A Road-Trip to remember

I hadn’t been to an expedition for quite a while now. Until I am very much wrong, last time I freaked out was almost 2 months back when we went on a trekking to Skandagiri hills. As my lab internals got over on 22nd and so I was free for 2 days and so were a few of my fellow hostelites. So we decided to go on an adventurous expedition.. All voted unanimously on a road trip to Bandipur, Himavath Gopalaswamy hills, Nanjangud etc which are located around 250 KM from Bangalore. So without thinking twice, kicking our bikes start with josh and our adrenaline running high, 8 of us left to our destination in 4 bikes.

A jolly Bike Trip

A nice photo session near Bidadi (the sunset time), a nice dinner at Pallavi Dhaba near Mysore, a photo sessoin outside Mysore palace etc were the highlights of the days ride.

Sunset at Bidadi

Mysore Palace

Thanks to traffic and other factor we reached Gundlupet at 12 45 AM in the night. Unlike what we had expected, all the lodges in tat town were full. As we'd biked for about 6 hours, we desperately needed a place to sleep. One kind bus driver, looking at our plight offered us seats in his bus. So, this had undoubtedly been my best night stay experience. A sleep to remember! All of us dozed off within no time.

The Adventure Day

We woke up very early, at 4-45 am as we wanted the first trip to the forest. The road from Guldlupet to Bandipur was the worst ever road that I have ever ridden. All my body parts were aching by the time we reached Bandipur which was just about 20 km from Gundlupet.

Bandipur forest safari wasn’t that exciting as we thought. We didn’t even spot a tiger, lion, not even a fox. But we saw lots of Gazelles, monkeys, peacocks and a couple of elephants.
Our next destination was Himavad Gopalaswamy hills which was about 20 km from Bandipur. After a not-so-promising safari, we were expecting a lot from this hill. But this exceeded our expectation. AWESOME would be an understatement. Here, the nature was at its best and a great harmony between nature and wildlife. We just had the best time of the day there.

Boys love Adventure

One of the hoselite actually went as close as 400 m to a group of elephants and took some brilliant snaps.

We went to Nanjangud after a light lunch at Gundlupet. Nanjangud is called Dakshina Kashi. It has a very famous and big temple of Lord Shiva. The 4 riders (including me) were so tired riding in the horrible road that we took a nap at the verandah of the temple.

NanjanGud Shiva Temple

Our next stop was Chamundi Hills, a very famous tourist spot in Mysore. After spending some time in the hill top, we climbed down to visit the Nandi temple which is half way down the hill.

Nandi temple

The last and final pit-stop was the backwaters of Krishna Raja Sagara Jalashaya (in short KRS Dam).

Backwaters of KRS

An ancient temple, i.e. the Venugopala Swamy temple which was submerged due to the Krishna Raja Sagara reservoir is being rejuvenated at the peninsula by literally re-locating the temple from the submerged place. The reconstructed temple at the KRS reservoir

End Note :
No doubt, this was one of the best tours I did. The only painful part of the entire trip was the bad and broken roads, may it be the Ooty road or road to KRS. This is an agony to everyone who want to visit these places. Karnataka Tourism, which boasts to be the best in India would definitely be aware of this. But why aren’t any steps being taken? I personally don’t want to believe that there is no sufficient funding.

So whom to blame now, Karnataka Tourism Department, the political system of India or the electoral, i.e. we people who haven’t spent even half an hour to choose the best government.