Kailashing at ‘Doodhsagar’

‘Kailashing‘ is a Bangalore based trekking group comprising of energetic, enthusiastic and passionate nature lovers. Long time before i joined this group, on a trek to Kodagu, they came up with this name ‘Kailashing’. Supposedly they were discussing about how it would be if they sat on a boat and went down a waterfall; concluded saying it will earn them a one way ticket to ‘Kailash’. Thus came the name Kailashing…

Our most recent conquest was the trek to ‘Doodhsagar’.

Doodhsagar is a waterfall in Goa, India. How to get there? Well from Bangalore, we boarded ‘Rani Chennamma Express’ and got down at this place called ‘Londa’. From Londa, local buses take you to this place called ‘Collem’. From this point on, the waterfall is 11 km away. The only access to the waterfall is by railroad. So you have to walk 11 km on the track through a jungle to reach the falls. There were some local junta who said they can take people to the falls on bikes. But that would beat the purpose of the visit being a ‘trek’.

This trek, just as every trek, was planned by Bharat to the very last detail. Initially there were 13 of us who had confirmed, but on the day that it mattered, we found out that mostly everyone had backed out. At that point in time, me, Hari, Sharat and Gautam had decided that we wouldn’t call off the trip, even if it came down to just the four of us. As it turned out, three more, Arun, Vinay and another Sharat (henceforth Sharat2) joined us. Seven of us hit the railway station on a Friday evening, en route to our weekend getaway.

In the train we were joined by another huge group of youth who were on their way to Goa. The midnight racket ensued… threats by mama (‘the’ train guard) ‘to shut up or else…’ were disobeyed with at most earnestness. Finally we switched off the lights, so as to not rub off the cop the wrong way, but the chatter and laughter continued…

Until…

“Please have concern for elder people, sickly people, aged people… You are all young and want to enjoy… I understand… but like this? This is very sad… you should have concern for elder people, sickly people, aged people… This is very sad… (The cycle continues)”

One middle aged lady had had enough of the racket we twenty somethings were creating. Don’t even get me started on the amount of emphasis she was putting into each of her statements.

Trekking on a railway track is not like ‘just walking on railway track’. It’s extremely tough to keep a momentum going because the terrain is uneven. Since the terrain is uneven, you cannot take your eyes off the ground. Since you can’t take your eyes off the ground, you can’t look at anything else around you. So a beautiful forest around you goes unnoticed. The gravel on the railway track can be tricky to walk on because it will keep shifting under you weight. One wrong step, it is highly likely that you will sprain you ankle or bust your knee.

Not many of us seven knew about all this while starting. Besides 11 km dint seem that long. So off we went… we were scheduled to return that evening.

We puffed and panted… the humidity in the air got to us. The sights were beautiful. Lush greenery and pitch dark tunnels to go through.

Once we had covered around 10k, we had our first sight of Doodhsagar.

It was breathtaking…

It looked like boiling milk spewing out a giant cauldron. The obviousness in the name Doodhsagar now came as a sudden realization. We stood there gaping at the falls for sometime…

Hari and I arrived at the falls and made our way straight into the water. The cold water hitting our tired blistered feet and dry heads was the ultimate bliss (sorry bout that Hari, couldn’t stop). The rest followed. Splashing water, cursing the ones who splashed, throwing stones to ward off monkeys followed.

Following are a few more sights we enjoyed.

Local folks had told us that we can hop into goods trains and get back to Collem. We needed to get back by 5.15 PM to catch a train to Margaon from Collem. We had decided that we will spend Saturday night watching India Vs Australia (20Twenty semifinals) at the lodge we had booked in Margaon and the Sunday partying in Goa. So by 4.15 we packed off from the waterfall. We heard a passenger train approaching and ran for it. Unfortunately the driver of the train was the type who doesn’t stop the whole train just for a bunch of screaming trekkers. Missing that train turned out to be a costly affair later on.

