Participants: Dany, Raghu, Ravi, Kiran.
It was a chilly Saturday morning on the 12th of December 2005 when Dany called me up at 4.30 am. I had to rush through my morning rituals in order to get ready. Me and Raghu (the mooser!) were about to leave for the bus stand when we got a call from Dany and Ravi saying that they had run out of gas. Ravi had not filled up his vehicle and so he was stuck somewhere near Sterling talkies. We had to eventually tow them up to my house. So this way, we had already started our adventure even before we reached Coorg. My dad dropped us in our car to the bus stand and we finally left Mysore around 6.30 am.
The journey was boring for obvious reasons - no chicks in the bus. We talked our way up to Virajpet though Raghu was dozing every now and then. His journey was a little painful as he had trouble sitting in the bus with his tight pants on, reason - ‘pressed balls’.
We got down at Virajpet around 10 am and had a quick breakfast. The breakfast comprised of dry masala dosas and cold-old chutney. We could definitely not forget to buy the ‘asli cheez’….ya, u got that right, a large bottle of whisky for the thirsty lions (or u thought it was condoms!?). Peter Scot it was.
We had another boring journey in a Travels bus from Virajpet to this place called Kabbinakadu where Mr. Suresh Chengappa was supposed to pick us up in his jeep. The driver whizzed through the narrow roads as we passed through small hamlets.
Mr. Chengappa was waiting for us at the spot. We shared this half hour journey along a steep rugged path flanked by coffee and cardamom plantations with an Australian couple. Sitting close to the couple at the back, I and Dany had our own good times!
We finally reached our destination at 11 am where we dropped down off the jeep on the terra firma of Honey Valley and met the smiling Savitha Chengappa, Mr. Suresh’s Chengappa’s daughter who was saying hello to us. Now that’s what I call a warm welcome. The place was nice and cool with all the greenery and chirping birds in the background. Savitha showed us our room on the first floor and we kind of settled in….you know emptied our tanks and things like that. We watched some of the photo albums which Dany had brought and reminisced about the dmen’s hallowed past expeditions. We discussed our further course of action for the day with a cup of strong coffee. We got the rudimentary map from the hostess and also referred to a few snaps available there and decided to trek our way to the Neelakanti water falls on Saturday after lunch. We saw a few dogs there growling at us for attention. We made friends with Rocky, the fittest of the pack. Later on he enjoyed being petted by all of us. Fit dog enjoying being petted by the fit dmen, how’s that?!
We had lunch at around 1 pm and after a little pause, we left for the trek. It’s a 15 minute walk through the plantations and hordes of wild and colorful flowers to the ‘cricket pitch’ from where we have to take a deviation to reach the falls. From here all the way up to the falls it was just bushes and grasslands and rolling hills. We didn’t have much trouble in finding our way as the trail was not really tough. Through out this stretch we had our own interesting topics for discussion.
One topic worth mentioning is we discussed about orgasmic sounds in different cultures. From India to the west to the oriental. Meanwhile Dany was busy with his camera taking snaps of anything which he found interesting. These included flowers and scenery. I have to admit after looking at the snaps that he had done a good job after all. We could finally see the beautiful falls from a distance. It was breathtaking. We climbed up half way though we didn’t reach the top of the falls. We rested there for a while. We decide to head back to the cottage though Ravi insisted that we reach the top. Our return journey was pretty much the same as the onward journey to the falls except that we took less frequent breaks.
We reached the pitch at approximately 6 p.m. We could see a few people playing cricket. They were the local lads of that place. We joined them and played cricket for a while. Ravi, Raghu and Dany bowled like crazy and Ravi seemed to bowl the maximum number of no balls and wides. He also kept wickets for sometime. In the closing hour of play at the onset of dusk, I hit the ball into the bushes and we spent almost half an hour searching for the ball. We finally headed back to the cottage as early as possible so that we have some time for the drink and dinner.
As soon as we reached the cottage, Dany went down to the dining hall and was back with drinking glasses so that we could start doing the ‘real thing’. We soon settled down with our glasses though Ravi came in a little late as he was taking bath. Our drinking session went on like before with all the usual discussion on hot topics, comments, suggestions etc. In the middle I suggested to the group that we play the ‘game of truth’. The game requires the players to speak the truth about whatever they are asked by the other player. It’s like opening your mind like a book and allowing the other persons to read it. We were quite surprised by some of the thoughts that came out of each one of us which we would not otherwise even dare to talk about, add to the fact that the Peter Scot was doing its magic. Details of the game….sorry guys, it’s confidential! We had almost finished the bottle when the room boy came and told us that it was time for dinner. Each one of us ate as much as we could and then we decided to take a walk around the cottage. It was dark and cold and we could see another group of people enjoying a camp fire where we stopped for a while. It was dark and Raghu and Dany started talking on their cell phones, with their girl friends for quite some time (hence the name moosers). We could not wait to hit the bed that night.
