Almost a year, ever since I updated my travelogue. There has been a couple or more bike rides happened in the mean time, but acute laziness in me has kept me off from updating them. Rode on wheels to weekend getaway spots in Bangalore, starting off with Mekadatu, followed by Kanva Reservoir, and an adventurous ride to Br Hills & GopalsamyBetta, but were forced to cut short it to BR Hills. Luckily the travel stories were documented & blogged by Ram & you can find more of his travel stories here.

This time it was a 3 day trip & with various suggestions flying around for, we finalized the plan for Chikmagalur & Kemmankundi. Nature Nirvana Home Stay was booked for accommodations and we started around 10 PM , hoping to reach by 5 AM. Driving in the hassle free NH made the driver excited & with the speed he was driving we would have reached Chikmagalur by 2. We stopped at Coffee day around 12 for a break & chitchat & finally reached Chikmagalur by 5.

The adventurous or rather scary I would say, is the 7 km descending ride to the Nature Nirvana Home stay. With poor roads which only Jeeps can make it, foggy morning where nothing in front is visible & and the probability of making a slight slip being extremely high, it took around 1.5 hrs to travel 7 Kms.

The Route -

Nature Nirvana Plantation Home Stay :

The place - Except for the tiresome ride , the place is very calm, scenic and pleasant.Great mountain view. The people here deliver a great hospitality & comfort. Camp fire with unlimited barbecue in the cold is a pure bliss.

The food - Awesome , Unlimited, non-veg, different varieties, most importantly filling.

Activities ( Indoor )- Within the premised there is Shuttle court , Basket ball , Cricket. Given the dampness of the ground extra care is needed while playing else you mind end up injuring your knees.

Activities ( Outdoor ) - They organize day trips to Kemmangundi , Baba budengiri and other travel spots. Also close to the stay, there are couple of places at walk able distance. Spent day-1 on exploring the nearby places ,the waterfall where we spent most of our time relaxing, ending with a sunset at viewpoint. Day 2 was more of a uphill trek to the close by peak and some encounter with Leeches followed by great gyan session by one of a fellow friend.

Chennakesava Temple, Belur - On the return, we had a visit to Chennakesava temple, Belur. The history behind the constructions & carvings of the temple left us dumbstruck. If you are visiting this place, I would recommend to have a guide explaining the history behind this masterpiece. Winded up our lunch at Kaamath on the way & reached Bangalore by 8 Pm.

The Cost - It costed around 5K per person, for 3 days. Inclusive of travel & accommodation.

To sum it up, except for the 7km ride, it was a fun filled and  relaxing weekend.

Click here to view the album.

Regards
Prem.

When we planned for a new year trek, we never imagined that it would come out this well. We decided to trek Kumaraparvatha, one of the highest peaks in Karnataka. As usual last minute planning tried to screw up things but that made the trek more enjoyable and adventurous than ever.

Trekkers : Prem , Ram , Logesh, Mohan , Bala , Uma , Vicky ( Who made it all the way from Kerala )

Till Dec31, we did nothing other than booking tickets for 10.00 pm bus and paying the Tent advance.

5.30 Pm : Mother nature started its new year celebration with heavy downpour.

6.30 Pm : No signs of rain to stop and while we were thinking off to scrap the plan , Vicky was desperate to do justice to the 700 Rs he spent for his volvo.7.30 Pm : With not much choice left , Ram and Mohan set off amidst heavy rains to pick up the tent from JayNagar and head to Majestic. Me and Logesh left to Marathalli for purchasing food & medicine, leaving Vicky @ home to clean the odanjufied horlicks bottle.

8.15 Pm : Left in auto to K.R Puram railway station which is around 3 kms, to catch Lalbhag Express @ 8.55 Pm. Reached at 9.00 Pm coz of heavy traffic.

9.00 Pm : Asked for three tickets, we were given only one by mistake. With minimal time left we boarded the train without tickets for two with the hope that we wont be caught by TTE.10.00 Pm: Reached city junction and in urgency took the back exit. While Ram, at majestic driver kalla vilunthufying to delay the bus for us.

10.20 Pm : Reached majestic and looking for platform 5. All we could find was 1,2,3,4,7,8,9.

10.40 Pm : Finally we were able to get hold of the bus. After a few abuses from conductor and driver, the most memorable trip ever started.

Our trek was an exact ditto of http://srikanth-darpana.blogspot.com/2008/12/kumaraparvatha-trek.html . We were literally crawling for the next two days. :-) Not a place to be missed if you are in and around Bangalore.

Cheers
Prem.

Wayanad, One of the memorable trips of my life. Every time we plan for a weekend trip, we end up sleeping in our rooms. This trip was not planned neither organized. All happened in just 2 days of time. We started @ 7 AM in Toyato Qualis that we booked. The route is pity straight forward Bangalore-->Mysore-->Gundelpet-->Kalpetta.. Reached wyanad by 3.30 ... Wayanad is a place of hype. Not all places are as exciting as mentioned in other blogs. Few places that are worth spending time out here are

1. Edakkal caves- Located on the way to kalpetta, this place is a gud trekking spot. Nearly takes 2 hrs to climb 1000 feet & reach to the top of the peak.

2. MeenMutty Falls - Must see location. 2 hrs of tiresome trek down the forest, you ll find the exciting sound of waterfalls providing a exciting scenic view. Be sure that you take up your first aid kit, coz this place can really mess up things if u are careless. Climbing up ll take out all your energy & all you can find is Kerala coconuts sold at Rs.20. Thirunelveli la alwa 100 Rs nu solra mathiri la irukku...

