Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ombattu Gudde (OG-3 with CTC)

Tring tring ......... tring tring ... Hello, is it Ravi. yeah , are you interested in trek to Ombattu Gudde. I was dying to go to that place, and there comes the call. That was a Thursday evening 5:30 and the voice in the phone (Asutosh) said that the trek will start tonight at 9:30 from Bangalore railway station...........Without Hesitation I said I would go :) (Remember JACK in TITANIC who makes to the titanic in the nth moment, so I’m the Jack of OG-3). Aushu briefed me about Chennai Trekking Club, and the measures to be taken in the trek....

Reached home hurriedly, packed my bag and reached Majestic by 9. Met Aushu at majestic and soon met Kiran, Prasanna. We were waiting for people from Chennai to join us. Soon the Chennai train arrived and we all got in to two KSRTC Rajahamsa busses and zoomed off to Gundiya. "Peter" the organiser for the trip, soon took attendance. Have always been to trek with not more than 5 and this trek I was going to do it with 64 others ...... woooooooh, I thought that was a big Gang. Never seen a BUs full of LIFE, started feeling the Chennai Trekking Club. We were soon zooming in the NH and had a stop for dinner at a Dhaba. Started hearing names like "RAmkee" "Balaji", "Palani", "Diwakar" "Jessi".............After a nice Dhaba dinner we all started to Gundiya our trekking starting point.

After a nice sleep, we finally reached Gundiya Check post. Busses are parked and soon guys and gals started pouring out of the busses. Soon Peter(Remember the name, u r going to hear this name Umpteen times), Ramkee and other volunteers started throwing packets of food to people around, I liked it catching it like Jhonty Rhodes, I filled my bag with food supplies and water for the next three days :O We bid goodbye to our busses and started the "TREK OF MY LIFE". Took a right after the bridge in to the wilderness. We just passed a village with people staring at us, little did we realize that they would be the last civilization that we see for three days ;O, believe me it’s true. We just followed the jeep track in to the forest, then I started meeting people, people and more people (Like the agents in the MATRIX, the pupil never ended), a test to my peanut brain... Kept following each other like a trail of wild ants in the Discovery channel, talking, kidding all around. We then hit across our first water stream, "Ok Guys, this is our Breakfast stop" Peter's voice. We soon munched up on apple and bread. "Common guys move it, move it", came a call from Peter again..... Antz, as I call my trekking gang, kept on moving. On the way a sudden voice, "Leeches guys, careful" People all around suddenly stopped, some curious to catch a glimpse of one LEGENDARY Blood sucker, others afraid that they caught one. Then came a sudden loud Shrill Voice , leeeeeeeeech, and a woman was closing her eyes and screaming just coz a small 1 ounce leech started crawling on her socks. Meet REKHA , sorry Leech Rekha, who could give all the leeches HEART ATTACK by her shrill voice. The forest got dense and denser, Humid and Humidor....we all started sweating, stopping at junction points for the experienced people to give directions..... We soon hit the KABINE hole stream and started trekking along the stream. We were directed to follow the stream over the entire trip. All along the journey we kept meeting breathtaking waterfalls and scenic forest. Clicked some snaps, took some cool dips, ate food and continued our "MAJILI". It was soon getting dark and all the hearts throbbed as to when and where are we going to camp. A gang of 40 odd people got in the front and the rest 20 were left behind. It soon got pitch black in the forest, and the idea of Wild animals, sleeping in the forest alone were haunting the 20 ANTZ. All of us started shouting, whistling "Peter, Peter" in vain. No voice replied. Every small sound and light I see in the forest, my Peanut was imagining wild animals.............. I started wondering if getting lost in a Jungle was a dream come true :)Soon a voice and light replied from the other side, It was RAMKEE ....... pooh God he looked like JAVA(MATRIX fame) to me in who guided us to the camp. By the time we reached camp (some flat found in the forest), all 40 who reached early had started cooking Maggi and settled down with their mats and sleeping bags. We just reached the camp looked for some flat ground around settled the mats, cooked maggi, ate and slept. The forest atmosphere was awesome. Have been to many treks before but never happened to sleep in the forest, my adrenalin started pumping. Humidity in the forest made me awake almost half the night. The scare of wild animals made my sleep even worse.

