The Elusive Bandaje Falls Trek

"All characters and events in this story --even those based on real people-- are entirely real. Some instances have been exaggerated esp JP's and Arpi's :P. The following story contains coarse language (german) and due to its content it should not be read by anyone."

Dec 1 2012: <Rewinding 4 years and a month back>

14 adventurous trekkers Arpitha, Ashwin, Beeresh, Chandu, Deepika, Jagadish, Kiran, Krithika, Malli, Manju, Manohar, Nandini,  Rakesh and myself had planned to trek Bandaje.
After listening to stories of Pinky losing his mobile and koli getting stuck between two boulders etc during their previous bandaje trek, this one made it more interesting.

Koli Stuck between Two Boulders 

But due to the cyclone Nilam the plan had to be dropped at the last 'nano' second, with kempy coming till majestic and going home back. Instead the guys went to darmastala and mangalore.

Cyclonic Storm Nilam, at landfall on October 31, 2012, near peak intensity.

Dec 2016: <Fast Forward to Present> After JPs Srilanka plan failed miserably, we decided to revive the forgotten Bandaje trek plan.

Amazingly 16 people confirmed and everyone turned up for the trek.

Now let's go to the part where i customary introduce the people who feature in this blog.

Abhilash S (aka Penga)

100Kgs (certified by Keerthi Nayak)

Hard worker, carried utensils, food
and a big telephone directory ;)
No idea why he always poses topless :P

Abhishekh (aka Abhi)

Second Photographer, one with good stamina,

Cooked awesome Chapathis and Bajjis

 Ajith Bhat (aka Bhatta)

fake cook,

Reduced 5kgs just to be fit for the trek

Akshay (akaTikka)
(Arsch Reiniger)

Never expected him to come for the trek,

Found an amazing camping place,
Helped us in getting bajjis and stone stove 

from the adjacent camping group,
Pitched Tents at right place.
Helped in cleaning :P

Arpitha (aka Arpi)

You Know Who

One who can dance for 2hrs continuously

but can trek only for 5mins continuously :P
One who carelessly lost my swiss knife, twice!!!

Arun C (aka Dumc)

Only guy to pack tasty food (Thanks to his wife), 

esp sweet ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ and kara ಮಂಡಕ್ಕಿ.
@Chandu, no this time there wasnt
any bullet in the single barrel riffle ;)

Arun N K (aka Pinky)

fake guide

Another one with very good stamina

Helped us in renting the tents and carrying them

Avinash (aka BaBa)

The usual Cameraman and the organizer

Krithika (aka Kempy)

Kept everyone in conversation, 

Went for treasure hunting at wrong place :P
(Wonder why Krithika with a 'K' is not in alphabetical order?? 

Coz her name enrolled at VTU is 'B K Krithika')

Baluprasad (aka Prachanda Balu)

Only guy to trek with slippers

Beeresh (aka Beeri)

light weight

Entertained with Beeri Jokes

Jayaprakash (aka JP)

Rumour yantra

Lazy, non group player, 

but still best with his rumours

Keerthi (aka Mama) 

Surprise participant
as it was his 1st ever trek

Manohar (aka Mala)

ಊರು schlampe, ಹಸಿ schlampe.

24-24-24 Figure
Carried tents along the streets of majestic
to offer his business on tent

Meghavarsha (aka Megha)

Another surprise participant

Only guy who caught up with the 

runaway group while descending

Sandy, Megha is not a female :P

Santosh (aka Buduks)

One who slept on a stone, 

complained for everything
Missed Laks, Babitha, Megha, Mala, Keerthi.

Dec 23 2016 : Booked a 10:30pm  Airavat Volvo bus to Ujire, after Penga raised his concerns about pple reaching on time for 9:30pm sleeper bus. 

22:20: As it was rumor's birthday Arpi brought a tasty cake. As usual she wanted to optimize the celebrations and wrote Kempy's name as well on the cake. (Kempy's birthday was a week back). With 10 mins to departure we cut the cake and boarded the bus.

     Akshay, all through the trip complained about the semi sleeper as he couldnt sleep with his legs wide open :P

Dec 24 2016, 

5:30 : Reached Ujire and waited for an hour for the jeep to pick us up.

6:30 : The jeeps arrived and we travelled towards Gowdara Mane.