A localite told us that there was a railway station just 1.5 km from where we were. We figured we had much better chances of catching the train there and started off. Once we reached, we spoke to the station master. The dude said that goods trains had no specific timings but a few were sure to come by.

We waited… and waited… and waited… and waited…

Soon it was 7 PM. Our only chance to make it Murgaon was to reach Collem by 7.30 PM and take the last bus out of Collem. By the looks of it, the window was depleting… fast…

By 7.30 PM it was dark. We went to speak to the station master again. The guy tells us that the train we were waiting for had derailed. That meant not only will that train not come, it won’t even let other trains pass!

The equation now was 12 km to go, no transport, total darkness, a critical cricket match around the corner! To hell with it we said… we set out, calling it ‘True Kailashing’.

Picture this… walking on a railway track after dark with two hand driven torches between seven people and lovely lovely moonlight, covering 4 pitch dark railway tunnels!! There was a sudden rush of adrenalin I think (surely attributed to not wanting to miss the match!), because we covered 5 km in just one hour. The air felt nice and cold, wasn’t humid like the morning. We reached another station. Collem was seven odd kilometers from there. I was walking ahead; obviously very happy with the ground we had covered.

We heard a shout from behind. It was one of the guys, asking us to stop. Gautam and Hari, who were by my side, turned and went back. I sat there for sometime till Sharat asked me to come too.

The new guy Sharat2 had decided he was feeling sick and didn’t feel like walking anymore. The group decided that we were all stopping in the station for the night.

To our surprise, we discovered that the station had a TV with a satellite connection! All these small stations that we encountered weren’t there for passengers. They were the stations that coordinated railway crossings. There was nobody around at all. The station master and his fellas pretty much lived in the station. That explained why the TV was there.

So we weren’t gonna miss the match after all! We spoke to the station master. He wasn’t bothered with the idea of us sticking around. We had noticed the TV room and made our way there. But it was already occupied by a ‘Bihari’ guy (what luck!) who refused to cooperate! He seemed to be annoyed at the prospect of us interrupting his trippy Amitabh Bacchan movie for a trivial, pointless cricket match! He gave in though, probably because of the love for cricket that unites all life forms in this country.

As it turned out, we saw every ball of the match. Right till the last ball after which India won.

Right about now, our beloved north Indian brother came out of his cricket reverie and decided that this couldn’t go on. The next instant he pushed us out of his room. The pretext: Train aa raha hai… aap yaha rehke kya karenge?

We got the implicit meaning tagged with the statement: Get Out! So we did that, hoping the train would actually show up.

What next? You wouldn’t believe it if I told you…

The damn train derailed again…

Thus, too tired to even curse fate, we went back to the Biharis room, didn’t bother him though. Just crashed on whatever plain surface we found. We actually had to drive away a dog that was sleeping in order to make place for ourselves. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

At 4 AM the train finally chugged into the station, with all of us sound asleep. Someone got up and found out that the train wasn’t leaving till 6 in the morning. At 6, we went and asked the driver if we can hop on.

Our bad luck streak seemed to continue…

The guy said ‘no’.

No? No?!! NO?!!!!!?!?

Personally i was close to tearing my hair apart. Thankfully there was another engine to the same train, the driver of which decided to oblige. Finally something! We began to move towards civilization again.

We all finally reached Collem…

We took a bus from Collem and reached Margaon at 11 in the morning. There the group split into folks who wanted to go to the Kolva beach and folks who wanted a nice quite shower in a lodge. We went our ways and finally met up at the bus terminus. We all boarded a bus that took us to Londa from where we were to catch a train back to Bangalore.

We managed to get into the train without any issues and started playing cards. It was crazy fun until hordes of farmers decided to invade our coaches. We had to ward them off explaining to them that there is something called ‘reservation’, hearing ‘You people live comfortably in cities because of the hard work we do’ in response.

Finally lot of railway cops showed up and started moving the people to unreserved coaches. We continued with what we did best; playing cards.

The train was an hour and half late when it reached Bangalore. We all bit hasty goodbyes and dashed for the rickshaws.