0 Caves of Ulavi: Akalagavi

While waiting for Durga and Deepak, I spent time in the watch tower looking down into the valley.


I guessed Akalgavi must be in those rocks. Does not look very far off.

Durga refused to move from this place, she did not want any more walking for the day. I started off alone. About half a kilometer down the path there was a junction, tired looking people sitting where ever they could park themselves. To the left was a staircase going down the hill ...that's the way to Chilume Honda. Honda means pond. It's a natural fresh water spring. People believe that it has special properties and cure certain health problems.


Every couple of minutes air bubbles rise out from the pond bed. The bed looks like ash. I heard some boys speaking that anybody who gets into the pond gets sucked in.


When I first heard about Chilume Honda from the locals, I was expecting a huge pond. ...I decided to move on towards Akalagavi, meaning Cow's Cave. Again the path was downhill. Just the sounds of the forest ...could birds singing but never could spot them. Suddenly I heard a bunch of noisy boys. They were shouting and screaming shattering the peace. One of them was shouting 'howla howlaaa'. I was wishing these guys would keep quiet. No, these guys were young and had all the energy in them.

The dirt track ended and cemented steps with rails started. I steps were steep flanked by really tall trees. The lower I went taller the trees got. I could see the rocks now, rising high into the air and the trees seem to be competing with the rough n tough looking rocks ...and the trees seem to be winning over the rocks.

The group of boys pass me, they are almost running down the stairs while I was taking them one at a time. Soon they go out of sight. The stairs don't seem to end at all and I was wondering how much more to go I'll have to climb back :( Finally the stairs stopped, a massive rock formation ended the path. The cave's mouth was about 20 feet above from where I was standing. The boys had already climbed up there. I climbed up the metal stairs slowly, it was held in place by a 3-stranded cable, cannot say when it might give up. The rocks looked pretty slippery, I took every step with extreme care. The boys also guided me and lent hands. There they are... posing on the right side of the mouth. Shivanand (extreme left, back side) knew his way into the cave's tummy.


The throat was really narrow, one at a time, we had to lie down and crawl in for about 15 feet and then we could sit up. It was dark, we switched on our mobile phones. The next 15 feet we had to move on our bottoms, a small puddle of water, our hands and feet picked up slush. It was getting warmer with every step ahead. We were breathing faster. The passage curved and we were in the belly. Now we could stand up straight. It was pitch dark. I can say it was the darkest moment of my life. In the mobile phone's light Shivanand pointed at the ceiling, they looked like cow's teats. that's why the name Akalagavi. Akala means cow and Gavi means cave in North Karnataka Kannada.


Inside there was a side chamber attached to the main chamber. Unlike the main chamber, the side chamber's floor was uneven. Some where in this room, in the ceiling water was dripping down.



Back in the main chamber, we deeper but the width narrowed gradually and see saw light, we were at the other end of the cave. It was nice to see light again and breath in fresh air.



Way back was easier since we already knew the way but the last part was little dicey for me. As I crawled out and my head was out of the throat, what lay in front was a downward slope, one slip and the fall would end only after some 25 feet! I crawled out very slowly and then positioned my palms into small pits and swung out my legs. Still there was no chance of sitting up. I moved side ways towards my right where mouth widened. I was breathless and sweating like crazy. My hands, feet, tee-shirt and khakis were saturated in sweat and coted with a layer of black dust from the rocks. Even the odor was kind of strong but did not really bother me much. I looked like an locomotive driver.





We climbed down slowly and I was bracing up for the challenge that lay ahead. A steep climb which will go on for an eternity. Normally I do not drink water in the middle of a climb and this time also I did not even though I knew I had lost lot of fluids. I asked the boys to go ahead and went up, one step at a time, sweat pouring out, even my hair was drenched in my sweat, I would stop every 15/20 steps, climb again, stop again... every muscle in my body ached. It was as though my body was squeezed. Finally I made it to the end of the steps, sat down and drank a liter of water. I felt better after about 5 minutes, I resumed my way up the dirt path, this was much better than those steps, stopping to rest and drink water, sweat pouring out... Finally I saw the Santro and Durga saw me shouted "Siddesh is back, Siddesh was back". Deepak and Durga saw my avataar and I told them about the little adventure. Except for the backpack everything on me was soaked in sweat and coated with a fine black soil.