7:00 : Met Kishore and Suraj at Gowdara Mane, talked to the forest officer and got the necessary permissions. Freshened up, akshay did a wonderful job there :P

Kempy started her romance with a small kid (Chotu this is what kempy does when you are away:P)

Ate idlis for breakfast, drank coffee and packed veg biryani for lunch and chapatis for dinner/breakfast. We also carried boiled potatoes, onions, coriander, mustard, coconut oil, pan and magical homemade spices along with us to cook side dish for chapatis.

8:30 After much debate we had decided not to take a guide, as pinky was 100% sure of the trek path. After travelling 50mts we came across two different paths and pinky chose the left hand path. But since we were very close to gowdara mane, Abhishekh decided to ask Kishore and found that the correct route was the right hand path. Damn you Pinky!!.

      We trekked along a small bridge, encountered children on their way to school. After passing a couple of houses we came across the actual trek route.

     The forest was very dense and the complete path was always ascending. It was one of the rigorous trek which required extensive stamina and strength to carry 9-10kg bags. (Everyone carried ~10kgs bag, except JP who carried a 2 kg bag).

     Arpi who has a guinness world record for dancing continuously to bollywood beats couldnt trek for even 5 mins continuously. Kudos to her, after initially struggling, she was able to match our pace.

     Couldn't spot any wildlife on our way, except for elephant and rabbit dung.

After encountering our first big stream, we filled out water bottles and found out that the runaway group comprising of Megha, Penga, Akshay, Pinky, Bhatta and JP had taken the wrong route. Had to run behind them to get them back on track.

Thanks to the hidden arrow marks which helped us to maintain correct path.

14:30     After 6 hrs we finally completed the ~8 km long ascend. We gained an astonishing 1000mts (1 Km) altitude.

     The 'chool' group went to the water falls directly (for obvious reason) leaving Dumc, Arpi, Kempy, Penga, Abhi, Sandy, Keerthi, balu and myself behind. We went to a calm place above the water falls and ate our lunch.

     Went to the edge of the water falls, enjoyed the beauty of it and returned to the earlier place where we had lunch.

     Thanks to Akshay we were able to get a good camping spot. Akshay, pinky, mala, megha and co pitched the tents, while JP stood there doing nothing :P

     The adjacent group had hired couple of local people to carry and cook food. They gave us the extra chilly bajjis and we made bread pakoda too with the leftover batter.

     We decided to prepare Aloo Gadde Palya and Tomato gojju with the ingredients we carried. Thanks to Penga Bhatta and Arpi for cutting the vegetables. Thanks to Abhishekh, Sandy in helping me preparing the above mentioned dish.
The dish came out very tasty, thanks to the magic homemade spices. After eating chapatis Megha, pinky, beeri lit the campfire.

     We played 'bigboss', (seriously!!!) where arpi was the big boss who commanded others to do certain tasks.

Task1: Balu and Berri to dance to the tune of Kuladalli Keelyaavudo

Task2: Penga and Myself to fight each other.

Task3: Jp to rumour about what happened in 7th and 8 th semesters :P

Task4: Pinky's Uppit Program practice Refer to <Some memorable moments>

21:30: Finally we decide to sleep. 

Dec 25 2016 : Merry Christmas 

6:30 Bhatta spent the night outside the tent (near the campfire), as he couldnt fit himself inside the tent. Most of us woke up early and stood near the still burning campfire.

7:00: Treasure hunt started :P and everyone was lucky to find loads of them :P 

Dumc hunted for treasure in very close proximity to the camp :P

7:30: Ate Plum cakes, puliyogare (prepared by adjacent camp) 

9:24: Megha, Arpi and Mala decided to stay back, while we started the trek along with the other camp group to Ballarayanadurga. The trek path was truly amazing with breathtaking views, the shapes of the mountains mesmerized us.

11:30: Reached Ballarayanadurga rested for a while. Thanks to Abhi, Beeri and Akshay who fetched some water from a nearby stream.

12:00: After experiencing amazing views of the fort, we decided to trek down. 

13:30: Reached the camp, Penga and Dumc gulped tasty bread salad or whatever Arpi had made even before Akshay could wash his hands to eat. 

