Mandalpatti

Plan for the next day of our trip was to visit Mandalpatti. Before that we decided to wake up early and go for a walk again. We woke up early and got ready the photo session.

We got few good photos of the sunrise. Enjoyed the sun rise and the morning walk at coffee estate. 

It was awesome weather outside the room. Me, Guru and Amruth went out for the photo shoot.

We finished our breakfast at home stay and decided to take a group photo near the home stay before vacating. 

Special guest Sanvi at front, Guru, Ullas & Chaitra at front row from left, Back row from left: Sowmya, Amruth, Kishore, Kavya & Smitha.

For the second day we had planned to visit Mandalpatti and it’s difficult to reach the peak of Mandalpatti with our vehicle, we needed 4X4 Jeep to reach Mandalpatti Peak. We took help of the home stay owner to book a jeep and he arranged a jeep for us. Our plan was to leave our place at 9.00 a.m. so that we can reach our destination by 10.00 a.m. The Jeep was waiting for us at 9.00 a.m. We headed to Mandalpatti in Jeep. It was around 25 KM journey to Mandalpatti peak. 

Mandalpatti:

Mandalpatti is one of the best tourist place in Coorg. Mandalpatti hills are located around 25- 30 km from Madikeri town. A right deviating road just 4 kms before Abbi Falls will lead to Mandalpatti. Mandalpatti got popular as “Mugilupete” due to Kannada Movie “Galipata”. As bus facility is not available yet taking a cab or own vehicle is advised. We need to take entrance tickets from the forest department at the base of Mandalpatti before climbing the hills. Far stretching mountains and the cool breeze will definitely make one feel like heaven.

Reached Mandalapatti around 10.00 a.m., took the entrance ticket at the check post and walked near the view point. The place is really awesome but the time we had visited was not appropriate, best season to visit this place is in Monsoon (July – September). Most of the members in this group visited this place for the first time and they were a bit disappointed (As they thought of the movie ‘Galipata’ and the places that were shown in the movie in their mind but here the scene was completely different).

We started the photo session again and this was another funniest moment of the trip. At this place we thought of posing differently, and somehow we got a very good jumping picture. We almost took  5 – 10 re-shoots and all of us were enjoying. Here also the one who enjoyed the moment the most is Sanvi. We spent some good time here and took some beautiful pics (both group/Profile pics). 

We got back to Madikeri around 12.30 p.m., since we had to reach Bangalore before 7.00 p.m.. We got back to home stay and had all our stuffs packed and walked towards our TT. We said good bye to the awesome place. Stopped near Kushalnagar for lunch and then got back to Bangalore.

Enjoyed a short trek to Mallalli falls and a relaxing evening at a Devarakadu Vally view home stay.

Reached Bangalore around 7.00 p.m., guess this was the first time I got back so early from my trip. Finally one trip was executed successfully with this group without plan-B. 

Mallalli Falls

This was the first trip in the year 2014 and also first trip with this group. Planning for this trip began in the month of November 2013. But we had decided to execute this plan in January. In fact this was the 5th time  I had planned to visit Mallalli falls, Previous 4 times i could not  make it, due to one or the other reason it got cancelled.  Finally I have executed this trip as per the plan.   Madikeri is not too far from Bangalore. We just need about 5 hours to reach our destination. We had decided to leave Bangalore late night and spend some time at the Cafe Coffee Day on the way, so that even the driver could take some rest and we could reach Madikeri early morning as per our plan. We hired a TT for this trip and we were a total of 9 for this trip including our special guest Sanvi. First pickup point was at Jayadeva where Ullas, Sowmya & Chaitra had to be picked and then they headed towards bank colony where myself and Smitha had to be picked. Later on the way near RNSIT College we picked up Guru and finally near Kengeri we picked up Amruth, Kavya and her daughter Sanvi. We started our journey as we had planned and picked up everyone by 11.30 PM and headed towards Maddur Road Cafe Coffee Day.

Our intention was to reach Madikeri early morning around 6.30 or 7.00 AM and start our journey to Mallalli falls which was around 80Kms from the place where we booked home stay.On the way to Maddur we get 3 Cafe coffee day outlets, Cafe coffee day provides service 24X7. We had decided to go to the newly opened Cafe coffee day which we get just before Maddur city. In this route we had already visited the other Cafe Coffee Day outlets. Hence we choose this one. We reached Cafe Coffee Day around 1.00 AM and asked the driver to take rest for a couple of hours.

We entered Coffee Day and spent almost 2 hours here; we were relaxing and also fighting over the menu card to place the order. The funniest part was when one of our friend who was holding the menu was asleep when every one else were busy in placing the order :P, Finally we ordered for some snacks and somehow passed our time at the Cafe Coffee Day. (As we all youngsters do we also did the same “The Photo Session”). We had an awesome time here and did not know how 2 hours just passed by. We made fun of each other, and had a lot of funny arguments between Shivmogha group and the rest of the group. At a certain point I saw a group of bikers and recalled my days of going for long rides on the bike and was deeply missing those memorable days!! 

