Charmadi

Charmadi (Tulu/Kannada:ಚಾರ್ಮಾಡಿ) is a village in Belthangady taluk of Dakshina Kannada. It is one of the points in Western ghats through which motorable road passes connecting Dakshina Kannada with Chikkamagaluru district. The section of ghat is known by the name of Charmadi ghat. It lies on National Highway 234 which connects Mangalore to Viluppuram. Nearest places are Charmadi village, Kottigehara and Banakal.

Charmadi Ghat starts from Charmadi village(11 km from Ujire) and ends at Kottigehara(14 km from Mudigere). Charmadi Ghat connects the north eastern part of Dakshina Kannada to Chikmagalur district and the prominent highway is connecting Ujire (9 km from Dharmasthala) to Kottigehara (about 50 km from Chikmagalur). Ballarayanadurga is a fort atop a hill located about 10 km from Sunkasale, on the Kottigehara - Kalasa route.

Ballarayanadurga fort can be accessed from 2 sides - the shorter route from Sunkasale, located on the way from Horanadu or the longer route from Bandaje. In the Charmadi ghat, there is a waterfall named Bandaje Arbi (Arbi in Tulu means waterfall) which falls from a height of 200 feet. Gadaikallu peak has an elevation of 1700 feet.

Dakshina Kannada

Dakshina Kannada is a coastal district in the state of Karnataka in India. Sheltered by the Western Ghats on the east and surrounded by the Arabian Sea on the west, Dakshina Kannada receives abundant rainfall during the monsoon. It is bordered by Udupi District to the north, Chikkamagaluru district to the northeast, Hassan District to the east, Kodagu to the southeast, and Kasaragod District in Kerala to the south.Mangalore city is the district headquarters of Dakshina Kannada.

The district is divided into five talukas namely Mangalore, Bantwal, Puttur, Sullia, and Belthangady. It used to include 4 northern talukas, Udupi, Kundapur, Karkala and Byndoor, but these were separated in August 1997 to form Udupi district. Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasaragod are often called Tulu Nadu, as Tulu is the majority language in the region. The Alupas ruled this region between the 8th and 14th century CE as a feudatory of all the major Kannada empires of those times and it is for this reason that the Tulu speaking districts are a part of Karnataka.

Ghat

As used in many parts of Northern South Asia, the term ghat refers to a series of steps leading down to a body of water, particularly a holy river. In Bengali-speaking regions, this set of stairs can lead down to something as small as a pond or as large as a major river.

Etymology

Ghats are the areas in holy riverside cities like Varanasi and Haridwar where stairs exist to reach the Ganges. It is also used for mountainous regions like the Western and Eastern Ghats.

The word Ghat is explained by numerous Dravidian etymons such as Telugu katta and gattu (dam, embankment) Tamil kattu (side of a mountain, dam, ridge, causeway) and Kannada gatta (mountain range). This etymology was proposed by Burrow and endorsed by Mayrhofer and Asko Parpola.

Slavic languages have a word gat that means corduroy road, but it is not clear if it is related to ghat.

Along the rivers Ganges and Narmada

The numerous significant ghats along the Ganges are known generally as the 'Varanasi ghats' and the 'ghats of the Ganges'. In Madhya Pradesh in western India there are further significant ghats along the Narmada River. People who live on the steps are also called ghats.

Western Ghats

The Western Ghats or Sahyadri is a mountain range that runs parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, located entirely in India. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity in the world. It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. The range runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain, called Konkan, along the Arabian Sea. A total of thirty nine properties including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests were designated as world heritage sites - twenty in Kerala, ten in Karnataka, five in Tamil Nadu and four in Maharashtra.

The range starts near the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra, south of the Tapti river, and runs approximately 1,600 km (990 mi) through the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu ending at Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India. These hills cover 160,000 km² (62,000 sq mi) and form the catchment area for complex riverine drainage systems that drain almost 40% of India. The Western Ghats block southwest monsoon winds from reaching the Deccan Plateau. The average elevation is around 1,200 m (3,900 ft).