OBL @ WindFlower , Mysore

4^th August 2011

Day 1 : The morning smile on everybody’s face indicated that the day was special. The team was going on OBL. Clock quickly ticked 12:30PM & the team hogged on a early lunch to jump on the bus. Started late by almost an hour to reach mysore without a break by 5pm. The bus journey was fun filled, new joinees introduced themselves in different formats mentioned by other team members. Followed by Jumb Cherads!!! This is where the team introduced the OBL punch line – “HIIIISSSSSSS!!!”

We dumped our luggage in our respective rooms & quickly assembled for that day’s activities. The surprise each activity had, started off from the very white dots that were painted on our face. The surprise was very well kept up till the last activity. We also earned Rs1000 from the children bank. On winning every activity we earned money. Saved all for the last day!

Guess what, the dots on our faces indicated the togetherness of the team. Message was clearly “WE ARE A TEAM, CL!!!!”

Day 2 :

          Endless choices for Breakfast lined up for us @ 7:30AM. Trainers from Shristi were to conduct the activities for this day. Balaji & his team of four took over @ 9AM.

 A chain of activities followed one another. For every activity, 2 or 3 small teams were made & made sure that team members were shuffled to get a chance to work with every other in the team.

Untangling from a loop : The team criss-crossed itself holding hands & the task was to untangle to form a circle. Couple of strategies were tried, with few clues from the trainers, our team managed to celebrate its first success!!!

Spider Web : A web tied to the trunk of two trees with different size of holes. Task was to send to the other end every person in the team through any one of the web hole in which he/she fits in without disturbing the web. Doing so, the team restarts the whole task. Our team could easily send couple of us to the other end, while we struggled with few. Other team rejoiced to complete the task & sip over a cup of tea/coffee & snack. The task was analyzed later by both the teams to be as simple as identifying which one you managed to tunnel through & the rest of the team will help you in executing the same.

The next activity was to hold the rope in circle & all of us bend outwards & still manage to keep your balance & the rope intact circle.

Followed this was to put an object as far as you can from a boundary line. One person would bend down with the object to be dropped, the rest will help him balance while he is bent. A fair trial of 3 rounds to each of the three teams to break the record by the other team.

Time for lunch!! Followed this was an amazing game on OBSERVATION! The whole team struggled to observe their 3D “sign” language could be coz of the heavy lunch that settled in the stomach.  This is my personal fav J The activities post lunch only conveyed “TO THINK OUT OF BOX”

Next was two balance some 14nails on a single nail mounted on the wooden board. You can say it’s a great learning doing this. We did with a record best. Coach congratulated us for this.

Mine Bomber came next, simple one to check your memory to remember the right path to reach India from Pakistan without stepping on the Hidden Mine.

A mat on which all the team is standing has to be flipped with all the team still on it. Again strategies flew around to finally achieve it. The person standing in one corner wonder what is happening on the other end. The whole team juggled holding on to each other tightly to get the task done.

Time for Sheep to grace. Blindfolded sheeps follow the shepherd’s instruction to reach the destination. Teams of two, one being sheep the other shepherd, both were allowed to prepare their signals for every movement. All shepherds gathered together to call out for his/her scattered sheep. “kur-kur-sha-thra-pra,bha,ma,ku,kyuu,meow,bow…. All varitites were here”. Sheeps managed to reach its destination after efforts to locate its master’s signals or peeping through the blind fold or even remove it & walk back. But the learning was – not all had prepared signals for all possible movements & signals to stop were missing in most cases. Fun apart, this was a very good learning!

Last one for the day was little fun. One member from the team is given a role to play. When he is enacting, the rest in the team will understand the situation & fit themselves into the scene within 15sec. We enacted roles like a dead body, bar-dancer, god, ramp walk, house-keeping etc. The rest of the team should later explain what roles they played in the scene.

After bidding bye to the trainers, the group played a 6 over cricket match. People who still managed to keep their energy levels played basket ball & swimming.

Dinner used to filled with lots of chit-chat. We dispersed for the day to assemble the next day morning by 7:30AM. Yet another day for the organizers to keep our spirits high by their activities.

The activity to waken up those who were lazing was the table tapping with your hands locked with your partner’s hand. Single tap counties in the same direction, double tap changes the route. Prompting is out. This brought back all energy for the day.

