Though it's lovely breeze, drizzling days in Bangalore, some how my mood wanted a breakaway from the routine-wheel of Cosmo-Bengalooru. It was a long weekend & my all adventure friends were on vacation or busy with their wedding plans in their natives :) . Embarked with Raj & frenz for a weekend trip. It was a perfect unplug from software-churning-times-of-Bangalore.
We 7 Vinay, Viji, Susheel, Raj, Yatheesh, Mayur & me ventured into kind of un-planned agenda of river rafting & rapid trekking in the green-belts of Udupi, Shimoga, Dakshina Kannada for 4 days. The commuting details are not so exciting as river rafting itself ! It was adventurous, haphazard, risky-in-slippery, 1st time for all of us... but was awesome & thrilling.
'Meter-band' thats our team name. In this pic we're about to start from Sita nadi for 22kms rafting, rowing, roaring, in splashing white water of river sita. It's pleasant to see somebody on boat like this holding paddles. Belive me it’s not so easy to float on that highly violent, volatile, splashing surface of the river in monsoon season. If there's anybody called God he is next only to life-jackets on the water ! It's utmost thrill if the 'navigator' leaves all the monkeys scot-free to jump into water to experience the thrill of floating on top of fog-mixed river. We had one Nepali sherpa navigator, claiming as:
" kabhi pani mein magarmach ke saath panga nahi lena, woh magar mach mein hoon"
... Inspite of his muttering our team hero; Vinay tasted river water 4 times by deliberately falling into river. Floating with life-jacket in a 60 feet deep river is as smooth as relaxing on the laps of your lovely gal. Felt like even I should try this awesome thrill. I rolled myself into river when a huge wave splahshed on our boat. The 'anty-enjoyment-squd' in the boat' hurryingly pulled me up while I was still in water enjoying that light-weight float inspite of my heavy mass. Finally they're kinda relaxed as they killed my floating-experience. Atlast with all the adventure Mayur, Yatheesh branded themselves as 'masters-in-saving-jumping-martyrs'. Raj,
aka: meterless raj had a final jump from behind the boat but ...took 1 hr to climb back. Everybody sighed 'you got to have a meter to do deliberate jumps maga ' ;)
The view besides the river itself is worth the floating adventure. Unfortunately one got to have waterproof cameras to shoot that beautiful lush green forest around water. In some places it seems to be like a heavenly sets made up in greenery. we talked about olympus water proof camera ad. Vinay somehow insisted yatheesh to go for it, may be thinking to use it in next scuba-diving somewhere around Bangalore :)
It may be the boon of visualisation skills; in any scattered objects I view some kind of visible character or logical object. I found 2 big bushes & heaps of leaves bending towards river were looking like 2 green elephants. I exclaimed: 'see buddies...see there don't they look like 2 elephants standing side-by-side. 'No ! they're on top of one another' said Raj. No wonder. VH1 channel is creating mysteries in Bangalore ! ;)
View of the water falls on the hill of 'Koodlu theertha' trek. It's kind of a 'mirage' to us because of that heavy rainfall, dense forest, confusing geography, and slippery-terrain. One thing I understood: how important a common salt & lime in such a dense-flora-fauna to save from deadly leeches. I feel glad bcoz I initiated the task of donating my precious B- blood to those hungry, innocent looking blood suckers. And our 'The Raj' continued in way that in one instance he feeded them with approx., 300m gm blood ! :) Long live 'Raj' ! Lately heard from un-known sources that: few leeches died in a large scale after sucking his blood.
A rainy shot. Completely drenched in a heavy rain on the ways of Koodlu-theertha trekking. All victims posing with a big grin after lethally attacked by heavy-army-of-leeches ;) The fore-face Vinay is a major blood donor to leeches :) Infact he was captured alive by troop-of-leeches. We had to feed them heaps of locally available stone-salt to get him released. You can say, it’s a victory-celebration in half-a-way return from Koodlu theertha trek!
Gokarna Om Beach. Do you spot an OM there ? It was a perfect destination to relax & chill out on the crystal sands caressed with waves. Many 'Adam & Eves' were trying heavily to contribute to the romanticity of Om beach sitting on their partners laps. It was a kind of sakkat-hot maga scenery. Wish I had one around me :) Heavy rain around the sea has added extra bit of dusty-orange-contrast to water. Guys played in that muddy water as much as possible to extract-salt from sand, but it was all in the name of fun & frolic. The bad wound which I wore as a leech-battlefield-medal in my ankle prevented me from getting into water. The scenery, landscape of the topography is just lovely & romantic when time nears twilight. The cool breeze was gushing into our lungs reminding us to inhale as fresh-air much as possible as we're gonna fill our lungs with dark carbon air in Bangalore traffic. All over my walk & commute to Om beach I was thinking of latest: Nikon D80 to colorize that natural celluloid in my next trip to this dreamy landscape. It's a shutterbugs paradise if the lens are real powerful to capture that beauty stretching beyond the lens view...
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