Unleashing the Bear Grylls within me
Just like every episode of Man-vs-Wild, I had the chance of exploring the wilderness of dense jungles, and mountains and become the Bear Grylls like traveller for a day. Here’s my experience to the “Dudhsagar Falls Trek”.
This is my first trek with the Karnataka Hikes, a Bangalore-based organization. I got to know about them via social media and I approached them directly to join for the long weekend trek (12–15 Aug). The whole planning and organizing of the trek was quite amazing. They made sure we were comfortable throughout the trip, right from boarding the bus, throughout the journey, and till the point when we reached back to our homes safely.
I started from Chennai at 6 in the morning, reached Bangalore at 11, had lunch, and went to the pickup point at Yeshwanthpur. I met our trek organizer Manju sir, and trek leads Ashwin & Lahari there, we greeted, had a casual chat, and waited for others to reach. There were mostly solo travelers, a few in a group of 2, one sister duo, and one a gang of 4 colleagues. A mixed set of people from different professional backgrounds like Doctors, Engineers, Analysts, Professors, and Managers — mostly everyone working in Bangalore. We were a group of 20 young, enthusiastic, energetic, vibrant trekkers.
We started the journey at 2:30 on the bus, everyone introduced themselves and got settled in their seats. At 6, we had a chai break at one restaurant. We boarded again, and that’s when Ashwin, started playing songs and we all danced crazily like there was no tomorrow. We whacked for all Bollywood items, Kannada rock beats, Tamil hits, and even Gangnam style. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t shake their hands/legs even for once. At around 9, we halted near Hubbali for dinner. We were given some information by Manju sir, about how the next day was going to be. What to do, and what not to do. It was less of an informative session and more of a Prep talk that really made us look forward to the next day. He told us many things, but one thing I remember in particular was — enjoying the journey during the trek more than waiting for the destination. We all geared up and boarded the bus again and reached Kullem, Goa at 4 in the morning. We checked in at the Jungle Book resort, our campsite, and were allotted rooms to get freshen up.
Day 2
We got ready by 7 in the morning, had a light breakfast, and were ready to start the trek. After some warmup exercise and the instructions given by Manju sir, we excitedly started the journey, at 8 in the morning.
After about 2 kms of warm-up walk-slash-trek, we reached the forest check post, where we registered our names, and began the actual journey to the Dudhsagar Falls. Trek Begins. The journey we trekked through the mountains had slippery paths, pricking rocks, long swinging branches, multiple river streams, open fields, and a lot more sceneries. There wasn’t much crowd we encountered since it was a working day, neither was it completely deserted. Admiring the scenic beauty around us, we were enjoyably marching towards our destination. Most of us had found ourselves a walking stick along the way, to get that extra support in terrain. While we all started walking together, some went ahead and some paced slower than others, and it became a group of 4–5 travelers separately. Our 2 trek leaders Lahiri and Ashwin, made sure no one was left too behind than the rest, so one was always in front and one behind the last trekker.
It was around 10, and we reached a resting place near a water body — offloaded our shoulder bags, found some smooth rocks to sit on, de-hydrated ourselves, ate some protein bars, enjoyed nature, clicked some pictures, and after some time when we had enough rest of whole 4 minutes, Ashwin reached the place and instructed us to start walking again. And so we did, like his obedient students.
We started walking again, and a few kms ahead, we discovered a small, narrow flowing stream, the water flowing through which was cleaner than the mineral bottled water we had carried from our campsite. The water was so clear that we could see the pebbles sitting at the bottom of the stream. We all quenched our thirst and although we had bottles, we felt more natural to drink it directly through the palms. While I was drinking, the back of my mind was wandering to that episode of Man-vs-Wild. Have you guys seen it? The one where Bear Grylls couldn’t find water in the jungle for days so he extracts water from the elephant dung & drinks it and also purifies water from his own urine. Yeah, exactly. I had these thoughts in that 2 seconds of sipping the water through my palm. I tell you, I had this devil urge to mention this to everyone, but then looked at their faces of how they were enjoying the moment, So I just gulped those thoughts.
We drank some, filled our bottles, and continued the journey. There were many such streams we had to cross along the way. At first, we were quite reluctant to put our feet in that cold water and were cautious about not getting out shoes wet, but we still had to, to cross the path, and by the time we crossed 3 or 4 streams, we kind of sort of started to enjoy it. Now we were looking forward to getting into it. Some streams were really hard flowing, had we not been careful, the water force could have swept us away, and they had to be crossed by forming a hand-holding human chain. At one heavy flowing stream, there was this one juggling rope bridge as well, which looked dramatically beautiful to cross. Along the way, a few playful monkeys hopped from one branch to another not knowing when they’ll land on us. I spotted a few butterflies as well. Manju sir’s words were started to prove right — it was the journey more than the destination that actually matters, and that be enjoyed. We continued doing so.
