Day 17: Jog Falls – Honnavara

Without any watches or clocks, we let dreams take over and slept till nine. After a relaxed toilet and heavy breakfast by the falls, we started descending by the steps to the base of the falls.

What a sight! I put each foot slowly down the steps, drinking in the climate, the vegetation and the view of the falls as I descended. It was a good walk. Once down, we clambered over rocks and small streams to reach the base, a small pool fed by four individual streams. Looking around, it was a claustrophobic sight. Remembered Kiran's description of the Grand Canyon, and suddenly made up my mind to go hiking there next! Above, the wind and sun played tricks with the falls – taking individual streams and twisting and funnelling them, before finally converting them to magical mist which swirled and danced as it floated down. There was not much water in the falls as compared to the photographs displayed in the tourist shops above, but the falls are still worth a visit in the height of summer. In fact, I later discovered that in the monsoons, it would be impossible to descend the steps and go within touching distance of the falls – a not-to-be-missed experience.

We wanted to have a bath under the waterfall (à la Liril?) The rightmost fall – I forget its name – is the only one accessible for this purpose. I wove my way carefully through the slippery rocks and stopped just short of the falling water. By here the spray was like rain, falling thick and heavy and accompanied by the chilling wind – now where did the wind come from?

I went and dried myself naturally on the rocks by the pool, looking around at the awesome view. Downstream, the waterfall had cut its way through the stratified rock, and forests had taken over the steep slopes the waterfall had once created. At places, narrow strips of forest had come down almost to the valley floor, making me think of them as “greenfalls”. Various birds had made their home in the numerous crevices on the slopes. What a place to live!

We hardly realized how the time flew. By the time we started up again, numerous cool drink sellers had established themselves on the way – they looked surprised and asked us when and where we’d come from! We made our way up the path strewn with empty tetrapaks, aluminium foil and plastic littered by careless tourists. The tourist pressure was currently 50-100/day, but it can increase to about 3000-4000 a day in the “season” – the rainy season, that is. Another advantage of coming in the summers?

There is a hydroelectricity plant a few km downstream, but it was closed to tourists after the Cauvery water dispute arose. We might have got in with our IIT cards, but decided against it. We were hungry, and it was afternoon – we had plans of cycling to Bhatkal in the evening. Fortunately or unfortunately, there were no immediate buses from Jog to Honnavara, so we had a good trek down the road back to Mavinagundi, where we had a tense lunch of idlis, waiting at any time for a bus that was already late.

It never turned up. Later we had some locally prepared pineapple juice, and sat by the forest check post looking for transportation that was bound to stop there. Still no buses. It was turning five. Had to give up on the idea of cycling today. Honnavara is 57km from here, and it takes two hours by bus.

Most of my treks seem destined to involve a ride in a truck, and the time seemed to have now come. At five, an LCV stopped at the forest check post and the driver agreed to take us. We climbed in at the back. After seeing so many cool drinks at the tourist town, it seemed appropriate that the truck was carrying cool drink bottles. We sat on a tarpaulin on the crates.

The initially few km through the dense forest were really great. Shimoga! I made up my mind to explore this district and surrounding area by mobike sometime in life. Cycling, that’d too difficult over the hilly terrain.

The road was not that rough, but sitting on cool drink bottles was a little uncomfortable. Krishnan became sick a couple of times. The truck stopped a few times on the way to drop off some crates at restaurants and bars. Later I shifted to a prone position which I discovered was more comfortable. It was a memorable ride in the evening. I saw dark clouds gather overhead. Please! No rain so soon! As such we’re lucky not to experience the pre-monsoon showers the Deccan gets around this time. Thankfully, no showers today. Lying prone on the crates, we discussed the interesting shapes the clouds appeared to make. We got down at Honnavara and had dinner at a large clean Kamat restaurant.

Madhu left us tonight to return to Bombay. He has some academic tensions, having received news that he got an EE in a core course. So now we're down to three. Before leaving, Madhu treated us to ice-cream. We shared a litre pack which turned out very filling. Finally slept without having a bath in the mosquito-infested police station. No cycling today.