http://sainathkm.blogspot.com/2006/12/great-green-route-memoir.html
 I’m back after the most beautiful trekking experience of my life. I’ve been
on several lovely treks, but this one had every aspect of the word trekking – a
truck safari, scenic beauty, dangerous bridges, dark tunnels, up and down the
hill, a forest inhabited by elephants, food prepared beside the railway tracks,
a night spent at the railway station, a campfire and crossing a river without
knowing how to swim.
It all started with a small plan to arrange for a
get together with my friends, who were former classmates of mine at Manipal. The Donigal station was 5-6 km away from where we were. We got into a truck
and were dropped off till Muthapan Temple on the highway. We walked 1km in the
dark, torch in hand, till we reached the Donigal station at 6 am.
 We decided to begin trekking through the railway tracks. For the first two
km, we couldn’t find any major bridges or tunnels. The game of
Antakshari accompanied us and even Rejo, who doesn’t like Hindi songs,
began to chip in with blockbuster hits, along with singers like Ashwini and
Alka. Crossing the first bridge/tunnel was electrifying, but the thought of
bigger, more dangerous bridges and tunnels still awaiting us, made the walk easy
and exciting.
Some of the tunnels we crossed were dark, as long as half a kilometer and were
filled with bats. The tiny water droplets and strong breeze inside these tunnels
sounded like they where joining us in our game of Antakshari. The long
bridges across some of the small streams were picture perfect and left us
wondering how much labor went into building these mammoth
structures.
After completing 12 km, crossing 10 -12 dark tunnels, 15
bridges and posing for countless photos, we stopped to refill our stomachs at
12.45 pm. We made a temporary arrangement to boil water and make noodles, which
was more then enough to fill our hungry stomachs. Alka even managed to squeeze
in a small nap beside the track in this time
 Having regained our energy and with a few more km to complete, we started
out again. This time however, everything was not as easy as it was earlier.
There were two or three bridges that did not have proper iron planks to walk on
and were as tall as a five-storied building. We had to muster the courage to
cross those bridges and there was a sense of achievement when we reached the
other side.
 After walking for nearly six km, at 3.30 pm we reached our
trekking destination – Yedukumeri, a small station built for passing signals
between Kukke Subramania and Donigal. After an unsuccessful negotiation with the
station master to drop us to Sakleshpur, we decided to cross the jungle on our
own and find our way out to the nearest highway. With very little information
about the route we had to take, we began to climb down the hill and crossed a
small stream, only to find what seemed like a damaged road. My instincts and the
whirling wind betrayed me and we started moving in the wrong direction. The walk
turned creepier when we found elephant footprints and dung all around us. The
sun was beginning to set and the shadows were increasing. It took us nearly an
hour to realize that we were on the wrong path. The only thing we could do was
return to the station and spend the night there. All of us agreed on that and we
began to walk back before the sun set.
Returning from that tiring and unsuccessful walk, we sat on the platform,
trying to figure out what went wrong. We then opened our bread and jam packets
and gobbled up as much as we could. We tried to fall asleep and realized we
couldn’t, because of the cold. There was a lashing wind. We soon gave up all
hope of sleep and got up at 5 am to make a campfire. We were soon joined
by three other groups of campers, who had come from Bangalore. We decided to
move together and find our way out to the highway. We were now 18 of us and
began to climb down the hill together, trying to find the river that we couldn’t
find the other day.
 Walking for another hour and a half through the
forest, we heard the sounds of trucks and buses, and of a river flowing. We
could even see the
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