blog-5

blog-5
Originally uploaded by srinidhilv.

Well.... this picture shows my parents, sister and friends who had come to welcome me back to Bangalore after my South Asian Motorcycle Odyssey.

Now I have visited five countries and here is a link to the new world map which shows the countries I have visited.



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Returning to Bangalore

blog-1
Originally uploaded by srinidhilv.

This picture shows Kishore and me riding on Old Madras road (NH-4) as we returned to Bangalore completing our 4½ month, 19,000 km journey across south Asia. We were escorted back to Bangalore by a few bikers who rode to Kolar and met up with us at the Woody's restaurant.

blog-4

blog-4
Originally uploaded by srinidhilv.

This was taken soon as we returned to Bangalore after completing our 4½ nonth, 19,000 km motorcycle ride across south Asia. Me and my partner Kishore Patwardhan travelled across five countries (India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh) on motorcycle and completed the expedition. It was a touching and rousing welcome from TVS heads, family and friends and other bikers from Bangalore who turned up and waited for us at MG road to welcome us back to Bangalore.

Home coming

Today I returned home after being 4½ months on the road with my riding partner Kishore Patwardhan. It was nice to catch up with my family and friends. Some bikers from Bangalore rode all the way upto Kolar and welcome-escorted us back to Bangalore. It was a nice event with our entire office staff waiting for us at MG Road along with the heads of TVS. Mr. Chandramouli, Arvind, Krishna etc were all waiting for us at the venue and after a quick welcome ceremony and lots of photo sessions we proceeded back home.

More chatting with family and trying to catch up with things. I hope to start blogging again soon. So my dear friends welcome me back with comments and do visit our website www.borderlessbikers.com.

Riding on NH-5

Riding on NH-5
Originally uploaded by srinidhilv.

hi friends,
Even as I hit the last leg of our South Asian Motorcycle Adventure which started on December 3, 2007. Kishore has become a more experimental photographer. This picture a little shaken was taken when both the bikes were travelling at 60 km per hour on the super smooth National Highway 5 between Nellore and Tada.

Visit our website http://www.borderlessbikers.com for more details and to view more pictures of our tour.

sri

sri
Originally uploaded by srinidhilv.

Testing whether the picture gets blogged or not.

For all those of my friends who read my blog. This is a quick update. As most of you would know that I am on my dream motorcycle sojourn across South Asia.

We have been on the road for the past 22 days and have covered about 4,500 km from Bangalore to Ahmedabad with lots of detours, back and forth riding, weaving in and out of cities, winding through lush green forests, gliding through the depths and heights of ghat regions, and meeting lots and lots of different people.

Some relatives, long lost friends, new friends, newly established friendships, mechanics, puncture fixing experts, ultra suave businessmen who run TVS dealerships, enthusiastic students, shy villagers etc.

Here is one of my pictures shot on the road near Baindur, Karnataka, where the road is flanked by the roaring sea on one side and the cool backwaters on the other. Fantastic scenery and great weather. Wish I had more time to spend out there... some other time definitely with friends or even alone... it is like biker nirvana when one hits these kind of roads. The bike and rider become one and enjoy the scenic vistas of the road.

More later...

sri

sri
Originally uploaded by srinidhilv.

I had been for a large mammal census through Wildlife Conservation Society of India during January 2005. It was a wonderful learning experience of one week trekking through remote and far flung forests which are otherwise inaccessible to common men. Thanks to the census I was able to get to these inner most pockets of the Bandipur jungles, stay at anti-poaching camps, interact with forest watchers/ rangers/ officers.. great experience.

I visited the hill fort Makalidurga and snake temple town Ghati Subramanya on the previous weekend and conquered forts at Madhugiri, Kortagere, Siddarabetta and Channarayanadurga even as we marvelled at the serene waters of Tumbadi and Iraksandra dams and awed at the massive stone well in front of Chelur temple.

A detailed report with pictures is yet to be posted as I have been quite lazy. Will do it before this weekend. Till then happy browsing other blogs.

Outing of last week... report next week..

For now I want to tell you all about how many countries I have visited and what all countries I will be visiting next year. Starting this December 3, I am on a RTW tour on motorcycle along with two of my best friends Kishore and Kuttappa. Visit our website www.borderlessbikers.com to know more about this tour and help us if possible.

