Pongal 2016 Drive

Usually I celebrate Pongal in my native Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu in a very traditional way. This year thought of staying back in Bangalore and celebrate it here. Invited my parents and brother’s families here to bangalore. So, once after completing the pongal celebrations at home, we all decided to drive down to a very famous place in Karnataka which fascinates all the tourists by its stupendous architecture and sculptures. Belur and Halebidu are one of the most renowned tourist places around Bangalore and that’s where we drove to.

Day 1 :

Started from Bangalore by around 12:45PM, took a short lunch break after crossing Nelmangala- to have the packed lunch and marched ahead in full swing towards our accomodation in Hotel Raama, located in Hassan which is about 198 KM away from Bangalore. After reaching Udayapur, which is 20 KM ahead of Hassan, took a short tea break in Adyar Ananda Bhavan and managed to reach the hotel by 5 PM. The entire stretch of road from Bangalore till Hassan was neat and smooth.Except for a few kms, it was a 4 lane road all throughout. There are 4 toll gates before you reach Hassan, which would charge Rs. 41, 41, 40 and 30. The hotel was really good, and economical (compared to many other hotels of similar price in Bangalore). Food was served from the restaurant (Swaad restaurant) attached to that hotel and it was super delicious. That evening, we went to the famous Hasanamba temple which is in very proximity to the hotel, came back and had dinner and crashed out.

Day 2 :

Planned to leave as early as 8:30 AM from the hotel to visit Belur, but as with every plan, finally managed to leave the hotel by around 10:30 AM. Belur was only 31 odd kms from the hotel, and the route was pretty straightforward. We reached the temple around 11:15 AM or so. As soon as we enter the temple, we all were completely awestruck by the architecture of the temple. The Star shaped temple (which we had never seen before) completely blew us all away. The main deity in the temple is Sri. Chennakesava, had a quick darshan and started exploring the temple. You can take a guide in the temple which will cost you about Rs.300/- and its prepaid and you will be given with a receipt for the payment. We also took a guide and he did an excellent job in explaining each and every speciality of the architecture and sculptures. By the time, he completed we all were completely spellbound and were in great shock looking at this amazing masterpiece.

We left from Belur by 1:30 PM and set out to Halebidu which is about 16 KM from there. The road to Halebidu had some rough patches here and there, but overall it wasn’t a very bad driving experience. We reached Halebidu by 2:00 PM went to a small hotel named Hotel Krishna and munched something and then entered the halebidu temple. The main deity here is Sri. Hoysalaeshwara, and this temple is declared as Archealogical monument and there are no regular pooja happening in this temple. Again, this temple is another showcase of exemplary workmanship by the Hoysala architects/sculptors. Since, this is more of a monument/tourist attraction the area around this temple was pretty neatly maintained. It had neatly horticultured plants and lawn surrounding the temple. There was also a small museum of sculptures within the temple premises.

Halebidu has one more temple of similar style which was built for Sri. Kedareshwara. This temple was supposed to be the first one to have built by the Hoysala empire followed by a Jain temple located a few meters before this temple, followed by Hoysaleswara temple, followed by the Belur Chennakesava temple. But, this temple is not visited by many tourists, so this still has a lot of sculptures maintained in good condition

Left from Halebidu by about 5:15 PM and stopped by Kamat Upachar in Udaipur for a short tea break – which turned out to a longer break than we expected cos of those crazy hotel guys – and resumed the journey back to Bangalore by 6:30 PM. By the time we reached bangalore, it was 9:15 PM had dinner on the way and reached back home by 10:30 PM.Overall, this trip was very special and breathtaking for all of us.Though we have a seen a lot of old temples in Tamilnadu before, the temples we visited  now were completely different and left us all spellbound. Clicked a lot of photos of the sculptures in this temple and returned back with some awesome memories.

