Ermai Falls

During our trek to Dudhsagar, few of our friends suggested us to visit this falls near Ujire. It was one day plan and hence we thought it best suited for Nov 1^st holiday. 5 of us started by early morning 6 from Mysore. We were late to start but we had the best one handling the steering wheel. We stopped at Hassan for breakfast and another pit stop for tea at Sakleshpur. While here we saw the hotel served hot akki rotis but since we just had our breakfast we planned to visit the same hotel for dinner. Sumanth made a special note of this place.

We reached Ujire by lunch time and made calls to our friend to reach the falls which is not so easily reachable without someone guiding you. Our friend guided Raja so well that he actually saw the falls right over the phone call. He was more than confident to miss this place after hearing the so-very-detailed lefts and rights to be taken and the name of the places there gets easily volatile from your cache. Still we managed to get hold of bits and pieces of the names he uttered while speaking over phone and reached the destination. Locals too know of this falls, so it is not so difficult reaching this place. Around 15-20 kms from the Ujire town drive towards charmadi and take left on Didupe Road till you see Bhuvan stores towards your right. 

A small distance of walking you will take a right and enter the forest and after walking for a while there is a hanging bridge across a small stream, crossing this you will see clear path into the forest which will reach a small falls with water falling over sloped rocks and this was occupied by a set of human like monkeys. We decided to continue to the main falls which is not too far from here. I stopped every other step trying out some new acquired skills on macro shots while I spotted a leech which had just landed on my foot and was caught just before it could release an anesthetic. I warned the rest of the group to keep an eye on them. By then we were watching a small angle of this huge falls behind the trees and tall rocks.

We got down a little and hopped over a few rocks to reach the base of this falls and we stood stunned by the sheer beauty of this silent falls hidden in this place for so long. The water falls over in stages and there is a den like created at the base of the first stage. The water droplets raise above and forms a fog like layer just at the base. The next stage is a short and wider fall and drops into a wide pool. The water is clear with small fishes and beautiful stones very easily reached. Its knee deep water if you stand watching the falls at a distance. Fishes play around your legs sending tickles on your tender skin. Spend some time sitting and play with them.

We had packed rice for the 5 of us and puliogere gojju. It is suggested to take food along with you as you will not find any hotels close by. We got into water playing and clicking pictures. I tried playing with my prime lens capturing few close up while they enjoyed playing in the water. Every time you see the falls it looked so different and so much more beautiful. I went on capturing it. A Lovely formation of rainbow colors framed near the den was blissful to see. We easily spent more than an hour watching it and clicking some self timer shots with the group.

It was time to return. We reached the place where our car was parked. The lady at Bhuvan stores was busy packing tobacco leaves into roles and there were packs of them ready to puff. We drank tender coconut to compensate for the little water we drank so far and finally headed towards Mysore in the same route. Sakleshpur ghat was the most difficult stretch with horrible roads at this point of time. Few among us felt that this was not the route we took in the morning. May be tired bodies found it more difficult to dance with the tune of our car tumbling on those bad roads from one corner of the road to the other. Most of the stretches, we stopped to survey which part of the road was better and never found one and just followed a pothole. It was really tiring for the person driving. We tried hard to keep ourselves awake by singing songs till we reached a point when it became impossible to keep our eyes open.

It was 12:40 am reaching home and still had the energy left to watch the remaining 20 mins of Bigg Boss repeat telecast. I was excited to see the pics and without copying them to my laptop just saw them on the card to copy it later in the morning. This exercise took us almost half of the next day to install all possible recovery software and finally a friend of mine shared a paid version of the software to recover majority of the pictures.