Mandargiri Hill, A day trip from Bangalore to Mandaragiri betta, Jain Temple
Hurry up or you’ve be sun food there!- this was the status of my family before starting the trip. Definitely, it was one of the weirdest of weather I had ever seen. It was ice cold in early mornings, scorching hot in the mornings, humid in the afternoon and flooding rain in evening. So, it was obvious such a statement to come.
It was already 8 by the time we thought the process of having a trek. So, by the time everything was ready, it was 9. We left at 9:10AM correctly. As always, the journey was something that I can’t describe! But on the other side the thing that was not always was that this time we were visiting a very rarely heard place called Mandaragiri hills. they say that tourism is very less here.
I was super excited for this trip! The journey takes an hour and thirty minutes to reach from Bangalore to Tumkur
When we had reached the area, there was a huge entrance that had written on it-“Mandaragiri hills”. We have to drive 1 km from here to reach the hills.
These are a few pics on the way after entering in.
After a while, we reached the bottom of Mandaragiri hills. It looks like a flight of never-ending stairs to me… as this place did not have many tourists, there is no entry or parking charges. So we started with the quotes-“let the trek begin!”
After climbing half the way, I took a breath stop and looked around. It was so nice. We are surrounded by bushes and trees. My energy was scooped up by the leaves & trees. We climbed and climbed and…………
Huff… finally reached the top. After panting for a second, we started to follow the people into a small opening in the compound wall of that temple(maybe because we had no clue where to go!).
After a walk of a few minutes, we found a small door which was the entrance to a Jain temple … Reconstruction was going on here. There was a very tall pillar right in front of the door.
We came out of the temple and saw that there was a connection between the hills(these are just small humpy structures), so we started climbing and roaming around that place for fun.
The green mountains, crystal clear rivers, the white clouds and a chance of seeing them all on the very top of another cherished mountain was just beautiful.
When we felt the time was to head back, my father(as you already know) is always behind “Adventure”. So, his opinion was that instead of climbing up till the compound and then heading towards the stairs, we could take a shortcut by just going around the mountain. It not just sounded crazy but was CRAZY!!
But as always, no one can deny an adventurous man. For a while things were good. Then he asked us to wait till he climbed up to the compound (the only way to the stairs is through a last few steps from the compound). But suddenly, his adventurous voice became cold and scary (for me). He instructed my mom and me to come from the other way- from the compound that is normal way-for this part of the mountain he was climbing or trying to climb was super steep.
Right on his command, I rushed back in the same way towards the compound; until I turned to find that my mom was still there- urging my father to go up so that she would come in the very same steep way. Is it a hobby not to listen to husbands? IDK! By the time I hurried up through the compound road, they were successful in climbing it. Huff… how scary it must have been?
Soon we started to climb down. Climbing down is no difficult job if you ask me. We went like zoom. After getting down, we were very lucky to get some delicious cake on the way to our car. It was a girl’s birthday and they were distributing it to everyone who climbed the hills. hehe, lucky me.
Now we entered the new peacock feather architecture.
This place was surrounded by a flower garden! Its bushes were like a compound and we were to follow its path. This peacock thing was a Dhyanamandir- a place where every one comes and does some meditation...
From inside, there were carved on the walls the story of a Tirthankara. We stayed there for a while and headed to the car again. The good thing about this place is no Parking fees and very less crowd.
Now, tell me who wouldn’t be hungry after a long journey, so we spotted a good place in the woods to have a good lunch (we had packed our own lunch for there are no recommendable restaurants nearby). While having lunch, I spotted a super scary, sharp-fanged bulldog (my feeling) which was actually calm, had no sharp teeth and was not a bulldog but a cute dog. As you know, complicating things is in me and you also know that I am too scary for dogs to pity or love them. My father gave some food to it on the other corner.
Followed by the dog, there came three little village boys asking for food.
We found that they were playing with a cycle tyre and hitting & chasing it. That was the first time I saw that game. So, we made an exchange offer for fun. We give them some food and they give us the stick and tyre to play for some time(otherwise also we would gave them our food). And guess what, they agreed. For the first time I observed, then I caught through its pace and enjoyed it.
Wow! This was the first time I got to play such a game! I had heard about it from my father about his childhood days.
Satisfied with the time spent there, we sat in our relaxing seats of the car and said goodbye. I slept for almost half of our journey back home. Due to the non-continuity of our driving (meaning: we stopped many times for various reasons) we reached home at 6pm.
THE TREK TO MANDARAGIRI HILLS
Well, its time to say goodbye, but we shall surely meet in my next crazy trek. Till then take care and be crazy!
Bye!
Distance: 60km From Bangalore
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