Trip in a nutshell :

• Origin -> Kaggadasapura, Bangalore
• Destination -> Belur, Halebidu Hassan
• Roundtrip : 480 KMS
• Route : Bangalore –> Nelmangala –> Hassan –> Belur –> Halebidu –> Hassan –> Nelmangala –> Bangalore
• Toll charges -> 41, 41, 40, 30
• Cars : Xcent and Grand i10
• Accomodation : Hotel Raama, Hassan

New year 2016 Drive

Its so refreshing to begin a new year by visiting a new place. It will definitely give you a new perspective. This time it is more special than the previous new year trips for primarily two reasons one, first time went on a trip with parents and second being the first time in the new car. For the past 5 years I have been on a multiple trips on every new year in bike and all the places I had been were coincidentally a place which had a connection with river Cauvery. The place we visited this time is a different place in its entirety. This is one of the most sought after place for architecture/monument/photography lovers and is located about 120 kms from Bangalore on Bangalore - Hyderabad highway. This has been on my list of places to visit for a long time and I am happy to have struck this off the list this new year. 

Lepakshi is a small town in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh, India which hosts the temple of Sri Veerabhadra Swamy and a giant monolithic Nandi (Bull) carved out of a single granite stone. The temple located here is built during Vijayanagar Empire dating back to 15th Century. There are a lot of resources already available in internet to know more about the history and the specialities of this temple. To name a few, the temple’s architecture, the paintings on the ceilings, an open air kalyana mantapa, Hanging pillar, Shivalinga surrounded by snake etc., We started from Kaggadasapura, Bangalore at around 1:15 PM and reached Lepakshi temple by about 3:45 PM. The entire stretch of roads were smooth and completely awesome. I must say this is one of the finest roads I have ever driven in the recent past. The route we took was Kaggadasapura –> Hebbal –> Hyderabad Highway (NH7). Once you cross Bagepalli toll plaza in NH 7, after about 4 KMs there are sign boards which points to left turn for Lepakshi. From here, its a narrow two way road that leads us to Lepakshi. This stretch of village road was also smooth, I was surprised to see that there were no bumpy spots in the roads. Just a few meters before reaching the main temple, you can spot the giant Nandi to your right. We went directly to the temple and on our way back ,we stopped at Nandi. 

Since it was the New Year’s day, there were a quite good crowd. I believe the normal weekends should have less people visiting this temple. I was little disappointed with the parking facilities there. Though you will be charged Rs.30/- to park your car, there is no sufficient car parking space or anyone to regulate the parking. I had to argue with a tempo traveller driver to get a space to park my car. The darshan was real quick, despite good crowd. Once we are done with darshan, we started immersing ourselves in the beauty of the architecture. Every pillar in the temple premises is having some or other carvings present in it. The main attraction is the hanging pillar, that hangs from the top. I was seriously awestruck to witness that. Though we reached the temple by late afternoon, no where we felt hot inside the temple, the floor was chill everywhere. One another thing that troubled me was the paintings present in the ceilings are already faded away. I felt, they need some serious renovation and maintenance to preserve them for some more years. We went around the entire premises and took a lot of photographs.

Nandi

  

          

Hanging pillar

         

All 3 Gopurams in the temple

                                                

        

Open Air Kalyana Mantapa

                                              

       

Faded paintings on the ceilings

        

       

   

We left from the temple by around 5:45 PM and stopped near Nandi statue, took some more photographs, had tea in the APTDC restaurant nearby and resumed our returned journey by around 6:30 PM. On the way back, stopped at Adyar Ananda Bhavan (A2B) located after airport to the left in a service lane, had dinner and reached back home by around 9:30 PM. Overall, this is a MUST visit place for anyone in Bangalore who is looking for a day trip and want to indulge yourselves in the mesmerizing beauty of the architecture and structures in the temple.

Trip in a nutshell :

Origin : Kaggadasapura, Bangalore

Destination : Lepakshi, Anantapur

Total distance (round trip) : 260 Kms

Route: Kaggadasapura –> Hebbal –> NH7 (Hyderabad highway) –> Bagepalli –> Left to Lepakshi and retraced back

Toll charges : Rs.240 (120 @devanahalli + 120 @bagepalli)

Throughout the route, there a lot of fuel stations available. So no need to worry about fuel :-)

The Awesome Andhra Trip!!!

It has been really a very long time - more than a year - since I have updated the blog about my trips, not that I didn't travel but with so many other priorities in life, just couldn't find enough time to update the travelogue very frequently. With the recent trip with my family, I thought its high time I resume blogging about my travel.

