I want to share my trekking experience with you all. It’s a very special trekking because this was first of its kind for me.
By nature, I am not so fond of adventures. I started showing interest in it after I understood from readings of CA that through adventure you gain more experience per day, you explore more creation per day, you know more of your own weakness/problems per day – hence it makes you much stronger per day.
An abandoned meter gauge railway track, built in 19th century during the British rule in India, many peach dark tunnels, narrow broken railway bridges surrounded by the mountains of beautiful western ghats adorned with wild trees and rocky streams, was our destined trekking spot.
Sakleshpur, around 220 Km away from Bangalore, India. It’s a very well known trekking spot, google for “sakleshpur trek”, you will get lots of article on it. Our two day trek plan of 45 Km was to reach Sakleshpur road, walk down to Donigal railway station then trek through the railway track from there to Yedakumeri in first day and next day continue trekking to Shiribagilu railway station to walk down to Subramanyam Road to catch a bus back.
The trekking team, 8 boys and 2 girls - all IT professionals, en-routed for Sakleshpur by a Bus on a semi-winter Friday night. The bus started at 11 pm from Bangalore and reached our trekking start point at 3:30 am morning. We got off from the bus. My friend told me that the plan was to stay in hotel for a while to take rest, I was happy to hear as I was very sleepy because cold air sneaking in from the window successfully disturbed my sleep in the bus. But we did not get any hotel in vicinity to freshen ourselves. Nearby there was a tea shop. When you are sleepy and the weather is cold you know how much you cherish the tea, is not it? We heated up the Ready to Eat food for lunch and started footing forward.
It was 4:30 am in the morning; we were passing through roads in a valley area with thick forest around. It was a full moon night and the moon was in her full glory. She never looked more beautiful to me before. As we were walking by she continuously followed us. I realized that she was staring at me all the time, some time behind the trees, sometime behind the clouds and sometime openly. Probably she liked me among all the guys in the trek. But I told her you are beautiful but I am sure my beloved is even more beautiful than you. Oh Moon, do you know where my beloved is? Wherever is she, please give her a message that I love her so much, to express it words fall short severely; my heart can express it but needs to leave its pumping activity and engage in expressing the infinite love for her. And tell her that I will soon join her either in God or on the path of love to God. The moon smiled and slowly disappeared and the Sun appeared. Lately, I started realizing that the *Sun* never disappears - it has been always with me, always spreading his rays of love. It’s me who has been moving around with my “earthly” ego – behind the shadow and attached.
When the sun was yet to touch the horizon, we were in search of the abandoned Donigal railway station. Passing by the valley we came across a small hotel, which was visible as only light from a long distance as the curved road headed us down towards our destination. We got the whereabouts of the Donigal from the hotel. With that information we reached the elusive Donigal railway station at around 5:30 in the morning.
It’s time for a break. Some of us tried to take nap in the concrete floor parallel to the railway lines, but could not get. While just wandering around the station, I saw smoke coming out from the roof of a nearby house. In city it’s reason to panic. But here, from my childhood experience I could guess what could be happening inside the house. Probably, the housewife has got up and trying to make fire from wood to prepare tea or coffee for her family.
Nearby there was a tiny waterfall. We brushed our teeth, lightened ourselves in different styles – some in Indian and some in Western :-) and the guys took bath. The magic water of the fall energized us and we were ready for the real trekking.
It was 7:30 in the morning and the railway lines had 10 fleshy bogies on it’s track heading towards Yedakumeri – the day one target. Like most railway track it was laid on gravels. I was walking past squeezing the gravels on the track with arrogance considering this as damn easy for me as I have walked a lot in that past. After few kilometers of walking here we started witnessing scenic beauty of western ghat landscape. Nice single standing houses in valley between mountains surrounded with wild trees and cultivated land was touching me to the core. Truly, “lucky” are those people who stay in those houses.
At around 9:30 we found a place to have breakfast. Our organizer Sandeep, a seasoned trekker, had planned for each and everything. We had bread/jam, bread/butter, Sweets and Milk in our breakfast. Post breakfast we witnessed a series of tunnels and bridges. The hollow bridges give you the sight of abysmal depth and can scare you. At around 1:30 we found a place to have our lunch. The lunch consisted of Chappaties and ready to eat packed curries. The food was tasty, may be because I was hungry.
We reached Yedakumeri, the first day destination at around 4:30 pm. As we were approaching the station, we sighted many shelters beside the railway platform. We thought that’s the place to stay tonight. But when we checked inside it was very dirty. We preferred the open clean wide railway platform. We put down our bags and took rest. In no time I went into sleep as I was tired and had almost no sleep in last night in bus. When I got up, to my surprise I had pain in left ankle. Probably I twisted my leg slightly but at that time it did not pain now after I got up I was feeling the pain. The guys in the group had gone to near by hilly stream to take bath. I had no plan to go there because it was very difficult for me to walk. Thankfully Padmini had pain balm which she offered me and I applied in ankle. Sandeep came back from there and said that nearby there was very nice stream and bathing in the stream water was very refreshing, which motivated me to go there. Actually it was; the bath in the stream washed away some of my pain.
It was camp fire time. We collected fire wood and with the help of some stones we prepared a wood stove and lit the wood using petrol. How about coffee now after the refreshing bath in the cold water of the stream? Yes, we prepared coffee which followed by very tasty sweet corn soup. The dinner was prepared; it was consist of rice, dal, curries and sambar. Needless to say we all savored the dinner. While the dinner preparation was going on we had a singing session, where of course more than the quality the participation mattered. At around 10 pm we spreaded our sleeping mat to sleep. I was well prepared for the cold in the night but many of us were not. Because of cold breeze many could not have sound sleep in the night.
Most of us got up at around 6:00 am in the morning. Some got up earlier and lit fire to heat up Ready to Eat food for lunch. By 7:30 am we started moving ahead for our next destination Shiribagilu, which is 18 km away from Yedakumeri. Unlike the track crossed the day before, this track had less gravels as the work to covert the meter gauge to broad gauge was not started. Along the sides of the road there were tall grasses, some 8/9 feet high. We had early breakfast then planned as we got a nice place for breakfast. It was small water fall with lots of rocks inviting us to sit on it. Same for lunch, unlike the day before we got a very nice place. In 2nd day walk too we noticed series of tunnels and bridges. Inside many of the tunnels it was peach dark – darkest that is possible and wet. The tunnels indeed was difficult to pass as many of us did not have torch we used share with other few. The surface inside was uneven, which aggravated the sprain in my ankle. We noticed viper inside a tunnel. After crossing one such wet tunnel we noticed leeches. A leech was socking my blood for long time I was unaware.
After lunch it was 10 more km to walk. Walking was becoming extremely difficult for me because of excruciating pain in my left ankle and knees. In back of my mind I was trying to analyze why only I find it difficult to trek whereas many of the trekkers were trekking for the first time. They were ok and in much better state. Earlier I was thinking the trek will be cake walk for me presumeing that I have been walking a lot and it’s not a big deal for me. My thinking was that the 800 km trek Gurudeva did with few disciples can be done without much problem in 30 plus days. I felt God had to show my limitation of my silly ego. This was the problem actually getting reflected in my knees and ankle pain.
Somehow I managed to drag to the spot with lot of difficulties along with the group from where we were supposed to take bus. That was big relief and great lesson learnt as well.
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