"Scandagiri Hills" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 The next week passed by very quickly, we were all working hard for the JPA module. By Friday afternoon, we finished our exam and were all extremely exhausted. 

Myra, Arjun, and I met our college friends for lunch. Everybody seemed exhausted and hungry. After a few minutes of silence and frantic eating, people started talking. Manish who was kind of the leader of the boys said, “All we need is a good break. It’s been a while since we all went out on a trip. Let’s go a trip”, he said.

Myra and I looked at each other, we haven’t told anybody about our Coorg trip. We remained silent, Arjun who was sitting opposite us did not say anything too. 

“Let’s go to Coorg”, Teju said. 

My heart sank. 

“No”, Anusha said instinctively. Anusha and Swati also came to Coorg with us but they were sitting far away and we couldn’t communicate with them. I panicked, what if she blurts out about our trip.

Maybe, it’s not a big deal if we tell them about our Coorg trip. But we’ve kept it as a secret for so long and also lied about it for so long. Telling them about our trip now seemed like a bad idea. I cursed our stupid idea of keeping it a secret.  

 “Why not, it’s a beautiful place?”, Teju asked. Arjun was about to say something when Rishi interrupted.

“Coorg is more of a scenic place. Why don’t we go on a trek? It’ll be a nice adventure for a group of 20”, he said. Two or more people nodded. 

Soon, more people were warming up to this idea and I felt relieved.

“Where’s the trek?”, I asked.

“Near Bangalore. It’s called Scandagiri Hills, and it's famous for trekking and sightseeing. Its surrounded by the famous Nandi Hills. The specialty of Scandagiri Hills is that the hilltop is very close to the clouds. Once you reach the top, you’d actually be standing inside the clouds.”, he said.

“How long is the trek?”, Manish asked Rishi.

“About 4 – 5 hours, we can go for either sunrise trek in the morning or for sunset trek in the night. You’ll actually be near the stars at night but getting back might be tricky.”, he said.

We were all fascinated by this idea and decided to go on a morning trek. Our plan was to hire a mini-bus from our campus, start at 7PM that evening to Bangalore airport, halt at the Bangalore airport for a few hours and reach Scandagiri Hills by 4 AM. The entire trek would take about 4 hours, so we would reach the hilltop by sunrise. We would come back from the trek by 9/10 AM, have brunch and reach the campus by Saturday evening. We planned it such that we had enough time for rest.

“Get extra layers”, Manish said as we all started leaving from lunch.

We went back to our hostel rooms and I started packing clothes for the trek. I never went on a trek before and going on a trek with 20 people seemed exciting. 

At around 7PM, we all boarded the min-bus and reached the Bangalore airport. We stayed there for a while and started to Scandagiri Hills at around 2 AM. We were all sleepy but full of anticipation. We reached the hills at 3:30 AM. The hills were so high that I had to strain my neck to look at the hilltop. Would I be able to do it was my question? 

A person, supposedly guide walked towards us and we booked him for his guidance. There was nobody in the vicinity but the guide assured us that soon there’ll be a lot of people trekking the hills. Without further ado, the guide started walking along a pathway and we followed him. That path seemed straight forward with only a couple of stones on the way. I wondered if the trek would be as simple throughout. That’s when the guide started climbing the hill on all fours. Some of us stopped walking. 

“Should we actually climb the hill on all fours?”, someone said.

“Yes, seems like it”, Arjun replied.

“But it's so steep”, they said to which no one replied.

We had signed up for this, we had no other option than to do it. Soon, one after the other, we all started climbing the mountain. We slowed down at times but I could say that we were at a moderate pace. Halfway through, someone who was ahead of us shouted, “Don’t look down”.

We all looked down and I literally reeled. At that point, I realized what fear of heights feels like. I’d never been at such a height before and that’s probably the reason for my late realization. I found a lot of people experiencing the same. My mind completely blanked out but the logical side of me said – “You’ve no other option than to climb. Just keep going and don’t look down. Also, you’re not the first person who’d done this”

 Without a second thought and before my mind could trick me, I started climbing at a faster pace. I did not look back even though people from behind tried speaking to me. When we halted for rest, I only looked upwards. Finally, before I knew it we were on the top of the hill. 

Everybody started shouting on successfully having reached the hilltop and I joined them. And then, I looked around. It was breathtaking! We were actually in a cloud – it was misty all around and slightly raining too. 

I was still taking all this in when someone pointed to the sky. The sun was shining orange and seemed very close. It was magical. Even the most avid photographers took a while to take out their cameras.

 

Once the surprise set in, we started going around and exploring the place. The surroundings were spectacular, we got the best view of the Nandi hills. It is then that we realized how cold it was, nice that we wore all the extra layers. 

The cherry on the top was the tea, maggi vendors, and a clean restroom. We all had Maggi and tea and spent a while walking around. That’s when one of us spotted a temple, it was Lord shiva’s – I had expected this, there had to be a temple here. We went in one after the other and had a quick darshan.

After spending a good 1 hour there, it was time to go down. I don’t want to go into the details of our return trip but it was very strenuous to climb down the extremely steep hill. But we were still in the aw of what we saw upstairs and hardly any of us complained. Soon, we were down the hill and looked up feeling proud of our trek. 

After coming back to the campus, while limping back to our hostel, I still had a smile on my face. This would remain one of the best experiences of my life.

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.