Manipal Revisited... Day 1: Bangalore to Madikeri

It was a much awaited ride for all of us and a much awaited trip for the others... Yes the group was split open this time around, 5 of us decided to ride down and the other 5 decided to come by bus... So the stage was all set for us to leave the riding group was Me(Thuderbird), Sunil(Unicorn), Abhi(Apache), Bharavi(CBZ extreme) and Babu(Blue Splendor 125 cc) the other unfortunate 5 were BK, Supreeth, Pradeep, Rajanna and the new guy Karthik... The bus guys had booked their tickets to leave on 1st night and we were supposed to leave on 1st afternoon which eventually turned out to become evening...

Day 1(April 1st 2010):

I had packed my luggage the previous night itself and woke up early and went to the new Mantri mall for some shopping for my shoes and a T shirt for Joseph (Suman's gift for her wedding anniversary)... After hogging at the new Taco bell at the mall searched for some shoes and finally found a pair of Nike...

I also had to pick up my new pair of boots from shivaji nagar but alas the guy had not got the boots yet so couldnt get the new ones for the ride... After shivaji nagar i headed back home and geared up and got my saddles done and left to sunils place by 2... We were already late and Abhi would meet up with us by 4 so we decided to waste sometime and as well leave with Abhi... Bharavi was already at sunils place so we were playing with Sumans kid and had some chai... Finally we left at 4 and met up with Abhi at the Bangalore university gate only to find that our man Babu had shot ahead to some god forbidden location just to find a petrol bunk which was right in front of the university gate... Finally we got going after finding Babu waving at us wildly some where 20 kms from BU...

Incidentally there was very little traffic on mysore road for a long weekend, neverthless it was good for us... We were doing good speeds I was leading the way while Bharavi and Babu were right behind me and Abhi and Sunil were at the back... Looking into my rear view mirror was scary with babu riding like a snake at the mid line almost got run down by oncoming vehicles... First stop we took was just before the shrirangapatnam cross towards Madikeri... After some gyan sessions to Babu and Bharavi to ride properly we hit the road again and by this time it started to get dark... We were again doing good speeds and i decided to ride at the end of the pack so that i can baby sit Babu and Bharavi...

Next stop was just before hunsur at the Nagarhole junction... We had some coffee and some freshening up and another gyan session to Babu to ride carefully we left to madikeri... This was a super nice night ride... It was like a trail of light moving in a trained manner under the dark star lit sky... Every now and then i switched off my head lights to enjoy just the sky it was psychedelic and amazing to ride without head lights in the dark... Hit some bad patch of roads at Madikeri and finally managed to reach the homestay at 11 after a couple of scares from Bharavi who went off the road on a couple of curves and Babu with his usual stupid stunts and the final 5 kms off roading in the night to reach the homestay... :)

Partied in the night with campfire and some bantering and teasing of babu... Abhi was in all form who literally started hitting babu... Some of pearls of wisdom when the boys are high... :)

Abhi to Babu, Yeno nindu bari height nandu weight bega kudiyo loper (You just have height i have weight Drink fast u idiot)

Babu who drank the first time says we all forced him into drinking... Babu drank 3 pegs of vodka and says we forced him... :)

After Babu told us the sad story of how he lost his mobile, Bharavi's retort "Dude babu I dont understand why u cried after loosing your fone"

Sunil "Maga naale Manipal hogbeka,BK ge call madi ille barakke helbidona"(Do we have to go to manipal tomorrow, lets call BK and ask him to come here)

So after the campfire died out and the boys ran out of the booze we had our dinner and crashed for the night as we had a long day of riding the next day.. Yes we decided to leave to Manipal the next day... :)

Kodachadri: The Trek of a lifetime

Kodachadri that was the place we were heading too this time around.. It was one trip i was apprehensive about initially, but after the forcing of the guys I had to accept to their demands and agreed to it... So the check list was made, we were planning to trek, we were planning to camp, we were planning to party... In a nutshell we were planning for a blast of a weekend...