We played one of the funniest game. Every member is given a chit with a animal name on it. “DOG”, “CAT”, “GOAT” & “HEN” were in the list. Blind folded players will have to make sounds of the animal & join their herd. It was funny when people inspite of being blind were doing actions along with sounds. Ha ha!!!!

Time to bring out the child in you. “HEAD GEAR” to crown youself.  Pretty queens & kings ruled with their crowns On for sometime to disperse for check out from our rooms.

Souvenirs collected were auctioned with the plastic money we were given with. Few investment companies poped up to help people like me ;) At the end we all carried a memory with us. Quick & early lunch the team started their journey back to Bangalore. Me & Bhavya as always were happy to go home for rest of the weekend.

Great lot of fun, lots of learning & explored team mates – the purpose of OBL complete served its purpose giving each of us fresh & sweet memories spent with the team!!!

Night Trek to Skandagiri

 A quick plan to Skandagiri last weekend. Four of us in suhas’s car & rest four in Pavan’s. The fun filed journey covered lots of stories in bits & pieces. 8 of us reached Suhas house in chikkaballapur . We packed our stomach with “ghar ka kaana” & slept to wake up early by 2:30AM. As always I was the last one to get ready. We reached the place around 4AM. We had 3 torches, others had to manage with their mobile light. Guys had been there in the past with bitter experiences of parking & guides. We decided not to take any guides.

This was my first ever night trek. To add to the darkness, it was a new moon day. Walking amidst the tall plants and slippery rocks were thrilling. Trek was not a difficult one but it charmed me for being a night expedition. Missing the right track twice, managed to reach on top by 5:50AM with very few pit stops to catch the view of fog & thick clouds. On top, it was extremely cold & windy. All of us except Pavan shivered to continuous blow of wind. Hands numbed, ears were blocked. No hopes of the fog clearing to let us have a glimpse of the Sun 

Somewhere while busy climbing down the hill, I saw the beautiful view from Skandagiri.

 My idea of CLEAN KARNATAKA was already put into action initiated by ROHIT. We collected few plastic bottle & glasses thrown around, 4 gunny bags got easily filled by the time we covered just 20% of the hill. Few instances here made us realize why is our country is so dirty esp when it comes to tourist spots. Few guys from the other group did their bit by picking up few plastic bags thrown in their way. Others expressed their happiness for our good work & few other were surprised as to why we were doing anything like rack picking. Now that’s what I call a DIVERSITY in thinking ;) so naturally there has to be UNITY in DIVERSITY!!!!        They throw we collect… but till when 

                Few people who saw us taking the waste in our vehicle said, throw it somewhere here, why would you carry it all the way back to some place. Now Rohit was pissed out. Naturally! Now the challenge we had was to dispose this waste collected. This topic can be debated for years – WASTE DISPOSAL!!! We finally ended up dumping them in a Muncipality dustbin near the chikkabalpur market.

 

By 10, we were relishing a spicy breakfast along with my fav JAMOON!!!! Big Thanks to Suhas’s family, I have no words for their hospitality. It was just so homely.  We started back to blore around 12 noon. I took a tight nap in the car. Reached home by 3PM.

Fun Part :

 

 I will always find one such companion whereever I go. So nicely it PARKED itself next to us. 

     @Abhi : The dailogue is again, not from Delhi Belly... Ha Ha!!!!

Ethinabhuja - Count on your body

Summer made me think twice before organizing another travel. The same was’nt true with Suhas, he was right on his toes to make things happen. This time he does it again with a strenuous yet fantabulous trek to ethinabuja. WOW!! What a weekend plan. Right from the journey blore to kokkada, kokkada to shishila, homestay, guide, jeep rides, trail to the top, hill-top camping, descend to base, relaxing in the stream, huge-serving meals, mangoes, shishila fish temple, DHARMASTALA darshan & finally the never-realised return journey back to blore….. everything was on the right tick.

 The bus stopped for us in kokkada at 3:30AM. Few of us unzipped our sleeping bags & shiv managed to arrange a jeep to reach Gopu Gokale’s house by 5. Having ample time to start the day, all of us threw ourselves on the sleeping mats. The homestay owner came in calling for Suhas so melodiously that if he was awake to hear that, he would have melted for it along with the hot tea she brought along. A light BF, loaded our heavy bags onto the jeep. A nice thing I noticed during the jeep ride, the driver din’t miss a single house on the way to greet & they waved back in response. I felt the civilization if still persist, is only in western ghats J.  

