The second trek for the monsoon season was scheduled in July. Ettina Buja near Shishila, Dharmastala was the chosen hill. Narayan took the initiative and made all arrangements. He had spoken to Gopu Gokhale in Shishila and arranged a local guide to escort us. Narayan, Anirudh and myself were the team members. On Friday night our friend Anirudh had to call off the plans due to personal reasons. That left two of us. We decided to go ahead. The bus journey was very bumpy, thanks to NHAI, we hardly managed to catch some sleep. Narayan had instructed the driver to drop us off in Kokkoda which is around 20 kms before Dharmastala. The conductor promptly woke us and let us off the bus. It was 4 in the morning and Shishila was around 15 kms away. What do we do? Narayan said we would rest till the sunrise. Quickly we spread our mat in front of a building and slept.
I was in my own dream world. I was woken suddenly by Narayan, before I could realize what was happening; he picked up his bag and headed towards a milk van. It was dawn already. While I was busy sleeping, Narayan had spoken to the milk van driver and arranged for a drop off in Shishila. We got into it. An open top jeep and a bumpy road. Well I guess you get the picture. Our bum was hardly resting on the floor of the jeep. The driver dropped us off near the temple. From there we started our walk to Gokhale's house. We freshened up. His wife had prepared breakfast for us. In the meantime, Gokhale informed that the route to Ettina Buja was closed. It wasn't reachable due to heavy rains. That was bad news. We were scouting for Plan B. Gokhale gave us more bad news. He said we cannot go for a two day outing for three reasons, 1. Heavy rains 2. Routes are cut off 3. Leaches. Our minds went blank. We badly wanted to hear some good news; something which was in our favour. Gokhale gave us some good news finally. He said we can go to Udaya Parvatha on day 1 and return for the night and Singhani betta on day two. Something is better than nothing. So we gave in and informed him that we were ok with that. Chennigappa arrived. He was the guide who would help us out. Intros finished and we set on foot.
While we were heading to Udaya Parvatha, we saw the temple in Shishila. Proceeding further we spotted a trail to the hill top. We started our ascent. We weren't carrying our rucksacks as we wouldn't be camping there. Our body was light enough for us to walk faster. After a while it was a dead end. Chennigappa was looking around and then with his sword made his own way. We just followed him, sometimes bending, sometimes crawling. It was just a month and a half since the monsoon started and we could see thick bushes, shrubs and grass through out. The trails were closed. Navigating across was a challenge in itself. Gokhale was indeed right. We found a hell lot of leaches. Chennigappa carried some liquid which he was applying on his legs. Narayan checked with him what it was. He said it's a leach repellant. I borrowed the bottle from him and without having a second thought started applying it on my legs. Narayan followed suite. Oil was one of its ingredients. We resumed our climb. We were in the midst of the forest. We couldn't see the open sky. Tall trees engulfed us from all sides; the shrubs were nothing less. They were a good 3 to 4 feet high. We had scars all over our arms caused by the thorns. While walking I just happened to look at my legs. I was taken aback looking at the number of leaches on my legs and shoes. Without wasting a second, I started removing the leaches one by one. Chennigappa asked me not to worry as I had applied the oil on my legs. He said they would not be able to bite. He was indeed right. My scrambled mind calmed down and removed a few. While I was doing that a few more got on to my legs. The trick is not to stop in wet areas. If you stop, more would hop on to your legs. We had a challenging task ahead. I started moving even faster than before simply to avoid the leaches getting on to my legs. The sky started opening up. We were out in the grasslands on the hilltop just short of a few meters. We made it in under 90 minutes. The breeze was cool. Chennigappa and Narayan started relaxing. I was busy removing the leaches on my legs and shoes. The leach repellant worked actually. I had no leach bites. Thanks to Chennigappa.
Each of us sat staring at the never ending land and the sky. It was difficult to identify the horizon due to the haze in the sky. It became more evident cause of the increasing temperature and the added humidity. Descending was initiated which was even more challenging. The guide didn't take us in the same route as we climbed up. He made his own route even while descending as well. We simply followed him. He made way for us by cutting the small branches and clearing the bushes. I missed my step several times but was able to manage to hold steady. We were down by late noon. Mrs. Gokhale had prepared lunch. We freshened up and started having our lunch. We heard the sound of heavy rain which made us look out of the window. I was totally surprised. It was a very sunny day; I couldn't spot a cloud before entering the house, but it was raining and that too heavily. It was just unbelievable. Mrs. Gokhale said this is how it is. In the mornings it would be sunny and by late noon it would start pouring. An hour or so passed and it stopped raining.
Gokhale who was out in the day returned in the evening. As we had nothing to do, he took us along with him to his brother's house which was around 3 kms in a nearby village. We took a rickshaw. He called it a road, but for my eyes it resembled a jeep track. We were to return after a while, so we carried nothing with us except our torches. As Gokhale was doing his work, we were wandering around the farm. Many fruit trees were around his brother's house. One such tree attracted us. 
The fruit was the size of a small watermelon, but the pulp inside resembled a moosambi with pink colour tone. It was fascinating. Gokhale says it is used in a few dishes. He carried a few along. All set for our return. It slowly started drizzling, only then did we realize the gravity of the situation. Neither of us were carrying either an umbrella or a raincoat. We started walking back to Shishila. It was turning dark and the rain was lashing at us with no mercy. Taking shelter was not an option as there was no shelter nearby. As we walked the rain got heavier. I wanted to stop for a while as my camera was at the risk of getting wet, but to our bad luck there was nothing en-route. Three souls walked with one torch on the road for long. It was totally dark and nothing was visible except for a small lit up road in front of us. One advantage we did have cause of the heavy rain, it provided us a good massage which I am sure no person would be able to match. We returned home and quickly changed to dry clothes.
Day 2 started with our trek to Shingani betta which is again close to the temple. The route was very much similar to the udaya parvatha. Chennigappa made his own way and we followed him. The time taken also was similar. We reached the hilltop by noon. We saw a lot of clouds and then realized that it could rain heavier than the previous day. While we relaxed on the hilltop, we heard some movement on one of the slopes and spotted the area.
It was a deer (Kaduva in local language). I quickly took a snap with whatever my camera could zoom. It looked at our excited faces and dismissed our presence and moved away. We were waiting there to spot a few more, but weren't that lucky. Finally we decided to descend. Narayan asked him to take us down in a different and a long route. Chennigappa did the same and led us down the hill. He spotted a vine snake on the foot trail in front of us. I was surprised to look at it. It was so slim and tiny. It didn't move an inch even though we were making a lot of noise. I captured it in my camera from all possible angles moving around it, even then it didn't move. Chennigappa tried to touch it with a stick, only then did it move.
Though we didn't make it to Ettina buja, the time spent in shishila, the two hills we climbed, the deer and the snake we spotted, the rains which lashed us, the hospitality provided by Gokhale and his wife all made this trek a memorable one, not to forget the guide, Chennigappa.
