Took off on 31st july (friday) and clubbed 1st august 09 to make a 2 days 1 night tour to chikamagalur and few close by places. People tried to scare me off of the rainy season, the flood but we kept it off aside and decided to give it a try. Before starting from bangalore, did some research about the nearby places and things to see and now i can say it was a good research (not the best one though).
We started friday 31st july morning around 8.30 and went via neelmangala bypass and had a break at cafe coffee day before kunigal. This cafe coffee day is built well and washrooms are amazingly cleaned. We were lucky to find that there was a Tamil movie getting shot at this place, movie is named Paiyya and Karthik & Tamannah are the main leads. I popped my handy cam and captured the shoot for 10 minutes where Tamannah is driving a black/dark blue mitsubishi lancer to the petrol pump with karthik sitting next to her. this shot was taken in 3 takes. While I was capturing this over my handycam, director linguswamy saw me doing it and argued to not shoot it being his business and leaking the video may ruin the film. I am surprized as to how a 10 minutes capturing of a single scene can ruin the movie, the guy must have been crazy of thinking of shooting at a public place and not expecting of people catching it. Anyways, once we were done at the CCD and coming out, we found that tamannah had completed her shoot and sat close to CCD door, I approcahed her requesting to have a snap with my family and she agreed, you can check those snaps at my orkut page.
From CCD with good memories we headed to Shravanbelagola, reached around 11.45am. You have to climb up bare foot so deposit your foot wear at the right side of the big gate of the temple (at the base itself) for INR 1 per pair of footwear. The office of the Shravanbelagola trust is on left side of the gate & you MUST check that for valuable information. Few key things to keep in mind at Shravanbelagola:
1. There are around 700 steps oddly designed - they are not equally sized and going higher they become more difficult.
2. From the base, you can see only 40% of the stairs so dont get shocked when you reach a turn on stairs to find out there are more and more stairs
3. If you have old ages people and/or kids you may avail a children carrying facility (INR 50) or Palaki service (INR 200) by getting a voucher from the office at the base. Please beware that many agents will approach you quickly enough to misguide you asking very very high price but you can get these facilities at the above mentioned rate without any hassles.
4. I recommend that you save money for donation (dont donate it at various places at template/statue etc.) but use it when you come back (see the details below)
Trust me it was really tiring climbing these many stairs but the view from top is worth it, you can see the town, the far off hills, farms and clouds. Had it not been cloudy, it could have been very very difficult.
After reaching the top, we saw the main temple, statue of Gomateshwar, read the story on the board, clicked lots of snaps, completed Parikrama and came down. Climbing up took 45 - 50 minutes while coming down took only 15 mins. When we came down, an agent near the gate told that there is a charitable trust that runs free food for all for which we got the voucher from office and walked in the lane adjacent to the office (3 mins walk) to reach a place where lot of trust funded students stay, study and serve the food, the food was jaini style (pure vegetarian, without onion or garlic) but tasty, hygienic and place was very very clean. People serving food were also very courteous. We had chapati, chana masala, curd rice, some green vegetable, rasam and rice. The food is absolutely free but if you wish to donate something to the charitable trust, it is your wish.
From shravanbelagola, we started for belur where Channakeshava temple is there. It is a beautiful temple & was built by king Vishnuvardhana in commemoration of his victory over the Cholas at Talakad in 1117 CE. Legend has it that it took 103 years to complete and Vishnuvardhana’s grandson Veera Ballala II completed the task. The temple will take you to the old days of human masterpiece in the days when no big machinery, no project planning tools, no computers were there but only human workship used to create wonders. The carvings in the rocks are out of the world kind. Inside the temple it is very dark, so you got to have very good camera to capture things. You may pay INR 10 for getting the search/focus light on for few minutes to capture the beauty inside the temple. you may check our snaps here.
From belur we went to Devigiri Coffee estate via chikamgalur town. Please be careful to negotiate with them well (since it is not per room/cottage charge rather per person) but it is worth staying in a coffee estate for - Staying amidst the nature, bon fire, tour of coffee plantation, jungle safari. Please ensure with them that they have 24×7 FULL power (most of the coffee estates run on solar energy and the cottage in the mid of the estate might not have the 24×7 solar energy to run), check for TV, mosquito net on windows, window doors & tons of blankets (Temperature may come down to 12 degree celcius) and dont forget to ask for mosquito repellent.
We spent our night at a very cold cottage in devigiri (but worth it) as it was raining heavily in the night. But we were lucky that there was no rain during day time.
Next day morning we had a choice to either go to Mulayangiri route or to Kemmanagundi route (trust me you cant cover both in a single day being totally opposite directions). During my research, I found that road to kemannagundi was horrible and 20 kms of the road itself will take more than 2 hours to ride. But the hebbe falls (just 10 kms from kemannagundi) is a good place to see (though the road from kemanngundi to hebbe is more horrible and only a jeep can take you there which is available for INR 140 per person). We opted for Mulayangiri route since there are many things to see on that route. E.g. Sethala Math, Mulayangiri peak (Highest in karnataka - about 1900 mtrs from sea level), Hummanna Water Fall, Baba budangiri dargah/Gurudattatreya Peeth, manikyadhara water fall.
We started from Devigiri around 9.30am and came back to Kaimara village from where we took a right turn towards mulayangiri route, after around 3 kms we reached a junction point and took left to Sethala math road, the road is curvey and steep and full of beautiful view points, if you are not getting out of your vehicle to capture snaps, you are missing the fun. Sethala Math is a small temple (there is a small cave opposite it) and you may trek 3 kms to reach mulayangiri peak or can take the road to the peak to ride if you dont want to trek. This road will take you through many dangerous turns and curves and edges of the valley and you will literally walk through the clouds, you can see clouds running around you and making you wet with the small rain drops filled inside them. After reaching the last driving point near peak, we took 400 steps to reach the peak. Steps are easy and small but at this height you may get lesser oxygen. We climbed up and found that clouds were disabling us to see anything beyond 6 feet. We clicked some wonder snaps there and came down to drive back towards Baba budan giri.
We came back to the junction point 3 kms from Sethala math and took left to catch the road to Baba budangiri. Baba budan is known to bring first coffee beans to india, he smuggled it in his waste belt from middle east and was the first one to start coffee plantation in india. The road to baba budangiri will also give you amazing natural viewpoints, I could not control myself and captured tons of snaps of valley, mountain range, clouds, serpantine roads & dangerous curves. In between we reached a place where the natural water flow has been turned into artificial water fall (small one) named as hummanna water fall. you may climb above the fast water flow and stand on the bridge to enjoy the cold water running. We saw a beautil red crab enjoying the same with us and thank god Parv did not try to shake hand with it (usually he runs for a shake hand with anybody) 
The frustration haunted us when on reaching baba budangiri dargah, we were told that the cave had land sliding and is closed for past 5 months and will be closed for another 4-5 months time till it is repaired. We moved to Manikyadhara Water fall which is natural water fall falling from 50 ft. The custom is to leave your clothes in which you took bath in this water fall at the water fall itself, even there is a penalty of INR 50 if you dont leave your bathed clothes there. We found this conditioned weird and unlawful. Anyways !!! you can get some good bhajji/Pakoras at this place & come back down
We had a break at chikamagalur town for a late lunch (around 3.45pm) and reached home at bangalore at 9.40pm. Road from kunigal to neelmangala at present is getting constructed so be careful while you drive there.
Overall journey was too good and full of life time memories, specially walking in the clouds at mulayangiri. Dont miss the fun, go there !!!
