One of my friend Mohammed Rafi, who is a hardcore trekker was asking me to join him on trekking from a long while. But you know how it is in a professional life, I was not getting time to be with him. This time, I had decided that I will join Rafi and was lucky to join him on a trekking to Dudh-Sagar Waterfalls. I am a very social guy who used to mingle with people very easily, but you know when Rafi told that there will be 34 people I was a little bit embarrassed, as I know only Rafi in that group, who call themselves as 'Bangalore ASCENDers'.
As a fellow trekker, the first job assigned to me was to collect a tarpaulin sheet from Mr. Ambareesh a core member of Bangalore ASCENDers, who is not coming for this trek. I reached Majestic Bus Stand at 8:20 and collected the tarpaulin sheet and waited there at platform number one for others to reach. All of them are new to me, so I was searching each person coming to Platform number one that whether they have a sleeping mat with them and I found none. I got worried as the time reached 9 pm and the time of reporting was at 8.45 pm. At that time I got a call from Rafi asking where I am as they all reached the Platform number one. Then only I came to know that reporting place was the Intercity Bus stand and not the BMTC bus stand. I was standing at the BMTC bus stand for previous 40 minutes and was getting tensed. And when I reached the Intercity bus stand Rafi introduced me to the fellow trekkers as 'Guys meet Mr. Anand Pai, the person who asked what is the sweeper's duty in trekking and the person who bought the new sleeping mat only to forget it in the room'.
You know guys as I was new to trekking I was not knowing what a sweeper does so I just asked it openly, that was the biggest mistake I had done. And the next one is really my mistake, I disturbed one entire day Rafi by calling him from each shop at Jayanagar to select a sleeping mat for me and I forgot the same in my room.
We started our journey in Raja Hamsa by around 9.30 pm. 31 people in a bus(three girls were coming on the train by their own to join us at Hubli) of 40 seats. You should understand how unlucky the other co- passengers are! we were shouting, taking snaps, talking loudly, roaming around the bus; it was very nice to be in a group. To be frank I never felt that I was in a group of 30 people in which 29 of them were total strangers to me. They were talking in Kannada and specially translating it for me(I don't know Kannada as I am from Kerala)- so nice of them ha! Five of us had our dinner from the bus itself. Vivek PC bought some tomato rise and idly chutney which we shared(I was not able to take my dinner even though I reached early as I was really tensed). Nothing much to say about our bus journey as we all fell into sleep one by one.
Hey, I forgot to write something! It was Rafi who counted 31 at the first. The bus stopped at some place in the midway, to have food, for a few minutes. After the bus started again Rafi counted us to 30 only. Oye, one person is missing, how come? And as we checked everyone is present but the count is one less! At last, we found out that Rafi is so good in counting that he counted the person who is coming from Pune directly to Hubli as present on the bus at the first time to make it 31.
We reached Hubli by around 6.30 in the morning and our train to Castle Rock was scheduled 7'o clock. As it was early in the morning there was not much rush in the train and we enjoyed a lot taking snaps of each other and the view outside also was beautiful. Once we reached the Castle Rock railway station heavy rain welcomed us. We repacked our luggage after sharing the food items and started our trekking through the railway track. The first thing I noticed is the historical old railway station of Castle Rock, of which only two walls are left, that too with full of green bushes on it. Traveling through a railway track was never so much interesting in my life. I approached each railway tunnel with a little bit fear as there were rumors about poisonous snakes in that, but we never came across one.
Just before reaching the Goa border we had seen a beautiful place where a small stream is coming( there were much more streams in between and after but none of them were so beautiful and accessible). Few of us spend fifteen minutes there in the stream clicking snaps and enjoying the water. The water flowing was so pure that it felt like the 'Amrit'. Castle Rock to Dudh Sagar is around 15 kilometer and middle of which is the Caranzol railway station behind which there is a small Ganesha temple. After having chapathi and thokku(PC bought it for us, tasted wonderful with chapathi) instead of continuing the trekking by walking some of us get into the last compartment of a goods train. Wow! that was a wonderful experience.
After reaching the Dudh Sagar railway station we rested for a while to let others who is really trekking to reach us. And what we saw is four of them including Ashwal came in the train engine. They got a lift from the middle of trekking. They told me that to travel in the engine is also very amazing. Once we all reached the station we moved to the waterfall which is around one kilometer ahead. And you know I felt like I reached the fortress of the historical Princess. It was such a beautiful view of my life.
For those who don't know the history: Legend has it that a beautiful princess lived in the forest on the edge of the King's palace grounds. She enjoyed bathing in a lake nearby and ritually drank sweetened milk from a Golden Jug upon finishing with her bath. One day while enjoying her jug of milk she found herself being watched by a handsome prince standing amongst the trees. Red with embarrassment at her inadequate bathing attire, the Princess poured the jug of milk in front of her to form an improvised curtain to hide her body, while one of the maids rushed to cover her with a dress.
The sweetened milk cascades down the mountain slope to this day as a tribute to the virtue and modesty of the Princess.
That evening we camped at a place which is very near to the princes. Hats off to Rajesh and team who cleaned the camping site to make it a livable space. We were jam packed with the space available but the co-ordination within the fellow trekkers was amazingly the best. It clearly showed the culture that the BASC is following. I love you BASC! That evening we had so much of fun which I cannot describe in my words. Next day morning some of them went to have a bath at a smaller waterfall nearby and continued their trekking towards Kulem which around 10 kilometers. Some of us were more brilliant we went ahead towards Kulem about one and a half kilometer from where we had a beautiful and full view of the waterfall and had a very good photo session. After that, we went back to the Dudh Sagar railway station to board our next goods train!
It is not like that we don't want to trek but we were not having enough time as we prepared our breakfast at the camping site. Those who had the trekking didn't wait for the breakfast as they had to hurry to reach Kulem in time. Oh, I forgot two things. One is the taste of the Maggie prepared by the Viveks(There were two of them Vivek PC and Vivek Bhat) and the kindness of the Pai sisters to bring as much food as possible to share within. From Kulem we boarded the train back to Londa in Goa Express at around 4.30 pm. This journey was a different experience as it was jam packed and we don't even have a place to stand properly, but it was only for one and half hours as we reached Londa. There we had 'Garam Garam Vada Pav'. I bought my first plate and I didn't get a single piece from it. From my second plate, I somehow managed to get one bite. From the third plate only I got one full vada pav. Then I stopped buying and started to eat from others!
We spend around one and half hour at Londa station resting and chit-chatting. We were about to start dancing to the music when the train came. Inside the train, it was time to review the pictures we took while trekking and after that, we went sleeping. Early morning five twenty is the time at which my alarm cry, as usual, I switched it off and slept again. But all of my friends got up because of that and they didn't get sleep after that. Then around 7.30 am we reached back to Bangalore.
But the story will be incomplete without two things. One is about Mr. Nishant; he was the heart of the trekking by cracking jokes and pulling others legs whenever possible and not letting us get bored(even though I was not able to understand many of them as they were in Kannada). The second one is my own experience: I forgot my camera at Londa station which one of my fellow trekkers found out and gave it back to me. But after some time they hide my camera only to make me tensed and gave back my camera only after- Oh1 they covered my face with my own stinking jacket(stinking because it was wet due to rain) and started hitting and kicking me. I lost the count of the number of bumps I got within five minutes. Then they gave my camera back and asked me never to forget it again. You don't know how caring they are!
At the end of the day, I decided never to loose a chance of trekking with the Bangalore ASCENDers. Yes me too in the list of people who are addicted to the trekking!
Jai Hind
