Life is always about walking .. a little too much

Mission: A Trek to Nandi Hills

0830 hrs
Madivala

Six latecomers namely Senthil, Rashmi, Suman aka Usman Bhai, Shekar aka Fingis Khan, Shyju the married and Kiran aka me meet at madivala... the team plans to trek 5000 feet to the top of Nandi Hills. We get a bus to the main bus station.

0915 hrs
majestic bus station

we miss the direct bus to the hills, so we take a bus to the nearby town of chikkaballapur. We arrive there at 1130 hrs, and decide to take a bus to the foothill town of sultanpet.

Sultanpet is a small village which we pass through to reach the climbing point to the hills. This was a quiet little village, where people were staring at us as if we had just landed from Timbuktu.
A 3 km really took its toll esp. on me, since I don’t do a lot of walking.

1215 hrs
foothills of the hills

I change into something more comfortable and we start the climb to the top. The steps were uneven and the climb was too strenuous. I can't clearly remember how many time shyju passed out on the way :D ( Marriage can take its toll on stamina)

at last with much effort. Too much of puffing and panting, after clicking a ton of photos we reached the top. To think of it, none of us had the brains to have carried a bottle of water. We rushed to the hotel to have our lunch. The waiter made us wait for almost half hour for our food, the genius had to be told for everything. He would get the plate without the spoon.. The spoon would arrive after asking him 4-5 times... think u get the picture.

Lunch eventually ended what seemed an eternity. Then, we decided to visit the nearby temple, which went on without much issue.

Then we visited the tipu's drop... from where the loser used to apparently push off prisoners. We sat on a DANGER sign and took some snaps. Then we went to explore the place a bit more. We played football for a while with a tennis ball ( someone forgot to get a bat !!!)

Then started the story of descent - someone told us the last bus to Bangalore was at 1730 hrs. We rather I started walking fast toward the bus station, with these people basking away in the Saturday evening sun. Obviously, we missed our bus and had to walk down.

1745 hrs
road of nandi hills

all of us are already tired as there are 41 curves (hairpin bends) to reach the bottom. We were looking for shortcuts and found some. Some were lucky and we were descending rapidly.... then our luck ran out... and we got lost in some forest. rashmi and me set out discovery mission, with Usman Bhai shouting "Lets mark this place, so that we know where to return in case we lose our way" (as if were in the evergreen dark jungles of Zaire !!!).















Climbing steep rocks, wading through thorny shrubs, tall trees, fading light we made it... me jumping with joy as if I was Cannavaro who had just lifted the Jules Rimet trophy. Then we decided that shortcuts were out and took our long journey down on the road. Dusk slowly became night and playing football again on the road(with the tennis ball :D) passing the ball as if we were Ronaldo and Adriano we reached the bottom of the hill.

We were so exhausted, went to a bar and bought some Fanta (decent aren’t wee ??) waited for a bus for half hour. After what seemed like a millennium the bus came, and we were now on our way to doddaballapur. Climbed the hill from chikkaballapur side, and come down the doddaballapur side.. Clear geniuses we are !!! From there a bus back to Bangalore, and back.

2230 hrs
back at home sound asleep, conserving energy for a trip the next day to bluff and talakad.