Hanging out with friends on July 23...

We had decided to go camping last weekend, but since I was working till late evening on Saturday and everyone except Dev had something or the other to do we all decided to meet early morning on Sunday and proceed with our original plan.


We were six of us on four bikes. Anand and Jyothi on his spanking new, gleaming Bullet, Dev and Urmila on his splendour, Dilish on his refurbished Yamaha YBX and yours truly on the trusty TVS Victor. We headed out on the Bellary road and were hoping to cover three destinations Avathi, Vijayapura and Nallur.

Avathi about 46 km on the NH-7 was our first halt. Since we met up in the early morning (6.30 am) at Mekhri Circle, all of us were famished... stopping at Devanahalli we polished off a breakfast of piping hot Idly-Vada before we proceeded towards Devanahalli on the smooth pot-hole free road. After Avathi we turned left and as we headed out of the main road into the countryside, the change in surroundings, weather, sounds and sights was radically different.

Thimmarayaswamy Temple - Avathi

From Avathi it is about 2 km to Gautama Giri Kshetra and the narrow road takes one through some nice scenery. Narrow roads, tall rocky cliffs, lush green fields, quaint temples, cattle and simple village folk on the road and most importantly pollution free air. The USP of GGK is a the quiet hill and the ancient Vijayanagara Style temple dedicated to Thimmarayaswamy aka Lord Venkteshwara aka Vishnu. Other attractions in the hill include couple of water sprints, a deep cave and a small ashram. A narrow but steep road snakes up the hill from the base till the temple entrance, from here it is a 30-minute climb over a moderate rocky gradient to the top of the hill. I visited Avathi first in 2002 and there are some changes happening now... I don't know when the temple mafia will stop converting natural hills into 'Real-Estate Colossiums'.

We spent a good 2 hrs wandering around the hill stopping at every good place to sit and talk and exchange views. Anand recounted the interesting and hilarious experiences he has had with his Bullet and et al.

From Avathi we rode on the country roads back to the highway and took a detour at Devanahalli towards Vijayapura, a medium sized town about 10 km away. Vijayapura doesn't have any great tourist attraction but the Nagreshwara temple which is a unique blend of Shiva and Vishnu temples in one compound. The temple located in the centre of the town and accessed through a narrow bylane.

Nagareshwara Temple - Vijayapura

Unfortunately the Temple Mafia is in full control of the ancient shrine and this has resulted in total transformation of an ancient sculptural marvel into a modern eyesore. The old stone flooring has been replaced by shiny marble tiles, attractive stone pillars have been whitewashed. Original stucco images in the Rajagopuram is being painted in myriad colours without any sensitivity for retaining the antiquity of the place. Anyway I have lots of cribs... we spent about half an hour there and headed towards Nallur on the Vijayapura-Budigere road. The narrow road is quite pathetic and bad and at places it is a stretch of mud with several potholes of all sizes and depths.

Nagareshwara Temple Pillars - Vijayapura

Finaly after a bone rattling ride of about 12 km we reached the ancient Tamarind groove of Nallur. There are over 150 tamarind trees in the groove of which several trees are believed to be older than 80-100 years. Some trees have fallen down and are still yielding fruits. These look like large giants taking rest after serving humanity for over a century.

Three ancient chola-style temples dot the groove. One of them which is the best in terms of sculptures is the most neglected. One of the walls has collapsed, roof has come down and the temple might in all probability last another 10-15 years. We explored the temples and Dev took the initiative of climbing to the top and we all followed.

Sat down on the broken walls of the shrine and talked... talked.. and talked.. about the place.. travel... etc... all things under the sky till the biscuits we had carried finished. Then we all started back towards the city and after stopping over at a Dhaba for lunch we reached back home well in time before evening.

Biking in Bangalore's backyard - Part II

Well it has been long since I updated my blog... have been out twice since then... so thought I'd add remaining parts of the July 3rd outing with Anand.

From Muneshwara temple we proceeded on passing Sri Sri Ravishankar's Art of Living ashram and ahead towards Harohalli. As we were approaching Harohalli an interesting and funny incident happened.

There was this guy on a Honda Unicorn who was furiously following us and we stopped next to a lake for a breather and to take couple of pictures. The Honda guy stopped a little away and parked his bike and came back... patted Anand's gleaming Bullet and walked all round it. "Saar! Eshtu Mileage Barathe? (Sir, how much mileage does it give?)" he said. "30" said Anand to which his expression changed to a surprise and indignation. "Madras Motors Alli 40-45 kodutthe andhru," he retorted to which I remarked "No bullet will give you mileage above 35 km pl".

He then went on to recount his sob story of how he had purchased a Bullet and sold it after just 2 days because the bike's mileage just didn't cross 20 km pl. He had lost 15 K in the bargain and settled for a Honda Unicorn which was giving him 50 km pl.... We cursed him and told him if he had informed me or Anand one of us would have bought it... Anyway tough luck...

From there we proceeded to Kanakapur and then to Satnur through some beautiful countryside roads and quaint hills and also crossed a huge dam (will find out more about it later) to reach Dodda Halahalli where we turned right on the Sangam road and travelled for about 8 km and turned left at the Chunchi falls welcome arch. From here is it is about 8 km to the roaring waterfalls via narrow and confusing country roads.

Chunchi Falls

Chunchi Falls - rugged surroundings

The water fall is sited in a starkly rocky and rugged terrain. I haven't seen such rugged terrain anywhere around Bangalore. Even Ramanagar and Savandurga fade into oblivion when one looks at the stark landscape at Chunchi falls. Beautifully rugged and scary because one slip on these rocks would leave one with broken bones and bruised limbs and maybe even fatal as at some places the water is really deep between rocks.

Anand clicked some great pictures of the falls and surrounding countryside before heading back towards Satnur.

Me at Chunchi falls

From Satnur we decided to return to Bangalore on the Mysore road via Chennapatna, Ramnagar etc. But the first major place we reached was Kabbal village sited in the shadow of Kabbal Durga hill fort. The Kabballamma temple here attracts thousands of devotees during weekends. I visited Kabbal first in 1996 to participate in an advance rock climbing camp, where I had honed my rock climbing skills. At that time we stayed at Kabbal for four days and we noticed that there were hadly any visitors to the temple or the fort. This hill fort has by far some of the best routes even better than Savandurga and Ramanagaram. Perhaps due to its distance from Bangalore (100 km) and the remoteness (nearest decent hotel/ accommodation 22 km), Kabbal has not become popular among adventure tourists.

Kabbal durga hill fort

Now in 2006 the picture is totally different. Kabbal was full of vehicles, the road leading to the temple was almost choked with vehicles - 2, 3 and 4 wheelers of all brands, colours and types were there. The queue of pilgrims for darhsan was around half a km long. It is amazing how development transforms a quiet sleepy village into a teeming pilgrim centre in just a decade.

Since it was too hot in the afternoon we decided to skip climbing the fort, just took pictures of the temple, hill and couple of hero stones placed near the temple and started our journey towards Chennapatna and then further to Bangalore.

Kabbalamma Temple with the fort background