An awesome trek to Shivagange(A hill near bangalore)

Rock On!

After lot of planning & discussion, on 9th Sep., the trekkers started from Bangalore. It was a train journey, with a group of 6 starting from Majestic(a railway station in bangalore) and 3 joining them from Yeshwantpur(an other railway station in bangalore). As it would, all started with confusion. Not many seemed to be really keen on sharing info. on which platform the train arrives in Yeshwantpur. The three of us waited in different platforms and finally boarded the train from platform 3 (which, one of our fellow trekkers told us as arriving on platform 7!).

Anyway, all is well that starts well. All joined and the journey started.

It was an hour journey to Dobbspet(as one of us said later on, Pet is stomach so we are in Dobb’s stomach). The real name is Dabaspet (at least that’s how it was written in Kannada & Hindi). A little research told us that the place was originally called Somapura and was later renamed as Dobbsper in honor of Major General Richard Steward Dobbs — the first collector Tumkur! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbaspet) .

We were welcomed at the station by a friendly auto driver who seemed to know where we wanted to go. A bit of bargain and at Rs 20/head & the 9 of us got into the auto (yes! 9 of us!!! , as the auto was designed differently from the typical ones in Bangalore — and this seems to be the norm in Dobbs Stomach). A pretty comfortable ride except for a couple of pot holes. This is nothing compared to Bangalore where we have roads on pot holes. Dobbspet seems to have pot holes on the road, guess that’s the right way to have it.

We started at the entrance with confusion again! Should we take off the shoes or not? It was decided to risk it and we entered what looked like an arch at the temple entrance. Around 50 steps on a staircase made of rock and we were panting already!

Dog being the guide!!!

It all seemed to be a good start to a journey when everything went right for us. Namely,

1. Reaching Railway station on time, though it was heavily raining the previous day and most of the places were waterlogged.

2. Auto driver finding us right when we alit the train and all seemed to know where we wanted to go. Agreeing for an auto fare of mere 20 rs./per head.

Finding all these things strange, we were all set to find more and more strange things(good ones) coming our way. To all our surprise, Now came the dog which went on to become the guide for us almost throughout the walk on to the top of the hill. Though the dog was offered lot of eatables by other trekkers, it refused to eat those to make sure it followed us (Found it really strange!!!). I still feel a little unhappy(How selfish are we?!!!) that we didn’t offer any eatables to the dog which guided us so well!!!.

Bolt from the blue!

A call to one of us informing that a friend needed blood stopped us for 15–20 mins. A few phone calls/search on the internet and the job was done. Only that one of us had to leave from there as he wanted to be with our friend.

Up & Away!

We then started the climb. Looked pretty straight forward with a railing supporting us and small stairs, just about enough to keep a quarter of my foot, and go up. There were other groups climbing enthusiastically. We started tiring as it was a bit hot and pretty humid. Lot of water and some spiced up gooseberry aided us in the climb. After about 30 mins, except for a couple of us, we were nearly drained. A short break, some chat and we were re-energized (at least we thought so). The climb continued till we hit upon a temple. Most of the way had railing support and few stairs chiseled on the rocky terrain.

Breakpoint 1

The sun had hidden behind the clouds and the weather was pleasant. But with the early morning start and the little breakfast most of has had, we started to tire. Out came two lunch boxes with chapatti and pulav. Food never tastes good unless you are hungry!. And boy!, we were hungry!. Chapati was polished off, Pulav was reduced to half in a few minutes of the attack.

Rejuvenated, out came the mobile cameras, a few clicks and off we started again!

Bend your backs!

Once we started, we reached a place where we needed to go in between two rocks. The shorter guys seemed to run through. The taller ones also managed to get through without too much trouble.

We reached a nice temple with a very small water body(artificial) near it. The water was pure, we could see below and a few fish were playing around in the water.

Drenched in sweat (not common in our office life), most of us were tired. We were looking for water and food again!

And we did see water, way below — in the form of what one of us described as the “lake of India”. It looked like a poorly drawn Indian map. Reminded me of my failed attempts in Geography classes at school to draw the Indian map!

Not sure if it was a lake or a large puddle of water. But it definitely looked like South India, a bit of Gujarat and Sri Lanka!

