Anthargange - Bike Trip

On a weekend expecting guys to wakeup early and be ready for a trip was difficult. That’s what I thought until last Saturday. Our plan was to start around 6:30 in the morning since one of the team member stays in the other end of the city. The team managed to assemble at the agreed meeting point in Indiranagar at 7:00 AM.

From there the onward journey started towards Kolar via Old Madras Road. This was the first long ride experience to the fellow biker. I was assuming the road was of four lanes until I hit the highway. Oops! Even though the road was very good, there were few drivers on the road who made me think how did they managed to get licenses (even by paying bribe :) )

We stopped before Kolar on the bypass for our breakfast. Got off from the Highway, entered Kolar. Turned left before the bus stand and a 3 kilometer ride further we were at the foot of Anthargange hills.

We straight jumped into the woods, while our teammate was suggesting taking the steps. Our response was, "What is the thrill in climbing the steps?" On seeing our interest in making our own way he joined us in the woods.

After some small rock climbs (All of us are first time climbers except for one guys who had done some basic course in rock climbing) to the left of the steps, we climbed down to find out a cave near the steps itself.

While two of us started to jump into the cave and crawled to the other side, we were hearing the voice of the team member who preferred to stay out "Hey where are you? I am not able to see you. Muje Dar Laghta hai". After few photo shoots and exploration inside the cave, we started making our own way to climb towards the top.

On the way we found a bunch of butterflies on this tree. What a view to see so many butterflies in one place.

After making our way through thorny bushes and climbing and jumping on the rocks, we reached a nice view point under the shadow of the rocks. After a rest for an half an hour and enjoying the scenic viewpoint we started moving further in the rocks. Now the climbs were little steeper and getting harder. After a certain point two of us almost gave up. One guy starting telling I will wait here itself you guys go and come. On the way down pick me up.

By this time the other guy had climbed far ahead of us. We tried shouting loud but could not get any reply from him and he was not to be seen in the picture at all. After some time he appeared on top of a rock far far away from us. Don’t know where he derives the energy from :)

We managed to climb some more where we saw a huge rock pile arranged in an order that would fall apart with human effort. We entered in the wedges just to find a nice resting place with a climate & comfort that was defying all the aircons. It had a deep cave inside with the width narrowing so much as if it appeared like an irregular cone from the top. Since we didn’t carry any ropes, we were not able to climb down and explore it.

Had the snacks that we carried with us. We were enjoying the climate and the view of the nature for almost an hour. We started our climb down. We found there was a natural stream water way, which made our climb down much more easier.

We came down to the temple by that way. The temple has a stream between the Nandis which tasted so sweet. All the processed and ozonized water were no match for the taste of it. There were kids who were carrying water cans near equal to their weight down the hill to Kolar.

Finally we got down the hill and thankfully our bikes were not frisked :). The monkeys have played their part by tearing the seat covers and tank covers of our bikes. Had our lunch around 4:30 PM! (Can we call it lunch at this time?)

While driving back it started raining heavily and we started enjoying the rain prick. With in minutes it became a near blind ride with heavy droplets of rain on us and we had no hiding on the highway.

We drove as safely and slowly as we could and entered Hoskote. Not even a single drop of rain here. The shoes had accumulated so much of water I was not able to change gears or apply brakes properly. So we stopped near a hotel for a chai.

We were so wet that people started seeing with amusement where these creatures came from :)

We plan to have a camp next time and also we plan to scale to the peak of the hill in our next visit.

Nandi Hills Outing

Plans for visiting Nandi hills started from Thursday. I started looking for arranging transport. Being a holiday season most of the operators were asking for higher prices. One of the colleague’s friends agreed for a reasonable rate for Qualis (since it was a family outing). My colleague told the vehicle is confirmed for Sunday. Sunday morning I called up the guy who is supposed to send the vehicle just to find out that he had sent the vehicle for some other trip since we have not given the address details the previous day itself. He had thought that we had arranged for another vehicle since we have not confirmed the day before. Lesson learnt: Reconfirm your travel with the cab operator the previous day to avoid last minute surprises. Anyway the same operator managed to arrange a Sumo for us in the next hour.Finally the vehicle came and we boarded it and hit the Airport road, the driver asked "Do you know the route"!!! We then found out that driver have never drove for tours, he only drove for BPO organizations in Bangalore. What a bliss to have a driver for an outing, who don’t know the route. I asked him to drive towards Devanahalli and from there we can check the route and go further. Finally we managed to reach Nandi Hills around 11:00 AM.