Countries I have visited.


create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Countries I will be visiting next year on my motorcycle

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

Biking in Bangalore's backyard

Rocky cliffs around Kanakapura

Yesterday (July 2, 2006) was one of the better outings, I have been on in the past several weekends. The Original plan was that Dev, Anand and myslef would get together with our iron horses and of course Anand's is a Rhinocerous not a horse, and steer them towards Kanakapura and roam in the wilderness, climb a mountain, swim in a river and ride back home by evening.

Dev and I were scheduled to meet at 6.30 am at my place and then head towards Basavangudi where Anand would join us at 7 am. At 6.15 my mobile starts ringing and it is Dev on the other end. "Hey Sri, there is an emergency in the office. It seems our editor quit his job last night and they have called us all at 11 am for the meeting. Why did he have to quit yesterday, couldn't he quit on Monday?" said Dev ruefully adding that he wouldn't be able to make it and wished us a good time. After exactly 5 minutes Anand smsed saying he had already left from home. I got ready and proceeded towards our meeting place and reached there in good time but there was no sign of Anand.

After about 10 mins Anand chugged in and then we started off towards Jayanagar for breakfast of Idly and Sambar at Pavitra Paradise. Having filled ourselves we decided to head out and get out of the city asap. And get out we did.... our first stop was at the Vajramuneeshwara temple just out of the city off Kanakapura Road. The NICE BMIC has just missed this ancient temple by about 200 meters.

The temple had been famous in the recent years for elephant attacks on human beings and had even killed couple of farmers in the region. But now with the NICE road coming up I am sure elephants wouldn't dare to venture here. Anyway coming to the tepmple per se... like all Muneswara temples this too is an open air temple, sited at the fringe of a beautiful forest and hill region. There are two large banyan trees under which Lord Muneswara is consecreted.

Vajramuneshwara temple

The descent to the temple via a short flight of steps transports one to a different world altogether. The temple has stone flooring and a roof of leaves and branches, there is a small shrine dedicated to Shiva, and a natural spring provides drinking water to visitors. We were pretty early and there was hardly anybody at the shrine. Only the temple authorities cleaning the mess inside the temple and dirtying the forest around. A stream runs in front of the temple about 100 meters away amidst thick almost inaccessible forest.

We decided to skirt around the temple and explore the forest as we heard the call of peacocks and sounds of other animals. Truging through the forest we saw a check dam being constructed close by, the roads being built by NICE and the Vaderahalli lake far away. Again we heard the Peacock... this time very loud and close. We followed the sound into the bushes and there in front of us about 100 meters away was a single peacock gracefully walking, weaving in and out of the bushes. Taking in these sights we moved and returned to the bikes at the Muneswara temple, where by then a large crowd of people with sacrifices of Chicken, Lamb etc had accumulated and were ready to perform the ghastly act of killing innocent animals in the name of god.

Chicken ready for slaughter

From here we decided to head to Chunchi Falls and from there to Kabbal before finally returning to Bangalore via Chennapatna, Ramanagaram and Bidadi. Look out for the next post coming soon.

Outing to Devara Betta (Thevar Betta) in neighbouring Tamil Nadu

Devara Betta temple atop the hill

Sunday dawned bright and crisp and was I raring to go.

The destination was towards Tamil Nadu and the plan to visit Devara Betta and Navadarshanam an ecofriendly farm community whose members are living as per natures ways.

Starting off early in the morning at 5.30 am I was lucky to get out of the city before the morning picnickers and others started their journeys. Hosur notoriously famous for traffic jams and unruly driving was strangely empty and the smooth flow of traffic with cool breeze hitting my face I made good progress.

Soon I was at Chandapura circle where I turned right and sped on towards Ankal. Unlike Bangalore city, here I could see rural folk fully active, farmers taking their bulls to the fields, some already at work in the fields, women drawing water from wells, some carrying sack loads on their heads and walking towards the bus stop, perhaps to take produce to the city market to sell.

Anekal was a little chaotic because of the election happening, there was all parties trying to put up stalls to canvass for votes right on the main road. Luckily I moved out of the city quickly and soon was on the Thali road heading towards Devara Betta. From Anekal it is only 7 km to Gummalapuram which is on the other side of the border. From Gummalapuram one has to travel further about 20 km on Thali road to reach Gopasandra and turn right there for Devara Betta.