Last couple of weeks in December being a holiday season, took vacation for a week and planned for a trip with the family. It was one full week of back to back travelling starting from Bangalore, to Chennai, Nidadavole, Anakapalle, Vishakapatnam, Araku Valley, Rajahmundry and back to Bangalore again.

Day 1 (21/12/2015) :

Me, my wife and my parents boarded the train from Bangalore to Chennai and landed in Chennai by around 8:45 PM. Reached my brother's house at around 10 PM and dozed off. Nothing exciting to start with :-)

Day 2 & 3 :

The second day, entire family of 6 members including my brother's family boarded the train to Nidadavole (my wife's native). We left from Chennai at around 5:20 PM and reached the destination by 7:00 AM next morning. It was very scenic in the early morning as the train passed through the different villages in Andhra.

Sunrise captured from Train

Had sumptuous food at my in law's house and took complete rest the entire day and was getting geared up for the planned travel in the upcoming days to Vizag.

Day 4 :

It was good to add more and more family members every day as we reach a new destination. This time, my parent in laws also joined us and we all (8 of us) started from their house at around 8:30 AM in a Chevrolet Tavera to Anakapalle (a town near Vizag) where my other in laws are residing. Took a short coffee/tea break near Annavaram by 10:30AM, grabbed the prasadam from the temple and resumed the journey. Reached Anakapalle by 11:45 AM. After spending an hour or so with my in laws there, we visited the famous Nookulamma temple in that town. The temple indeed was special and got a good darshan of the Nookambika Goddess in the temple. Went back home after darshan for lunch and took a short nap for an hour before proceeding further.

In the evening, started the journey again by 4:00 PM towards Vishakapatnam, On the way to Vizag, took a deviation inside the Vizag Steel plant premises and got a glimpse of its infrastructure. We drove through a toll road (I forgot the name of the road :|) where you could see a lot of industries on both sides of the roads, it was nice to see the stretch of different kind of industries alongside. From there got into the RK beach road, got a glimpse of the lovely beach and the Tenneti park from outside as we passed through them and reached Kailasagiri by around 5:20 PM.

I have never seen such a scenic place before where the mountains oversee the sea. The view from the top of that small hillock was absolutely stunning and breathtaking.

View of the beach from Kailasagiri

View of the city from Kailasagiri

They also maintain a small park there, and big idols of God Shiva and Goddess Parvathi. There is also a rope car service which will take you from hill top to bottom and back to top. It was pretty exciting for me, as this was the first time I had ever got into a rope car :) I would say its a must to experience the rope car to enjoy the awesome view of the city when you go down in the rope car. The park also has a train that goes around and gives a 360 degree view of the town from the hill top. Since we went in the rope car, we skipped taking the train. Then we moved towards the core attraction of the Kailasagiri the Shiva and Parvathi Statues. NO words to describe the beauty of them, the pic has to say it all. Took a lot of pics there and started to descend down and drove to our next destination Simhachalam.

                          

We weren't aware of the closing time of the temple at Simhachalam, which is 7:00 PM during this one month. Though we managed to reach the temple and get inside by exactly 7, we couldn't get the darshan of the God. We all were little disappointed with that, but convinced ourselves to plan again for this place and left back home. Reached back Anakapalle by 9:00 PM, had dinner and dozed off.

Day 5 :

With another addition of 2 more people, the ten of us started in two cars (Tavera + Innova) to Araku Valley by around 8 AM. We managed to take a short break half way through Araku from Anakapalle and had the breakfast packed from home! The drive through the ghats to Araku was very nice and scenic. 

Train to Araku passing through the mountains

It wasn't very steep as other mountains I have been, but it was little special and new for me as this was the first one I have ever visited in Eastern Ghats. So far the hills I have visited - Ooty, Kodaikanal, Panchgani, Mahabaleswar, Kemmagundi hills, Madikeri, Coorg - are all from Western Ghats. There is also a train leaving from Vizag to Araku by morning 7 AM, it will take around 4 hours to reach Araku, but I was told, Train is THE BEST way to experience the mountain range. I decided I should plan another trip via Railways next time. 

We stopped at Borra caves by 11:15 AM first which is about 40kms downhill to Araku, It was heavily crowded there and there was a huge chaos in the ticket counter, we spent close to an hour getting entry tickets to the caves. 