While climbing the hills itself I noticed the views were stunning. After reaching the top we roamed around here and there. We enjoyed the views of the valley and the steep rocks of the hillock opposite.

Since people have told me it is a summer retreat and the climate will be good, I had lot of hopes on that front. But the climate was almost the same as in Bangalore, though there were few places were the climate was really cool.

If I am not wrong there were as many monkeys as were the people. It seemed to be an art to have our lunch in midst of the monkeys waiting for the slightest chance to snatch the food from us :).

After much of roaming around and climbing the place up and down we started our journey back home in the evening. We missed the sunset as it was cloudy on that day. After having breathed the fresh air for around 7 hours, we entered back to the noise and pollution of Bangalore.
Don't know what is the name of this flower, which was abundant in Nandi Hills. Can somebody update me.

Bike Trip to Tiruvannamalai

This weekend I had an unplanned trip to my native. I decided to ride through my bike. Started around 9:00 AM from Bangalore. I know that the road until Krishnagiri is too good since it is part of Super National Highway. From Krishnagiri I took a right towards Pondicherry road. The climate was pleasant for most part of the drive.

Even though I had traveled many times on this route, this is the first time I took a look around the numerous hillocks on the way. Most of them are steep and I guess rock climbers will love to give a try on these hillocks. There is not much trees on almost all of these hillocks. So if you are planning to give it a try, do so in winter.

While returning back I started around 4:30 AM so that I can make it to office in time. The dawn is always a pleasant one. The time when the darkness fades away and daylight starts is an awesome sight. Below is the sunrise which I captured near a place called Mattur.

Flight Museum

How many of us know that there is a flight museum in Bangalore. Have you ever been to the Airport road further down the Airport entrance? If you drive towards Marathahalli you can see the board “HAL Heritage Centre”.

The heritage centre houses a number of Airplanes most of them which were used by Indian Air Force earlier. As you enter the Heritage centre you are greeted by this message board. The message sure makes think about the grass.





As you walk further you can see the old workhorses of the Indian Air Force. You can just climb towards the cockpit as if you are the pilot ( how many of us have the privilege to be a pilot of IAF by the way? ) . The heritage centre speaks volumes about the Aviation history of India. HAL has played the key part in the Indian Aviation with its contribution towards military and civilian aircrafts.


The heritage center also has a flight simulator and audio visual presentations for additional charges.

It was a worthwhile visit. The HAL Heritage center is open on all days from 9:00 hours to 17:00 hours. Entry fee is Rs. 20 for adults and Rs. 10 for Children. If you are carrying a camera you need to pay an additional charge of Rs. 10.

Why so much of development

Last weekend without knowing what to do to kill time, I decided to drive down the Bangalore Outer Ring Road. I connected to the ring road from the Udupi garden singal and drove upto Marathahalli junction.

When drove this stretch almost a year ago, the entire stretch was almost empty except for some few hundred meters. Now I am seeing so much of construction work either completed or still in progress.

When I saw about hundreds of apartments being constructed in that stretch the first question came to my mind was why so much of realty developments happens only in cities? Are there enough people who can afford the rent (which everybody knows higher in Bangalore) or buy it out. If there are so much developments happening, it also shows that people are migrating towards cities.

Myself a migrant from my native and lived both in Chennai and Bangalore for quite sometime, I started asking why did I migrate in the first place. My family comes from a agricultural background (I guess most Indian families will have the same kind of background) and my father's generation was the first to come out of agriculture partially. Until my grandparents they were fully into agriculture and they were leading a happy life. Seems to be things have changed later when agriculture was not so profitable with failing rains and crops. Agriculture is the one place where the manufacturer cannot set the price for his produce. Either the government controls it or the marketmen (known as Mandi in Tamil) control it.

My father and his brothers were taking up a job and were also planting some crops or leasing the land to somebody to cultivate. From my childhood until now I have noticed cultivation is reduced to a large extent. My generation me and my cousins almost everybody has takenup a job or business to stick to and except one or two nobody ventured into agriculture. Eventhough I have picked up some interest in it, it is going to take some more years for me to settle in it if at all I am planning to continue.

The advantages of being an agriculturalist still lures me.

• No need to go to office and sit in a closed enclosure without knowing if it is day or night (office is always illuminated with lights :) ).
• No pressure of deadlines and crazy timelines. You really become your own boss.
• The last but not the least, there in no income tax on agricultural income ;-

These three reasons seems to be enough for me to venture into agriculture. Any thoughts?