Soon after crossing Ankeal the road becomes quite bad, and potholed. But after Gummalapuram there is no road at all, there is only a semblance that there might have been an asphalted road sometime in the distant past. But anyway the scenery flanking the road is well worth the bumpy ride. Lush green fields, far hillocks, punctuated by quaint temples take away the road fatigue.

Damaged Herostone at Gummalapuram

Before reaching Gopasandra, I stopped at a small viragal (Herostone) temple and to my surprise found two more damaged herostones in the fields close by. Though the herostones are attractively carved they are neglected and most of them are lieing here and there without any attention being paid to them.

One thing is surprising, everyone here speaks fluent Kannada without even a hit of Tamil accent in their voices. And like all villagers in India, they are highly helpful and provide good directions. At Shamanatham village one of the villagers informed me that the road to Devara Betta from Gopasandra was a completely tar road. Expecting a smooth road I rode on but that was not to be, the road from Gopasandra to Devarabetta must have been tarred some 20 years ago and today it is falling to bits. Only potholes and jelly stones greeted my tyres and suspension.

Devara Betta hill and temple atop

But the panoramic view of the distant twin-rocky hills crowned by temple kept me going. After a 30-minute, (7 km) ride I reached the base of Devara betta and was dismayed to find that the temple mafia had already established base here also. But fortuntely being sited at the edge of the Thally reserved forest, not much damage has been done to the greenery and environment except building of several concrete structures which successfully obstruct the view of the hills.

There is a large modern temple complex, two rainwater harvesting tanks and several modern buildings in the valley between two tall rocky cliffs. The left one is Devara betta crowned by the Shiva temple. There are no steps and one has to scramble up to the top by the easiest way suitable for him. The climb is well worth the effort as the top of the hill offers fantastic view of the Thally reserve forest. The quaint temple atop is open only on saturdays and festive occasions. Otherwise devotees just pay obeisance to the lord through the grill door, rest a while and head back.

Devara Betta hill and temple atop

Due to some strange belief villagers who come here lay a cairn of stones and return back. Cairn is a small construction made of rough stones laid one above the other. It is believed that if one seeks any specific desire to be fulfilled he/ she has to place a cairn atop here and it will be fulfilled. Looking at the number of cairns I am sure God has a tough task ahead fulfilling the desires of so many people.

From Thevar Betta I retraced my journey till Gummalapuram and turned left to visit Navadarshanam farm. Navadarshanam (‘new vision’) ashram is the brainchild of a few people who dared to defy the stringent demands laid down by a consumerist world. This is a place where a group of people have chosen to live one with nature, learning the lessons it has to offer and sharing their experiences with society. Fifteen years ago this 110-acre piece of land had fallen prey to man’s deforestation spree and desertified. But today Today, the land is home to over 100,000 trees, which play host to a variety of species of birds.

The farm generates its own electricity through solar, wind and other energy sources. They grow their own food and water is from the borewell.

“Nature has its own ways of healing. We din't plant a single tree in this land. All we did was to stop grazing and rest was done by nature,” says Ananthu, a post-graduate in systems design from Stanford University, who, with a group of like minded people, started Navadarshanam - an offshoot of a study circle in Delhi many years ago and to put the Gandhian thought and ideals started this farm.

It was a wonderful experience interacting with Ananthu and going around the farm. According to Ananthu, they have only fenced off 25 percent of the total land area and remaining part is left for nature to heal itself. This has resulted in excellent growth of greenery and trees and several herds of Deer, wild boar and other animals have already made this green acres their homes.

My aim is to do something similar, I hope I will be able to achieve it in future.

Life Sucks

The weekend started and ended.... and I was stuck in my cubby hole at workplace the entire day on Saturday. And feeling hassled about it I spoilt my sunday by not going out.... I was in in the office... slogging it out on Saturday... to make others rich... what do I get... nothing... not even a word of thanks...

Luckily my old friend Ranga came to meet me on Sunday and it was a morning well spent... we had lunch at Sai Shakthi hotel, Malleswaram and caught up with each others lives... as we had met up after nearly 5 months... nice.. some kind of a consolation prize for losing a weekend amidst rocks and wilderness...

Let us see... and wait with a hope that next weekend is more relaxed and I get my planned offs... so I can go out and do photography.... on a bright and clear day to climb hills, descend ravines, wade through streams, stare at the open skys, reflect beside calm lakes....

only time will answer....

Shankareswara Betta facade - serene surroundings

Hectic and fulfilling weekend

It was a fantastic experiential weekend (June 3-4).

