Location: Around 130 kms from Bangalore in Pandavapura, in the Mandya district of Karnataka.
A bit of history: As per mythology, the Pandavas along with their mother Kunti stayed here during their vanavasa. The hill is also known as French rocks as French army had camped in this region in 18th century to help Tipu sultan in his war against British.
Since this is my first write up to
BTC, it needs a prologue. I started to trek quite recently and due to the fact
that people around me were not so enthusiastic about trek, I started to look
out for a group and found BTC. Neither have I known anyone from the group nor
any reference but my hesitation was overpowered by the passion for trek and I
went to Madhugiri trek with them for the first time. I came back with all smiles
and fully loaded energy from that trek even though I had got up very early,
went all the way from Mandya and reached late night (missed my last train and
had to travel by bus). Then again I was up by 6am to narrate my great
experience. The result of my excited narration was, BTC got 2 new members at
that very moment J.
Coming to our kunti betta trek, we
didn’t register for the trek since till Saturday morning we weren’t sure about
our availability. In fact it was quite an uneasy feeling for whole week as I am
missing something which I yearned. Later on our request DY was very kind enough
to allow us to join on our own at the trek starting point. Thank you so much
DY.
We reached 15 mins earlier and I
utilized that time to its best by keeping on sliding over an inclined smooth
huge rock. It was real fun. An onlooker said it reminded of his school days and
how he used to get beaten by his parents for the shorts getting torn because of
the sliding on this very same rock. He was an alumnus of the school at the
kunti betta premises.
Our
BTC trek group arrived and as usual sit-ups and pushups were done by some
trekkers as a penalty drill. After climbing about 50 steps or so is Sri Mallikarjuna
temple next to kalyani. There we took a left turn and started making our way up
the hill. The rocky hill is full of boulders of all sizes, giving us a real
trek feeling. No wonder French troops chose this place for hideout. The sun had
no mercy on us, which made me think the quote “you are the sunshine of my life”
is for love or hate. We climbed all sizes of boulders we could, finally ending
up at a point where further ascend needed a very thin and flexible body type
which none of us had. The hill top presents an amazing view of the surroundings
and the lake below.
We
had potluck lunch with variety of food. Later our own time was used by
resting/chit chatting/photography/exploring around as per each ones wish. By
then a group of 3 teen boys who had come down from the top demonstrated to us
the way they crept in the passage which we couldn’t pass. No worries… we had
enough for that day.
Then
to kill some more time, mafia game was initiated by DY as moderator. No wonder
I was one of the game spoilers because of my ignorance about game and also
quite poor in managing facial expressions. After 2-3 failed attempts, we
successfully completed the game by mafia winning over ignorant villagers. Unknowingly
we had replicated a small piece of history through the game just like we lost
the war in 18th century.
While
getting down, unfortunately a trekker’s ankle was sprained and the way DY
handled the situation, he deserves a big applause. He is lot more than an
organizer. May be team leaders like DY make trekkers fall in love with BTC.
Mahadev led the group while getting down and no
wonder he took a different path which made us to come all around the hill
because he strongly believes that in a travel, return path shouldn’t be same as
onward path. I guess in future treks he will be shifted from lead to trail J.
We reached the base…had tender coconut…did sit ups for saying ‘fine’ and finally ready to leave. Thank you so much BTC for another wonderful day and I wish for lot more such amazing days.
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