The ascent started at around 9:45AM, very soon got into groups with different paces. Our grp managed to make out the right path amidst the forest as Rohit had trekked the same path couple of weeks before, as expected encountered a small snake which sent few tremors & forced us to wait for the guide to lead. The sun was right above us by the time the first batch greeted the peak. Rohit was already on the tip of the rock n by this time guide chennappa also knew how mad this guy is about nature. ADI could not wait…so tents started taking their place, we got suma calling for losing the track in the forest. Couple of phone calls din’t help ‘em find the right one & more over we din’t want ‘em to further get into trouble so the guide went down to bring them back. Last batch kept us waiting till 3:45, and I myself galloped 5 chapathis leaving some more space.

Dark clouds covered the sky, which meant no SUNSET L Very disappointing. Equally worrying were the rains that could make the night stay difficult. Few of us climbed up the rock. For all those of you wondering what me, Su & Sulakshana were doing atop for such long time, we guys were singing “RAIN RAIN GO AWAY” & it worked. :D …. JK. Well this was the best part listening to some w’ful songs atop & to get lost with the changing moods of nature every second. No Soul can escape from the magic the Nature does on you to dissolve in it & U surrender telling I’m nothing in front of Mother Nature!!!!

Maggi deserves all the credit, I was so YUUuuMMy!!!! Two rounds of serving got over like flash of a light & chapathi s came next with mango thokku, peanut butter & chatni pudddi as toppings ;) ADI got the best shot with all these topping together forcing him to open a jam bottle. Water was’nt a problem having a small stream running close by. But yes  it was a kingdom of leeches!!!

Descend was like cool!! Easy one. J Guide showed us the path to a small falls. Nice one to play after a strenuous climb. Got down by 11:30 to reach the homestay & stuffed our empty stomach with butter milk. A stream ran behind the place where we stayed & was strangely lil dirty. But it din’t stop the guys to take a  dip & flaunt their swimming skills. Back home we waited in queue for hot water bath. When it comes to delicious food, coastal cuisines are my fav. We batted several rounds with sambhar, rasam & Buttermilk. The homestay lady sang a bhakthi geethe for us on our request, followed by another nightingale of our grp Bhawana sung one of my fav songs “Yedhe thumbi hadidenu andu naanu….” Naturally surrender to a nap till evening. UNO…. Our trip is never complete without this. My sleep was disturbed by these champs throwing  +4 +2 cards targeting the poor lad sitting next.

Around 5:30, we took pics with the family & bid bye to them. Visited Shishila temple famous for its fish lake. Jeep started towards dharmastala, with punches from harsha, Rohit & Suhas targeting eachother. The discussions are interesting when it comes to Rohit. This man can think of only Cycling, Lakshadweep, HMI, …. Only & only adventure. Hats Off siraa… Harsha brings all the smiles in every situation. Adi is ready for any help, managed to sit at the back to accommodate me comfortably. Reaching Dharmastala we parked our luggage in a shop at the bus stand. With Su’s relative we drifted for direct entry to the temple(well Rohit I completely agree with your view point as to it is wrong to use influence atleast when it comes to god, but …. U know it’s ok ;) I said sorry to god ;) I have no other justification to give. It’s wrong I know) & stood for the prasada Q which just does’nt stop moving how much ever long.

Don’t ask me about the night journey. I only know that I took a seat & my eyes opened only in Majestic next day morning around 5:30AM.

Well a trek to be more joyfully, lively & happening… “Manoj” was missing. I missed the count how many times the grp took ur name. Clearly WE MISSED YOU MAGA!!!!   Language !!!!

Suhas – My regards for you have gone much higher.

Shiv - J You are a sweet heart. Never complained for carrying the tent all the way while climbing.

Harsha – Get the credits for keeping the spirits light & cooool J J

Bhawana – Guys how many GBs did your camera captured???

Supriya – You got along this time… Did anyone question the scratches on ur hand ;)

Suma – Ri Sumne iriri.. baarre jagala madtheera.

