It's another festival season and we have holidays for us and our son's school as well. So we have decided to execute our long pending trip, chikkamagaluru The coffee town of India. This particular trip has been postponed multiple times and finally we can say Chikkamagaluru, here we come. We all set to start early in the morning from Bangalore. So that we can reach chikkamagaluru early and we can start exploring this beautiful town. We planned to start from Bangalore by 5AM and we started exactly by 6:10 AM :) as usual. It's around 5 hours drive from Bangalore and we planned to reach there by 11:30 to 12PM
Good Time to visit: August to February.
The itinerary for the trip could be like this.
Day1:
1. Baba Budangiri/Dattatreya Peetha
2. Manikyadhara waterfall (offroading)
3. Jhari Waterfalls a.k.a Buttermilk Falls
4. Honnamala waterfall
6. Kavikalgandi view point, shooting point
5. Mullayanagiri Peak --> Evening 3-3:30
6. Sitalayangiri base of Mullayanagiri
7. Siri Cafe
Day2:
1. Hirekolale Lake
2. Breakfast
3. Z Point, Kemmangundi (Raj bhavan part or z point treck)
4. Hebbe falls Try to reach hebbe falls by 9 AM or 11-11:30 AM
5. Kallathigiri Falls
Day3:
1. Coffee museum
2. Park
3. Belur/halibedu
4. Kodandarama TEMPLE
5. belvadi (First Ganesha Temple), then hoysala temple
6. Yagachi dam and water sports
7. 161 feet Hanuma temple
If you are an trekking enthusiast then chikkamagaluru is the place for you there are lot of spots that you can explore. We haven't done any of these trek's as we have an 5years old along with us. Please explore the difficulty of these treks before you plan for it.
1. Mullayanagiri Trek
2. Kemmangundi Trek/Zpoint Trek
3. Kuduremukh Trek
4. Kumara Pravata Trek
You can also visit Bhadhra wild sanctuary which is a tiger reserve.
On the way we have stopped at a place called Food Culture which attracted as it has the mini Aadiyogi statue which is similar to that of the Isha Foundation statue. That statue caught our attention, so we pulled our car aside for breakfast. The breakfast was very good and the ambience is also very good, they have some out door places to sit there as well. We planned to finish the breakfast early but due to the ambience we take lot of pictures there and spend a little bit more time there. We reached chikkamagaluru around 12:30 PM. We checked into hotel and got freshen up early and started our day1 trip.
Our first stop is to reach Jhari falls/Buttermilk falls which is on the way to Baba Budangiri/Dattatreya Peetha. While reaching that spot you can spot another water falls called Honnamala Waterfalls on the road side, though it is a small water fall it's very picturesque.
We have spend some time there and reached our next location that Jhari falls. This place is in a private estate, and they won't allow our vehicles to go there in their Jeeps to that place. It's completely offroading so be prepared for a roller-coaster ride. If you have any elders with Back pain think twice about the same. They will charge around Rs.800 per jeep which will allow 6 people per jeep. So make sure that you make a gang of 6 quickly so that you can hire a jeep and start there. They will collect the money initially and they will give you a token which you need to provide in the return journey. You have to comeback with the same set of people in the return as well.
It's around 10-15mins drive only but you will have a memorable ride with it. You need to walk around 200 to 300mts from where they drop you near the falls and the whole drive is worth after you visit that beautiful water falls. That is just amazing and while you are walking to the falls itself you can feel can have the splashes of the water falls and gives you a pleasant welcome. The water falls is a four step water falls and that makes the water falls more attractive. And you can have a foggy weather all around due to splashes from the waterfalls and beautiful rain bow around. Due to that splashes of the 4 layered water falls, we call it as Buttermilk water falls. The return journey will be very difficult as there will be lot of people waiting for the return and people will be jumping onto the Jeep before even they reach the pickup spot. So please be prepared for lot of waiting there.
We have to spend lot of timing as we couldn't catch the jeep immediately. Finally there were a bunch of jeeps come together and finally we could catch a jeep and start for the return journey. We started our next hop to Dattatreya Petha from there which is 1895 mts from the sea level. Collectively, these peaks are known as Chandradrona Parvatha Shreni as they naturally form the shape of a crescent moon. This place is known for its shrine to a pilgrimage site for Hindus and Muslims.
It has stunning views and the sunset is worth visit from there. From this point we have two more spots to visit Manikyadhara water falls and Gali kere. You may plan for either of them, but plan for a complete off roading for both these places. As we have already covered Jhari falls we didn't visit there. We have spent some time at the view points and witnessed one of the stunning sunsets from 6317 ft hight. It's has some breath taking views.
We planned to visit Mullayanagiri as well in the return but as our time is wasted near the Jhari falls and we have spent our time for sunset on Dattatreya Petha. We got to skip Mullayanagiri for this day. We have reached the Iconic spot of Chikkamagaluru Siri Coffee and spent some time there. And then we have reached our hotel room got freshen up and came for a quick walk around the streets of Chikkamagaluru. Did some shopping there as it is festive season. Had our dinner and set ourselves for a quick sleep as it was a tiring day and we need to start our Day2 with lot of places to cover.
Day2 we have started with our first stop Mullayanagiri as we couldn't cover it yesterday. Had our quick breakfast before our start and tried reaching the peak very early. We have reached the peak of Mullayanagiri and there is already lot of people on the peak and we also need to hike around 400-500 steps to reach the actual peak. There are already lot of cars already parked and the parking and driving to the peak is a bit tricky. So be very careful while driving as we don't have the railings always on the sides of the roads and they are also pretty narrow.
