If you love trekking and if you love to see some evergreen forests, or if you want to see the shola clad mountain peaks of the Western Ghats, then the famous Bandaje Falls welcomes you with open arms.
The Western Ghats provides ample opportunity to trekkers and nature lovers alike. Each place in the Ghat is different in its feature. This becomes very obvious when one looks at Bandaje. It is an unique place that has flowing falls on all 365 days of the year.
Even though the Banjade falls is a famous tourist attraction, it is not only clean and tidy but one pleasantly finds that nature is left unharmed. This could also be because the onward journey to the upper part of the falls is pretty tiresome and one needs tremendous energy to reach there. So the only one’s who do dare to trek up there are the diehard nature lovers.
How to get there
If you start from Mangalore, towards Chikmagalore, you have to get down at Somantadka 4 kmts from Ujire. Its 2.5 hours journey from Mangalore to Somantadka by bus. You can hire a jeep at Somantadka and go to Valambra, which is the starting point of the trek.
In Valambra, you will find a hospitable home where the owner, Mr. Venkatraman Gowda not only provides you with all necessary information but some much needed water too!
From here, you have to travel a couple of kilometres in hot sun and this journey is tiresome. But once you enter the thick forest area, you have plenty of shade from the scorching sun.
But it?s the height, which poses all kinds of difficulties not only to the beginners, but to the experienced trekker too. Usually after a trek of around 5 hours, you reach a stark area, where you will find plenty of shola grass. In another one hour, you will have a glimpse of the falls, and another half an hour, you will be right near the falls.
Once you reach the falls, you can swim in a pond just a few metres above the falls. That swim can be very refreshing after the tiredness of the long trek.
Bandaje has a natural valley that is nearly 200ft deep. One can trek to the bottom of the falls too but for that you have to deviate in your journey when you find a water stream below. Just follow the stream, which takes you to the bottom.
Our trekking team stayed atop the hill listening to the sounds of the beckoning hills, the roaring falls and the chirping birds. The next morning we saw the dramatic colours of the sky above us. It brought us altogether so much joy and spirit that we were ready for more.
Author: R. K. Bhat- Mangalore