ANONYMOUS

Someone stole the alphabets already.

Saw this in front of Mantri Mall, Malleshwaram. One of the million wrongly printed boards in Bangalore.

Camera : SE Cybershot C510 cellphone.

Few random pictures.

View from Mantri mall, Malleshwaram.

Sun, trees and clouds. Smile

Camera: Sony Ericsson C510 cell phone camera.

Views and suggestions welcomed.

The first class trip (17 – 19 Sept, 2010) – Day 2.

Day 2 - 18/09/2010

The goal of getting ready by 6 AM couldn’t be achieved due to many unforeseen hindrances. :P Finally we checked out of the lodge at about 7.30 AM and headed towards Mullayanagiri. We had our breakfast near the Excise Dept. check post. Our vehicle was stopped by the officials as all the inhabitants were youngsters. After a casual check of the vehicle for any sort of “theertha’s” they let us move on. ;) Even though the roads to the top were quite good, driving was difficult due to the deep valleys on one side. A slight mistake and you would end up in places where humans would never want to go. :( Ares where landslides had occurred earlier were marked out. Have to appreciate the person responsible for this. :) As we kept on moving higher and higher, fog started to decrease the visibility. About 1-2 km’s from the top most point, we decided to walk the remaining distance. :) Everyone got down the vehicle, and told the driver to take it to the top. We started our walk to the top. :) The walk was one good experience. You could feel the fog on across your face. The sun, occasionally peeping and making it warm. Wonderful sceneries in the deep valleys. Cows grazing looked as small as ants. We were nearing the highest point in Karntaka. :) After series of photo sessions, finally we reached the point, after which we had to climb steps to reach the top most point. All vehicles had to be parked here itself. Quite nice arrangements have been made for vehicle parking. We started climbing the steps. Somehow groups got formed and different groups started climbing the steps at different speeds. I reached the peak first, followed by Priyesh. Next to reach was Dushyanth. Forgot the order in which others reached. :( On the top you have a well maintained temple. You could look at the Bababudangiri ranges from the top of the peak. The peak provides you with such top class scenic beauty that you feel the 460 steps climb is worth its every drop of sweat! (Of course you dont sweat in those temperatures). We ventured out of the temple compound( after wearing our shoes, as the a board there demanded us to remove the footwear for even entering the compound) and came across two caves. Information about the cave is, that its about 52 km’s deep and leads you to the bottom of the peak. We skipped checking the genuineness of the information and got back after just venturing a small distance in the cave, due to absence of flashlights. :( We finally decided to descend downwards at about 11 and reached the bottom soon. Just as we reached the bottom, Dushyanth and Manjunath got into some frenzy and started scaling another smaller peak nearby. Everyone followed them to the other peak following a muddy path formed due to previous trekkers. On the top, everyone got involved into burst photo sessions. We wound up in about 30 mins and again came down. People got some more photographs clicked. We headed to our vehicle.

Our next destination was Bababudangiri. We reached it around 12 noon. Datthatreya Peeta was closed due to some construction work. We moved forward to Manikhyadhara falls. Most of the people wanted to have a swim. The obstruction to this event was caused due to this sign board. We couldnt decide whether we surely need to throw our clothes there or is it dependent on our choice. Anyways, none of us dared to swim, and we started walking dejectedly. :( Fun though was induced by our own ancestors. A monkey snatched someone’s inner wear :P and refused to part with it. The monkey was stubborn and we had to return without the “thing”. :( As we headed out of Bababudangiri, we came across a lake. Since our aspirations of swim hadn been satisfied, we decided to full fill it here. Reddy was the first person to venture, followed by Rakesh and finally me. The water was ice cold as it was stationery, but very clean. :) Someone even tasted it and told its sweet. None of the others tried the taste. :P Eventually everyone except Wilson were in the water. After playing around for sometime we dried off ourselves and returned to the van. It was already 2 pm. Swim had made most of us hungry. :( We were dejected to find out that there was no proper place to have food around. So, we decided to have it in Kemmangundi and proceeded with our journey. The road was horrible, but our anthyakshari game kept us unmindful about the road. New songs were created, extra sentences were added to songs, with the only intention of not loosing. Just about 1km behind Kemmangundi, we stopped for having tea.

There were these 2-3 roadside stalls which sold you tea, biscuits and omelettes. The attraction of the place was the dogs. They demanded share in everything you ate. ;) We named them Andrew Symonds, Gilchrist and few other names also and headed towards Kemmangundi hill station. We reached there by 4 and went to visit a view point. The view was fine. A few pictures were clicked and we headed back to the vegetarian canteen for our lunch. Had lunch and went to the nearby Nisarga homestay and booked ourselves a room. It again was a big one with 9 beds. The rooms were cheap and well maintained. We cancelled the visit to Z point as it already was dark and we were not ready to get attacked by leaches. :P We decided to call it a day and everyone settled themselves in the room. :) We arranged a campfire for the night between 10 pm and 12 pm.

Later some of us went back to the canteen to have dinner. When we returned it was almost time for the campfire, but it was a disappointed since the campfire was not a properly organised one. We had to move very close to the fire due to space constraints and the smoke irritated the eyes. Nevertheless, we had fun. We returned to our rooms by midnight. Most of them went off to sleep. Reddy, Rakesh, Jayram and Chetan chose to play cards. I chose to watch the game, due to my lack of knowledge of any card game. :( Even I lost interest looking at the game, and decided to call it a day.They played around till 2 pm, and some talking by Rakesh made me woke up. So we decided to wake everyone up at 2 pm in the night. :P One by one, everyone was made to get up by hook or crook. The different expressions by different people was extremely funny. :P Finally everybody slept off at 3 am, without any promises for the next day.