Opened my eyes to see sun rays sneak through the tall Kabinale forest trees. "CLICK" that is one KODAK moment in my life. Active volunteers "GANESH Uncle ,Rekha and others "started cooking Maggi and Tea for all the trekkers. Plan for day 2 was to conquer "jenkal betta 1387m" and return to the same base camp that night. "Guys this is twice the difficulty than yesterday" Peters voice.... Had a quick breakfast(Rusk, tea and fresh apple) left our luggage behind. Some people stayed back and decided to take rest at the camp while the others decided to trek. Peter soon lead the way in deep the Jungle and the Chennai trekking Club ANTZ soon started sprinting the jungle floor. We jumped the stream rocks, waded through thick jungle twigs and thorns, braved the Poisonous vipers, and made our own inroads in the jungle. (SAFARI : make your own roads). We kept on walking along the stream until we came to the "T" junction of streams. That’s called the "addahole stream", took a left and supposed to walk along the stream until we meet a big boulder, take a left there to trek up the jenkal betta. Me being the first time trekker with the CTC (Chennai Trekking Club), met many people on the way, kept on chatting along. Revathi, Jessi , Rekha, Ram, hari, karthikeyan, palani kumar, karthik, Ananth, Jagdish , and many more............. All along the way kept chatting with Miss Jamnagar, made fun with POLO alias MADDY alias Kiran , and BS alias MD alias Karthik, always kept asking Rekhas Leech count...and my travel time sprinted. We were a group of 7 people separated from the rest and trekking in the wilderness, Soon PAAMBU, PAAMBU .... A guy came running backwards. All our hearts leapt out and soon cameras started clicking, That was a brown RUSSELS VIPER, a kind known to be aggressive and have a lethal venom. Hardly half an hour again Our "PAAMBU MAN" sprinted back, Bingo he found one more RUSSELS VIPER, this time a red one. Cameras clicked and voices "Guys don’t go that close ." all followed. A group of 10 people assembled at the boulder, and time was already 12:30. Two of the trekkers returned after trekking the mountain for while, they told us that PETER had just left the place to trek up the mountain, which takes up to 4 hrs to trek up and down to the same boulder base. Ok DECESSION time guys, time was running out and , people started to throw around their own views "Its no point dude, either make it to the top, or keep silent. No point in trekking till the middle of the peak and returning", Then Zennie voiced up "The thin line between sensibility and foolishness" , finally 5 guys including me decided to trek up the peak at 1230, which would take us some 5 hrs to take the peak and down, and 4 more hrs from the base to the camp site. so if we were to start trek then we would reach the base of the mountain by 6:30 and the camp by 10:30 , walking in the forest in the night made goose bumps rise all in my body, then one finale decision "Don’t think we can make it to the top, without GPS and MAP and trail, equal chances of getting lost and never returning to the base camp" made my spine chill. Decided to return from the boulder base to the camp site. That made 3 people "Zenie, hari and one more guy " to trek up the peak. On the way back we felt like we reached no time to the T junction. Had relaxed time there. Then there are many doubtful calls asking if it was the T junction that we took in the morning, after a long convincing sessions we finally concluded, it was indeed the T junction, and took a right from there to reach our camp site. Clicked some discovery snaps and reached the camp site. When we were nearing the camp site, we started getting HEROs and HEROINEs welcome, claps whistles and cheers all around. People started enquiring of how we conquered the trek and all. We then cooled our heels in the stream, had Maggi and settled in the camps for some campfire, anthakshari, jokes by stand up comedian POLO Kiran , and Bad words showering by Mr Ananth. All happened so quickly that time rolled 9:00, then came the shouts from the forest ........ Looks like Zenie and co had made it back. Then the entire camp site shouted, howled and whistled for them to return safely. Aaaah they had trekked to a point where they can see the grass lands and came back. Kudos, great job. We then waited for Peter and 15 others who had conquered the peak to return back to the camp site. Clock was clicking, 9:00 , 9:30, 10:00, 10:30 when people started fearing the worst, a whistle sound from deep the jungle and flash lights, then everyone in the camp roused up and started howling. Then came the Peter (ALibaba) and his 14 trekkers, they quickly had Maggi. Thanks to the helping hands of Revathi, Jessi, shyaam and others they finished the dinner and prepared to sleep. We sat on the rocks of the stream all night and had chat, me, Kiran and Shyaam. We then had to surrender keeping in mind the trek the next day that we are going to have. Oooooh ilaaa the jungle silence ROCKS.

