24-Jun-2006 --

It was more than one year since we had been out confluence hunting. With the monsoon arriving and cooling south India down, it looked like a good time to plan a trip to reach 15N 75E and 16N 75E.

Both confluences are located near the town of Hubli in Karnataka. My uncle Jagan, Mohan and I decided to take a train to Hubli and drive out from there to these two points. The overnight train journey was ok and we reached Hubli at 0530 and were picked up by the shuttle bus from the hotel. After washing up and tucking into a good breakfast we got our gear together and waited for a car that Jagan had arranged to pick us up.

We started out to 15N 75E at 0830. The GPS (and Google Earth) seemed to indicate that the point was about 42 kilometers from Hubli. We drove through the town of Kalghatgi towards the town of Mundgod. The point seemed to be about a kilometer from the road before Mundgod. But we found that the point was about 2.5 kilometers to the right of us and there was no road heading that way. But, in the distance and in the direction of the point, we saw huge buildings. On checking with a local, we were told that the road switches back to that direction after a few kilometers. The road did switch back and we rapidly approached the point. Interestingly, we found ourselves in the midst of a Tibetan settlement. Later, we saw boards that mentioned that it was the Mundgod Tibetan Refugee Settlement. A lot of interesting architecture in Tibetan style. The point was about 400 meters from the road and we got to it without any trouble.

After taking photos, we headed out again towards Hubli to drive north towards 16N 75E.