This trip was long pending, as we had planned to visit the Kaveri valley from a really long time. What started as a search of Igglur Dam (which I plan to discover some other time), led us finally to Muttatti. I must say, this *is* the closest dense forest one can find near Bangalore. At a distance little above 100 km (via Kanakapura), this makes for an excellent day trip, with all the required ingredients – forest, water, a good drive, and unlimited scenery!
The Kaveri valley is a very beautiful cradle, where mother nature sings a lullaby for eternity, her voice flowing with the waters, making all we children cuddle up in her lap.
18-Nov-2006: We left home by 7:30 am, stopped for breakfast at a darshini on RV road, and proceeded to Kanakapura road. Contrary to reports from a friend that the road condition was bad, I actually found it pretty drive-able. With all that greenery around and the canopy of trees on either side of the road, it suited for a lazy, breezy drive, reminiscent of the Bangalore-Mysore road, before the 4-laning happened. 50 km later, we were at Kanakapura, and after passing the town, took a left turn towards Muttatti. The traffic was a minimum after Kanakapura, and the rocky terrain around added to the beauty.
We reached Muttatti by about 11 am, and enquired at the Forest office there for a trek. After squeezing 125/- per head as charges for entering the forest, another 75/- for the guide, and another 50/- being ’swaaha’ed, they sent with us a guide with a rifle, which I don’t think could ever fire! The name of the forest guard/guide was Small-Kiss (Chikka Mutta) 
who led us on a trek to a hillock named as ‘Soojigallu Betta’, the peak resembling a needle.
We completed the trek in 2 hours and returned to the Forest office by lunch. There are no restaurants at Muttatti. If you badly need to eat, the only options are the JLR resorts – Galibore and Bheemeshwari, before and after Muttatti respectively. I have heard good things about JLR, but I believe they are pretty expensive. We drove down beyond Bheemeshwari, searching for a place where we could get down to the river, but didn’t find any. So we pulled to the side of the road, but were restricted by the tree-top primates from opening the windows. A hot afternoon left us having lunch (that we’d packed) in the car, with windows closed, AC and engine on!
After lunch, we came back near the forest office, parked the car, and went for a stroll. We visited a Hanuman temple (Muttattiraya) and proceeded to the river. Since it was a Saturday, auspicious for Hanuman devotees, we had hordes of nearby villagers camping and cooking by the riverside with really big(!) vessels. The presence of the crowd did not make it encouraging to get into the river, nevertheless, it should be good fun in water if the place is full of your own crowd!
Moi!
A shot against the sun!
A quarter of an hour later, we started back, to reach home by evening. All in all, a great trip to a fabulous spot. 
