We had enough from our offices & wanted to escape to some place were there was nothing to disturb us.
The planning started & we choose Kalasa to be our weekend destination.We opted for a home stay UPASANA RETREAT(http://www.upasanaretreat.com/) in kalasa as our accomodation & started our journey from banswadi bangalore at 6:30am on saturday.
Kalasa is a small village at the foot hills of Kudremukh peak in chikamangalore district of karnataka.
Sreejith & Thushara accomponied us and we four started for a weekend trip to an unknown hill station.
The route taken was
Banswadi-yeshwnathpur-nelemangala-CR patana-hassan-bellur-kothigere-kalasa.
we have to take a left from nelemanala to go to hassan.From yeshwanthpur take the elevated toll road to tumkur & after the toll plaza 3rd exit will take you to the nelmangala junction from there take the left road to proceed to hassan.
just before the exit there is a signboard showing the direction to mangalore.and if you miss that,just near this exit there is a hanuman statue made out of rock.
From nelemangala around 100 kms the roads are very good 4 lane roads & one can easily cruise at 100kmph without much worries.However after some time road narrows down to a two lane & then on, the roads are not that great thanks to the widening happening.Expect a lot of diverisons & patch work on these road till CR-patana. After Cr patana till hassan the roads are again two lane but in a better condition.The sign boards will lead you into the city of hassan.Once you take the diverion into the city you have to take the left at the first junction that you come across & proceed staight untill you get another signal.Go staright in this signal & take a left at the T junction ahead.This road goes leads you to belur.Proceeding in this road you will cross few good hotels namely kadmba on your left & then you will cross the famous SDM ayurveda hospital on your right.After the hospital proceed little further & you will come to a Y junction here you take the road on your right to proceed to Belur.
Belur is around 40 kms from hassan.The roads are good till bellur.
once you reach bellur you wll see a junction & that junction you have to take a left which will take you to kalasa.
Kalasa is around 95 kms from Belur.Few of the places that come in between are Mudigere & Kotigere.
Bellur to Mudigere roads are some what good ,but after wards the roads become really twisty and surafce becomes rough.your average speed drops drastically and you need to be extra careful on the turns while driving.However the route is scenic and it takes you through some thick coffee plantations & forests.
Most importantly don’t forget to fill your tanks at Bellur and if you can reach kalasa fill it up there.Because finding a gas station in high range could be calling for trouble.
However when you reach kalasa you will see the Kalaseshwara temple on your left side.Turn Left here (this is the only way you can turn any way) and then proceed till you see the kalasa police station on you left.
Upasana Retreat our stay for the next two days was located further ahead in a place called Samse.Samse is around 24 kms from kalasa.After turning left at kalasa police station proceed staright.Watch out for a sign board on your left which says Samse.At this junction take left and proceed staright,after a km or so you will find a dead end, turn right here & proceed untill you come really close to a tea estate,now on your right side you will see a un-tared road going almost in a u-turn fasion.only other land mark here is a orange box hanging on some telephone line post.Take this road and proceed staright..don’t take any diversiosn from the this road(can i call it a road ?) untill you see a gate were UPASANA is written.
Note:- Don’t try to locate this place after 7:00 PM.
The home stay was awesome with a decent pool & very good rooms.
We were treated by a very intersting mallu here by name Romin (http://tatkalticket.blogspot.in).Intersting because he is one of those few who i knew who had the balls to quit a high paying job & follow there heart. This person was a engineer in GE and one fine morning he decided to quit the job and follow his passion of treking.He is in kudermukh for few months & then he has plans to proceed to some were else & follow his heart.
I wish i had guts to do such things any way..
When we reached upasana it was around 1:30 pm & we were given lunch as soon as we entered the home stay.After the lunch it was time for some rest.Romin told that he had plans to go for a short trek on that evening at around 4:30 and he offered us that we can join him if we wish to.We got exited & at exact 4:30 we were ready for the so called trek.
5 minutes into the trek & we realised that it was not a good idea.The heat was unbearable & our body was completely aching form top to bottom.Very soon we realized that we can neither keep pace with an ace trecker & neither we could manage to come back climbing all the slope that was there.so after a 15 minute walk we gave up the idea & returned to the stay.The rest of the time we decided to spent in the pool & relax.
after spending around 2 hours in the pool it was time for a quick shower,dinner & some chit chat with our hosts.Romin shared his experinces with us & it was very inspiring.
We left for bed at around 10:00 pm in the night.
Next days plan was to go to the near by tea planation in a 4X4 to catch the early sun.
The jeep was ready by 6:00 am and we left for the plantation.We got to see good sun rise
The drive was scenic & fun
We came back to the home stay by 8:30.
We had a awesome breakfast on that day and checked out at around 10:00 to proceed to horanadu temple.
While driving back we met a localite there & he was ready to pose a quick pic for us
To go back to horanadu temple we have to come back to kalasa.
On the way back to kalasa we got a glimpse of the kudermukh peak
Form kalasa it almost 8 kms but the rough roads & twisties will keep you on road for more time.
The annapoorneswri temple here is famous and very ancient. It is believed that a person who seeks the goddess’ blessings would never have any scarcity for food in life.After having darshan and taking part in kumkuma aarchana here we started back to bangalore at around 12:30pm.
We reached back at Bangalore around 8:00 in the night.
Verdict:-
Place:- KALASA;- excellent for treckers.Highly Recommended
Homestay:-UPASANA RETREAT:- Highly Recommended.