Our group near Coffee Day

Around 3.00 AM in the morning we had decided to wind up and continue the journey. The driver was sleeping in the TT, we woke him up and asked him to get refreshed and continue the rest of the journey. The answer which I got from the driver was very strange (for the first time I heard such an answer). He said 3.00 AM is not the correct time to start the journey so he wanted to us to wait for 15 mins and start. How superstitious people are, I never followed all this but just said okay. (But I guess he was feeling sleepy so he gave that reason, did not know the fact but we still listened to him and decided to start after 15 mins). Even in that small space available at the Cafe Coffee Day we managed to take our group photo. 

We continued our journey and we just needed about 3 hours to reach our destination. Once we got into the cab all of us were asleep except Amruth, Guru and  myself . We three were sitting in the front to talk to  the driver. When we were almost reaching our destination, the roads were covered by mist and not even 50 yards was visible properly. It was an awesome experience. Again I was thinking it would have been great if we were going by bike. We asked the driver if we could sit above where the luggage is kept, he was fine with it. We were extremely happy and we were waiting for him to stop.  Me, Guru & Amruth climbed up when the driver stopped for the tea break.

Our Circus on the way

It was an awesome ride in the cold breeze; I must mention that this is one of my all time favorite rides. Guess the members who were sitting inside the vehicle would have thought these guys are mad!! but trust me, the experience of this ride cannot be expressed in words. When we were nearing our destination the driver stopped the vehicle and asked us to get down from the top. Since it was not safe to sit on top when we reach the city limit. If the police caught us then it would be an unnecessary problem for the driver. We were just 5 to 10 KMs away from our destination. We called up the Home stay owner and took the details to reach the destination. 

We reached the home stay at 7.00 AM which we had booked in advance. The Home stay “Devarakadu Valley View” was located near Bhadrakaleshwari temple, Kedakal. This is 10 Kms away from the Coorg city. As there is a proverb “First impression is the best impression” loved this place. The Home stay is located inside the coffee estate and there was no vehicle sounding or any other disturbance. We decided to get fresh soon as possible and finish our breakfast. We were supposed to travel 80KMs more to reach Mallalli Falls which is near Somwarpet. We started our journey finishing our breakfast, this route has a bit of ghat section (Lot of curves around the corner) but nothing stopped our driver. He was driving like he was driving for some race. I loved the way how he was drifting. The driver had a  complete control over the vehicle. Now everyone was awake (don’t know if it was because of our drivers crazy driving or the beauty of the city). But Kumbkarna’s sister also came with us for the trip and was sleeping!!! Suddenly she woke up and scolded the driver and went back to her sleep. The expression she gave while sleeping was mind blowing. 

Mallalli Waterfalls:

Mallalli Falls is situated in the northern region of Kodagu District. Mallalli falls is situated in the slopes of Pushpagiri Mountains, around 25 km from Somwarpet (and 80 km from Coorg). The Kumaradhara river is the main watercourse for this waterfall. The Water in the falls in only during the monsoon season and there is no availability of water during the other seasons; hence it is better to travel during the monsoon season to visit the Mallalli falls. The best time to visit the falls is between 10 am to 4 pm; after which the area becomes dark and it is not safe for the people visiting the falls as there is no basic security provided to this place.. 

Mallalli Waterfalls

It was a wonderful experience to view the waterfall. We had to walk down about 3000 steps (not sure about the number of steps, someone told us there were about 3000 steps) to reach the waterfalls. They have started constructing the steps but unfortunately only half of the route is covered and the other half of the construction was stopped.

Reached the waterfalls with all difficulty, in fact it was not a difficult trekking but because of the night journey and for few of us it was the first trekking it was quite difficult. It's not safe to get into water in this place, so we have decided to not to get in. Spent some time near waterfalls, relaxed for a while and as always clicked some pics.    

One of the member who enjoyed this trekking the most was Sanvi. While coming back Guru was holding her and he was jumping on the rocks, and Sanvi started shouting uncle jump jump.

We went back to the parking area around 2.30 PM and relaxed for a while. Continued our journey towards Abbe matte water falls.  Abbe matte is not a recommended place to see, felt it was totally waste of time. We got back to Somwarpete and had our lunch and then got back to home stay.

On the way we thought of visiting some other places like Raja Seat which is famous for sun set and sun rise or Abbe falls, but all of us were totally tired and already it was 6.00 PM we decided to go back to Home Stay. 

driver. Usually we have to park our vehicle near the check post and have to walk for about 3KMS. He saved 3KMs of walking for us. If he had not dropped us near the view point then I guess most of our group members would have not come with us near the waterfalls. From there again we were supposed to walk for another 1.5 KMS to reach waterfalls

Camp fire

Reached home Stay, got refreshed. We were waiting for the campfire and dinner. The place for campfire 'was extremely good, spent some time in making fun of each other, some horror stories from our Captain. Meanwhile took some pics near Campfire (took individual photos here, but could not get a chance to click group pics here). Meanwhile we celebrated Ullas birthday in advance. It was really a nice and memorable moment for all of us. Delicious food was waiting for us, filled our tummies with nice food.    

Once we are all done with our dinner, we dispersed to our rooms. None of us were getting sleep, so we decided to go for a walk in the estate. Took out the torch and went for walk. It was amazing walking experience, in that cold breeze and dark night. Came back after 30 mins of walk and went for sleep.

Plan for rest of the trip was to visit Mandalpatti.