Another wonderful trekking experience to
my trek list.
Kunti betta is
around 130 KMs drive from Bangalore. On the way to Mysore, we need to take a
diversion at Mandya towards Pandavapura. Mandya is called "The Sugar City
of Karnataka" and hence you will find lots of sugarcane plantations and
factories that prepare jaggaries. The trek difficulty level is
easy and it is just 2 KMs trek.
Playing dumb charades
Seventeen of us led
by Patrick started off from Bangalore at 6:30am. On the way, we had lots of fun
playing dumb charades and being totally dumb for Patrick's performance :). We
had our breakfast at Mandya and ordered for lunch in the same hotel. At Mandya
we have to take a right turn to reach Pandavapura. There is a railway crossing
on the way and we had to wait for the train to pass. The railway station is very
close and I guess we can get a train from Bangalore (Unfortunately, I don't
remember the railway station).
Introduction session at the base camp.
From Pandavapura,
Kunti betta is around 6KMs. We reached the base camp around 9:30am and started
ascending after having an introductory session. Santhosh and Ambika were the
leaders while Ajay and Karthik were the sweepers. The terrain is rocky but an
easy one. We could see lot of village people along with their small kids
climbing the hill. While ascending, we could see the magnificient Tonnuru kere
(Tonnuru Lake), coconut plantation, pandavapura village, and sugarcane
feilds.
View while ascending
There is a stone
pillar on top of the hill. And it took us very less time to reach the summit.
But we spent most of the time waiting for photograph freaks. After the group photographs
and profile pics, we started to descend. We reached the base camp at 2:00pm and
had some good time sliding on the rock and living our childhood again ;). Once
everyone reached the base camp, we had lunch in the nearby temple.
Group pic
Pic at stone pillar
There is another hill
adjacent to Kunti betta which we called Gandhari betta. Behind the so called
Gandhari betta, we walked through the fields towards the lake. We cannot enter
the lake from this side as it is swampy. With the opinion of all, few of us
agreed to trek Gandhari betta while others chose to stay. The terrain
is comparatively difficult and more sloppy. It easily took us 1.5
hours to reach the summit. We didn't spend much time on the top as we had plans
to go to Tonnuru Lake. We took rest for 10 minutes and started to descend. We
were almost done and it started to rain so we made quickly towards our TT.
After we reached the other side, we freshened up and got into our TT.
We had our lunch here
We left Kunti betta
at around 5:00 pm and headed towards Tonnuru lake. Other side of Tonnuru lake
is safer to enter in the water. As soon as we reached, it started raining
heavily. We waited for the rain God to stop pouring. After the rain stopped,
few of the them entered water and others enjoyed by wetting their legs in the
water. We left Tonnuru lake around 6:00 pm as it was time to come home. Thanks
to Jijo for hot bhajjis he brought for all of us. Later, I mostly enjoyed
talking to talking kitty (Android App) while others urged me to stop.
Modern Hanumantha crossing water stream.
Tonnuru lake
We stopped at
Mandya for high tea. Meanwhile Bhargava and Santhosh brought us hot jilebees.
We were all very tired and after having hot jilebees, most of them rested. It
was dark in the TT so we could not play dumb charades. Sometime later, Santhosh
and Karthik played songs on their cell phones meanwhile Patrick and myself
started to dance and others savored our amateur dance. The dance program got
over very soon as we were very tired and then we rested for a while. Later, few
of the mischievous us (Patrick, Swetha, Kiran, Akash, Santhosh, Karthik and myself)
started pulling legs of each other leaving others irritated by our loud voice.
With some rubbish and sub-conscious thought talks finally everyone of us
stopped. Myself and Swetha calculated the total trip expenditure and divided
the excess amount among all.
This is patrick.
We reached
Bangalore around 9:00pm and it was time to say goodbye to all. With
lovely memories to cherish, everyone of us alighted close to our homes.
I am thankful to
all of them who made the trek memorable to me.
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