fascinating shinganigudda!

It was a hot summer day few weeks back and youth hostel friends were out with idea of trekking.

I really needed a break from my job and i asked dinesh holla, the organiser of trekking to add my name in the list, there were already 24 names in the list!

Well, our destination was a nice hillock near Shishila called SHINGANI GUDDA. Shishila is a remote village near Dharmasthala. While on the way to Nelyadi in NH 48, a road deviates to Dharmasthala and around 25 kms journey half on smooth wide road while the other half is on a dusty coarse road.

There are few buses from Uppinangady and Mangalore connecting Shishila. Shishila is a small village which is famous for Shishileshwara Temple and mahashir fishes in the lake of that temple.Shishila comprises of mainly marathi speaking brahmins, who also called as chippavans.

Well, we started from mangalore in a cab and reached shishila at 9 pm. Holla had arranged dinner at one Gopu Gokhale's house. Gokhale is a freelance writer and has plenty of knowledge in art and trekking.

We stayed in Shishila school that night, but before that we had a nice bonafire session. The speciality of this session is that each one of the team must open up and exhibit some or the other talent in him. Next day we had breakfast at Gokhale's house and were ready for the outing. The morning was hot and soon after few metres walk the new entrants started gasping. One lady had no knowledge of trekking and she had come on a pair of slippery chappals. And she had to suffer the whole day. But many members helped her by carrying her rucksack.

The route was cool in the thick forest, gigantic trees and slopes, heights were a challenge to the trekkers.

It was two-and-a half hours journey to reach the hill top. The journey was not so tiresome for a habitual trekker. It may create some problem for newcomers.

The top of Shingani gudda has got 2 big rocks which appears as an elephant head. And the lush green grass welcomes us and so as the cold breeze even in the midday.

We can see Ethinabhuja, Amedikallu, udayagiri and a few other hillocks. We returned to Gokhale's house and he welcomed us with delicious lunch, which consisted my favourite jack fruit payasa!