Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Bike ride to Nandi Hills



Last weekend I went to Nandi Hills along with 3 of my friends (Laddu-Satish-Raffi). Nandi Hills which is 60 kms away from Bangalore is famous as Tippu Sulthan's summer retreat. Its around 1200m above the sea level. Having read many blogs giving positive feedback about watching sunrise from the hill top of Nandi Hills, we planned to be there before the sun rises. With quite a good amount of preparation, checking out various blogs for the route and various other info, we started for Nandi Hills at around 3.30 in the morning. After filling up our wallets with money from ATM and our bikes (Pulsar 180 and Gladiator 125) with petrol, we were in the Old Madras road when the clock stuck 4.00 AM. We went to Hebbal and from there followed the NH7 road to reach Devanahalli.

Though we were protected well in our winter wear, the cold air was harsh enuf to make us shiver. And the air became much more colder as we moved towards Devanahalli, may be the effect of hilly areas. After reaching Devanahalli, we were not sure about the way to Nandi Hills. So we went lil ahead, taking the straight road, to find a shop selling snacks and cigarettes. There we had hot tea and asked him for the route. We then realized that we came lil ahead, so we had to go back a few kms and take a right turn. So the actual route to Nandi Hills is - after reaching Devanahalli go ahead a bit to find a turn on ur left with a board showing "Nandi Hills 26 Kms". If you happen to travel in day light, the board will be quite visible. And through out the ride the ultra cool four laned NH7 roads made our ride smooth, except for one speed breaker which we missed due to very low light in that place and that made our hearts miss a beat. The ride on the ghat roads with cool with all those hair pin bends challenging us. At times I was doubtful whether our bikes will be able to make it or not. But you know, we made it. It was 5.30 AM by the time we reached the hill top. We parked our bikes and stood in the queue to get our entry tickets. At around 6.00 we got our tickets and started moving to the hill peak to view the sunrise.


On the hill top we had fun with all the photographs while waiting for the sun to rise. Though the clouds obstructed us from viewing the sunrise, I must accept its a great feel to see the whole thing from the hill top. We had loadsa fun there with the sceneries and the sun rays, blocked by clouds, refracting and reaching the earth. Be careful with the stray dogs and monkeys on the hill. At around 9 we started back after lotsa photos and phun.


After getting down the hill, we stopped again to have some refreshments and started our ride back to Bangalore. One small wrong diversion in our return way led us to Chikballapur and a round about way to reach Devanahalli. There was this one particular blue colored bus (dint get a chance to capture it in my camera) which made me suffer a lot by blocking my way on the NH7 while coming back to Bangaloresad. All in all its an awesome experience, and the fact that I never got a chance to go even for a short trip along with my dear friends in the past 2 years made this more special for me.

Now am eagerly waiting for our trip to Devarayanadurga which we are planning in 2 weekssmile.

4 comments:

  1. Even though you and your friends had done enough homework, looks like you had some trouble with directions. Tourism department should take note of this, since ideally even in the dead of night the direction to the tourist destination should be as clear as daylight.

    I have linked you in my blog 'Dateline Bangalore'

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pretty good drive. I joined Psyche's Visage and drove both the ways. I would also compile my thoughts on the trip later. We are looking fwd for our next drive to Devarayana Durga coming saturday. Stay tuned for our biking blogs. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey... glad you found the blog useful... how i have no clue ;) Anyways.. cool photography!

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  4. @yes-g
    thanks for the compliment

    @satish
    waiting for ur compilations on these rides

    ReplyDelete

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