Mullayyanagiri is located in the Chandra Dhrona Hill Ranges of the Western Ghats of Chikkamagaluru Taluk. With a height of 1,925 metres (6,316 ft), it is the highest peak in Karnataka and also the 23rd highest peak in Western Ghats. The summit of Mullayanagiri has a small temple and houses a police radio relay station. Seethalayyanagiri is a prominent peak which is adjacent to this place. The peak gets its name from a small temple (gadduge/tomb) at the summit, which is dedicated to a sage "Mulappa swamy" who is believed to have meditated at the caves only a couple of feet below the summit. We have a little bit of the famous nilkunj flower, which will bloom once in 12 years, which is the main reason for us to
We drove to the start of the peak which is Seethalayyanagiri. There is also a small quiet temple dedicated to Seethala Mallikarjuna Swamy. 'Seetha' means damp in Kannada. The Shivlinga is always surrounded by water. It also has a beautiful view point back side of it where in you can see all the moutain ranges surrounding Mullayanagiri.
Our next stop is the Kallathigiri falls which has the veerabhadra temple in the middle of the water falls. Which is just outstanding. We took bath in the water falls and then had darshan in the temple. It was just amazing experience to take bath in the running water falls right in the temple premises, but we need to keep it much clean. There is another mallmma temple in the same place. We had darhsan there as well.
Next leg of our Journey is Kemmanagundi. It has the famous hebbe falls and Z point where in we need to perform the offroading for 30 minutes. Which is also through the dense forest and which is also quite hectic. The same thumb rules that are mentioned in Jhari falls applicable here too, may be 4 times more than that. They will charge aroung Rs.500 per person and we need atleast 8 people to start the vehicle. The vehicle will wait for you till you return. So make sure the same group will comeback with in the time that they have given us. We also need to walk around 15 to 20 minutes to reach the falls from the place where the vehicles drop us. This water falls is also worth visit in the middle of the dense forest. If you are visiting in the rainy season beware of the leaches and carry some salt/Dettol/Shampoo or any other thing which is leach repellents.
Just 2Kms after the hebbe falls we can reach the Kemmanagundi Hill resort. We break for lunch there, the view from their restaurant is just outstanding. When we went to that resort we have only limited options for food. The Hill resort has stay options starts from Rs.2800 per night. The also arrange the travel to the surrounding areas of Kemmanagundi as well. We have finished our lunch and then moved to the next stop which is RajBhavan Park. Which has lot of offerings for the kids to play and beautiful park and sunset point for the elders and excellent view points for everyone to rejuvenate.
There are also some places like Devaramane around Kemmanagundi, but we couldn't visit as we have to cover the hirekolale lake and we want to cover it for the Sunset. We somehow reached there but the sunset was just done and we couldn't catch the sunset. We missed it by few minutes. We spent some 15-20 mins. The place has a narrow band to walk and which is almost distroyed and it's literally shaking even if a kid is running on the same. And there are bunch of people always stuck to the same and never leave the place. :)
Finally our Day2 is ended and we have reached our hotel and get freshen up and out for our Coffee, Tea and Spices. There are lot of options we got it in a place called Rise up coffee and they have the options of 90:10, 85:15, 75:25 Coffee and you may check and choose based on your requirement. The famous coffee spot is Panduranga Coffee. We tried the dinner in the place called RajBhoga and we didn't have a proper meal from past 2 days so we thought of having a Andhra meal. And the one that we had was the worst that we have ever had. Not sure about the other options. There is another hotel called Vishnu delicacy right opposite to the place where we stayed which is called Rest Inn. That is pretty good. We finished our shopping and then call it a day.
Day3 is our return to Bangalore, We have checked out the hotel and had our Breakfast and started our return journey to Bangalore. On the way we want to coverup all the temples that are on the way. So our first stop is Belavadi. We have first stopped at Ganesha temple, in which the idol is in the sleeping position. Then visited the hoyasala style Veera narayana temple. It's sad to see that such a beautiful temple has no visitors at all. The priest there is so good that he explained about the temple history and explained about the idols as well. The idols are just so beautiful. We were told that the Krishna idol is the most beautiful Krishna certified by the archaeology department. We have three idols of veeranarayana, krishna and yoga narasimha. The temple has a nice garden area too. We have spent enough time to cover the temple and dwelled into the beauty of the temple architecture and the sculptures.
The next stop is Halibedu. We have visited Belur/Halibedu lot of times, so it was not in our plan initially. But as we just pass by the Halibedu temple. The breath taking sculpture beauty will not let you pass the temple without visitng the same. So we pulled the car again at Halibedu and spent some 30-40 minutes. Even though I have visited that place around 3-4 times. Every time you will see the temple in new perspective. They have boating in the lake just next to temple but it was around 12:30 PM we reached there and so we didn't try there. So we have moved on to the next stop that is hasanamba temple which is in Hasan and the town got it's name from the same temple.
Then we break for lunch and moved to the last leg of our journey which is worlds biggest Hanuma temple in Bidanagere. The temple is 161 feet tall and which is just amazing. You need to take a deroute of 3 Kms from the highway. There is an Sanishwara temple in the same compound and shiva temple as well. You can also climb to the first floor to reach to the foot steps of the Hanuma statue. After spending enough time we finally set a full stop to our streak of temple visits and finally started our journey to home and we reached our home around 5:30PM. We eneded another wondeful trip with loads of memories which pused all the tiredness to the backseat.
Catch you with another travel experience and till then Keep Travelling and Keep enjoying life. Here are few of the other pics of the trip. Please read and share your views on the same.