3. Sunrise valley -Located few km from Meenmutty falls, this is a view point. Similar to the one in kodaikanal, but too good to watch.

4. Chembra Peak - Even though we didn have enough time to cover this location, it is a great trekking place not to be missed & it requires almost half a day to complete the trek.

Rest of the places like pookote lake, Banasura Sagar Dam, view point,tea estates are just like anyother tourist spot. My advice would be not to spend much time on these places. If anyone is planning for a trip to wyanad, I would suggest them to stay in hotel "Wyanad Hights". One place where you can experience maximum hospitality with affordable price. Thilakan (09605224326) is the caretaker who did everything to us to make our trip enjoyable. The entire trip costed around 2500 Rs.

P.S : Thankfully all things went as planned. If the weekend trip got canceled, we had plans to register for the bungee jump that was conducted the same week which resulted in mishap. Who knows,may be I will not be sitting here typing this post... The Butterfly Effect!!!...

Cheers
Prem.

Technorati Tags : wayanad , Edukkal caves , Meenmutty falls , Chembra Peak , kerala , Adventure , Trek , Travel

After having our product being released last week, the organization decided for some team building activities. With various teams opting for different places, our choice was Shristi Adventure camp. This camp provides outdoor activities for various programs like team building, leadership qualities etc.

 It is located at Tumkur Road almost 60 km away from the city. This is a one day camp and we were asked to pick any one of the days from Friday to Monday. As none of the teams were interested in camping on weekends, Monday was our choice. As always Monday mornings are blue, I struggled to wake up at 5.30 and managed to reach office in time. Delayed start due to few people & the increasing appetite for food, made the 2 hours of bus journey very boring. Anyways we guys boarded the mapillai bench & had a nice nap. Once we reached we found the place was deserted & gave the feel of jungle. Few kms of walk through the forest, we reached the camp. It is a private property covering 56 hectares maintained for adventure camps & team building activities. Breakfast was served & we had our tummies full.

Now its time for some activities. The entire group was divided into 3 teams & activities were planned such that points were allotted for each activity. The events are spider web, Island hopping, Parallel Bridge crossing & pipeline. At first sight, it seemed to be boring & nothing to do with team building. But once we started doing it ,it was full fun & enthusiasm with each one developing a strategy to handle the problem. Me & vijay (my teammate) came out with a different approach in Island hopping, ended up injuring the knees of the instructor :( After completing each activity, juice was provided, as though we did something useful. The facilitators wanted us to be hydrated every now & then. Last event was the mountain hiking where we covered almost the entire place walking for 2 hrs. The scenic view of the mountains & the lake were the best parts of the trek. Our team won by scoring maximum points. It was a nice experience altogether having fun & entertainment for the whole day accompanied by some good food. This was my first trekking experience & I really enjoyed it. Expecting a few more treks in 2009 ...

Cheers,
Prem.

With almost 3 months of stay in bangalore Life was boring and mechanical.Home and office were our daily routine.All the weekends we either used to sleep or visit the nearby shopping malls to pass time.So we decided to take a break. This time it was adventure sports the PARA-SAILING.

We had no clue of what this sport is to be. We googled for more info and the registration form read you must register five days prior to this event.Since it was someday in the mid week our plan got cancelled. So we registered for the next week. Para sailing is conducted in HOSKOTE lake. None of us knew how to get to hoskote , so we phoned up the instructor and got the directions. It was really a tough task to wake up at 7 but I managed to do it & we started off at 8 am. We took the bus to marathalli from BTM water tank. It was just 15 mins of journey in the early morning with no traffic on sundays. From there we went to KR puram cable bridge bus stand. As per plans we boarded a 316 bus and took tickets for stop next to mandore. Hancharahalli is the place I guess.

We reached there at 9.30 and were really hungry. All we could do is to fill our tummies with tender coconut as no hotels were there. On the right was our expected landmark Andrew wood craft and we walked straight. The route to hoskote lake was pretty interesting. We took up the straight road as suggested by the villagers.No parashutes were found on air yet we moved believing that we have taken the right path. And finally we were there at HOSKOTE lake. To our surprise Hoskote is a dry lake with few goats nd buffaloes grazing around. There is no such registration process as well. we were the only participants over there. Declaration forms needs to be filled before taking the flight. Its just the formality that comes with every sporting activity.This is how it works, The parachute is hooked to the person and a long rope is attached to the person with other end of the rope being attached to the jeep. With the favourable wind conditions it lifts the person when the jeep is acclerated and you will gain height. It was my turn. Me being afraid of heights , it was really a great thrill to para sail.

Prayed to all the kulatheivams that nothing bad should happen. There is nothing to worry about since there are few trained professionals. With the general rule lesser the weight greater is the height I was going much higher and higher. This is the time. You are up in the air , flying like a bird , clicking the aerial view at an altitude of 300 meters above the ground level. I was just shouting screaming and enjoyin the flight. But all joy lasted for only 2 minutes.I wished it could have been a few more minutes in air. 350 bucks is quite large sum for just 2 minutes but it was a different experience cum adventure altogether.It was not as adrenalin pumping as expected. Dont forget to visit the rose gardens that are well maintained on the way to lake. The parasailers are planning to organise an event in december in which the proposed height factor is 600 meters and charge is 500 bucks. If anyone is really interested here is the contact number of the instructor 9886797597 (Neeraj is his name) .Gonna try bungee jumping next...

Cheers,
Prem.