Kuntibetta, a beautiful getaway

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, 4^th 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.

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.

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.

" 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.

Dimension of the lake

Nambi Narayana Temple

Arch at Gopalaswamy temple

Happy to help his mother

We settled there for some time and finished the food that was brought (holige, chapati, chatnipudi and curds). It was quite filling. We left the place after some time and stopped at Maddur Tiffanies for tea. We could see the lunar eclipse on the way and proceeded home after dropping Hari and Sandesh at the Panchamukhi Ganesha temple. Guru dropped Harish at Kengeri to catch the train to KGF.

Lunar eclipse

Kuntibetta is a nice one day family getaway. Except for the theft, it was a nice experience. I thank the wonderful team for their enthusiastic participation and hope to do more suck treks.