Since morning, I must have walked 10 kilometers and sweat out 3 or 4 liters. I was tired, I needed a bath desperately. Deepak had to spread a newspaper on the seat so that dirt on me does not get transfered to his car. Back at Chaitanya we all bathed, changed into fresh clothes, had lunch, visited the temple and started our journey back to Dharwad.

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Detail: Caves of Ulavi: Akalagavi

0 Caves of Ulavi: Panchalingagavi

I heard about Ulavi caves few years ago from one of my maternal uncles. I was told that some 4 or 5 naturally formed caves were deep inside the jungle, about 4 kilometers away from Ulavi Chennabasaveswara Temple. It would be safe to go there in a group led by a local person to guide the way. It sounded adventurous!

April 30th. Deepak wanted to visit Anshi National Park and spend a day or two there. We left early morning driving slowly while enjoying the sights and sounds of the jungle. Few kilometers from Dharwad we stropped by a pond for breakfast (upit). We moved on slowly and reached Syntheri Rocks. From there we moved on to Anshi. We located government run Jungle Lodges but the staff asked us to get permission from Forest Office at Anshi village which is about 2 kms away. There we met one of the staff by name Nayak who called and the resort and asked to provide us accommodation. We had home cooked lunch of chapati & rice at the only eatery at Anshi.


By the time we finished our lunch we ditched the idea of staying at the resort and decided to move on to Ulavi.

At 3 30 PM as we entered Ulavi, the sight of few demolished houses left me disappointed. The place looked so messy. During my last visit in October 2009 the place looked like story book village amidst a forest full of green trees dripping rain water. Anyway... we got a room at Chaitanya, the temple managed lodge. Durga did not like the place but we convinced her (we did not have options. We went out for a walk, shot pictures of leaves, flowers, butterflies and dragonflies. Later after sunset we went out for a walk. Durga did not want to go, she was scared of darkness. We tried to distract her by showing fireflies. We got back and started looking for a guide to take us to the caves. I happened to meet Sangappa, struck a deal for Rs.300 to show us all teh caves and agreed to meet at 7 45 next morning. We had dinner and hit the bed, Durga slept well but Deepak and I hardly slept.

Morning we were up early, had bath and breakfast and all set to go except for Sangappa. We thought that he must not have woken up from his drunken slumber and decided to go on our own. We inquired directions with few locals but none seem to know much about the caves ...anyway we prepared ourselves to explore. We drove the first 1.5 km stretch and parked the Santro at the fork in the road near a watch tower. The path straight ahead led to Chilume Honda, Akalgavi and Vibhutigavi. The path to the right went towards Shivapura and Pachalingaguhe. We turned right.


Jungle was dense with really tall trees. Cicada noise would fill the air ...it sounded just like a saw mill. Deepak would point insects, he's really good at spotting them. So is little Durga. Not just that Deepak knows quite a bit about insects. he would explain some special quality about them.



Walking was not an effort since we were going downhill, pretty steep at times. Yet I sweat like crazy. Durga was already cribbing about walking (she knew she'll have to walk back uphill). Somehow Deepak and I would distract her. We saw a bright yellow jackfruit slightly bigger than an apple and pieces of another one. Looked like as though some beast left-over meal. I was little worried about running into a bear. Further we saw marks of something being dragged across the path. We imagined some wild beast must've dragged it's prize. We were wrong about the beast and it's prey. On our way back, we saw some men were moving a wooden log downhill!


We were at a fork wondering which way to go, we heard a bike coming from the left. We confirmed the directions, we were not very far from here ...another one & half kilometers to go. From here the path went flat for sometime till another fork with a board pointing right to our destination. The path went uphill, 10 minutes later we were at the peak, we saw a massive rock formation. These rocks were similar to the ones at Yana and Syntheri Rocks.





Concrete steps would take us deep into the narrow valley. I admit it was a bit spooky here but I recalled the local who had assured us not to worry about safety. We walked down cautiously.



If not for Deepak's flash light we would not have seen the Shiva Linga inside. The place was absolutely peaceful. The air was fresh, at least I did not smell anything strong. We spent some 20 minutes there sitting there in silence and discussing how hermits spent time meditating here.




Deepak wanted to sit there longer but I was worried about rains and suggested we turn back. More over, we had a uphill task ahead of us. Deepak wanted to spend a couple of minutes there. Durga and me went ahead and wait at Shivapura cross for Deepak. Soon Deepak caught up with us and from then I went ahead alone. I picked up five-petaled dry flowers and pieces of branches with mushroom on them. The walk uphill must have squeezed a liter of water from my body. I was back at the fork where our car was parked, sooner than I expected. My clothes were soaked with my sweat!

