One Day trek at Kunti Betta

All our life we either follow a trail or we make our own, we explore and reach a destination. Both ways are happy ways but one won’t make out the difference between, steps followed on the path left by someone and explored path by yourself until you really do it.

But 19th July Kunti Betta Trek truly made difference when the trek was everybody’s exploration.

This was my third Trek with BTC and we were 20 in this group. Sushmita was the only known person to me as I reached in the morning. Morning was pleasant and showed signs that it would rain. We started at around 7 am. 

Kunti Betta, is in Pandavpura town which is 130 km from Bangalore. So it takes around 2 and half hours to reach this place. The fun started as we started playing Dumb Charades. It was the most enjoyable Dumb Charades that I have ever been part off.  Sreemoyee added the tadka of her acting skills into this and believe me guys she was awesome. She had to make her team guess the movie “Anwar” and she put the whole wild life into her acting, to make her team understand “Janwaar” first and guess “Anwar” later. But the way she edited the word with hands and face expression was truly a highlight. I guess we have now enhanced version of Dumb Charades and it was laughter riot whenever she did. 

Each and every person tried and participated. And few of them were so much talented with English movie names that we had record breaking 11 words movie and Soma had to perform on it. There was another trend of guessing movie name like “Mandakini”, “Tambu Mein Bambu” and “Mera Aachal tera Hua “. I guess these are limited access movies for some as these were never heard of.  LOL

We had our breakfast at around 9 am at a hotel on Mysore Road. Idlis and Dosas were served with Butter on it. It was nice breakfast to start with. We also packed our lunch and started off again to reach Kunti Betta at 11 am. At the base of this hill is a school where we assembled for our introduction. 

Hiren, Ritu, Sreemoyee, Ruwise, Gaurav, Aman, Simachala, Pratibha, Geeta, Srikanth, Neer, Sushmita, Sudesh, Brajesh, Neetu, Raghavendra,Vaibhav, Amrutha, Suma.

We started trek at 11 am, through some old ancient rock temple with beautiful carving. There is also a small pond which seems to be dried up and unmaintained. As I have been before to other trek I found this trek much easier. The weather made the difference. The day was cool and the whole walk was under the clouds. We didn’t get exhausted at all. 

As said this was like a scattered trek and to draw your own route is fun. As the rock are not huge and steep it makes easier to ascend. We mostly were in group of 3-5 taking our own ways. But nowhere did the organizer ignore anybody. In fact I have seen Hiren walking almost thrice down the trail to make the last group to get going. Ritu was taking care of the least experience and first timer. 

For me, it was whole lot of mind game to find your own path to the top of hill. This trek was more of your palm grip than your foot skill. Sometimes you needed to use your palm to lift yourself to next level. It was total out of your comfort zone and yet the best of experience. Around 1 pm we all were on the hill. When I reached, Neer was on the vertical rock post of 50 feet. Incredible Climber I say. 

The view from the top was panoramic. The grey clouds and the silver lake, the lush green fields, coconut trees and the red tilled soil was heaven to speak about. Nature is amazing I guess. One needs to just stand and watch, it will surely mesmerize you. The gutsy wind and the clouds waiting to pour down was the moment to drag yourself out of your old routine. We relaxed, ate our lunch and took pictures till 2 pm. Lemon rice was amazing. It was decided to trek to the lake side rather than climbing the parallel hill.

We descended down very quickly and took the walk between the fields and herd of goats and sheep. It’s different to be around something which is not regular. We spent half an hour around the lake. We had done the Kunti Betta trek and lake walk by 3 pm and as we assemble near our TT. The driver suggested us for a drive to a nearby lake that is 35 km or to a water fall that is 25 km. We decided to go for the waterfall. 

