forest. The forest is protected wildlife sanctuary and very famous for wild Elephants and Tigers!! The route is also famous for its nature beauty and at the same time very risky he told. We didn’t think twice before deciding to take the risky route to enjoy the nature beauty. Except for slight resistance by dad.
9.30am: BR Hills Entry Checkpost : we were made to write down our details at the entry point to the hills. We asked him what to do if we come across any elephant herd. Pat came the reply – “Nothing”. We went ahead into the deep jungle. Man!!!! Every cm of the distance was true beauty. You cannot forget the nature beauty. We couldn’t decide which one is more beautiful- MM Hills or BR Hills. At around 12pm we finished the darshan at the famous Biligiri Ranganatha temple, came to our car, finished the breakfast parcel we got in them morning and started our journey to next famous Temple – SriKanteshwara Temple, Nanjangud. Famously known as Dakshina Kashi.
4.30 pm: Nanjangud: the q was pretty long since it was Hunnime on that day. My dad knew the temple Pradhan Archak who helped us in getting quick darshan thru the back door. After a informal tea break at his home we started our journey back to B’lore at 5.30pm
10 pm: we were back home in B’lore. The total distance covered was 630 KM!! but we didn’t feel the tiredness. It was a memorable tour.
