When we were trekking KP, we had thought that the next one
should be something simpler where our families should be able to take part.
After considering few places, we zeroed in on Kunti Betta, near Padavapura in
Mandya district. It was a drivable distance and we could plan for a day trip. After
some deliberations, the date was decided to be Saturday, 4th April
2015. Though quite sunny, we were keen as we knew it was not a long trek.
20 of us had confirmed. Manohar and his family, Gururaj and his family, Shrithi and Rajendra family, Hariparasad family, Sujith, Darshan, Muralidhar and Sandesh joined. We had Harish and family who came all the way from KGF. We gathered at the Panchamukhi Ganapati temple on Mysore road between 6.30 to 7 am, and proceeded to Pandavapura in four cars. The traffic on Mysore road is always high, and all the towns on the way make the journey slower. We had sumptuous breakfast on the way in Maddur at Adigas.
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| Panchamukhi Ganesha Temple |
Kuntibetta is slightly before Pandavapura. We have to take right at Devegoudana koppalu. Pandavapura has got its name because the Pandavas were believed to have stayed here, and Kunti, their mother used to hike the hill regularly. Thanks to the Visweswarayya Canal, the whole place looks beautiful with paddy and sugarcane fields. We could also see many ‘alemane’ ( jaggery making places) on the way and get feel the sweet smell of fresh Jaggery in the air.
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| Mallikarjuna swamy temple |
The base camp of Kunti betta has Mallikarjunaswamy temple with Huge Nandi and Ganesha. Kunti Betta is 2882 feet above the sea level and has huge twin rocks on the peak. Opposite is the onake betta, that has a long rock pillar on the top. We started climbing Kuntibetta at 10.30 am by trying to find trails in the rocky terrain. We had few villagers warning us about leopards. One person was quite categorical and said that we would be finished. Though that was a dampener, we decided to go ahead and move in a single group. We had three children, Raghavi and Sinchana who were four and six years old, and Rishi who was slightly older. It was hot and sunny, but the view around was spectacular. There was a huge lake below with pelicans floating on it. Every rock around had a unique shape. After walking for about an hour, we were close to the summit and could see the two huge rocks, but couldn’t find any trail to reach. We explored for some time, and started descending. We chose a path different from what was taken for the ascent. There were some tricky points, but we were down near the temple soon. They were distributing Pulav and Kesaribhat prasada near the temple and all of us got to taste.
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| " French rocks" of the peak |
At around 1.30pm, we left for Thonnur lake, which is at a
distance of 10 kms from Pandavapura on the way to Melukote. The village is called Kere Tonnuru
(Thondanuru) and is famous for Nambi Narayana Temple, Gopala swamy temple and
Lakshmi Narasimha temple. We decided to visit the lake first and come back to
the temples. We drove to the lake which was nearby. The lake is large, looks
almost like sea and is very beautiful. We saw that the water was quite deep
after the steps and were wondering if we should get in, when some people
advised us to approach the lake from the side, where the water was shallow. We
all parked the cars by the roadside and walked through a rough path to the
lake. The shore is dirtied by visited who have through trash all over including
broken bottles. I feel there needs to be harsh punishment for people who spoil public
places. We enjoyed in water for an hour or so, and walked back to the parked
cars, to be shocked to see that Guru’s car window was broken to steal bags. Bag
belong to Harish’s wife and Guru’s backpack were missing. It is possible that people who directed us to
this place were the culprits, but we couldn’t do anything. After spending some
time cleaning the broken glass from the rear seats of the car, we returned to
the temple, only to realize that the temples were closed at 3 p, because of the
lunar eclipse. We just went around the outer
hall of the 1120 AD temple, which is supposed to be very beautiful inside. We
also went around the Gopalaswamy temple, and could peep in to see very old line
drawings on the wall.