Crowd outside Borra caves for buying entry tickets

Lightings inside the caves

But I must say once we got inside the caves we all were awestruck seeing the beauty of the caves and how they were naturally formed like that. We spent around 2 hours inside the cave enjoying the beauty and the formations inside it.

Left from there by 2 PM and drove uphill to Araku Valley for lunch. Stopped by Hotel Rajdhani for lunch around 3:30 PM. Food was good there, I felt it was little expensive though. Next we went to Tribal museum within Araku Town which maintains different collection of items used by the tribal people. 

Masks used by Tribal people

Luckily, the day we went there was the starting day for Araku Valley festival and so the atmosphere was completely festive and good to be around. Started to descending down the mountains, reached downhill took a short coffee break and managed to reach back Anakapalle by around 9 PM.

We learned that we had to stay in Araku Valley to cover most of the places over there and also to enjoy the serenity with nature!

Day 6 :

Started back from Anakapalle to Nidadavole by 7:30 AM, took breakfast break near Annavaram by 8:30AM and managed to reach Rajahmundry town by 10:00 AM. Just stopped near the main Pushkar Ghat in Rajahmundry where you can get a complete view of the mighty river Godavari.

View from the Pushkar Ghat, Rajahmundry

                            

Reached back Nidadavole by 11:00 AM. We had our train back to Chennai by evening 4:30 PM to end the awesome Andhra trip.

Day 7 :

Reached back Chennai by early morning around 6:30 AM. Spent the entire day at my brother's house discussing about the good times and memories of the trip we had in the past 5 days :-)

Day 8 (28/12/2015) :

Boarded train back to Bangalore to end the leisurely vacation.

Overall, it was a great get together for the entire family. It was such a refreshing trip, though we didn't cover a lot of places, the time spent with the near and dear ones were priceless. This trip has definitely created a lot of great memories to cherish for all of us.

New Year 2014 ride...

The bond between me and Cauvery especially for the new year's eve is getting strengthened year by year. For the fourth year in a row, got a chance to ride to a spot where the river Cauvery flows through. Though this was my third time visiting this place, it was special, as this was the first time I went with my DSLR cam. This place is always a good to go for all photography enthusiasts around Bangalore. Yes, its none other the Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary which hosts a lot of birds with their nests settled here and a few migratory birds that visit every year. This sanctuary is located at about 135 KM from Bangalore near Srirangapatna. Mysore is just about 19 KM from the sanctuary. 

Me and a few of my friends who are not being inclined towards parties, wanted to spend the new year's day somewhere outside Bangalore and wanted to welcome New Year with a good ride that's not too far to complete in a single day. Then, we decided to hit Ranganthittu. This ride was a different and a first time experience of this kind, as I was going along with 3 families ;-) (Yes you read it right, 3 families). So, you could easily imagine about the time taken for planning and the difficulties in following through the plans :P. We planned to start about 7:30 AM from Bangalore, so that we could reach before noon and would be able to spend a good amount of time in the sanctuary. As usual, everybody I called up told that they were ready by 7:00 AM but we were able to start by 8:30 AM only from our house. I still don't understand from where that extra one and half hour came in :P 

Me and my roomie started in bike and the 3 families managed to adjust within the Maruthi Swift. (It should have a been a good promo for swift to accommodate so many people :-)), Initial plan was to meet at the NICE road entrance (in Banneghatta road) to Mysore road. But after a lot of back and forth calls, we somehow managed to meet each others after Bidadi (a place that's about 30KM from Bangalore city). We continued to ride till Maddur, stopped there by about 11:30 AM and had brunch break for about an hour at Vasudev Adigas. Next stop was the destination which we reached by about 1:30 PM.

This was a good season for the sanctuary, we could spot a lot of birds like pelican, painted stork, spoon bill, serpent eagle, open bill stork and a few more (the names of which I forgot). Most noticeably, I could see a potential increase in the number of Marsh Crocodiles in the lake present inside the sanctuary. The main activity in the sanctuary was the boating (manually rowed by the sanctuary personnel) that went around the lake and the islands present inside the lake where various birds have nested. It was a thrilling and a little scary experience to get so close to the crocodiles lying over the small rocks in middle of the lake. It was worth a trip for the ride and also for the photos we managed to take. We spent about 4 hours in the sanctuary, and started back by about 5:00 PM.

