Weekend Trip: Jog falls with full Josh...

It was in my plan for almost 2 years now. When I heard all news talking about too much of rain around Shimoga, sagar and coastal region, I immd decided to go to Jog the very same weekend.

Jog is around 380KMs from Bangy. Since we stay near to outer ring road, we took the ORR, Hebbal, Jalahalli, Tumkur road, Neelamangala, Gubbi, Arasikere, Shimoga to Sagar.

Started @ 7am from nice road Junction.
Reached Sagar @ 1:30pm. Exactly 390KMs from home to hotel.
Took the Tumkur by-pass road. Oh, very bad situation. This needs immd attention, literally no roads. Had breakfast in Gubbi. The roads are awesome when compared to our previous venture when we guys did the Tirthahalli trip.

After having lunch we left for the Jog falls around 3pm from hotel Vardhashree.

Nice roads with occasional pot holes, but you will definitely enjoy those curves!!!

Since it was raining heavily, we could not take much pics on the roads. Very bad.

And beware of those "Force" travel guys on the roads between Jog & Sagar. They are terrible. Caution required. I saw one Force hitting "happily" the omni at rear right. The Force was coming from the Jog bridge and the omni was coming straight from the Honnavar road.

While I was seeing whose going to stop, none of them did and had a neat collision. Damages not so bad, but Omni's rear right was dented. I could see the omni being pushed to side when the force bumped on it.

I was worried mainly because, that was the place where you have the fuel store. Lucky, nothing bad occured.

We went to the Jog with so much of expectation, since it was rainling heavily for the past weeks. We got equally disapponted when we reach there and saw the condition.

It was completely covered with mist. No oen will even believe that there was a Falls there. Nothing visible.

So, with no option we returned back to hotel praying the god for getting us a beautiful view the next day.

Was expecting a mighty JOG and ended us viewing those misty Jog only. We even thought if we did a mistake of making that trip in this rainy season. To add to that, the hotel guys said, it will be same next day too. Only when the rain stops and its windy the mist will clear.

I am sure you know how it would feel on hearing this. Especially after traveling 400KMs with kids on those rainy days.

Due to rain and not-in-a-good-mood, the flowing of pics was also not in mind. So, we could not take much pics on the day one.

When we reach the Jog falls, it was heavily raining. My son was in srini's Ikon and so he went to the main place of Jog with Srini. I wanted to view the jog from British Bunglow side. Thanks to Lalu's direction.

When you go to Jog falls, you have a bridge that connect to the other side of the falls. This is the usual route people take. There is also one more route (infact many) that leads you to the falls itself. One such route is around 2 KMs after you pass the bridge without crossing it.

One big problem here is parking. Litereally no place to park and people park it as they like. So, sometimes it becomes too difficult to take your car when you want to.

Me, my wife and daugther went to and parked our vehicle in there. There are some steps to a view point. From there you do have a good view of falls. But people dont stop with that. They go beyond the steps, get into the rocks and peep in down the falls. Quite dangerous, but young blood. Who can say anything?

We also tried to get to some distance near. But since I had kid with me, do not want to go further.

Within few meters, the soil was too lose due to heavy rain. Many people lost there shoes since it got stuck heavily in to it. My wife sandal was also got stuck. But not so bad. We were able to recover it without tearing apart. Saved a shopping day! lol..

When we went there, at first we saw the same mist. Although we were let down by that, thought it will clear. Luckily it did clear for some time to time.

Since there was no signal in phone, I was unable to inform Srini about my whereabouts. So, after seeing the Jog, we decided to leave to the other side. When we were approaching our car, we noticed srini family coming.

Then started out second round of Jog visit.












My wife & kid rested in front of the Bungalow while me and Srini family went to the falls. Now, since I did not had kid, I was able to see much more glory of the falls.









Then we tried to go to the Rani falls. But was denied entry. Seems it was colsed and gaurded due to heavy rains. So, went to the Power station. The power station is just behind the Parking lot. Best way is to walk from parking lot and have fun and view.

Then we headed back to hotel. Got couple of delicious Pineapple on the way back.

We drove back in thoseheavy rains. We had rains almost till Shimoga.






After that it was just drizzling and never stopped till entering Tumker I guess.

Rameswaram & Gulf of Mannar

Eventhough this had been in my plan for long time, never had a chance to make. Last weekend, I finally made it.

Rameswaram is a small village in the southern tip of India. The main places will include the Adiyaman beach, Danuskodi, Ramar Padham (The Feet of Lord Rama) and ofcourse the famous temple of Shiva.

From Madurai, you should get on to the NH49 and keep continuing. It literally hits the temple gopuram in Rameswaram and thats how you are welcomed in to the town. The most common public transport in here is auto. People normally come buses and take auto for sight seeings. .

We reached Rameswaram at 9am and had the breakfast in Ganesh mess. Its just before the temple.

The practice in here is first to visit the beach. Have your bath and then go to the temple. In the temple, there are about 22 theerthams or wells. You are suppose to bath in all these wells. You will have a official fees of 13rs per person for the same. But thats just for the sake of it. You need to hire a person to pour for you in every wells. It ranges from 50rs per person and above.

Since we had a local friend in Rameswaram, he guided us himself. We had good bath in all the 22 wells. We were infact thanking this rituals since the whether was so hot. But due to this we did not feel anything.

Then we were ready for the Darshan at 1pm. We went and had an excellent darshan.

The next destination was to Danuskodi. Had a good lunch before reaching there. Danuskodi is an excellent spot for outing. The way to Danuskodi is full of trees on either sides, with little or no roads in middle. You can see the sea on both the sides of the road. Heard that it will close the roads if it rains heavily. We could see sea sand almost along the full stretch of the roads.

I heard there are no electricity till in Danuskodi. All use only the kerosene lamps in those huts. Normal cars can real only till the starting of Danuskodi. You need to hire a 4x4 van to visit the village. They charge 80rs per person for both up & down.

We hired and went. The route was compeltely on sand. Infact there is no route. Its just vast sand dunes and vehicle crawls on that.

Now coming to the pictures.

Chikku Bhukku Railu