The original plan was to reach by early noon and head to the falls immediately. However basis our late start and leisurely riding, we decided to take it easy and spend the evening around the coffee estates all around us. A few walks through the plantations followed by a long coffee + snacks break at a nearby cafe made it for a pleasant evening. The rain gods decided to play hide and seek with us through the day; starting with a few drizzles at times and then disappearing completely. The cafe owner informed us that we had got a lucky break; it had rained hard a few days back and similar rains were expected soon by Wednesday!
Ironically none of us spoke Kannada, but the locals in Chikmagalur were quite fluent in Tamil due to a large number of Tamilian workers in the plantations so I became the un-official translator
We crashed for the night early; no ACs were required; we had to use blankets to just manage the fan (
lol). Woke up early for another walk/run around the estates; before we headed out to Kemmangundi. The ride up the mountain to the falls is even better; with cemented roads and amazing sights while weaving through coffee estates.
One can reach the falls via three means; hiking a route of ~10 kms with a paid guide; take the government jeep, or take your own 4x4 vehicle. The route is completely offroad route through the Bhadra wildlife reserve.
Charges are nominal
- 250 inr per hour (
not 100% sure) for the guide
- 400 inr per person or 3200 inr per jeep
- a nominal amount for your own vehicle (
I didn't enquire on this)
Since we were the first to arrive, we waited for a while to see if anyone else joined us, but being a weekday, the traffic was minimal. After a short wait, we decided to go ahead and paid the full jeep fee.
The ride is a very bumpy one for ~40 minutes before we are dropped off about a km away from the falls. The walk is adjacent to the flowing water before the falls are revealed to us.
Monkeys are omnipresent throughout the area and one can hear several bird calls all around the place. Even without any rains over the last 36 hours, the falls had a decent amount of water flow. There is a nice pool at the base to relax into; while the adventurous ones can choose to climb up under the falls on the right side. We did that exactly
We had the falls completely to us for a while before a group of middle-aged (
40+) guys joined us. While they were happy to just lounge in the pool, unfortunately, these guys also came with food (
chicken) and liquor (
scotch) and were happily drinking and eating right next to the waterfall. That's when we decided to call it a day and decided to head back.
We mentioned this to the driver/government fella but he just nodded his head and said nothing. Unfortunately, it seemed like this was the norm as I also noticed several empty plates and a few plastics lying in a pile a little away from the falls. Having come from similar sized waterfalls with strict rules enforced in Laos and Thailand, it was a real pity that we don't enforce such rules in our country.
About 2 hours later we reached back to our homestay, packed up and had a short brunch at the nearby cafe before heading back to Bangalore. The filter coffee was so good that I bought half a kilo of his coffee right there
A final pic before we head out