Quite interestingly, Andrew Symonds and Gilchrisht were found waiting tor us outside our room in the night. They wanted to show their love for the biscuits we offered them and most probably wanted to guard our room also. Sadly Symonds had to fight with another dog(mostly Bhajji). Disappointingly Bhajji lost. It had to happen since our Symonds was very strong and well built. :P Unfortunately, have no pics of any of the dogs. :(

Some pictures:

Mullayangiri

Acrobatics

Maanikhyadhara Falls

Lake for swimming and campfire pictures.

The first class trip (17 – 19 Sept, 2010) – Day I.

After 4 semesters of engineering, it was time for spending time, visiting places. After a lot of yes/no, finally 12 guys agreed to be a part of it. Chikmagalur was our main destination.
Members: Jayaram, Wilson, Thejas, Amar, Manjunath, Navin, Reddy, Rakesh, Priyesh, Chetan, Dushyanth and myself.
We decided to have a three day trip starting from 17th and thought we could visit Chikamagalur and nearby places. The vehicle was booked, plans worked out and we were all set to proceed.
Day 1 – 17/09/2010
We were supposed to be out of Bangalore by early morning, but unfortunately we had our first hindrance. :( Reddy and Rakesh dint have hot water to bath due to power cut. So we were forced to postpone the time of departure by around 1 extra hour. Not loosing hope, we started our journey. The vehicle started from Magadi Road picking up Jayram and Dushyanth. Next pickup point was UVCE, KR Circle. Priyesh, Navin, Rakesh and Reddy got in. I got in with Chetan at CBI, Bellary Road. Finally we deviated into outer ring road and had our last pick up point at BEL circle where all the rest got in. We reached Tumkur Road, took a left after Nelmangla to get into NH-48 and were moving away from the frenzy of B’lore. We were out of B’lore by about 8.15 AM.

Next, we stopped for breakfast at Kunigal. The preferred breakfast was tatte idli, though there were some takers for pulav and poori. :) With our stomach’s full we continued in NH-48 towards Mangalore. NH-48 is in good condition. The only disappointment were the numerous deviations due to the road widening work Our first destination was Manjarabad fort. You come across this on NH-48 just after Sakleshpur, just in the beginning of Shiradi Ghats.

Few steps to climb and you would reach the fort. The fort looked awesome, covered with wonderful views from all side. The area looked clean, well maintained and actually had security. We were not allowed to climb the walls, which had valleys on the other side. A guy about 50 year old, with an assistant half his age made sure that no one ventured near the walls. :) The funny moment was Reddy scaring Rakesh with the help of a window. :P An unforgettable moment for everyone present. We spent some more time venturing into different caves, clicking pictures in burst mode and were back into our vehicle by 1 PM. Next we had lunch at Hotel Adithya, Sakleshpura. Nice food!! :) We took a deviation from NH-48 and moved towards Belur. The road was not so great.
We reached Belur by 2.30 PM. As we stepped into the temple, guides leapt onto us, but we refused anyone’s help. We moved about the outer circle looking at the wonderful carvings and also clicking pictures in different poses competing with the poses given by the shila balikes. :P We went inside the temple. Paid Rs. 20/- for getting a light switched on to display the ceiling which had zillions of carvings inside it. The light was also focussed on a pillar, which according to the person operating the light had all the carvings present in the temple.

Some information about the temple.

As we were leaving the premises of the temple, a group of foreigners had assembled. The guide was explaining in English. A translator translated that to some unknown language.A feeling of pride was induced into me. The happiness lasted only for a few minutes, because I remembered about something I had witnessed earlier. The picture would explain better! This is the India we display to our visitors. :( The board is surely edited by some literate, since for an illiterate it would make no sense, with the presence or absence of the word “Don't”. Such things present the sorry picture of our country. When the citizens cant present their country’s tradition in the right manner, its seriously shameful. :(

We left the calmness of Belur and moved towards Halebid. The road was pretty good. A 30 mins drive and we reached Halebid at about 4 in the evening. We strolled about the area, clicking photographs and having fun. :) We moved on to the nearby park and spent some time there speaking rather very nonsensical stuff, which made absolutely no sense but wonderful fun! :) We decided to get back to the vehicle as darkness had started to engulf us. The moment we stepped out, there were a gang of women waiting to sell us different items like lamps, Ganesha’s made from stone. Quite a few of us obliged to them and after lot of bargaining, some decent amount of business did happen. Never expected others to buy them, but rarely do things happen according to your expectations. The best part of the whole incident was the reduction in prices by other vendors when a person would buy from one vendor.
Finally with memories of the two most exotic temples of Karnataka, we headed to Chikmagalur. We reached by 8.30. Checked into Soundharya Residency. They provided us with a single large room with about 10 beds. There was not much rush since it was not the season for visting After freshening up, we separated ourselves into two groups. The veggies and the non-veggies. The veggies had a satisfying dinner at Soundharya itself. :) We were back to our rooms to catch the RCB match. :) Everyone except Jayram, Wilson and myself were busy in playing some card game and watching the match. We 3 were doing some planning for the next day. Finally by about 12 everyone was in deep sleep, with the promise of getting ready by 6, the next morning. :P