I might sound a little dramatic here, but the scenic view reminds me of the dialogue and scene from YJHD, where Bunny says — Pahado ki hawao me ek alag hi nasha hota hai, and that’s so true.
It was around 10 kms into the trek, and now we could hear the mild frequency of water crashing the rocks, of which we could assume what waterfalls sound like from a far distance. We walked further, and at this point, through the branches of some trees, we could catch glimpses of that mighty waterfall. That was the first sight. The excitement & happiness was showing clearly on our faces, like how my 3 year old niece gives an expression when I get her candy.
Our steps started to rush towards the falls now, and with around 2 kms of walking, we were there — on the bottom shore of the mighty, majestic falls.
The view is just breathtaking. The spectacular fall as known to be the tallest waterfall in India, is flowing through multiple rocks in such a way that it creates a heart-shaped flow of milky white water falling from the top. There’s a railway line passing through it just in the middle, and I couldn’t even have an imaginary description of how it would look if someone inside the train sees passing through it. You might have seen this in the Chennai Express movie. We weren’t allowed to go to that place, due to safety reasons. The view is just amazing from a higher angle, we could have a glimpse of it, via drone shot.
The force at which the water hits the ground rocks creates so much friction that it gives a foamy appearance in milky white, hence the name, Dudh-Sagar. There‘s also a tale behind the falls, it goes like this —
Once there was a princess, the daughter of the King of Western Ghats, who used to take a bath in the lake at the bottom of the falls and would drink milk afterward. One day, a handsome prince was riding his horse through the forest, and he saw the princess taking bath. The princess saw that and felt embarrassed and in order to cover herself, she poured the jug of milk on herself to form a shield of thin milk film. From that day onwards, the fall is named Dudhsagar Falls.
Interesting…
Anyway, we enjoyed the falls’ view for quite some time, although the giant rocks were slippery, we somehow managed to find spots to sit on to admire the beauty. Took lots and lots of pictures, and when our hearts were overwhelmed and cloyed, we decided to return. We all definitely had that one last look, on the way back, as if we’re in an SRK movie and the falls are telling us — Agar yeh mujhse pyaar karti hai, toh ek baar palat ke zarur dekhegi. And we did. On our way back, we stopped at one of the slow-flowing parts of the stream, and found ourselves a spot and had lunch that we had packed from the campsite. It gave us the feeling of having lunch at Villa Escudero’s restaurant in the Philippines. After eating, and just before leaving, Manju sir decided to get crazy by pushing us into the deeper side of the stream. He said how could we have not done that, coming to the tallest waterfall and not having bath?
Once done, we returned. On the way back, we had hot tea and started our journey to the campsite. Since the route was the same, the time took almost the same as we came. We reached our campsite, at 6 in the evening, all tired and exhausted. Also with the sense of achievement that we did it. After taking a hot shower, we sat together for dinner and talked about all things we did all day. And everyone had now started feeling the pain — the shoulders, knee, calf, ankle, and toes started aching. We all had Trench foot due to being in the water for too long.
After dinner, we boarded the bus at 10 in the night, to return to Bangalore.
Day 3
We reached Bangalore the next day at 12. All of us bid goodbyes to each other and promise to keep in touch and keep trekking and meeting again. As Naina said, although it was a short trip, we were carrying a truckload of memories with us.
With Overwhelmed feeling, I too bid goodbye to everyone, boarded by next train to Chennai at 3, and reached home by 9.
It was an amazing weekend.
Big shoutouts -
To Karnataka Hikes — for arranging this trek and the amazing experience that they provided us,
To Manju sir aka Mountain Manju — Trek organiser, who’s been trekking for 15 years now.
To Lahari — Trek lead 1.
To Ashwin — Trek lead 2.
And To all my wonderful friends — Mehjooba Zainab, Dr. Nidhi Shekar, Bhumika Prakash, Jyothsna Hebbar, Bhoomika, Semakshi, Hemanth, Kowshik, Prajwal Manjare, Muneer Basha, Balaji, Dhruthi Kothari, Tejaswini, Prajwal Gowda, Bhoomika Manjunath, Rakesh, and Vijay.
