Dandeli is a forest and white-water rafting destination. Dandeli is about 500 kilometres away from Bangalore, and just about 100 kilometres from Goa. Six guys drove down from Bangalore to celebrate celibacy. Keep aside around 1000 Rs. just for the toll charges, but the money spent is worth burning rubber on smooth-wide roads.
Chitradurga
We had a pit stop in Chitradurga, which has rich history for its kingdom and the heavily guarded fort. The fort has seven huge walls running across the empire and was built to protect it from enemy invasion. The fort was built by Rashtrakuta-Hindu dynasty and avoided many assaults, but was finally taken over by Muslim warriors, Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan. It is because of this, the fort has temples as well as a mosque.
 |
| View from inside the Fort |
Do not miss entering Obavvana Kindi, the small tunnel in one of the huge rocks which acted as a secret passage. Obavva was the wife of a guard. Whilst the guard was on a lunch break, Obavva came down near the narrow passage to collect water from the pond and noticed enemies entering the fort. Obavva did not disturb her hungry husband, and picked up a long wooden pestle and started hitting every enemy who was entering through the passage. The husband came back from his lunch and was shocked to see many dead enemies. This brave act of Obavva saved the enemy attack, but Obavva lost her life.
 |
| Obavva's Tunnel! |
Dandeli
Dandeli is a small town which thrives due to agriculture and tourism. We stayed in Dandeli Jungle Camp which is about 30 minutes’ drive from the town. One of my friends spotted a black bear, near the camp, although rest of us were unlucky! The camp is in the midst of jungle with tall trees. The staff here is friendly, and helped us to spot a flying squirrel in the dark. There is an under repair tree house, which is a good location for honeymooning couples.
We woke up to the noise of chirping birds, and this time I was lucky to spot a Hornbill!
The white-water rafting activity is monopolised by Jungle Lodges, Government of Karnataka. We booked our rafting slot through Jungle Camp. The cost per head is 1450 Rs., which includes transportation from our resort to the rafting area, and the actual rafting charge. Two batches of rafting happens in a day, the first one starts at 10:00 HRS, the second one is at 13:00 HRS.
After a simple breakfast and spotting a long tailed Malabar Squirrel, we left our resort in a Jeep to the rafting area. Our driver spoke about sighting many Black Panthers, and Leopards, but was never fortunate to see a Tiger in his 14 years of service in Dandeli. He also shared a trivia that if a Black Panther mates with Leopard, and the cubs can either be born as black or with spots!
The rafting starting point area was near the river bank filled with sand. As time passed the area was occupied with people who wanted to experience the fun of rafting, and the inflated rafts itself. The coordinator started greeting people and announced humorously that anyone with a broken heart but not broken bone could raft.
Per instructions from the coordinator each of us wore a life jacket, a ‘pink’ helmet, and picked up a rafting paddle. Each raft can accommodate about 9 people, including one instructor. The instructor mentioned rafting in River Kali is classified as level 4, which is medium waves, rocks, and some drops. He also mentioned that we can expect at least 10 rapids, which included one fun-big drop.
The instructor asked each one of us to sit on the edge of the rafts, and started teaching basic commands, as forward (paddle forward), all back (paddle backward), stop (of course stop), and get down (not in water, but inside the raft). We heard his first command as forward, and paddled through the silent waters, while looking at the edges of the banks to find any crocodiles. The instructor asked us to stop and jump inside the waters, perhaps he wanted to be sure our life jackets would work.
It was time to stop splashing water like kids, and get inside the raft. The instructor promised the first rapid would be fun! We could hear the water gushing, but could not see the drop, instead saw a photographer dangling in a small island with his tripod. Our raft was at the water edges and we had stopped paddling, we were now at the mercy of River Kali!
The instructor said “DOWN”, and the next second we were all down, including the raft which was drifting due to heavy waves.
 |
| Approaching a rapid... |
The glide was fun and water was splashing all over.
 |
| The best slide of our lives! |
The first rapid gave all the boys the much required adrenaline rush! We had cleared the fearsome rapid and unfortunately the upcoming ones were smaller version of what we had just experienced.
 |
| Natures roller coaster ride |
The instructor asked us to take reverse and move towards the strong waves, nine paddlers could not win the force of Mother Nature.
 |
| Battling River Kali! |
There are quite a few water sports in Dandeli, like, zip line river crossing, kayaking, rappelling, and natural Jacuzzi. There are many resorts in the banks of River Kali, one among which caught all of our eye balls was the Hornbill Resort, which has its very own fishing spot, and only guests of Hornbill are allowed to fish in the zone. I would recommend staying in resort near the river bank, compared to staying in a place like Jungle Camp.
 |
| No, we did not drown! |
While we manoeuvred our rafts as per command, we crossed jungles and smaller rapids. Many fish eating birds breed in this belt, such as Cormorant, variety of Eagles, and Kingfisher. The remainder of our rafting episode was not adventurous as the first monster rapid, but we did have our share of drops. There were a couple of instances of raft getting stuck under the rocks, and the instructor did all the hard work! We did get a chance to take a dip in the water one last time, before we completed our 90 minutes of rafting.