14:00: Ate bread, chapatis and Jam and packed our stuff. Distributed the trash 1 bag to Dumc, 1 bag to kempy and 2 bags to Penga. JP never carried any of the common stuff as he was a selfish ass :P

14:45: Started our down trek. Penga, Kempy, Arpi, Abhi, Balu, Dumc, Megha, Kerthi and myself 

broke away from the main group and decided to trek along the short challenging river path, while the long rest took the grassland path. The path we took was amazing and risky. Ironically the shortcut became very long and the other group overtook us.

15:20: We reached the common point and couldnt find the other group. We thought they were behind us and trekked slowly down. But after an hour we got to know from another group of trekker who were trekking up, that the runaway group were already ahead of us. Megha broke away from us and joined the other group.

17:00: Kerthi was completely struggling to find his steps and could barely walk. I am sure he will kill me if i ask him to join for another trek :P

18:30: The route became dark and never ending. We switched on our torches and slowly walked down. We initially suspected that we had lost track as the path was never ending, but the newly added reflective signs assured us that we were on the right path.

18:45: A group of street dogs started barking at us and laid an ambush!!. We stood ground and as i was in the first line of defence held by bag in front to ward of the dogs, soon Dumc and Abhi joined and the dogs calmed down. 

19:00: We reached Gowdara Mane and surprised to know that others had reached 1 hr before us!!

Took bath, ate awesome spicy chicken and fish rava fry.

20:30: Packed our bags and travelled towards Ujire bus stop in jeeps

21:45: Boarded the Bangalore bound sleeper bus and slept happily.

26 Dec 2016

6:00: Boarded the Baiyappanahali Metro and reached home safe and sound.

Some memorable moments:

Converted operation 'Slap Rumour':

Jp was still sleeping along with beeri, pinky and mala, abhi and myself decided to execute converted operation 'Slap Rumour'. Abhi recorded the entire video while i heated my hands and slapped JP
With this i get my 2k rupees + 500 rupees (tent challenge) + 500 (rooney challenge) from Mr Rakesh N Reddy

Beeri Jokes

Kempy the garbage truck

Pinky's Uppit Program practice

Pinky had plans to eat uppitu, but was shy to eat, so we offered to help him.

Mala decided to act as the Bride and Akshay Her father. 

The stage was set and pinky was very shy and was not able to speak even a single word. Then Mama gave voice over to pinky and the scene went out of hand, with Mala scolding Akshay and etc

 JPs rumour

Jp was given a task by "Big Boss" aka "Big Mom" aka "Dodda Amma" to spread rumour.

He started with 1st semester and went on up to 10th semester, about the Love polygon of BMSCE E&C. Wait a sec do we even have 10 semesters!!!

Jp yantra

Jp was talking about a yantra at Jantar Mantar

But no one believed it and tagged it as a rumour.
But he proved us wrong

Prachanda Balu

Ganda, Mi#$ and Prachanda Balu. Nothing much to say here :P

Dandiga tent

The Big Guns like  Akshay Rajendra, Abhilash Srinivas, Keerthi H Nayak and Meghavarsha decided to sleep together inside a single tent!!!

Penga threesome

Penga started to talk to a random girl by saying " I have seen you somewhere" (While she was with her husband).
She replied: Saaku romeo munde hogo, we had camped next to your tent for the entire day.

Treasure Hunt

Kempy was nervous that she could loose the treasure hunt game, but Dumc lost it very badly as everyone could easily find his treasure. He had hid it very close to our camp. :P 

Others went upto a KM to hide theirs :P

Camp on Fire

When we were resting at Balarayana durga, a group of trekkers warned us of thick smoke coming out of our camp below. Immediately penga assumed it to be YKW who was the cause for the fire and she had burnt down the entire camp. 

A small story from Sri Sri Sri  MalBeeri Swamiji. 

On a less windy Day,

We were struggling to light up the Hay, 

Then came a mysterious voice like a Ray,

ನಿನ್ ಅಕ್ಕ್$% ಯಾರಾದ್ರೂ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಗುಟ್ಟನ್ನು ಹೇಳಿ,

ಗುಟ್ಟನ್ನು ರಟ್ಟು ಮಾಡಿ, ಆ ರಟ್ಟಿನಿಂದ ಗಾಳಿ ಬೀಸಿ, ಬೆಂಕಿ ಹಚ್ಚಿ.

Then everyone shouted MalBeeri Swamiji ge Jay.

Thanks to awesome pics by Abhishekh 👍
You are learning quickly 😎