Next morning we got up and found that some of us had company in the bed last night. Guess what ….leeches! We had coffee and cigarette sitting in the cottage balcony which offers a panoramic view of the huge valley in front of the cottage though most of it was covered in mist. We started chalking the programme for our next trek to Tadiandamol, the highest peak at 1750 meters in Coorg. We learnt from Suresh that there are around 27 trekking trails of varying degrees of complexity.
We started at around 8 am by taking the usual route to the cricket pitch and from there, a deviation .We carried food packets prepared by the hostess and water with us. The initial uphill trek was quite steep and we took our own time to cover this stretch. It was cold, drizzling and quite misty. We could hardly see anything at a distance of 15 to 20 feet from us. We took a few breaks and Dany was as usual busy with his camera. We walked through a few beautiful grasslands. Usually Ravi would lead us though Raghu had the map with him. We could see wild buffaloes grazing along the slopes of the hill. After 2 hours or so we thought that we were lost but we could see the fence which was indicated in the map. We were on the right track although we did miss the track a couple of times. We spotted the remains of a buffalo on a slightly even ground on the top of the hill. There were bones with some skin. This could have been the job of a tiger or a leopard. We could not really spot the pug marks but we saw the ground on which the predator had his fill. (See the photos)
We decided to take a pit stop here and have breakfast here. We had sandwiches, eggs and biscuits and tomatoes and cucumber. The home made jam was a hit. We lapped it up. Meanwhile a young buffalo got interested and came near to us smelling the food. The group also teased me about the fact that I spread the cheese on the bread like a proper firang with a knife. It was around 12.30 pm and we had probably covered 60% of the distance to the summit. We decided to head back to the cottage as we had to reach Mysore by Sunday night. But Ravi would not agree and he insisted that we go to the summit and then return. We could see the forest at the foothills that we needed to cross. The forest was really thick. Visibility was also not good. Tadiyandomol seemed to tease and challenge us to conquer it but ultimately reason prevailed. We decided otherwise and started our journey back to the cottage. After a while we found that the mist was slowly clearing and the views were fabulous. Green hills…blue skies, the white billowing clouds, the smell of the wet brown mud and the rotting leaves...superb really!
The trek downhill was slippery given the fact that the weather was so moist.
We were at the cottage by around 1.30 pm. We packed our things and headed to the dining hall. We had lunch while Dany cleared the bill. Mrs. Susheela Chengappa had prepared tasty Pandi curry which Dany and Raghu ate with great relish. By now we were quite familiar with Mr. Chengappa’s family. We talked to them for a while and they said that they were happy to have us. The jeep was ready to take us back to Kabbinakadu. We bid goodbye to Mr. Chengappa’s family and left. The family was out to see us off. Rocky was also there to bid adieu. Dany had an ‘appointment’ in Mercara at 4 pm. Dany and Raghu made a pact to come back in April 06.
We initially took a bus to reach Madikeri but Dany D was in a great hurry to keep his appointment with his beau. So, midway we hired a cab. We reached Mercara by around 4 p.m. We were in Raja Seat which was supposed to be the rendezvous for Danny’s date with his hudugi. DD introduced her to us and later spent a while with his beau in privacy away from our prying eyes. We spent almost 2 hours in this beautiful park. The view of the hills from this point is awesome. It is said that the Maharaja used to come here to sit and relax and have a view of the beautiful scene. By 6 p.m we boarded the bus to Mysore.
It was a semi luxury bus and we had one helluva bumpy ride all our way back to Mysore. The ride was so horrible and none of us could sleep though Ravi did. We had our own share of ‘poli’jokes on the way back. Everyone in the bus should thank God for reaching Mysore with their balls intact, I mean literally.
That brings us to the end of our delightful journey to Honey Valley. Each one of us had our own story to say about the trip though at the end we were worried about the shitty routine that would follow from the next day at the office.
I thank all the 3 f***ers to have given me an opportunity to author this travelogue on Honey Valley. I look forward to visit more and more new places with them in future.
Edited by: Raghu
Photos: Dany