It was a completely trafficky ride back to Bangalore till Channapatna as most of the Bangaloreans were returning back to the city after their new year celebrations. We again stopped at Adigas in Maddur for a supper break and took some time to do a chit-chat to refresh ourselves for the next leg of ride. By the time we reached back home, it was 10:30 PM. Though the time taken for the trip was a lot more than anticipated, overall it was a fulfilling trip filled with a sense of satisfaction about the ride and the photographs taken there. 

Marsh Crocodile

Open bill Stork

The Crew :-)

Trip details in a nutshell

Number of days : 1

Vehicles :CBZX, Maruthi Swift,

Route : Bangalore -> Bidadi -> Ramnagara -> Channapatna -> Maddur -> Mandya -> Srirangapatna          ->Ranganthittu ; and backtracked the same route. Completely stretched over the SH-17. Took a      deviation after crossing Srirangapatna to reach the sanctuary which was like ~ 5 KM from SH 17

Distance covered : 313 KM 

How patient are you ???

Well, the title might sound weird to be presented in a travel blog. But, you would accept it as you complete this post . After a very long time, I happened to go on for a drive over the past weekend. It was a pilgrimage, which me and 3 of my friends took up. I guess, now you should be able to relate on which place I am talking about. Yes, Its none other than our famous Tirupathi temple, which is really popular for testing people’s (not all of the people though) patience.

We set out from Bangalore by Car at about 6PM on Friday (17-May-2013). With a pit stop for refueling our stomachs at Hotel Pavithra near Chithoor, we managed to reach alipiri (which is the downhill for pedestrians to tirupathi) at about 10:45 PM. This is not the first time that I am climbing the hill, (see my previous post on my first time experiences on walking up hill), still went on with a doubtful mind about completion. The two main reasons being growing old and the addition of extra pounds of flesh . As usual, the initial stretch of about 1500 steps were really tough, adding to that, there were humongous number of people walking up the hill. It was as crowded as a city bus stand, at a few places, we had to wait behind a lot of people to cross certain steps. We managed to reach atop – overcoming all the difficulties, yet enjoyed the climb- by about 2:30 AM. There is a place called “Madhava Nilaya” which is built primarily for the use of pedestrians to get refreshed there before they get into the temple. It was maintained in a pretty decent way. Yet, there could still be some improvements done in maintenance. We went and refreshed there and joined in the queue by about 3:45AM

This is when the test for our patience started, which all of us in great excitation, took up with a very happy face. Though the movement was in inches, we were kind of happy to see the queue kept moving minute by minute until around 5:00AM. It came to a stand still then, and we were all very drowsy and dozed  off standing there itself. Then, somehow managed to park our seats on the floor and again slept off there. We got up after a while only to realize we were at the same place for the past one and half hour. Yet, the nap made us feel a bit refreshed, moved ahead in the queue and somehow managed to enter into the cages[those fenced waiting rooms, I don’t get any better names for them!!!] by about 7:15AM

There are a lot of things which were disturbing during our wait. The first one was when one of the guys there - I believe he is from TTD(Thirumala Tiurpathi Devasthana) or an ally to them- whom I approached to check when would they open the cage, started asking me about my whereabouts and was checking with me if I would be interested to pay Rs.800/- to get the darshan faster in an hour. We ignored him and went ahead and started waiting. Usually, there used to be a lot of people outside of these wait areas that once they get cleared, they would open up these rooms, but to our surprise, we couldn’t find so much of crowd outside also, still we were locked in and made to wait. They served us Curd rice to have as breakfast and the wait continued on, until we heard from another TTD guy that they would open us up by about 11 AM. It was already 4 hours of sitting inside the room and about 3 hours of wait prior to that in the queue.

