Went on a day's trip to Hoganekkal. Hoganekkal means "Smoking Rock" . But you cannot take a puff of your cigarette while anywhere near the rocky waterfall...the misty spray will puff it out.!! We left Bangalore at 7 am on May day. Took the shorter route via Hosur/Denkanikota because of the incredibly picturescue sights and almost nil traffic except for some occasional buses. After Denkanikota the road is winding up and down the hills & quite narrow at some places. At some stretches its so narrow that if you meet a TN bus you might have to reverse back till you find a clearing for allowing the bus to pass!! The road has been done up recently though at patches it is very bad ---in all about 10 kms road is bad. The virgin forests on the sides.....the sound of the crickets and beetles and strange songs of unseen birds made the journey pleasant. We reached hoganekkal around 11.30 only to find the place literally teeming with people / cars / tempos /buses. It looked like all the holidayers from bangalore and small towns of tamilnadu have zeroed in on hogannekal!!! Right enough, there was no accomodation available at Hotel Tamilnadu (a TTDC Hotel) & we got two A/C rooms at CM Hotel. Quite dingy, but with clean beds /toilets the Rs 1000 per room was not so undaunting. By the way Hotel Tamilnadu at hoganekkal is not well maintained like in other cities so it did not make much difference to stay in this place!!
Normally, the boatmen of Hoganekkal crowd around visitors and try to lure you into accepting their rates for rides. But on May day we had to search for boatmen...but we were fortunate to see a boatman near the hotel itself. After much bargaining Babu the boatman agreed to scale down from Rs 2500 to Rs 1700 ....the package was for taking us in a jeep with his coracle to a place 10 kms uphill (Billigundlu) & bring us back in the coracle to Hoganekkal with a stopover for snacks / drinks in a desolate island. (you have to carry everything!!). We placed the order for fish fry, fish curry and rice with Prabha (pirabha) an excellent cook whose name we remembered since the last trip. She said it would be ready when we reach hoganekkal from billigundlu.
The first leg of the boat ride was fraught with problems as Babu had not bargained for the water level being so low and that the rocks would every now & then stall the coracle. He had to get down into the water and guide it to avoid hitting rocks. Of course, we lent him a helping hand by getting into the water ..as our spirits added with cool vodka were also soaring with the temperature in mid afternoon. In one of those misadventures I slipped and fell backwards very clumsily into the water which my sister even now doubles up in laughter. She recalled so many times the comical way i fell into the water that i should attempt acrobatics more suitable to my age!! Fortunately, the video camera was not being used as the there was a lot of water in the coracle itself...or by now she wd have shared the spectacle of my fall with all the nieces /nephews and their kids etc etc. :)
The boat ride took nearly 3 hours and we were ravishingly hungry.. the small island we chose to have lunch abounded with monkeys who were up to their tricks to get a morsel. Prabha,the cook stood sentry with a stick in hand. Babu, the boatman was also exhausted but he took us again for a ride near the falls and under it too soaking us fully.
We left Hoganekkal at 6.30 am and returned via dharmapuri. Just before dharmapuri there is a left turn towards Hosur - signage says 80 km...good we did not take it though the road was supposed to be good. Another left turn just before Dharmapuri ....is the toll highway and it was sheer bliss of driving between 120 & 140 kms to reach Krishnagiri where we had our breakfast at Saravana Bhavan. The return journey was an uneventful fast drive in the four lane highway...reaching bangalore at 10 am.
Distance from Bangalore to Hoganekkal via hosur / Denkanikota 134 kms
Hoganekkal to Bangalore via Dharmapuri / Krishnagiri/ Hosur 190 kms
Tips: Go by shorter route and return in the longer route.
Boatman Babu +91 9442352902 ; Cook Prabha +91 9442824557
(you have to bargain)