Sulakshana – Don dare writing an application … Murder!!!

Adi – Tents could not look better than these… And every time while having a delicious lunch, I’ll definitely miss you!!!! 

Rohit – Man you are Amazing!!!! Unstoppable!! 


Guys Sorry for missing this....

En madam….

Good write up as usual….

But lemme remind u of one thing that u have skipped to add in ur write up…

The circus that Rohit and Harsha had made along with our guide Chennappa.. to get a match stick to light up the campfire…

They stretched themselves for another 4 more Kms…. Down.. in the dark.. with a battery… and all awesome sounds of Rohit.. that had made the guide and Harsha get still more scared.. along with the wild sounds in the deep, dark forest…J

Mr. Harsha had reminded u of this thing explicitly…

Suma - Thanks for this!!!! 
More on this ....

Shiv had a match box .... ;)


Hey Harsha gifts us complete story around the " MATCHBOX "


I would like to patch it up with the story missing. Around 6.30 we came to know that there is no match box to put camp-fire. We asked few people who were lost in the scenic beauty in peaks by calling that do they have match box, luckily answer was "NO". So Rohith and I decided to get match box by a near by house (2 k.m.) away on the other side of the peak.

While going back guide was so fast that we had to litrrally run behind him to catch up the pace and it was still dawn and not pitch black. On the way we discussed about wild animals like Elephants, Bear, Leopards, Tigers and Lions and also about snakes.

By the time we reached the house from where we had to collect match box it was dark and Rohit had to attend an important call (Nature call actually). So I gave him a little support (By holding torch! Suhas please stop thinking in a very broader sense :-D).

After collecting match box we started back, by that time Rohti and I were sweating due to pace we kept with Chenappa. While coming back it was an ascent and to still Chanappa was in the same pace as he was while getting down. Here starts the best part. Rohit noticed that the darkness had surrounded and his METER WAS OFF by that time, for every hustle he used to get panic and if I say anything to calm him down reply would be "MAGANE NINGEN GOTTU... NAMGE ELLA EXPERIENCE AGIDE..." :-D. And he wanted to rest in the middle as he was exhausted, at that time instead of saying "CAN WE STOP" he used to make discreete sounds like a bear or wild boar or even exhale inhale like a huge snake "hisssssssss, pissssssssss....". Once actually Chanappa got panic for his sounds... Chanappa was leading, me in the middle and Rohit in the end, Rohit once made a very odd sound and even Chanappa got scared :-) and Rohti used to ask "RI NEEVU KATTI READY ITKONDIDEERA TAANE...".

And the deadliest comedy was Rhoith was having a torch which was having a greater focus and the torch I had was having less, So I said "Kal nan magane illen bidteeay alli doorak bidu..." for that the response was not from Rohit but from Chenappa "AA.. YENU????!!!!". Chenappa taught that I was saying it to him as he too had a small torch. Then I said explicitly to Rohit for which Rohit was bursting out of laughter and while on the way back again some leech got on for free ride. But got kicked off...




Happy to know that you guys enjoyed another short trek in the dark for a tinu lil box
Thanks for the story Harsha.

.... Did you ever stop to notice?

A Poem penned by a fren of mine.

Definitely not on me...



          .... Did you ever stop to notice?....

         ------------------------------------

                There were days

                when we talked for hours..

                Sitting in our usual place,

                or over the call,

                or through messages..

                But things have changed over the time,

                finding it difficult to spend time together like before..

                Even now tears fill my eyes..

                when I come across the place where we used to meet and talk..

                Did you ever stop to notice?

                Even now tears fill my eyes..

                when I find no new messages from you in my inbox..

                Did you ever stop to reply?

                Even now tears fill my eyes..

                When I find no calls from you in my call log..

                Did you ever stop to call back?

                Even now tears fill my eyes..

                when I hear some news about you from others..

                Did you ever stop to share it?

                Even now tears fill my eyes..

                when I wait patiently for you and you never turn up..

                Did you ever stop to remember my waiting?

                Even now tears fill my eyes..

                when I see you near, yet so far from me..

                Did you ever stop to come back?

                Come back to me and make sure that

                never again tears fill my eyes,

                never again I feel lonely and lost..

                Will we get a chance ever to be the way we were before?

                Will you ever stop to read these lines???