This was not actually the end of it, we were not really allowed to go by 11AM, but they started letting some other people in and we were made to wait still longer Most of the guys went outrageous and they started climbing over the fence and started jumping to the other side and joined the queue.We still continued to wait until they open up. Again by 1PM they served some sambar rice for all of those pitifully waiting folks. After one or two shout outs with the volunteers there, we managed to get out of the cage at about 2 PM. Fortunately, it was relatively a faster movement of the queue post this and we managed to complete the darshan by 3 PM. So, that’s close to 12 hours of wait, which made me realize, I still have the ability to sit/stand idle at a single spot for hours together without doing absolutely nothing

What was frustrating was, the way TTD people treat the people coming in divya darshan. Just because they have not paid anything for ticket, free food were served during waiting, they are not meant to made wait for a longer time than others those who pay for the darshan and get it done sooner. The people who had a great deal of devotion, dedication and commitment and who walked all the way up hill to see the God was put aside for the ones who pay a hefty amount to make easy way out to get a darshan. I was really wondering where are we heading to, its become like, there is nothing in this world, without money. ‘Money makes everything merry’. So, we felt like they don’t want people to come under free darshan that they treat them this way, so that they can make more money. And this money making doesn’t just end here. When there are dedicated counters for darshan tickets, why should someone ask people coming to free darshan to pay more to get their darshan soon. Even the prasadam for that matter, people kept coming behind us and asking “Sir, do you need extra laddoos? “. Everyone is trying in every other way to make money and money and money and temples are the best places these days for that.

Anyways, with all sort of discussions about the wait and the trip, we drove back to Bangalore and reached home by 11:00PM.

Think, I have tested your patience more than how mine was tested during the trip . Let me stop it here. Pour in your experiences and thoughts in comments

Atlast Icycled :-)

     Home alone for the weekend at Bangalore is one of the worst things to happen ;-) and that had made me to do something new and interesting to kick out the boredom. Then came the idea of the cycling as I have bought my bike by August and since then never really got good time to ride on. Initially, I was thinking to ride around my residence to a close by place within the city just to to eat some time off the weekend. Thanks to Facebook, that I got to know about the Hesarghatta trail ride organised by ICycle for Jan 13. The first thing that came to my mind was, Will I be able to complete the ride of 70 km (round trip), as that seems to be Herculian task at this point of time (that too with my current fitness level :P). But then somehow managed to convince myself and registered for the event.

     The ride plan was to start from Sadashiva nagar swimming pool by 6:30 AM and ride on till Taj Kuteeram and return to the origin. The second doubt I had on myself was, the starting point in Sadashiva nagar itself was 20 Km from my house(this was the result of the Google maps though), and if I have to be there by 6:30 AM I have to start by 4:30 AM from my residence which was really a nightmare for me. So I was little skeptical about making up for the event, quickly called up the organizers, had a discussion and decided to rent the cycle from them. The total cost for the ride is Rs.650(350 - cycle rent + 300 - breakfast, snacks & lunch) So, everything is set and the plan is on. I just need to be prepared and ready for the ride the next morning. 

     As I am a first timer and very newbie for a ride with a group like this, I was so excited and enthusiastic. I got up by around 5 AM and got ready and reached the assemble point by 6:15 AM. Awaited for all the members to come, we were about 12 for this ride and the ride began exactly about 7:00 AM. The route was pretty easy and straight forward, reach BEL circle, and took right from there towards Jalahalli and kept going straight till we reached Hesarghatta lake. The trail wasn't so tough in the onward journey, we hardly encountered some 3-4 slopes in the road, everybody was just riding at ease. We have reached near the Heasarghatta lake by about 8:10 AM and stopped for breakfast. Resumed the ride after half an hour and we could reach the destination by about 9:00 AM. I was so surprised to realize that I could cover a distance of about 35 KM approx in 2 hours, that too with a break in between. :-)

    I have been earlier to the same place in my motorcycle and had experienced the tranquility in the grasslands there. This time we just spent about 15 mins or so and started the return ride. This was little tougher compared to the onward, and exhausted me more than how I passed by earlier. Again with a break for snacks before we hit the city roads by 10 AM, we managed to reach back the origin by about 11 AM. 

     I must admit that it was a wonderful ride, much easier than I imagined and well organized by the ICycle team. During the return ride, Manju from the team guided me and helped me much making right use of the gears  and explained me with DOs and DONTs while biking. It was all very informative and useful tips. I am really glad to have joined the group and went on for the ride. The urge for biking has already increased a lot for me. Hoping to ride more, learn more and most of all want to enjoy the fun of biking!!!