Friday night I was still unsure about where I was going and had kinda decided to go to the far away places on Kunigal-Maddur road about 85 km from Bangalore and if necessary stretch the outing to two days. But luckily given the enabling and enthusiastic company I had with me we could complete our list of items on Saturday itself which gave me the time to return home for a good night's rest and another day of biking in Bangalore's backyard.

Saturday morning dawned with misty weather and I got up wondering whether we are going to have a rainy day... soon Dev called and told me that he would pick me up with his friends in half an hour and truely he arrived with Sabin and John. After initial introductions we started off towards Magadi road and 55 km down the line stopped for breakfast in a small non-descript eatery to have lukewarm idly with spicy chutney.

Another hours drive took us to the base of Shankareswara Betta, a quaint and bald rocky hill surrounded by lush green fields, quaint villages and other rocky hills. The area is under attack by the granite mafia and I am sure whatever wildlife which was there has either been killed or scared away by the continuous quarry blasts and so many labourers working in the area.

It is saddening to see the pace with which rocky hills being murdered systematically with the adminsitration conveniently looking away. When are we going to gear up and start preserving our environment and habitats for the wild???

Anyway my lament will always be there on the side of preservation but let us come back to Shankareswara Betta. The temple authorities are doing some major work here in the name of devotion and renovation. The ancient temple is being renovated big time with new building, paint job and the worst thing that the temple trust wants to do is to build a flight of steps to the top of the hill. The gradients leading to the top of the hill is mostly gentle and accessible by everyone.. I wonder why they are building the steps and renovating a temple to which there are hardly any visitors.

I suspect it is the design of the granite mafia. To build/ renovate a temple and thus keep the villagers happy, pay off the inspectors and laugh all the way to the bank, so what if the environment goes to dogs.

Temple & lake atop the hill

The top of Shankareswara hill has a quaint temple surrounded by stone wall and one side of the hill has a fairly deep and large natural water tank, perhaps to harvest rainwater for the use of temple visitors. Surprisingly the water is very clear and clean Dev and Sabin even had a drink and we were ruing that we hadn't got our swimming gear or we could have taken a dip.

From the top of the hill one can get panoramic views of the surrounding hills, fields and of course the granite quarrying.

From Shankareswara betta we moved on and drove further for about 15 km to reach Huliyurdurga - a massive rocky cliff surrounded by a thick forests. As the name 'Huliyur' suggests, this village and hill was the habitat of tigers, a la Ranthambore. Alas thanks to the development the majestic national animal no longer exists here. Instead the cunning and destructive human species has virtually encroached the fort almost upto the first level of fortifications.

Hemagiriyappa temple at base of Hemagiri hill

Having decided to climb Hemagiri first we moved another 2 km from Huliyurdurga to reach the vast forested hill which has a temple at the base, in the middle and atop also. The temple at the base is dedicated to Varadaraja swamy aka Hemagiriyappa and is an ancient structure. The surroundings of the temple is just too heavenly. A sole tiled house has been built for the temple caretaker and priest. A fairly large stone pond with several fish forms the highlight of the place. Large number of trees with comfortable platforms around makes the place highly suitable for a weekend picnic.

But typically like all temple/ religious places people only want to pray, they don't want to keep the surroundings clean and neat. One can see used plastic glasses and plates strewn all over the place. First plastics are being banned all over the world and here we are, using it rampantly without a thought about the harm we are causing to the nature and in turn ourselves.

Acent to cave temple

Well the cave temple dedicated to lord Shiva is located in the middle point of the hill on the far side (about 1.5 km from the Varadaraja temple) and is accessible via a steep flight of evenly laid steps. We went there and decided to do a small gig of rockclimbing too and then head back to Huliyurdurga.

Huliyur durga peak

Parking our vehicles at the base of the hill we started on the steep ascent and soon arrived at the first level of fortifications which is perhaps the largest open/ wooded stretch of land in the fort, housing two ancient temples which are no longer in use. The next stretch was on a fairly beaten path which ended at a small Ganesha temple. The next and final stretch came as a cropper. There was absolutely no path and we were faced by a steep rockface with about 85 degre gradient. There was no indication whether we were on the right path or not... the only indication was the next tier of fort wall which was seen from where we stood.

