We woke up quite early and decided to have another stint with walking. We had two options, one was to walk through the coffee estate and the other to the paddy fields and stream again, also Vivek wanted to play around in the Hay stack. With these in consideration, we went into the paddy fields again. After some photography sessions, it was time for Vivek to have his fun time. He played all long until he realized that it was getting late to go to other places.
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Abbi / Majjagali falls
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There are few things to do around the home-stay. Most of the guests choose to go a small hike to Bettada Bhyreshwara temple and on the way back a visit to a water fall. Some locals call this as Abbi falls and others refer it to as Majjagali falls. Since we had to head to Sringeri temple for lunch we decided to give the Bettada Bhyreshwara temple a skip and went ahead to the Abbi / Majjagali falls.
This water fall is very close to the road but still makes you feel secluded. There wasn’t a soul when we were at the falls, possibly because the water was cold at that time of day. We enjoyed the serenity and the privacy of the falls. The soul had soaked in enough beauty of the falls and now it was time to get under it. I hadn’t planned to get into the water and hence Vivek went alone to the core of the falls while I waited soaking up the sun. After a couple of attempts to reach the base of the falls, he realized that it’s quite slippery and could be tricky to reach it, but instead of giving up and coming back he found an alternative. He found that going behind the falls is much easier than under the falls. He first found a path to reach behind and then accompanied me so that I can also enjoy the falls from behind it without getting soaked much. This was my first time behind a water fall. I had never seen this happening in my life and it was worth the effort it took to reach this place.
With a beautiful waterfall all by ourselves we had lost track of time and on the way back lost our walking track as well. After walking for half a kilometer in the wrong direction we got back on track and reached Makkithitta to realize that the time was 12!!! We were now sure to miss the awesome lunch at Sringeri. We felt sad that we had to skip Sringeri but then we had to still do a lot work before we left the place. We quickly cleansed ourselves and had a tasty last meal at the homestay before we bid adieu to this beautiful place.
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Enroute Mudigere
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We hit upon the Mudigere road which would take us all the way to Aldur and then on to Sringeri. The condition of the road is average till Mudigere after which it improves. One can visit to a number waterfalls en-route Sringeri like, Sirimane falls, and Shankar falls.
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Bhadra Coffee Stop
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Since we dint have enough time on our plate we skipped all the falls and made our first stop at Bhadra Coffee stop just before the Muthodi forest area. Cold coffee here is a must try here and its not the same as the ones you would get in Café Coffee day, this one has the local flavor to it but still something one must try. But ensure to ask for less sugar.
It was time for us now to really rush to Sringeri, else we would have to miss the Sunset at Agumbe, one of the main reasons to even touch upon Agumbe. Though we were in a hurry to reach Sringeri, we couldn’t afford to miss the beautiful winding roads through the Ghats leading to Sringeri. We reached Sringeri around 5 but the pooja for the evening was to begin only after 5.30.
The temple brings along with it a calmness and peace, though we were in a hurry to rush to Agumbe, the moment we were inside the sanctum the pacing mind calmed down on its own and soaked in the beauty of the temple and the exuberance of sri shardamba devi. Well though this helped us in calming down it masked us from tracking the time and by the time we realized it was late, it was nowhere to close to catch the sunset. We were now sure to miss it.
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Sringeri temple
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Sunset at Agumbe
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We zipped through the Ghats, catching the glimpse of the process of Sunset all along. There was tension in the car, not knowing what to do to ease the tension I just kept looking out of the window all through the way until we finally made it to the Agumbe sunset point. We were there just in time to see the last rays of sun going down. We quickly ran up the stairs to get a better view but the Sun had already disappeared leaving us to capture only the reminiscence.
The traffic started piling up at the view point and we decided that it would be good if we could move out of the place at the earliest to avoid any attacks on our car. Our next task was to find the Doddamane which was our place for accommodation in Agumbe.
Since it was Christmas time, the house was filled with a lot of guests and most of the rooms were filled. We were given one of the rooms that would be used by the family in the ground floor of the house. Dinner is served at 8 and we were served a complete 3 course hot and delicious meal. Post dinner we had to make arrangements to reach the Kundadri hills to view Sunrise the next day.
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Doddamane.
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Doddamane is huge palatial ancestral house of Kasturi Akka. It’s a two floor building with two grand rooms in the first floor and a huge drawing hall. It also houses the famous Swami’s room from Malgudi days. This house has been catering to visitors of Agumbe for the last 35 years and it continues to do so even today. Though the lady of the house is referred to as Kasturi Akka, she is a grandmom to two grownup simple friendly girls.
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