Another coffee time discussion at Virident and suddenly someone asks, 'what about our next weekend getaway ?'. After some suggestions and googling around, Sakleshpur was chosen destination and the planning began. We decided to stick to our proven activity order of starting on Friday night, trekking on Saturday and doing some leisurely sightseeing on Sunday. The transport and stay arrangements were made in advance thanks to very useful pointers from Yagaty(Now that Yagaty is married, he is promoted to the advisory board of our trekking group whose job ends before the action starts :) ). All these arrangements were happening while our own 'joker'(a.k.a Ankur) was busy cribbing about we always over-planning and doing a 5-star trek. We(Viswesh, Ajith, Nrithya, Joker, Swamy, Gulti-gang comprising Sundeep, Ranjith and Mahesh) started from our office on Friday night on what was going to be an extremely fun-filled and memorable weekend. The 'dynamic duo' did not make it to the trip, but they didn't know that they are not going to be left alone...
After discussing the route with the driver and experiencing some scary stunts by our half-awake driver, all of us settled into our respective places preparing to watch the movie, 'Andaz Apna Apna'. To our disappointment the DVD player did not work, but this disappointment was for the good as all of us were about to discover through the night that there are better ways to spend time through the journey than watching a movie !!. Viswesh took the charge in bringing up topics for debates and we talked and talked on them through the night with most of the time things being non-sensical as if we were tired of talking logic and common-sense in our day-to-day work :).
One of the highlights was a heated argument between Viswesh and Ajith on the climax of the Hindi 'Hungama' on which we argued for about half an hour without reaching any conclusion. This is when one of the 'dynamic duo's (Vineet) was called in at around 2AM to share his movie watching expertise which he thought was a call from some drunken idiots having nothing else to do :D. The 'cellphone generation' comprising of Mahesh and Nrithya dozed off at around 3 AM(Cellphone batteries don't last long anyways !!) while rest of the gang continued(Ranjith had slept long back as he wanted to look fresh for the photo shoots the next day :)) . Finally, we reached Sakleshpur at around 4 AM and we were at the Hullimakki HomeStay at around 4:45 AM. All of us decided to catch up on sleep for a while before the trek.

After a brief sleep, all of us got ready and gathered at the dining room for some delicious breakfast. The dining room was well organised with a beautiful view in the background. We had 'thatte idli', 'chitranna' and 'dose' for breakfast with multiple varieties of spicy chutneys to go along with it. This was the first instance where we got glimpse of the great food that we are going to have throughout the weekend and the courteous hospitality that we are going to experience.

The starting point of the trek was a 800 year old Shiva temple named the 'Bhairaveshwara temple'. This place was around half an hour drive from Hullimakki Homestay.

The first part of the trek was a steep climb through the lush green grass covered hill that provided some breathtaking views all around us.

The weather got a bit cloudy and chilly around the time we reached the top providing a different view of the surroundings.

After about an hour at the top, we started walking down. The walk down was tougher than the climb as there was no route as such and our guide was making the route on the fly by cutting down the plants and the bushes on the way. Finally, we ended the trek near a lake by late afternoon. The trek was a relatively easy one but was thoroughly enjoyable too.

We headed back to our homestay where delicious 'Methi Parathas', 'spiced Akki Rotis' and 'kheer' were waiting for us. All of us had a sumptuous lunch, rested for a while and then headed for a walk through the fields around the homestay.

This is how we spent rest of the evening and the hosts were fully part of the activity.

The dinner had chapathis with a special 'kesu leaf curry' and 'Neer Dosa'(made after threats to boycott dinner by Viswesh) we had a round of 'optimisation problem' to solve on how to best spend the next day. There were variety of interests with some of us wanting to go for the railway track trek and some others wanted to take it easy and do some sight seeing. Finally, we decided to split up into two groups the next day with Ankur, Swamy and Mahesh forming the 'railway track trek' group and the rest opting to visit the 'Manjarabad Fort'.

The next morning we headed towards the 'Donigal' railway station which is on the Mangalore-Bangalore road and about an hour away from Hullimakki. The trekkers headed on the railway track from here and the rest spent some time at the water falls near the station.

As the trekkers continued on the railway track, the leisure group headed towards Manjarabad Fort.


The Manjarabad fort, built by Tipu Sultan is situated right on the Mangalore-Bangalore highway at about 10 kms from Sakleshpur. The fort is at an elevation(about 200 steps to climb) from the highway. The beautiful views of the surrounding greenery from top of the fort is a wonderful experience.

We headed back to Hullimakki, had lunch and relaxed for a while.  The pet-lovers spent some time with the dogs and the rabbits and then we started for Bangalore at around 4PM.  The debates and discussions continued till we reached Bangalore at about 10:30 PM. All of us dispersed carrying with us wonderful memories of what was one of the most enjoyable weekends that we have had.

Consolidated set of photos from Ajith, Ranjith, Sundeep and Swamy's cameras.


Useful Information
Distance from Bangalore - About 250 kms.  Takes about 5-6 hours.
Hullimakki HomeStay - The homestay has 3 rooms and best suited for a single group of around 8-10 people.  The food(mostly vegetarian) and hospitality is excellent.
Trip Organisers - Malenadu HomeStays - Checkout for a good number of homestay options all around Karnataka.

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