     The photos from the ride are available in the below links from ICycle:

http://www.icycle.in/portfolio/hesaraghatta-13jan13/

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.538287502868611.121413.198939560136742&type=1

New Year 2013 ride…

2012 was the most boring year I would say- at the least with respect to my biking and touring. Though, the year started with a ride to Coorg for the new year, the rest of the year turned out to be empty on my rides. Adding to the motorcycle touring, I did start with a new venture of cycling/biking and bought a new B’twin RR 5.0 as well. Fortune didn’t favour me on that perspective also. I could hardly go for any ride with my RR 5.0. Yet, stayed uncompromised till the end of the year, and did a one day ride to Salem in CBR(about 450 KM) in November. That gave me a feel good factor that, I have not wasted up the whole year without any biking

Nevertheless, I wanted to ride for this new year as well, so that I can proudly say I ride for every new year. Yeah, this is my third new year celebration in a row, which I had spent with my bike. This time too the destination is one of the Cauvery areas. After a few hours of research on the boarding and lodging for 5, we narrowed it down to Shivanasamudra falls (a place around 135+ KM from Bangalore). We managed to book a resort (that’s how they claim themselves) called Riversedge near the Gaganachukki falls itself. They charged Rs.1750/- per head inclusive of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. That seemed to be a very good deal for all of us, as it works out very cheaper than what we would end up spending here in Bangalore if we go for any new celebrations.

The ride started on 31-Dec-2012 around 8 AM from my house. Though the bikes remained the same(CBR, R15 and CBZX), the people riding them are different this time, as the usual guys are out of town. Thank God, my school friends were there as my saviours They came down from Pune & Chennai for the new year bash .  Yet I managed to convince them to take for the ride off Bangalore!!! We took the Bangalore->Mysore SH 17 till Maddur and took a deviation to Malavalli, which is one hell of a road we have ever ridden. The entire 20+ KM stretch was bumpy. Beyond that was a neatly laid road till the resort. With a few calls to the owner, we managed to locate the resort and reached there around 1 PM. (Yeah 5 hours is too much of a time actually including a short break for the breakfast near Bidadi). We had prepared our mind earlier from Bangalore that the resort is going to be crappy. Despite that, we decided to go to it out of our desperation to go off the city. The resort lived up to our expectation, it had a pretty decent room which accommodated 5 persons at ease. When we made our booking thru phone, the price quoted was 1750 per person, but we could bargain it and ended up paying 1500

We had lunch in the resort and went to the river which is just a stone throw away from the room. That was the first disappointment for us, the Cauvery has gone dry badly. We managed to find some small pool of running water amidst the dry river and took a bath in it.

The most enjoyable part of the river was the photo shoot. All the guys started posing one after the other and I was clicking everyone’s Facebook profile pictures(Yeah the photos are more to publish on Facebook only these days )

Got back to our room in the evening around 5 PM and relaxed for a while and started to get a glimpse of the actual falls. There awaited our second disappointment. The waters in our showers would be denser than those falling in the waterfall. Felt really bad and pity about the status of the river Cauvery, yet took some snaps just to hold the memory of the visit to the place and headed back to room

Rest of the times, we just spent inside the room enjoying among ourselves, the third disappointing thing in the trip was the choice of songs being played in the resort. None of us had liked it, and that left us with an option of just get locked inside the room We were happy to hear the Gangnam style and why this kolaveri around 12’o clock of Jan 1,2013 which helped us in making some moves and welcome the new year with the dancing hearts  

Next morning, around 10 AM, had our breakfast, clicked some formal group photos outside the rooms and inside the premises of the resorts and started back to Bangalore.

The return journey was so peaceful as we took the route via Kanakapura road. Stopped multiple times in between to kill some time and could reach back home a little late. We had reached Bangalore by about 2 PM.

On the whole, it was an enjoyable ride and I could complete my wish of riding three years in a row. Hoping to do more motorcycle touring/biking this year and to add more posts to my blog!!!

Trip in a nutshell:

Number of days: Two

Bikes in the ride: CBR250R, R15, CBZX

Route taken:

Onward : Bangalore –> Maddur-> Malavalli –> Shivanasamudra falls(Gaganachukki )

Return: Shivanadamudra –> Malavalli –> Kanakapura –> Bangalore

Distance covered: 275 KM (Round trip including the all places visited)

Accommodation: Riversedge resort(1500 per head incl. BF, Lunch, Dinner)