Let’s come to the point. Agumbe is especially famous for its sunset. You can see a wide view of Western Ghats from this place. But I am really not sure how many lucky pe
ople got chance to see a splendid sunset from there. Because Agumbe receives highest amount of rainfall in south India and second highest in India. Here I go. I have no doubt that it would be a unforgettable experience to see sunset from there but my interest was something else. Due to the year-long heavy rainfall it is a Rain Forest. I had already included “Visit Amazon” in my things to do before I die list. Without any extremely foolish comparison I was excited to see a rain forest in my own eyes for first time.
Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people.
- Randy Pausch
I also had Brick walls infront of me.
1. It is rainy season and yes, I forgot to mention Agumbe is also the Kingdom of King Cobra.
2. This place is well known for leeches and we planned to travel in the season when they are in pick form.
3. It's not a fun to go rain forest in rainy season
4. Agumbe is recently witnessing some naxalite activity
With these all in mind it is not at all advisable to go Agumbe in the month of August with your newly married wife. Thanks to her, ultimately we manage dto grab our sit in KSRCTC night bus service which goes directly upto Agumbe, via shimoga.
We reached Shimoga around 5 in morning, from there Tirthahalli and after that final laps towards Agumbe. If you watched “Malgudi Days”- the famous serial adopted from R.K.Narayan book, you can easily expect Swami will come with his big umbrella from anyone of this lane. Entire serial was filmed here and believe me, the place is hardly changed. After a night long journey in the bus, it was refreshing experience to walk along those misty rain drenched roads.
We reached Agumbe around 7 in morning. There is nothing called bus stop. Simply in the field, bus will stop and that same bus will start from there in 8 clock in the night to back in Bangalore. Regarding accommodation, if you are a non-government employee, 2 options are there. Mallya Residency which is just opposite to the bus stand. Simply a shop owner turned his 2 storied building into a hotel which only provide basic minimum amenity. Or you can ask Kasturi Akka who runs a home stay there. We stayed in Kasturi akka's house as in internet we read some extremely good review about.
If at all any one of them is reading it, I will request you people to be careful while writing travelogue. For me travelogue is not all about your emotion, people use your information while they travel. Here is few true facts about Kasturi Akka’s great home stay.
• Hospitality-wise it was an excellent experience. You will feel like a part of her family. Unfortunately I dislike being feeling like home while I am traveling.
• She will pretend like everything is just for fun, be careful every thing is being charged.
• Accommodation they provide, I put bet never sunlight enters inside the room.
• No attached bathroom, even no bathrooms are there in your floor you have to go all the way dow
n outside the house for that bathroom. Keep in mind, you are in King Kobra’s territory.
• Foods are South Indian only. No complain about it. Just to provide info. No non veg.
• You can not order your food, you have to eat what they are providing.
• But with all if you really like to see one ancestral house of Karnataka this is the perfect place.
• Rate wise pretty cheap
• But I would recommend go and stay in Mallya residency atleast they are bit more professional (costwise it will not differ more).
After getting rejuvenated in Kasturi akka’s house we got some breakfast there. During that we meet one Infosys lady. She has also come here alone. She was going for some trip and offered us to go along with her(Though Kasturi Akka charged Rs 500 for this trip which we never asked for). She was going with some of Kasturi Akka’s relative in Maruti Omini that the family owns.
Kundadri
First we went to Kundadri. This is basically a hill top having
a 
very old Jain temple. The view from that hill top was amazing. Even that Jain temple has some great sculpture. As per they told us Mughal has destroyed every temple . But they could not find this temple in hill top. People have moved those sculpture from village below to save those from Mughals.
Jogi Gundi
Agumbe has many waterfalls nearby. This is the easiest one to reach. This is the first time we realy enter inside the rain forest. Trees are really different here. Long trees causing dawn like darkness inside. If you even don’t
know it is a rain forest still you can make out some thing is different from other Jungle. Here we first met with our beloved friend, leeches. Man they really suck you and so much they love you. Though this is the easiest one to go, this rainy season has thrown great enough challenges for us. Even things got more complicated where tree falls on the narrow road to the falls. Falls is small one but worth going. Somehow I was very content to trek as that falls was inside a rain forest. It was a great experience to be there.
They also took us to some near by temple. That’s all Kasturi Akka’s great tour plan. It was around 1 PM. We had no intention to take lunch there, still hardly any other option was there and more over we felt bad to ignore Kasturi Akka’s request.
Sunset Platform
Sunset point is around 3 Km from Agumbe. We started around 3:30 PM. It was a pleasure walk. But all the way through the walk, you will find many buses going towards Udupi. Stop anyone of them, get a 5 rupee ticket and they will drop you at Sunset point. One more important thing, carry some I-card while going. gurd at check post will harass you without any I-Card only for some 20-50 rupee.
View from that place is breath taking. But that platform where you will stand to watch is too dirty. Thanks to tourist like us only. Why the hell common sense is so less common I don’t know. Even that place is not big enough, authority can have some arrangement to keep it clean. But they are more than satisfied with the performance after putting one signboard. “Agumbe:- World famous Sunset spot” .
If you are lucky and that day was not cloudy enough you will get a view of Arabian sea from here. Before reaching to that platform, there's one staircase going upwards. If you follow that you will find some alternative sitting arrangement with much better view.
Barkana falls
On the first day itself we lose our hope on Kasturi Akka. We went to Mallya residency. They arrange for some trekking to Barkana falls with very minimal rate. This is the best part of our travel. Rather I can say one of the best part of our all travel experiences. From Agumbe first you have to go upto Malandur. They has provided a car drop till that point. This way was itself a memorable journey. with deep forest on both the sides.
In Malandur, we met Krishnappa. It was raining sometime. But here rain was also fun. It heavily rains for 15 mins then stops for next 30 mins. From Malandur our journey of life time began. We go inside the forest. Deep forest all through and we had a trek for around 2.5 hours. After that we reached Barkana falls view point. I was little disappointed after reaching there. We thought like we would go upto the falls but it actually is first view point for Barkana falls. It was so much foggy that we could not even be able to see anything and our guide started telling you can't see anything more than that in this weather. I was disappointed. But we decided to stay a while to test the luck and it worked. After a 30 min wait, everything got clear up for a while. View was heavenly. I never saw a valley such greenary before. Even that falls view was too good. You would even get to see Sita Nadi falls from there (not very sure of the name as our guide didn't know anything else than kannada, what unfortunately we hardly make out)
Actually from there road was completely closed due to rainy season. Even if you want travel further you must have proper gear like tent. Because if you go further it is hard to come back on same day. From there we have to go towards Narshima parvata, stay there and from Narshima parvata go further upto Kigga village. From Kigga transport will be available to Sringeri. But due to Naxalite problem police authority normally doesn’t give permission to go further from Barkana falls view point. Whatsoever, I was more than satisfied with this trek and thanks to god for clearing those fog for 30 min. Then we came back along the same way but with some other route. During this trek you have to cross tunga river fore couple of times and no need to mention - leeches are eagerly waiting for you. So be prepared.
After returning back to Kasturi Akka’s house we took our lunch and it was time to take rest. In the evening took 8PM KSRTC bus for Bangalore. We got more than expected from a weekend tour to Agumbe that too in rainy season ...
2 comments:
Hi, this is a detailed review of the place with all the possible facts that a traveler needs to know. Greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!!
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