This time in the bus we started with Antakshari. And like dumb charades we had another enhanced version of antakshari dedicated to Gaurav. He was in the opposite team and he would only want to sing on the song that ends with “Ba”, “Ta” and “Y” and “D” ( Please translate it into Hindi letter) . and to  his happiness an our sheer pleasure we would end our songs with his favorite letter. His “Dum Malang Malang” will be remembered for its stretch. The anthra and mukada was just three lines accommodated into the 3 paragraph of the whole song. Amazing Gaurav . By the end of the day we almost planned to open BTC Acting (Sreemooyi) and Singing (Gaurav) school. Gaurav has amazing “feel“ for songs.

We reached this water fall as said by the driver, but it was just a extended Kaveri river. The place was good and what excited me was the bamboo round boats. The ride was good and only four of us(Aman, Neer and Geeta and me) took the ride. It was just a different experience and but we could not get into roaring river. We left this place at around 5 pm. 

Our dumb Charades and Antakshari continued till we reached Bangalore. Whole lot of memories and amazing group and well spent day.

Kunti Betta would be tagged into lifes of all the 20 trekker. Thank you all.

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It was July 15th as I received a mail from BTC trek organizer for EXPLORATION TREK TO KUNTI BETTA on 19 JULY 2014. I registered early morning in 16th July and was waiting to get shortlisted…..mailbox was open n I was keep checking the mail box….finally I received the mail for shortlisted candidates…including my name…..I was very happy and excited coz it was my first trek. Now I was waiting for 19th July…(day for the trek).On Saturday, Got up at 5:10 AM and got ready very fast and reached the Boarding point Shantala Silk House  Majestic Bangalore by 6:50AM…..I got late for 10 min n….met Ritu and Hiren, get in to the tempo and took the seat.

Then tempo started and after few minutes all members were divided in to two teams….and the fun time was started….with Dump charades. Then we took a break on the way at Bidadi to have breakfast, it was nice place (Idli hotel)

All of us enjoyed here tasty idli, tea and coffee,this was the place where all BTCans got the time to get to know each other. As breakfast over, collect the lunch pack n again started the journey and game.

Finally arrived at destination…Kunti Betta around 10:30AM fortunately weather was very nice n slight drizzle made the travel enjoyable. So we started the trek ….here was a Ganapati temple

There and we had a quick look around the place. The painted steps leading up to the temple looked nice. The place was very neat and quite.

The hillocks surrounding the place looked a little weird. It looked like someone had piled some smooth rocks here and there. We were to climb Kunti-Betta(hill).

All BTCans reached the top within 1.30 hr to 2 hrs but I needed to climb slowly.

Once we got to the top, we sat down around the big stone pillar there and rested and chatted for a while. We could see a sugar factory and a lot of sugarcane plantations from the top.

A few pretty looking villages with tiled roofs and a lake were also visible. We had a quick lunch and by 2.00PM, We started on our way back. We followed a slightly different route and on the way we met a few of the locals herding their sheep and goat. After that we set off for the nearby Thonnur lake and then get into the Tempo and leave for  Balmuri Falls…It is a popular picnic spot on the way to Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS), the river Cauvery flows like a natural waterfall here.

This is an awesome place to spend a leisurely afternoon/ evening getting drenched in the water body. The coracle ride adds fun to the element. We all spend around an hour here.

Then we set-off for Bangalore and on the way back we again stopped for some tea.

Finally we reached Bangalore around 8:30PM with super ending of super trek and beautiful memories. I would like to keep continue treks with BTC.

I was expecting an easy walk as it was my first trek but it was not that easy and required one to use both hands to lift and balance oneself while climbing over rocks. It was great fun and all of us helped each other. Especially our organizer Ritu and Hiren helped me a lot….as my bag was very heavy so they both n some of team members were carrying my bag n were helping me in climbing over rocks…..were guiding and appreciating me whole the way. So I was able to complete my first trek successfully.

Written By        : ​Sunita Nair & Neetu Sharma

Organized By    : Ritu & Hiren

Date of event    : 19th July 2014

Members Count : 20

Place                : Pandavapura, Mandya

Pictures            : BTC FB Page