Thanks & Regards, 

Suma S

Suma, Thanks is too small for understanding so well :)
I cannot stop reading those lines...

Adventure trip to Dandeli

Just like a hit movie very soon re-hits with a sequel, our rottikallu plan success compeled our director Suhas to organize a quick sequel to a place which is a treasure of adventures and fun.

                “Dandeli” trip as planned( this time with no postponing at all) for 2^nd weekend of 2k11 started from majestic by 8:45PM on Friday. Reaching Rani Chennamma circle , Dandeli by 7:15 AM we located Sandeep, local guide and did payments for our first activity “Fresh Water Rafting”. Suhas tripped around the city with Sandeep to finally locate a home stay Ramya to fresh up. And by 10’ o clock the group of 14 was ready speeding towards the Rafting spot.

Activity 1 – “Rafting”

Tophaan unloaded all of us on the bank of river Kali where there were many other groups like ours. Naushad, rafting guide gave a briefing on his team and the activity. The crowd rushed to pick up life jackets, helmets and paddles of their size and choose on colors as well.  Crowd were asked to make small grps  with one guide for each n we soon started off with the actual fun.  Our guide Naushad explained few the moments of paddles required. To practice the art getting onto the raft in case u fall off, I got into the water to realize that I am damn scared of water and inspite of having on a life jacket I was freaked to the core and without anybody’s notice I tightly clunged to the raft till Radhika pulled me back. We went through 8 rapids with each one weirdly named (I remember very few “Snikket”, “Leopard hole”  hee Radhika experienced this….. ;) ) n each one having its own kinda fun n thrill to relish. Amidst this high energy n equally risky ride the group never forgot to pose to the photographer who waited for us near the first rapid. We screemed on top of voice to express the merriment we were going thru and in no time finished the 9km ride. Of course the other grp had fun rafting several rounds against the course of water and took their sweet time to complete the joy ride.

                With a lil change in the plan we cancelled out Closed jeep Safari (coz it was “closed” jeep) and decide to reach Kulgi nature camp and relax for the day. We reached by evening and freshed up and loafed around the jungle and strolled to reach the Valley View point a kilometer away from camp. The view was amazing with Sun setting towards ur right throwing lovely shades on the trees and mountains around. We walked few meters into the forest and to my realization its so damn easy to get lost in a jungle like this inspite of keeping ourselves so close to the road.       Back in camp, the group played few games n then started its fav game ‘UNO’ followed by a yummy dinner and  again few controlled their fagging body to play yet another round of UNO. 

                Next day morning 5am I heard a voice outside my tent calling for director Suhas, it was manoj trying to look for Suhas’s room to inform that there was no water back in any of the tents. Hence instead of 5:30 the venture to Cawla caves got delayed by an hour. Two open jeeps drove into the forest leaving behind clouds of dust. Animals were no-where to be seen except for a deer and few birds. We started trekking towards the cave, along the path made in the forest, few steps to get down and you reach the cave with lot of history n mesmerizing creations n forms of rocks. Scrolling in the dark path you are invited by bats and other nocturnal creatures. Very humid, quiet, calm, ecstasic is the atmosphere there. This was my personal fav.

                Back in the camp, loaded our hungry stomach with puri-bhajji-chuttney. Round of fresh up and geared up for next activities.

Activity 2 – “Rappeling”

                We followed our next venture to climb up a manganese mine. The mud left dark prints on our hands which trying to reach the place from where we actually did the rope walk. They asked its 90feet which could be finished in a single or two jumps easily. I came down walking thinking of spending more time with the rope but was later told the jumping was more fun!! Few of us carried back small scratches and marks. Over all a OK activity.

Activity 3 – “Kayaking”

                I was back near water with an idea to do something which can get the fear of water out of me. Well Kayaking is a lazy man’s cup of coffee unless you forcefully throw yourself in to water n try getting back onto your kayak. Still we had lil fun splashing water at each other with our paddles and tried different postures in which you can row the kayak. @ EOD is still carried the fear of water, which I badly wanna get rid off L Coz it’s a big dream of mine to scuba dive/snorkel and the very water scares me.

