We recently went on a trip to Jog Falls, the highest waterfall in India (may be Asia too) at 900 ft and have nothing but good memories of the trip. Jog Falls is situated in Central Karnataka in Shimoga District in the midst of western ghats. We went there by govt owned KSRTC bus which by the way are pretty good now. They have A/C coaches but unfortunately for us, there was no a/c coach to Jog falls. We had to settle for the next best Ultra deluxe (called Rajhamsa). These days KSRTC has made their reservation system accessible to lot of private travel agents because of which you can get it done locally wherever you are. Luckily for me a travel agent close by my house had the access and so reserving our trip both ways was a very quick process. The bus took off promptly at the scheduled time and reached at the scheduled time.
We had called and made a reservation in PWD guest house, which is situated on a hilltop and commands a good view of the western ghats. We had reached there at 6:30 am but the housekeeper did not show up until 8 am (when he is actually expected to be spending the night there). With some murmurs and complaints he agreed to give us the room although it was reserved for Rs 500. He turned away some other guests. The room was more like a suite with a separate living area and 3 double beds enough for the 4 of us. The only problem with that room was the walls were damp (not enough curing during construction process) and bathrooms not really upto the standard. These turned to be minor nuisances compared to what we actually got out of the trip.
Jog falls has no good tourist accomdations and the facilities run by Karnatak Tourism (KSTDC) are best in ruins. There is a KPC (Karnataka Power Corp) guest house that is smack infront of the falls and is well maintained. If you ever visit Jog and want some good food, go talk to the chef at the KPC guest house and he will fix something up (very clean, homely cooked food) for a very reasonable price. There are some restaurents nearby but having tried both, I would go with KPC guest house.
Once you are there, people will come and approach you for taxi service for nearby sightseeing. We hired a local guy with a SUV (didn't want to mess with Maruti cars in Western Ghat) and had him drive us around for 1.5 days. He took personal interest in showing us all the area around Jog. My suggestion to folks who go to Jog would be to drive to nearby villages and as you are driving you will see the beauty of western ghats. Since we went near the end of monsoon season, not only the rivers and falls were overflowing but the whole area was lush green with plenty of wild life to see. A long snake crossed our path once and a bunch of monkeys had blocked our van by occupying the entire road. We drove from Jog to Murdeshwar(coastline city) and really enjoyed every bit of it including the drive since the roads were pretty well paved. There is a huge statue of Shiva built on the beaches of Murdeshwar and is a sight to behold. This being India, religion has to make its presence felt everywhere including beaches. Murdeshwar has several good lodging and boarding facilities on the beach all owned by the same guy (R N Shetty).
Here is an observation, if you want to meet people innocent and honest, go to country side. People will help you with no expectation in return and that is very hard to find in cities.
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