I rested for few minutes and waiting impatiently for Durga and Deepak to join back so that we could go towards Chilume Honda and Akalgavi. The watch tower gave a good view of the green valley below. A massive rock jutted out ...I guesses that's where the other three caves were. I heard Durga's voice and she was happy to be back here. Deepak asked her; what's the most beautiful thing in the jungle? Guess what the answer was?

Car!!

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Detail: Caves of Ulavi: Panchalingagavi

0 Syntheri Rocks revisited

...stopped for breakfast halfway between Dharwad and Haliyal.


A dragon fly.


Durga and Deepak inspecting an ant nest which we found on the road ...must have fallen some time back.


We went for a stroll in a forest lane. Was interesting to note bamboo creations.




We were on our way to Ulavi. We stopped at Syntheri Rocks, visit one for Deepak and Durga. During my last two visits, I had not really noticed the cave formations. These rocks, which are typical to this region (Yana and Ulavi included) seem to have plenty of caves formed within them.







During this visit I also noticed Syntheri Rocks had a high honey bee population. We could see few hundred bee hives. Yellow spots which were actually bee droppings had covered the entire rock surface also the air was saturated with a strong odor. We thought these yellow spots to be an effect of acid rain but our theory was dispelled by a forest guard.



Deepak happened to notice these red-eyed tadpoles. I found it hard to believe they were tadpoles. They were at least 10 times bigger than what I had seen last. Makes me wonder how big the frogs could be.

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Detail: Syntheri Rocks revisited

0 Ulavi

...the story continues from my visit to Syntheri Rocks.

I was supposed to turn right at the forest check-post but instead went straight. After a while, two guys riding bicycles made me realize the mistake. I reversed the car and traced back the 6 kilometers back to the check-post and turned left. From here the forest got denser and about 2km down the road I could smell elephant dung and saw broken bamboo shoots and fresh elephant dung on the road. Another half kilometer down I saw a similar spot, broken bamboo scattered across the road and elephant dung. I had missed them in matter of minutes. Bad luck because I missed seeing the elephants and good luck for having missed possible trouble.



As I moved towards Ulavi, rain got heavier and heavier. By the time I reached Ulavi it was pouring cats and dogs. I parked the car close to the temple gate, got my bag and got out. By the time I locked the car and ran 20 meters to the temple gate my hair was dripping wet. From the gate to the temple my tee-shirt and trousers were wet too. The pujari greeted me and invited me to step into the Sanctum Sanatorium. I applied vibhuti to my forehead and waved the arti around while the pujari chanted a song. I got few flowers and a coconut for prasada. We spoke about rains and mentioned that the day rain was heavier then any other day.





On the pujari's insistence I had food at the temple dining hall ...a thin watery sweet and rice and thili-saru. The meal was satisfying. It was almost 3 and I decided to leave so that I can get out of the jungle before it gets dark. Rain was still pouring.

One last stop, As I climbed up the steps leading to the Hanuman temple, I was surprised to see a herd of donkeys grazing on the slope. From here I could see most of Ulavi- government guest houses on the left, temple and paddy fields straight ahead, the main street and stalls to the right and the temple guest house to my back and of course water every where.




A bunch of farm workers returning home.

Few kilometers away from Ulavi there's a short tower to the right which offered a good view of the hills across the valley. If it was a clear day, probably I would not have liked it so much. The mist added beauty to the whole place. It cleared for few seconds giving a glimpse of the hills beyond and closed the curtain.






I stopped at a forest guard house, the two guards told me about the elephant crossing in the morning. To me it was confirmed that I missed them narrowly. I drove on stopping on and off to shoot pictures.



On the outskirts of Dandeli, I saw people coming out of the cemetery after a funeral. Earlier in the morning I had seen two men with spades walking in.


Water level had increased in river Kali, morning I had seen rocks on the water surface. The river has a deadly reputation- rapids, whirlpools, currents, crocodiles,
etc.



After Haliyal, at many spots, rain water flowed across the road. I twas dusk by the time I reached Dharwad and on the outskirts, near Tapovan I could see few houses inundated.

Later I heard that the day had received the heaviest rains for the season.

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Detail: Ulavi