Weekend was round the corner and I and a few friends of mine were planning a get away. Though Karnataka is a tourism haven,most places on the tourism map that we had not explored were quite some distance from Bangalore and would require a decent 3 days to be completely toured and enjoyed. While we mulled over the possibilities,an office colleague suggested we take a day's trip to Muthathi. "Muthathi,what place is that?" was the natural response of my friends when I told them about the choice.I had read few blogs on it and to me it seemed a decent getaway, especially for a bunch of people,who were bored of going from one mall to another in India's "garden city".
We finalized the trip a Saturday evening,hurriedly booked a cab and off we were 6 o' clock Sunday morning. It took us quite some time getting beyond the city limits thanks to the road widening and Metro construction activities on our way to Kamnahalli.Once out of the city, the view on either side of the road was great. Though nothing extraordinary (you would find such scenery in most of the lower western ghats), it was a welcome change with rocky hills visible for a decent stretch. We stopped midway to have a heavy breakfast as I had read that there weren't many (if not any) decent restaurants in and around Muthathi. We had a Dhaba-kind of food after a long time. It tasted good and was inexpensive. We took a little walk after the mini-feast ,went tamarind and mango (the through-out-the-year variety) plucking and were then back in the cab heading towards our final destination. About an hour later we entered an area which was sweetly reminiscent of the mud houses we found back in our own villages. The were a couple of instances were large herd of cows literally blocked our passage. We found a few foreigners savoring this "exotic" sight. After the path cleared we sped along the road which was in a reasonably good condition.
What followed was way beyond expectations. Green hills littering the way, little brooks cutting across the winding path, the cool mountain air blowing on our face and then the valley down below everything was almost picture perfect. We stopped at a brook for a few pics for our facebook albums but were almost subconsciously led along its path to some dense tree cover. Moving in further, there was a stretch of cleared forest which seemed like a picnic spot. Then following the sound of gushing water, we walked further moving through another stretch of thorny trees to relish the unexpected spectacle. We had reached the banks of the river Cauvery and not a soul could be found there. The mountains all around and the sandy banks were all so relaxing. Though the mountain on the other side of the river was inviting, the river seemed way to deep to be crossed. So we returned reliving the forest wonder on our way back to the cab.We were later told that the place was notorious for wild elephants and foxes and that we could have risked our lives! "Ah! no wonder we found no one else there",I thought. But then, what's a weekend get away without that element of risk.
We hadn't even reached the place most people had written about in their blogs and were already having so much fun. While in the middle of our discussion about how we could have saved our lives if we had encountered an elephant, foxes or even a cheetah, we reached another accessible river bank. This time the river seemed rather slow. At a distance we saw some circular boats . They are the "coracle" and I had never taken a ride in one. Wasting no more time, we got our spare clothes and were in the coracle heading towards a small island about a kilometer away from the mainland .The island seemed beautiful. The best part was that there weren't too many people around. The water wasn't all that clean (it is difficult to expect that in the non-rainy season) but was tempting enough to take a nice bath in. We took a nice dip and relished the surrounding tranquility. On our way back , we found an adventure group pass by in a rafting boat(the river wasn't anything one can go rafting in but every person to his adventurous self). I guessed they must have come from nearby Bheemeshwari which organizes such trips.
To capture our first time on the coracle for good, I shot this video which also depicts the brilliant mangrove forest like trees in the place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpj821R_KRE
It was half past four and we were a little tired. I was thanked for the choice of the place :) and return journey was filled with references our most enjoyable moments of the trip
