I went to KemmanuGundi hills (http://www.careindia.in/KemmanuGundi.html)in Spetember, 2006. It is some 250 kms from Bangalore. My bus started at 7 am and after just one hour it got some problem and we had to wait for 2 hours before the travel agency sent another one. So my 6 hrs journey was stretched to 8 hours and we reached the hills around 4 pm. I could see vast paddy fields(with women planting in water as I saw in books as a child), tall coconut, banana and supari (these r even taller than coconut trees) trees on the flat areas and coffee estates on the hilly ones. Breeze was cool and day was cloudy as usual. Bus route on the hill was typical with all bends and curves and holes on the mountain road. We reached a govt. guest house and had typical south indian lunch with beetroot sabji and rasam, rice, poori, buttermilk etc. Then we procceded to the hill top which was a 2-3 kms trek.


This distance comprised mainly of walking on flat wet ground. We had to climb some small rocks which was not very tough but the fact that you could slip and fall into the valley beneath made it sound a bit scary. It was not like an amusement park that you could be sure about your safety..u cud easily fall and you had to walk on your own with no leader to ensure smooth passage.

 

We found many big-small waterfalls on the way and by the time we reached the hill top it was 6:30 pm and there were strong winds and clouds all around us. Marvellous..I was among the clouds on such a height.

We came back in darkness with the help of whatever torches we had. Came to the guest house and had tea and left for the camping site where we were supposed to spend the night. It was a flat area on a hill top enough to put some 20 tents and was surrounded by valley. There we lit fire and sang songs. There was darkness all around and we cun't see where we were, how deep was the valley around us. Then we ate dinner and went to out water proof alpine tents to sleep. I slept peacefully in my sleeping bag though it occasionally drizzled during the night.

  At 6 am I was woken up by the instructor's wake up call. It was all fog around the tent and I could still not see the valley around the tent area. We took the bus back to the guest house. There we ate idli/dosas for breakfst and left for the Hebbal Falls.

 This was an 8 kms trek. In the starting there was an old iron ore and we walked on red soil for quite some distance. We went on narrow paths among the plants with careful and slow steps as the soil was slippery at many places. The best part was a 1 km climb down an almost vertical area where we sometimes caught hold of trees for support or just kept our next foot leaving it to God.  Then next were three streams to be crossed before we reached the Falls. So I took shoes in hand and walked through water and then ran thru the connecting land area then again waded thru cold water placing my feet on small pebbles avoiding the bigger rocks in water which are generally slippery.

 

Then again land and finally the third stream was crossed. Next piece of land led to the falls after crossing big slippery rocks wet by the mist from the falls. It was a wonderful site. I climbed some rocks to stand just in front of the falls letting mist to wet me thoroughly. We sat there in that cool watery mist for sometime before we started our walk back and again crossed the three streams.  But this time we were lucky and jeeps had been arranged to take us back to the guest house. My jeep was also a site to look at with all the decorations. In south india, on dasara ( as they call it) there is a pooja for vehicles and machinery. you can see flowers, bolloons, coloured paper on everything from cycles to trucks. I could see many such decorative items on my way back to bangalore. We left after lunch and reached b'lore by 9 pm. So that was my first trek.