Monkey trouble!

On the way, there were quite a few monkeys following people. None troubled us till we reached near the final climb. It was pretty steep and just as we started a monkey decided to help itself to the contents of our bags. He (or she?) seemed pretty used to opening bags and coolly opened the zip. A bit of shouting and it left the bag only to catch hold of another. Then we had a tug of war with the monkey, nearly lost the bag but managed to get it back from it. It wasn’t too happy and was making faces and sounds at us.

Exhausted by the trek so far, we stopped near another one of the small shops for a short break. We had lassi, lime juice, pineapple and gooseberry. Never tasted better! The flavors that hunger & exhaustion add to food cannot be defined in words.

The monkeys were not done as yet. They were around keeping an eye on our bags as if it was their property we had stolen. They were around waiting for an opportunity to grab. The shopkeeper had a stuffed toy in the shape of a tiger in front of his shop to keep them away. He also had a catapult to scare them. There were also a couple of stray dogs with him who were rewarded with a little bite of food for chasing the monkeys away.

We armed ourselves with plastic bottles and sticks to scare the monkeys. They kept a safe distance but followed us for a while. Not very comfortable when you have more than 20 of them all around you!

The final stretch

The final bit is a tough climb. Pretty steep and a bit slippery as the stones were really smooth. Wonder how it must be during rainy season! And just as we were struggling I was in for a shock. A mother carrying a 1 or 2 year old baby was coolly walking down! We just had a bag and were struggling!

Another 15 mins or so and we were at the top. The view was stunning! Worth all the effort.

It was 12.45 PM when we reached the top. A good 2.5 hours to climb to the top. Not bad considering that a lot of blog sites said it was a 3 hour trek to the top, with a lot of experienced trekkers endorsing it.

A big statue of Nandi was there on top of a stone with another small staircase leading to a yet another small temple at the top. A bit of relaxing, photo shoots and a lot of soaking in the nature, we started feeling hungry (again!).

Around 1.30 PM, we started planning our trip down. Considering that it took us 2.5 hours to the top, we estimated an hour and a half to reach down.

Dancing Knees!

As if climbing up wasn’t enough getting down was also proving to be a tough task. The knees were not used to so much stress. They started shivering with the slow and intense steps. We again took a break. This time we thought of eating, given that the monkey territory was behind us.

We had some cake, remaining pulav and some biscuits to eat. And just as we settled a monkey appeared out of nowhere, then another and another! We threw a bit of cake for it and then almost fled the scene! They left us alone after that and we walked down with no more visits from our ancestors. They were around but busy in their own antics.

Down but not out!

Another break this time for sugar cane juice & corn. We felt a lot more energetic with all the sugar getting in. A few more minutes and we were down and came out of the arch we entered in the morning.

There was a large water tank and we washed our hands and faces. The trek had certainly made us think about our stamina. But it was really enjoyable. We were already discussing about the next trek.

Tired and hungry we took another 10 seater auto, stopped in between for food and reached Dobbspet railway station around 4.20 PM. The train was scheduled at 4.50 PM.

It was still having the old ticketing system of a cardboard ticket with the details punched onto it when the tickets are sold. It was a glance down memory lane for me as most of my childhood train travel was with these tickets before the dot-matrix & paper invasion of the railway ticket counter.

The train arrived on time and we started our journey back. Though tired, no one had time to relax. Everyone was busy discussing the blunders of the day or the small and funny events or looking at the photos and passing comments.

At 5.45 PM we arrived at Yeshwantpur. The others proceeded to Majestic.

It had been a memorable day with “a lot of wind, but no air” as the “daughter of my daughter” described it and the not so hungry girl eating way from morning although she didn’t feel hungry. We cant forget the superman wearing the batman t-shirt or the tour guide who limped through the march past we had between the rocks! And of course someone had a problem with the umbrella as it didn’t understand their intentions to fold it when the monkey came and was shouting at the umbrella (or maybe one of us). I was all fine till then until when the eunuch decided to pinch me for not paying attention to her and got everyone to roll with laughter! An apt ending for a nice and memorable day!

A big thanks to Sukesh Soman(my manager at Torry Harris Business Solutions) for helping me write this blog.