Tediyendamol - Coorg 1 Dec 2007

It's not that this was the best trip of my life but stil I will remember this trip for a couple of reasons - first reason is the writing of this blog itself, which happens to be my first one. Second reason will be the numerous pics which Srihari took of me in his camera. Now I"m not a camera savvy person and Srihari usually desists taking pictures. But both of us did a volte face on this trip. I think I wanted to see myself in the camera with my long hair and Srihari sensed this wish of mine and never hesitated to ask me for a pose.Anyway enough of this useless preface. I'll get down to the business of describing the trek/trip.
I heard of Tediyendamol from Raghuram who recommended me to go through the blog site of Rammohan, a common friend. I looked in Outlook Traveller and found a mention of Tediyandamol, in the Coorg section. They gave it's Malayalam meaning also - I'm the tallest. Tediyendamol is the highest peak in Coorg ~1800m and the second highest in Karnataka. ON a clear day you can see the Arabian sea from it's top. I knew I wanted to reach this peak.

There were 8 people including me, for this trip. I call it trip because the first day was spent in Madikeri, the capital of Coorg and it was on the second day i.e.Sunday morning that we climbed upon Tediyandamol. So 8 of us started for Coorg from Bangalore at 12 midnight in a Qualis on Friday. Trip members were - Me, Srihari, Ghadge, Vipin, Shantanu,Ravi, Vamsi and Murali. The driver looked like a nice cultured person and Vipin was really impressed by his collection of old Hindi movie songs. All of them were sad songs so I'm not sure if others were equally appreciative of his constant playing of those songs for the entire journey. It took us less than 6 hrs to cover some 270 km from Bangalore to Madikeri, and we got a nice homestay for us by 6 AM, courtesy Srihari. Except for me, Ghadge and Vamsi everyone hit the bed, since none of us could sleep in the cramped Qualis. Three of us preferred to take the early morning walk in the countryside which we relished. Anyway I had to wake people up by shouting that we had not come to Coorg for sleeping. Everyone got up drearily and we were out of the homestay by 10. We had our breakfast at a place called Athithi, suggested by the driver - but no one really liked it. Then we headed to Talacauvery - the place where Cauvery, the most important river of south, originates. There was a small temple at that place. We paid our respects by visiting the temple and then climbed the stairs of Brahmagiri hill, which offers a 360 degree view of Coorg. The view was nice, but far too crowd and we didn't spend much time there. Our next destination was Abbi Falls, but we couldn't enter into the water there.

After that we came back to Madikeri and had our lunch. We all were tired, because none of us had slept well the last night - and so far Coorg had offered nothing exceptional to us, or maybe we were too tired to appreciate it's beauty or maybe Madikeri and Talacauvery were too crowded. After having lunch we decided to stroll down to Raja's seat - a place from where Coorg's aristocrats used to watch the sunset . We reached there at 4 PM and me and Ghadge occupied a seat facing the direction from where Sun was supposed to set behind the hills. Again lot of crowd, but as the sunset approached, I was captivated by the beauty of it. To me this was the best part of the day so far in Coorg. After that we went into a restaurant, with the intention of having some light snacks, but ended up having a light dinner. No one wanted to roam around and I think everyone wanted to sleep well so that they could wake up early for tomorrow's trek. We purchased glucose,suji toasts, bread jam, mineral water from the town for the trek. I hit the bed at 8 pm and as always :-) was the first one to wake up. Our timing was perfect this time because we reached the base of the peak by 8:30 AM after having our breakfast and travelling some 50 km from Madikeri.

Tediyandamol peak is in the picturesque Kakkabe village of Coorg. The lush green forests, coffee plantations and scenic beauty made me realize that this was the real Coorg which I had heard/read people rave about. The trek from Tediyandamol starts from Nalknad Palace, which is nothing but just a 2 story house. THere is a winding tar road which starts infront of Palace Estate. You can start the trek from there, but since we knew beforehand that the trek is pretty long, we chose to cover the first 3 km by Qualis. We started our trek from where the Tar Road ended.
So our trek started at around 8:45 AM. We were told that first 4 km of the trek is at a gentle slope and it's more of a hithchiking. We had made the trek pretty convinient as were carrying only water and food and rest of our stuff was kept in the Qualis. Initial part of the trek is splendid as you walk through the forest. It is actually a jeep track where only that mahindra jeep which has enough ground clearance can go. You come across several view points from where you can see the villages, the paddy fields and the forest cover below. After walking some 2 km we saw a peak which we thought was Tediyandamol. It was appearing high enough to us. Then we met a group of trekkers who were coming back from the peak and they told us that the peak can't be seen from here and we had to trek for another 2 hrs to reach the peak. I guess the whole group was really enjoying the view and they didn't mind going along if the view remained the same. It got even better as we moved further and now we were into plain grasslands. That is the first place from where you can see the Peak but you see several peaks from there and at that time we didn't know which one of them was Tediyandamol. We wrongly assumed that the one with the steepest slope was TM. We took a break on top of a rock which is close to a waterfall. Had suji toasts there and started again for the peak. The last one km was pretty steep, especially the last stretch after the forest. It was tiring allright, but not exhausting. We reached the peak before 11 AM. So it took us less than 2 hrs for the trek. I think we did it in pretty good time, considering that it was a big group and none of us was really a regular trekker, including me. The view from top was awesome. We were standing tall, all other peaks were beneath us. It was all misty and we couldn't see the sea but we were not complaining. We spent an hour at the top, taking pictures, posing for pictures. WE started our descent at around 12:30 and were back at the base in 2 hrs, but this time we walked on the tar road also. On the whole we did some 15 km in our trek, pretty decent I guess.By the time we reached Nalknad Palace, where our Qualis was, everyone was exhausted. We started our journey back to Bangalore, around 3 PM. We took the road to Virajpet and then Gonikoppal, where we had a pretty late lunch. While passing though the Tithimati forest we spotted a tusker besides the road. The poor fellow was chained which allowed me and Srihari to go quite close to him. Others were too tired to get out of the vehicle. By now everyone was thinking about going to office next Monday :-(. We reached back Bangalore around 10 PM.
Before going to Coorg I'd read somewhere that one Trip to Coorg and it will haunt you for a long time. You might leave Coorg but it won't leave you. I think it is true. Coorg is a place which deserves multiple visits. This wasn't my best trek - I'd rate Silent Valley Kerela higher than this one. But this one was pretty rewarding in the sense that you didn't have to take too much pain to get some spectacular views. I am sure I"ll do Tadiyandamol peak once again, and will also explore the other places in Coorg. But this time it will be most likely on a bike.

Go to the following links for the pics - http://www.flickr.com/photos/21646659@N02/