After all the changing n packing, we hurried towards Dharwad to catch our bus to Blore. I had all reasons not to sleep the whole night in the bus L BED BUGS!!! Reached office late, hoping for a relaxed day but contrastingly had a hectic schedule which delayed my lunch as well…

                To Summarise, a great trip by director Suhas and the whole casting group inclding Manoj, Sulakshana, Radhika, ShivaPrasad, Pavan, Pranava, Sanjay, Adarsh, Supriya, Rohit, Jyothi n myself. Great pics, pat ur shoulder for activities well done and cherish the sweet memories.

Currently the director & the cast is busy thinking about the next Sequel.

Recap of 2010

          Its time to close this year's account. A quick glance of my life in 2010 shows two major loss and very few small gain here and there. The year brought the toughest days to even survive far is withstanding. Mean while I have learnt the toughest lessons. Definitely to face rest of years with more strength n life!!!

          To follow the Good-Bad-Good(GBG) Rule, the nice part was to go back to student life making yet again lots of new frens and having loads of fun with 'em hanging out, travelling and sometimes studying. Back were those nice days where I slept in class during lectures, copying in tests, bunking college, late hour studies, hostel food, birthday celebs, projects....list is never ending :) And pop from no where, I am stuck with the toughest situation of my life, even before I could realise the seriousness of the situation I had lost the biggest asset of my life. Thanks to all those frens who gave me strength to move on.

         When in those tough times I was facing, there was this small support or a small light even in those darkest clouds peeking at me which made me feel that I have a reason to live. This care, support which I assumed to be real, awfully proved to be the second game played on me by god. Even before I could recover the first loss I had another in my lap.

         The Master above you knows when to feed you with what. The medicine to recover from all the pain n grief, my master had nice plans rather thrilling plans. He gave the best team to work where I have lots to learn everyday n keep me occupied. And I was back on track travelling during weekends like ever before.

        Thanks again to frens who are still bearing and supporting me. If I am smiling today its because of your support and love. Thanks to all of you who gave me your time, love, support, n strength. I can't forget to thank those who gave me tears n hatred as well. No hard feelings. I respect and truly value your decision.

       To start my 2011 on a positive note, lemme dust all the mud n pull up my socks to another exciting year. With a promise to self to be a better human being, with more love n care for all loved ones, to be better student of life, to travel more, read more, work smarter, to give more than ever and to HAPPY!!!!

      In the path of improving ourselves, lets make small efforts to improve this world as well by performing small act of kindness. Be it as small a help as to SMILE at others, a small PRAYER for others good, sincere ADVICE to your frens, spending QUALITY TIME with loved ones, HELP some one at work, express LOVE to your dear one, DISTRIBUTE CLOTHES to poor and needy or even to start streamlining your time n energy to start an NGO and work for a good cause.

      Let's make a DIFFERENCE
             Let's make few more SMILE  :)

Wishing you n your family a very HAPPY NEW YEAR,
Sana

     

Uthara Kannada

We planned a 3-day plan to the above place from 30^th Oct to 1^st Nov 2010. Friday evening 29^th was the VRL sleeper bus from Jayanagar 4^th Block, Bangalore at 8:15 PM. Five of us, Myself, sis Shilpa, bro Sumanth, friends Suma and Sulakshana started off. The journey to murudeshwara was tiring as we had got the last few seats inspite of being Upper, it threw us up helter n skelter hundred times not allowing us to catch sleep. Overnight journey ended up next day morning at 8:30 in front of Murudeshwar gate. Shetty uncle waited for our arrival, we freshened in his residence and left to temple a small distance from his place. Infact the tall shiva s staute is visible from his house right there without any diificulty.

Shiva s statue is the biggest attraction of this temple. Even more is the beautiful beach right behind him. We followed a very small queue to get the darshan and climbed the lift to reach on top of the gopura which reaches the 18^th floor. We get the best view from the tiny windows in all four directions. One side is the temple entrance, right next is the Netrani Island view, behind is the view of shiva statue and the last view is the beach where you find people enjoying a motor ride and sports of other sorts. From there we headed close to the statue and entered a cave right under the huge statue, the cave depicts a story of raven. We enjoyed clicking few pics in the postures very similar to story happening behind us in the cave. We were informed that there is prasaada distributed from12:30 so we collected the coupon and had to spend close to 2hrs for the lunch (We had missed breakfasr so naturally very hungry). We strolled in the beach and took plenty of pics in crazy postures. Pretty early to lunch time  we were outside the dinning hall waiting for the bell hee hee.

