Siddara Betta Expedition

This is one of my trackback posts. The trip was as on March 30th 2008 and was planned, organized by Harsha. The participants were myself, Harsha's brother & sister, Rajesh, RajMa, Poornima, Divya, Ganesh, Ruchi & Aaditya, Navneeth, Jyothi M(her mother, aunt).

Route to get there:
Bangalore->Nelmangala->Koratagere->SiddaraBetta

Activities:
- Ascent by steps
- Puja at Sidlingeshwara temple atop the hill.
- Cave exploration.

A week before the trip Harsha had casually asked me whether I am willing to join for a trek to some betta. I replied that I am interested but will confirm later. Two days before the trek he e-mailed to all probable participants, listing everyone as confirmed - with some funny reasons about the people who were not coming. I too was on confirmed list, Nice strategy Harsha ! Ignoring all ifs and buts I decided to get on board.

For transportation Harsha has booked a 13 seater Tempo Traveller. Majority of us gathered at Harsha's home at left the place at 7 am. En route to the destination, when the vehicle was in highway we decided to do some activity. The unanimous choice was Dumb Charades. For making the game more amusing and difficult we decided to mime only Hindi Movies. Since there was no established protocol among ourselves the enacting and cracking-the-clue turned out to be hilarious many a times.

At 10.30 am we were at the foot of Siddara Betta. Harsha briefed us about the mythological significance of the betta. It was the same betta which Lord Hanuman had got sanjeevani to save Lakshmana during Ramyana war. Next we had breakfast at Harsha's relative house. In the mean time Jyothi joined us with her Mother and Aunt. At 12 noon we started off with our first task i.e. ascending to the top by steps.

In the beginning itself, myself and Rajma were in the end. After ascending 20-30 steps the combination of hot sun and just-consumed-breakfast created vomiting sensation. Well Rajma also had the same feeling, his condition was even more extreme and he immediately started to puke while we were resting under a tree besides the steps. After ascending a few steps Rajma puked again. We realised that having breakfast just before the ascent was not the right decision. I was with Rajma when he was undergoing all this trauma and simultaneously was controlling my abnormal biological activity. Inspite of all these we persisted and continued to ascend in installments.

Buttermilk the saviour
Then we came across a cottage type shelter. In it there was a small shop of eatbales. The important thing was that the vendor was selling Buttermilk. I had four glass of buttermilk and it annulled all my abnormal sensations. A great relief indeed, God bless creator of Buttermilk it was an absolute saviour for us.

Since we were not spottable, the rest of the group in front of us assumed that we have given up and returned back. But the determination and persistence took us to the top we were at the peak at 1.30 pm. First we had bath with cold water from small kalyani in temple premises. After that we offered prayers to Sidlingeshwara Swamy.

Cave Exploration
The next activity was cave exploration. Harsha had a local guide for this activity. In initial stretch itself we had to crawl on our knees. In the whole expedition we climbed like monkeys, crawled like reptiles and jumped like rabbits. We had photo session at many memorable places. In between we came across a mini ashram type house, according to the guide in that a rishi is medidating in it for last 15 years. In this expedition also I was in last but one position and Rajma was last. Being in last position for most part of the expedition he earned the tag list->tail.

After the exploration it was time go down. The sunlight intensity has reduced we descended without any difficulty. At 4 pm we back to foot of the hill and had lunch at Harsha's relative house. At 5.15 pm we started our return journey.

Return journey
On the way back we played antakshari. It turned out to be a marathon game courtesy two databases Poornima and Divya. They used to sing songs without even thinking for a second. Others too chipped in with a few songs. The major highlight of the game was difficulty in finding songs starting with 'La', instinctively we were not be able to recall the songs, but after brainstorming we found sufficient number of them.

There were some tense moments while returning. Divya, who stays in a girl's hostel was supposed to be back in her room by 7 pm. But we managed to drop her by 8 pm. Thankfully, after listening about the situation her Hostel Warden allowed her to get in.

I was back to my home by 8.30 pm concluding a memorable expedition in which we(myself and Rajma) were able complete the expedition inspite of all odds.