From Long time me, Rohit and Porki (one more Prakash) had been contemplating a trip to a spiritual place. This was really strange for us coz we v'e been friends for past 6 years and none of us ever thought about goin to a spiritual place...strange purely because of the fact that we are in our mid 20's and with all of us are earning big fat salary we had "Better habits" to indulge...
Date: 5-December-2009
We left Bangalore around 2PM on busy bustling Saturday, by the time we reached Nelmangala it was already3.30Pm. Time was a big constraint for us as we all had to get back to work on that moron Monday, So we had to reach Dharamasthala as early as possible.
From Nelamangala onwards the journey was pretty relaxed and road was getting converted to 4 lance Highway so we had to restrain ourselves from hitting the accelerator initially. All along we were playing "Anatakashari" (perhaps this is the first time ur listening that 4 boys on trip were playing this game). Porki was in full zoom with his Kannada songs, November had just passed by and he was still getting up from his Rajyothsava slumber.
As the evening was dawning upon us we started to gather pace and around 6.30 we reached Hassan by-pass. We took a baby break to have some roadside Masala Puri. Bang-opposite to us there was a Bar and Restaurant my friends gave me a killing look (as if i had snatched their Beer Bottles)for stopping the car there. This was a NEAT trip so we had to be content with Masala Puri.
We had our apprehensions about the infamous Shiradi Ghat so we enquired with local persons where one of them told us to take Charmadi Ghat, the other said Shiradi is in good shape and can go via Shiradi. The Route upto Sakaleshpur was fine we stopped again in Sakaleshpur and did some shopping.
As we were about to leave Sakaleshpur one of the local person suggested not to take Charmadi Ghat as its quite lonely in the late nights. That's were we made the biggest mistake of our trip. As we entered Shiradi we realized that our Santro is in lot of trouble if the road is in same pattern...there were mammoth craters all along the road as if some meteorite had struck different parts of road, to add our misery there were huge petrol tankers plying on the road which were in ready position to turn upside down. I couldn't take pictures of this wonderful road to share with you people as it was peach dark outside. The only best part of this drive was that i was not driving the car. I had let Rohit to suffer the brunt of this road.
By the time we finished Shiradi it was almost 9PM. We took Right from from NH48 and entered the sub road that leads to Dharmasthala. Having got tormented by shiradi ghat we were quite relieved when we saw fully asphalted road. We reached Dharmasthala at 10.00 PM and stayed Rajatadri Guest house which is located near the new bus-stand. We were damn hungry and all the hotels were almost closed luckily we got some left out "Chitranna" to eat and we went back to room pondering the value of food when someone is hungry.
Next day we woke up at 6 in morning and went to Netravti River for bath and finished the darshan by 10 in the morning.
We decided to head towards Kukke around 10.30AM so that we can cover the place and time (Typical corporate attitude of "Multi-tasking"). The road that leads to Kukke was narrow and very good and bad in few patches. (Kukke is around 65Km from Dharmasthala)We reached around 12.00PM and immediately headed to darshan, by the time we came out the queue for Prasada (Lunch) had came out to the road. We stood there and gazed at long never ending queue it would easily take at least 3 hours if we stood in the queue, we realized there that what cardinal sin we had done by not having lunch at Dharmasthala. Visiting Dharmasthala and not having lunch there is almost like.....i found no words to explain.
We again started towards Dharmasthala when we left Kukke it was sharp 2PM, some how we got a feeling that lunch may be closed early and then started the rashest driving that i have ever done in my entire life, roads were empty and very narrow but still i was clocking almost 90kmp. we had a target to reach Dharmasthala at 3.15 PM. With lot of thuds to Santro's belly we reached at 3.00 and we ran towards Lunch room as if we and our "forefathers" had not eaten for past ten thousand years.
Lunch was just a five minute affair but we felt content for returning to Dharmasthala for just that one lunch. Life is always about Big happiness we get from small things....Isnt it???
Post that we left Dharmasthala and this time we decided to go via Charmadi Ghat. On way we had a stop at Ujjre where "Vishawa Tulu Sammelana" was happeing and whole town was looking very very pretty with all its street decked up.
Charmadi ghat Roads were very good except few bad patches it was fantastic
Charmadi Ghat Roads
We reached Bangalore Back around 12 in midnight to return back to our routine life.
Below are some of the scenes that you find on Charmadi Ghat...which leave you spell bound by its beauty..
Claude Monet: - The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.