Our decision to climb was not in vain it gave us a fantastic experience of climbing and Sabin who reached the top first looked back and said "Hey it is a drop all the way to the village, No way I am going to descend this way". John, Dev and me followed and true enough the drop looked quite formidable. Not wanting to get psyched we moved ahead and reached the top of the hill after negotiating two more levels of fortifications. The top provides some of the most panoramic views of the large town below on one side. We can see Hamagiri face to face on the other as if beckoning us to climb.

The remains of fortifications ascribed to Kempe gowda will disappear soon unless protected... but who has to do that... the Archaeological Survey of India and Karnataka State Archaeological department have their hands full and don't have the manpower to do that. We hope the villagers will take some interest in the restoration and maintain the fort. There are several small rainwater harvesting pits built some hundreds of years ago atop the hill. Indeed the kings of the yore knew the importance of water harvesting and preservation which we somehow caught in the 30X40 culture and concrete and cement ideology have ignored.

Temple in Huliyurdurga fort

While descending down the hill we got caught in a small rain which luckily subsided soon and we came down safe and sound, started our vehicles and headed back to Bangalore on the Huliyurdurga-Magadi-Bangalore road which passes through two lush green stretches of the protected Ippadi and Huliyurdurga state forests, a scenic lake and couple of temples before coming to the big bad city.

Kanva Dam - view from a hill top nearby

Link to an article I had written about the dam in Deccan Herald, Bangalore's oldest daily newspaper.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan292004/metro16.asp.

I visited Kanva dam for the first time in January 2000 and was highly impressed. The dam was in its full glory with the water filled to its brim. The vast size and crystal clear water really alluring and inviting me to jump in and take a dip. But due to paucity of time we couldn't get into water then.

Since then I have visited Kanva several times and seen it in various stages of filling. I saw Kanva totally dry and almost bereft of all water in 2003-4 when the region experienced severe drought and no rains. Now thanks to last years heavy rains the dam is slowly filing up and regaining lost glory.

Nevertheless the dam didn't lose allure and its serene ambiance during all these years and it lured me to visit hgere again and again. Being in a valley mobile signals don't reach here and this is one of the few places near Bangalore where one can see lush greenery all around the place and the water body acts as a fulcrum. Last week I visited the place again and had a great swim and came back rejuvenated.

But of late there has been an increased awareness of the existence of the dam and there has been an increase in number of visitors. This is putting a lot of pressure on the local eco-system in terms of plastic waster, litter, water pollution because most bathers/ swimmers use soap and detergents which form a film over the water surface.. fish get affected and in turn bird life too.

I hope at least readers of this blog will not pollute the place further...

Did you know that this 500-year-old fort is only 35 km from Bangalore???

Did you know that this ancient temple is in electronics city?

Hi friends/ readers,

Welcome to my online blog. I am a travel writer and a journalist with over 200 published articles to my credit.

For the daily dose of rice and sambar which keeps me alive and kicking and breathing and climbing and bikeing and travelling, I work for India's sole education newsmagazine - EducationWorld. The focus of our monthly is education and related issues. My job involves a mix of attending press conferences, interviewing people, students, professors, businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats etc.

The best part of my job is ofcourse working on the Leisure and Travel section in our magazine. It gives me immense pleasure and happiness to work on this section which has provided me numerous opportunities to travel to far away locales including Andhra Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Coorg etc in India and Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Fujayarah in the UAE (United Arab Emirates).

Apart from the job I also do a lot of freelance writing for a host of publications (both print and online) in India and abroad. What I found in the past few years of travelling and working is that there is no proper sustained documentation of tourist destinations in India. Tourism in India is a totally under utilised field and successive governments during the past six decades of post-independence have miserably failed to capitalise on our vast huge size, snow clad himalayas, lush green forests, golden beaches, over 5,000 year historical heritage and numerous other natural attractions.

This has resulted in a deepset ignorance among everyone including us, Indians that we don't have much tourism because we don't have tourist attractions. This is the issue I wish to address in my own small way by writing about Bangalore and Karnataka. This blog is dedicated to Bangalore and its surroundings. I have travelled extensively in and around Bangalore during weekends and have identified several places which are worth visiting over a weekend. Many places can be done in half a day or one day and offer soul soothing ambiance.

I hope readers will help me by giving feedback about my writing and guide me in the right direction in documenting Bangalore and its environs.

Starting this week I will write up the places I visit every weekend. I hope this small effort will be complemented by people who will visit the places reading about them here.

warm regards