We booked the tents and sleeping bags from BMC... We could get the tents but they were short of sleeping bags, but we managed get them with some quick thinking(Thanks to me)... After another addition to the initial group of 10 there was a new member to the gang a fledgling to our gang...

The good fellas gang comprised of Me, Sunil, Abhi, BK, Rajanna, Chira, Harish, Pradeep, Supreeth, Bharavi and the new fella Suhas... :) We had stocked up for the evening at camp site thanks to Supreeth for the drinks and Abhi for the MTR ready to eat... :)

D day(25th DEC 2009)

We all met up directly at the bus stop where a last minute check revealed that we had forgotten basic stuff like i forgot my tooth brush and we had forgotten to take cups for the next day... Once we put the luggage on the bus we were all set and there was no turning back.. :) It was a riot drive in the bus, just imagine a group of 11 guys together under the same ceiling... After some talking and bantering we all retired for the night...


Day One(26th DEC 2009)

Thanks to the ksrtc driver who drove in the ghats like an insane man who had lost his nuts... We reached kollur at 5 45 in the morning to find kollur was filled with people... To our luck it was some kind of an auspicious day and pilgrims were flocking the place... We had a tough time even to find a place to freshen up... After running around from one end of the town to the other for almost an hour we found a matta called the hegde matta that offered us shelter... It was no fancy place but we found a place to wash away our filth and get ready for a day that would be one of the most adventurous days for us... :) After a bath and a photo session we were all ready and raring to go...

We walked back to the town to have breakfast and to find a jeep that would take us to kodachadri that is about 40 kms from kollur... There was some talk about why only jeeps could go to kodachadri and i got the answer why it was that way once i took the ride... It was one helluva ride on the jeep some stomach churning experience... I am still wondering how the jeep made it all the way up to the peak... We reached the bhatta's house who runs a temple there and also gives food to people who come there...

That was the last meal we had for another day and a half... We trekked around till our lunch got ready and explored some territory around... After we were done with lunch we trekked to the camping spot which was another nice trek up hill... On the way we visited one of the caves which also houses a temple... :) We finally made it up to our camping site just in time to catch a beautiful sunset... We set up our base camp here and set off to get some fire wood for the night...

After the sunset started the party and some awesome time.. We sat there talking about totally random things keeping ourself warm with the campfire that we set up... Once it started getting cold we got into our sleeping bags and started star gazing, thanks to Sunil and Abhi who started drawing maps on the sky... :) Then we crashed for the night once it was getting real cold...

Day Two(27th DEC 2009)

We woke up early morning in the hopes of catching a good sunrise... But the weather played spoil sport and we couldnt see the sunrise because of a foggy and cloudy morning... After we lazed around the camp site clicking some pics we decided to head down to bhattas place... The trek down was beautiful as we took the longer route in search of finding a waterfall which we only heard and never saw... Finally decided against it and got back to Bhattas house...

After a light breakfast we decided to trek down from the hill top... Got our water supplies and started the descend... The trek down was long and tiring but one of the best treks we ever did... The forest was simply mind blowing... After a trek for almost 6 hrs and a leech bite to me we reached the bottom of the hill in one piece...
We caught a bus from there back to kollur and got back to hegde matta to freshen up... We were wasted and totally hungry but we dint wanna have dinner at kollur...

We were right on time to the bus stop for our bus but the bus was 45 mins late... Thanks to the traffic jam because of the over flowing pilgrims the bus got delayed for another hour... After another leg pulling session we crashed for the night...

Another traffic jam at nelamangala ensured some more delay and the driver decided to take magadi road instead and we reached the station at about 8 in the morning... Got back home by auto with Abhi and Pradeep... All in all an awesome time with the guys...

For renting tents and sleeping bags: http://www.bmcindia.org/
Few pics from the trek: http://picasaweb.google.com/deepak3565/Kodachadri25thTo28thDec2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDJ167kxPH1PA#

This is probably my last post of this year unless my mind cooks up something real soon... :) If not then have a great new years eve and an amazing 2010 guys... :)