We hired a Omni to visit our next places on the way to kumta. We first visited Edugunji temple of Ganapthi, close to 15mins drive from murudeshwar. Odd time we went to learn that we had to wait for another hour  for darshan. We continued for 20mins more to reach Apsara Konda falls(acc to sumanth its ambu theertha heeee). A very small approx 10mt falls with a temple and garden, beach view on top of it. Worth walking a while to reach this garden which welcomes you with a beautiful top view of the beach and adjacent paddy fields. Shilpa, Sumanth and Sulakshana conducted several rounds whistling from this place and finally got satisfied that their art was appreciated by nature by sending back echoes. We geared up to dhareshwar around 30mins drive. A temple with a pond and a school of welcoming fishes in it. Dhareshwar beach was a nice to throw yourself and enjoy. We did the same till the sun said bye for the day. We changed in a near by fishermen house and reached our IB near Gibs high school in kumta after having dinner in panduranga hotel.

Our day 2 plan was to Yana. My long time desire at last came true this day. We started at 9 from our room. Had breakfast in panduranga and packed few idlis for lunch assuming that there is no lunch available in yana. Took an hour to reach this place. The vehicle climbs almost to the top leaving a distance of just 2kms for you to trek. Initially small rocks welcomes you to its world. The moment you face the huge two rocks of mohini shikara and narashima shikara, u are spell bound. The bigger one being the Bhairaveshwara shikara has a calm temple and this rock takes you into itself to show you its beauty. All you hear is the creaching bats through the walls of the rock. And burst of light gushes inside the caves at several places leaving you in great difficulty to take pics inside the cave. Mohini Shikara is not allowed kinds with very less allowance to enter for about 50mts and you are out. Not to forget the drink we had atop offered by a petty shopkeeper. Also sold his patented recipe for Rs80 half a litre. It’s a local drink made of seed called punarpulli with few spices, salt to make it a great appetizer.

We were back near the vehicle by 12:30. Ample time so planned on spot to go to Unchalli Falls. A 35km ride from yana towards sirsi. It’s a WOW!!! Experience. Its beautiful sight to watch this falls. A walk for about half a km to reach a view point and few steps more to take a closer look of the falls. The falls seems unexplored for its still so neat and in full glory. The water gushes with so much force that the fog wraps the falls in its mist for few seconds leaving us in surprise as to where the falls gone.  

We quickly rode back to kumta and reached Baada Beach, another beach which was so clean. It rained lightly and by the time we reached the kanika parameeshwari temple it rained rats n cats for few mins. We had dinner in Varad international and catched bed in the same IB.

Last day was a pure Gokarna trip but got extended till Karwar. Our return journey was booked from gokarna and so we planned to first finish karwar and then come back to gokarna. From kumta left around 9am to Mirjan fort 7kms from kumta towards gokarna. A lovely fort with llots of beautiful places to shot. The driver gave me tough time by driving really really slow in those broad highway NH-17 huh. Reached karwar by 11 around. Climbed on top or Shadshivgad Fort to take the view of karwar and its numerous tiny islands. DevBhag beach is close to the highway and the very karwar closes soon after crossing kali bridge.  We left to gokrana after having lunch and reached the gokarna temple by 3pm. The temple was as expected closed so loofed around for an hour to realize that the beach adjacent to this temple is actually not OM beach. Rather this was a very dirty beach to even imagin with close to 30% foreign crowd. We quickly reached OM beach which is 9kms from here and its like awesome… The most beautiful place in these 3 daysss. A 30mins ride by speed boat takes you to paradise beach and on the way you get to watch dolphins acrobats around incase you lucky. Since we fell short of time unlike other days we said no to this ride. Also coz we wr told by the boatsmen that in the evening the dolphins trips towards ankola and hence the chances to catch sight of them is thin. We again drove back to gokarna temple for darshan at around 5:15pm. The darshan timings being 5 to 8:30pm in the evening.

Our return bus Shreekumar was taking a bath when we reached a hotel for dinner. Had light dinner and jumped to our seats and slept tight till next day morning around 7 in blore. Reached majestic at 8. And to office by 10:30 to find my manager back from Endhoven with  chocolates :D