He squirmed in his seat as he kept sliding off while the bus rolled over little bumps on the asphalt. Outside the rain drops pattered lightly against the window, merged together with its buddy droplets and ran across the glass in a streak. As the bus moved towards the Kudremukh trek base camp he thought to himself "I hope these joints can still tolerate a 20km trek, otherwise I sacrificed a comfortable bed for nothing."
A small quake, which turned out to be just his friend shaking him awake announced their arrival to the homestay. He looked out into the semi dark dawn but only vague silhouettes were being imprinted on his retina and it took a minute for the rods and cones to work their magic and the view came into focus. In the distance he could now see the line of evergreens standing tall on the hilly terrain with their heads in the clouds.
After a quick intake of nourishment for the tissues the trip to the coffee plantations on the banks of the Bhadra river began. For the first time he laid eyes on the green coffee beans in their infancy which would ripen and turn red in time and ultimately become part of someone's morning ritual. According to legends a seer Baba Budan smuggled in 7 coffee beans from Africa/Arabia (stories differ in place of origin) in 1670 CE and planted in his backyard which then spread out all over the state.
The muddy waters of the Bhadra rushed past the hanging bridge. It would go on to meet its brother Tunga from the same source (Gangamoola) in Koodli and become the Tungabhadra river, flow past the ruins of Vijaynagar empire in Hampi, meet the Krishna river and finally rest in the Bay of Bengal. According to myth, after killing Hiranakashyap, Viraha Swamy took rest on what is now Viraha Parvata. As he rested sweat rolled down his forehead - the one on the left became Tunga and the one on the right became Bhadra.
Long before there was a national park here people lived in these forests. A couple was hiking in the woods and it had become dark. They saw a house up the road and went up to it to ask for shelter for the night. An old man came to the door with a lamp in his hand and welcomed them inside. The night was chilly and so the old man asked the guy to help him go out and gather some firewood. The house was quite isolated and so the guy told his wife to bolt the door and not open it for anyone other than him. While the guys were outside looking for branches she was lying on the bed listening to music on the radio. Suddenly she heard a knocking sound on the roof. She ignored it at first assuming it to be a cat or something. But the knocking slowly grew louder and more rhythmic. As she listened intently she slowly realised the knocking was in tune with the music being played on the radio! Her mind raced as she tried thinking of ways to react to this but her thoughts were interrupted by knocks on the front door. She hurried to the door expecting it to be her husband but it was someone else asking her to come out of the house. She was terrified and would not open the door. It was well over an hour when she was finally persuaded to open the door and come out. The stranger told her to follow him quickly and not look back but as she was running away she caught a glimpse of the house from the corner of her eye - as the clouds parted for a minute and flooded the roof with moonlight she could make out the silhouette of the old man on the roof with her husband's head in his hand and banging it against the roof!!
Alleged ruins of the aforementioned house on the trek trail