Ambajidurga Fort – Tale of a lesser-known hill fort

In this blog I will take you all on a journey across beautiful grasslands, mighty rocks and another experience of a beautiful trek.

Its weekend and my travel buddy asked me to join him and his enthusiastic trekkers for a half day trek to this beautiful Fort.

Estimated time to reach this place from Bangalore was 1 hour 45 minutes along the Old Madras Road. We started off from Bangalore at around 7:00 am since we knew that the traffic on KR Puram side might delay our journey if we start late.

So, we drove continuously and stopped on the outskirts for one breakfast break. Post that we drove on National Highway for some time, crossed Hoskote and finally had to take a left towards Chintamani Road. From here you can continue driving as per the directions of google map. And you will get to see amazing views of mighty rock formations and green fields along your drive.

Once you take right on the Kailasagiri temple road, the road condition is not that great. So, you need to drive slowly. Kailasagiri is famous for its cave temple and yet another interesting spot for explorers. But we decided to visit this while coming back and moved ahead. 

From here, the drive is completely uphill and uneven roads make it even hard to drive. So would request bike riders especially to be very careful here. As you drive, you will get to see amazing views of the villages around. 

This drive took almost another 20-30 minutes for us to reach uphill. Finally, we reached the base camp at around 10 am. 

We parked our car, stretched our legs a bit as a warm-up before the trek and enjoyed the mesmerizing views around.

There is Anna Dana (Anna = Rice, Dana= Offering) center built by temple authorities to distribute prasadam to devotees. 

We asked people in this center directions for the trek since we could not find a trail to climb. They guided us to the starting point and we started our trek.

We had a surprise tour guide with us in this trek as well. Our beloved Doggy 😊. I feel that god sends his messenger at every trek we visit who can guide us and take care of us.

Weather was very pleasant with heavy wind lashing us. At few spots, we could literally hear the wind roaring and trees swaying left and right. We continued our trek and came across a temple as our first stop. Some ladies who had finished darshan there and were returning asked us to climb uphill see the Ambajidurga temple and then visit this temple while returning. So, we decided to follow their instructions and continued our trek. This is a simple to moderate trek depending on individual’s capacity. 

Few places you will find steep steps. So watch your steps while climbing.

At every milestone along this trek, you will be mesmerized with enchanting views around.

We reached our first milestone and took a short break here to click some pictures of the views around.

We could also see the temple from this spot which was our last milestone of this trek.

 

We then started our climb to the next milestone of this trek. We found many spots for some good clicks. 

We then started our climb to the last milestone - temple. This climb is pretty easy since the path is smooth.

Finally, we reached the temple hill-top at around 10:40 am. The temple was closed, and we did not find a priest in the temple. So, we prayed to Goddess Ambajidurga from outside only. There is a Nandi idol in front of the temple. 

We took a round of the temple, clicked some pictures, and sat here for some time to absorb the calm breeze. 

Our final spot of the day was the most famous Enne Kola(Enne = Oil and Kola = Pond) . We could see directions for Enne Kola from here for which we knew we had walk down a bit from this spot. 

We saw some water inside this Enne Kola and were amazed to see this phenomenon. People around this place believe that Lord Ram and Devi Seeta during their vanavanasa (exile) spent some time on this hill top to rest. But Devi Seeta felt bad that she couldn’t lit lamp due to unavailability of oil. So she took water from this Enne kola and lit the lamp. The water present here is considered very auspicious especially for people having health issues.

We then moved to the other side of the hill to captures views of landscapes around.

You will get to see panoramic view of Chintamani town, a small reservoir, and the wide varieties of vegetation grown around this area.

You can even see the shadow of clouds on the grasslands below

We sat there for some time and absorbed the serenity, calm breeze, and the view around us. It was so soothing and rejuvenating to sit and relax here.  

It was just us on the hilltop and we were happy to see the cleanliness around. Since its still unexplored by people, request everyone to not litter around and spoil the beauty of this place.

Finally, we started our descend now which was quicker than our ascend.

 En-route we stopped by to visit the temple where the priest was enthusiastic to explain us the history of this place. We were overwhelmed with his aura and hospitality.

Few more steps downhill and we were back to the parking lot now. And we all were super hungry by now. So we thought of having the food offered by temple authorities at Anna Dana center. The staff at this center extended their warmth to us by welcoming us and explaining how this was built and funds were generated. We were served hot payasam followed by rice and sambar. It was lip smacking.

We thanked them for their heartfelt gratitude and offered little bit of contribution from our end into the Hundi (Offering box) which can be used to rebuild the temple premises, improve road conditions uphill, clear trekking trail etc.

We saw jeeps parked in the parking lot. So, if people are coming by bus, you can take this Jeep from Chintamani.

There are clean and well-maintained rest rooms here. 

So before starting our return journey we quickly used the rest rooms and were all set to board our car to head to our next stop – Kailasagiri Cave temple.

Drive downhill was again very bumpy and adventurous. We reached Kailasagiri cave temple at around 1:30 PM only to know that it was closed. So would suggest you to check the timings and plan accordingly. 

With this, we added one more item to our bucket list (Kailasagiri Hill temple) and headed back to Bangalore with stories and memories of yet another amazing trek.