The Third day morning was as exciting as the previous one, the open trees and the fresh air replenished us "Me(in yellow) POLO(in blue) and BS(in black) ". We had to conquer the OMBATTU GUDDE that day. We are supposed to wade through the jungle, catch the way up the ombattu gudde, after that catch the Jeep trail and reach the nearby civilization where our bus is waiting for us. One tough thing about that day was that we are going to trek up the mountain and we had to carry 3 litres of water from the last water spot, for about 20km dry stretch. "Guys, last water spot, fill ur tanks PETER again "So we all filled the bottles, cleared all the plastic and wastes at the camp site, and started our journey back from the wilderness. We soon found a steep trek up a stream which would take us to the Ombattu gudde. MI-2 background music was playing in my mind and we had a similar to Mission Impossible kind of rocks to climb on. CTC ANTZ always warm hearted, complimented each other all along the trek.... cool. After a 2 hour trek we were able to clear all the forest and see the grass lands. Slowly inch by inch we conquered the Ombattu Gudde. Caught some snaps of all the jumping jacks around, among which Zennie was the best At last I felt like "Joginder Sharma, getting the last Pakistan wicket to win T20 world cup for INDIA" The mountains were green enough in April, and the cool breeze was comforting us as we trekked further. This is altogether a different day with carrying our heavy back packs up the Ombattu Gudde, the two days it was a flat terrains but today it was up the peak with maximum loads and the fear of finishing the water made the trek even dreadful. Peter was the sweeper today, he made sure no one got left back. Once on top of Ombattu Gudde, we were able to see a series of peaks flowing around. We just passed from one peak to other until we crossed Ombattu (nine) peaks, that’s where the name Ombattu came from. We hit the Jeep trail, Was happy on one side , but to be frank my soul was sad that I will be finishing the trek soon and all the CTC mates will be gone and I will be left with memories only. Finally after a long jeep trail walk, we reached Hoskere, I can already hear people screaming in joy, and then I could see the white Rajahamsa bus................. oooof did my trek come to an END ;( My heart was already craving for the next trek with CTC. "Met 64 new people: made some friends, Trekked 65 kms : made some cramps, Survived the wilderness for 3 days: made some guts, That was CTC in short for me " After a quick bath in the stream we got in to the bus and started back to Benagalooru. We had seen some civilization after three days. Jessi and I started pulling Revathi :) "ZAM nagar" "Largeness of the heart" and what not, which made her go in to HIBERNATION (mouna vratha for 15 minutes) Hahhahha, that was fun too ;) . The Chennai people had their train at 11:45 and the Hyderabadis had bus at 10:30, so we hurried to reach bengalooru at 11:00, Hope that the hyderabadis and the Chennaites reached home safely. A special mention to the girls who made the trek , Revathi, Rekha, vinoda, and 2 others. Hats off to finish such a herculean trek. I then bode goodbye to all the CTC trek members reached home, took a warm shower "The cuts and bruises paining all over my body : Dats what I call Sweet painful Memoirs "and slept. One refreshing Trek :)

A Special
mention about Peter and Co. Never before taken routes, raked up my passion for trek. "Thanks PETER"


1> Got up Monday morning and was groping "Sun light sneak through tall Kabinale forests" But could only see my BAJAJ fan swirling fast :(
2> Each time I see a glass of water I was looking for GLUCOSE to mix and drink :(
3> Went to the Terrace Cafeteria, each time cool breeze kisses me , I thought of shouting "oooooooooov " as we did at the top of OG ;(

God DAMM I’m an addict now, not to cigars , not to alcohol but to CTC and its trek.
Chennai Trekking Club re-invented ME.


http://www.chennaitrekkers.org

4 comments:

BHARAT said...

Well narrated mate ,pleasure to read

Anonymous said...

LOL !!enough da..
U were the one who kept on asking leech counts?
Anyways, nice to read.. back to trek..

Regs
Reks

gaja ravi said...

thanx bharat :) hey reks, oooof sorry leech reks, thanx for reading ...... hahha

Unknown said...

Nice narration dude....for the moment I felt like I am trekking along with those 65 members of CTC.

Last time I felt this way was when I was reading my first novel "Five point someone" by Chetan Bhagat :)

Keep it coming....