Night Trek and Cave Exploring At Antaragange

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have, if only we seek them with our eyes wide open."

 - Jawaharlal Nehru

Last weekend was one of those rare long weekends with five days of festival holidays. I had been planning for these holidays since a month back, searching through all travel websites for best hotel deals and reading travel blogs for weekend getaways near Bangalore. Finally zeroed in on a night trek and cave exploring at Antaragange organized by BMC (Bangalore Mountaineering Club). The words "night trek" and "cave exploring" were enough to excite my adventurous nature. The BMC group was very well organized. I had sent them a mail to enquire whether the trek would be easy enough for my parents. They had a good ticketing system for all enquiries and responded promptly.

Next on list was booking hotels for the weekend. Luckily, Goibibo was offering 50% discount as part of their anniversary sale.

Everything planned and set, here's a short summary of the weekend:

Oct 3rd, 2014 (Fri): My parents were arriving from Chennai in the morning train. I had gone to the railway station to receive them and from there we took an auto to our hotel, "Abids Inn Homestay" which was located just behind Silk Board, in a very calm and peaceful residential area away from all the city traffic. It was more like a serviced apartment and we were given a room in a 3BHK flat. The other two rooms of the flat were already occupied. The kitchen was furnished with all vessels, a stove, microwave and toaster. Our room was separated from the rest by a bamboo mat curtain and hence total privacy for us. It was a tiny, clean and cosy room. We spent the afternoon relaxing and chit-chatting. Evening, we took a walk in the neighbourhood and reached the nearby bus stop. A bus to Banashankari was just arriving. We boarded the bus and within twenty minutes reached Banashankari. We visited the temple there and then spent timepassing in the area - having a hot coffee and masala dosa in the hotel there, window shopping of the small shops there, found an internet cafe and took a copy of our confirmation voucher for tomorrow's trek. Finally took a bus to Silk Board and reached our hotel for a good night's sleep (I managed to sneak in a face pack to pamper myself before sleeping. ;) )

Oct 4th, 2014 (Sat): We got up late in the morning and were too lazy to get ready and go out and have breakfast. Luckily, they offered us a complimentary breakfast in the hotel. Toast and egg omelette and a cup of hot tea. Yummy! There's nothing better than getting up late on a holiday and having breakfast served to you in bed (and then going back to sleep again. ;) ). Next, my most favorite part of the trip came. Packing my backpack for the trek - track pants, tshirts, ponchos, water bottles, chocolate bars to munch on and emergency medicines. Unfortunately the camera was not working. So I had to do with my mobile camera. But I doubted whether it could click pictures in the dark. After packing, we went to have lunch. We couldn't find any hotels nearby and finally after walking around for 15 minutes, we found Hotel Adigas. After lunch, we took a nap, as we were going to be awake most of the night, we needed all the rest. Evening, we checked-out the hotel, took a bus to Majestic, dropped our luggages in the cloak room and then reached BMC office in Shivaji Nagar which was the boarding point for our trek. We still had lot of time to kill, so we had our dinner and kept timepassing in the area. Around 09:30 pm, the bus arrived. We were the only people boarding at Shivaji Nagar apart from the guides and instructors. The bus picked up more people at Domlur and Tin Factory. Totally, there more than 60 people so it was a lot of fun.

Antargange is about 60kms from Bangalore in Kollar. It is a massive field of volcanic boulders and rocks which heaped on one another create a whole network of cave-like formations.

We reached the place around 12:30 am. Getting down from the bus, everything was totally dark and only the flash lights of everyone lit the place. Each of us were given a sleeping bag. It was a like a perfect adventure from a Famous Five book! We had to climb a long staircase that lead to a temple with a pond. There was a stone bull with water flowing out of its mouth. From there, we had to climb uphill for about half an hour. The trail was very narrow and we could go only in a single line. The experience was pretty spooky with screeching owls, bats flying overhead and an occasional nocturnal animal scurrying around in the bushes. It was pretty much like the Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter and I wishfully hoped I could meet a sleeping dragon, tickle it and make it angry and slay it! But sadly, we didn't even run into a bear or a fox.

On reaching the peak, we dropped our sleeping bags there and proceeded for cave exploration. This was my first caving experience and it was just too fun. There were many places where we had to crawl, climb, lie down and slide, and perform other gymnastics. Some places were too narrow and tiny, that we couldn't even walk straight, we had to turn and walk sideways in a single line. After more than an hour, at about 3:00 am, we came out and reached the place where we had left our sleeping bags. Some people slept on the rocks and some down on the grass. It was a beautiful night. The moon had already set. I had never spent a night under the open star-lit sky. For a long time, I was awake counting the stars and watching some moving lights (mostly planes). Also, got lucky enough to see a shooting star in the clear night sky which excited me so much that I lay wide awake waiting for more. Finally, dozed off.

Oct 5th, 2014 (Sun): Waking up in the morning to witness the sunrise was the most beautiful experience ever. The stillness of the dawn (something that we never experience in a city), the freshness of the morning air and dew drops on the grass, few birds chirping around, everything seems like you are in heaven. Somehow being with nature opens up a deep inner space within you. You realized how insignificant you are in the universe and at the same time how interconnected you are with everything and everyone else. We then proceeded on the trek downhill and reached our bus. On the way, they stopped at Hotel Kamath for a good, hearty breakfast. We reached Bangalore around 10:00 am, went to the station to collect our luggages from cloak room and took an auto to our hotel, "Hotel VT Orchid", near Corporation circle. One thing I love about booking different hotels at different locations is we get to experience a different area each time. Also, it pushes us out of our comfort zone to explore something new. Contrary to our previous hotel, which was located in a peaceful residential area, this hotel was in the midst of a crowded and very busy street. The room was too tiny, but thankfully, atleast it had air conditioning. We were so tired out by the trek, that we just slept the entire day. Evening we took a stroll outside to have coffee and dinner. There was a nice restaurant nearby "Hotel Pai Vihar". Every area of Bangalore seems to have a good budget restaurant, a nice bakery and a juice shop. We went back to the hotel and slept late after talking about yesterday's trip.

Oct 6th, 2014 (Mon): After breakfast, we checked-out the hotel and went to the railway station. My parents were leaving by the 3:00 pm train to Chennai. After loving goodbyes and seeing them off, I returned to my room.

Overall, it was a memorable, fun and adventurous weekend.

(Pictures below were taken during sunrise. Couldn't take during night with my phone.)

As always, I take away some key learnings from every travel. On this trip, what fascinated me most was trekking in the dark with flash lights. The flash lights just illuminate the next step in the trail. At any point of time, you can only see one step ahead of you. But then, actually, one step ahead is all you need to see for the entire journey. When morning comes and you see the entire stretch ahead of you, it just makes you wonder "Did I actually climb all this way in the night?". Life too is like that. You can never see your entire life ahead in advance. Planning too much just creates fear and doubt. "Will I be able to do all of this? Is it possible for me to try that?". However, at every moment, you know what action to take next. And that's all needed. When you learn to embrace the uncertainty of life and trust the present moment, life too becomes an amazing adventure.