After much planning and forwarding of dates, we from PLM united team had gone for a trip to Yaana, Gokarna and Jog falls during Sep4-Sep6 2009 weekend. Group of 24 had gone for the trip and most of the logistics of the trip was taken care by Nandish and Manju. Bus picked me near my house at around 9.30 PM on 4th Sep Friday and I occupied the last seat. Manju and Santosh were the last to board the bus and we took NH4 Road which goes via Chitradurga, Davangere, Ranebennur, Haveri and then to Sirsi our first stop. Around 70% of the road we travelled was good and rest was bad. Initially we had some general discussion inside the bus and after a while we tried to sleep. Most of the time my sleep was disturbed by the voice of Nandish and I think others were also disturbed by noise made by small group lead by Nandish. I saw Santosh was the only person who had sound sleep while travelling to Sirsi. Early morning on the way to Sirsi we stopped at some place just before Sirsi and took some snaps. The weather was cool with slight drizzle and I felt like walking all along the road.
We reached Sirsi at around 8 AM on Saturday 5th Sep and occupied the hotel Madhuvana which we had booked for our early morning stay. The hotel rooms were quite good, clean and worth the money we paid. Due to smart negotiation from Manju we had booked the hotel for about Rs 265 per room. We had booked seven rooms for our stay and Manju, Santosh, Prashanth and I occupied one room. Some of our team members had kept their bags inside the luggage cabin in the rear end of bus and due to water leakage their bags and clothes had gone wet and some of them had horrible time making them dry. After getting fresh, we had breakfast and were ready to leave our room. Also we packed rice item Pulav and banana for lunch to have at Yaana.
Our first visit was at Sri Marikamba Temple in Sirsi. Sri Marikamba Temple houses a huge idol of Devi and after paying our obeisance to God, we started our journey towards Yaana. Our journey towards Yana was full of fun especially the dance by our team members. I had occupied the front seat near the driver and I enjoyed the dance of Murugan, Prashant, Manju, Neeraj and others as well. As we proceeded towards Yaana, the road became narrow and I enjoyed the greenery all round with slight rain making the environment amazing to see. The bus stopped around 2 Kms before Yaana, the time was around 1PM and we decided to walk rest of the distance. As I walked some distance, leeches had already made inroad into my shoe and I removed them with the help of my friend. After that everyone applied Odomas cream and lime which I think is ineffective in controlling leeches in getting you. Murugan and his family decided not to venture out of the bus mainly due to rain and they might have had bad time inside the bus waiting for us for about 4 Hours.
As we walked we saw small water fall made due to the rain, a river near the bridge and view of the forest of Sahyadri hills surrounding us was amazing. This was the first time I trekked in monsoon rain and it was comfortable walking and not that tiring. After walking for about 1 Km the road ends and we have to walk around 0.5 Kms along mud path to reach Yaana.
Manju, Santosh and I were the first to see Mohini Shikara and we made some noise when we saw the magnificent rock formation. We took some snaps and as we proceeded further we saw another amazing bigger rock formation Bhairaveshwara Shikara. Karthik and I took some photos and everyone halted at tea stall which is present near the temple which is at the base of Bhairaveshwara shikara. We had good hot tea and other light snacks midst the rain which accompanied us all long the way. 
We also had photos session and visited the temple where the temple priest explained about the significance of Yaana. Some of us visited the small cave which surrounds the temple and Hemanth was waiting for me take a snap in the waterfall. After having good view of the rocks everyone proceeded towards our bus. Vivek, Ramesh, Ramesh’s friend and I took the stairs which goes towards Mohini Shikara. We climbed down the stairs and we were not exactly sure where the steps were taking us. I took a photo near the base of the rock and we did not go further down the steps and we climbed back and tried to join rest of our team. Vivek and I decided to run some distance to catch up with rest of the team. We ran some distance after that we were tired and walked till we came to the road. We again decided to run and I overtook some of our team members and stopped after I saw uphill climb. It was bit difficult to walk back and I was always looking for the sight of the bus. We reached the bus , had Pulav and Banana which we had got from Sirsi. As usual we were ready for photo session and some of our team members were very keen to get photographed with different styles (Especially Nandish Style). We boarded the bus and with lots of incredible dancing from the team, we reached Gokarna at around 7.30 PM.We had booked Hotel Gokarna International for our stay. Only the name and exterior of the hotel was attractive. Inside the rooms we could see wet ceilings, beds and pillows were not clean and rooms were in pathetic state. Manju, Santhosh, Prashant and I walked some distance till we found Pai Restaurant to have dinner. The food was OK and perhaps lot better than the hotel where we stayed. We came back to our room and rested for the day. I got up in the morning and I had to have some argument with the hotel personnel to get Hot water for bath. Everyone of our team were ready by 9 AM and we visited the Mahabaleshwara temple in Gokarna to have blessings of the lord. We had breakfast and started for OM beach at around 10.30 AM . It started to drizzle a bit and we were afraid that rain will spoil our visit to the beach. Fortunately the rain stopped and as we approached Om beach, I saw beautiful landscape of the beaches and reached OM beach at around 11.00 AM.
The beach was clean and Karthik was the first person to get into cold water and Manju, Santhosh, Prashanth, I followed him. We had good time inside the water and Murugan also joined us. Hopefully Murugan’s son who was always telling about the beach had good team time seeing the sea. All the team members had photo sessions and we came back to our bus and started for Jog falls at around 1 PM.Just after Kumta, we stopped for Lunch at Kamat hotel and ordered Veg Biryani to be parceled. We then decided to have lunch in the hotel itself. We proceeded towards Jog falls and driver told that he would stop at some places where scenery of the nature is worth watching. The bus stopped at a place where we could see a water fall. I took some snaps and rest of the team also were part of photo session. After a while the bus stopped at one more beautiful landscape and perhaps our team members were disgusted that I stopped the bus again for one more view as the team were playing dumbcharades and were in the midst of intense competition. We did not get down at that place and we travelled towards Jog falls. We reached Jog falls at around 4.30 PM and everyone got down to see the majestic incredible highest water fall in India, the JOG falls.
Jog falls was at its full flow due to incessant rain the region had received for the past few days. Jog falls was amazing and the landscape of the surrounding the Jog falls was worth watching. We had a long lengthy photo session and we also took some group photos. I wanted to visit the other side of the falls from where the water comes down and where there is a Bungalow. Due to paucity of time we could not the go there and perhaps some of us were too tired. We had tea/coffee in the hotel which is present in the premises of Jog. We then left Jog falls at around 6.00 PM. We stopped in Sagar to have dinner and most them had best dinner of the trip. By this time I was tired a lot and wanted to have good sleep. Got into bus and occupied seat next to Santosh and I did have some decent sleep. Early Monday morning on 7th Sep we reached Bangalore and I was in my house at 6.30 AM.• I have skipped details about all the team members
• One should carry food/snacks to Yaana. I felt we should have explored the rocks of Yaana more by staying there for a day
• Cost per person for the trip came about Rs 1700
• Thanks to all team members who were part of this trip
One more exiting trip came to end for me and hopefully each one of 26 including the driver and his assistant had good memorable time during the trip.
-Mahesh
