25) Melkote : (28/11/10)

Place: Melkote.

Distance: 150 x 2 = 300kms.

Directions: Bengaluroo > Ramnagara > Mandya > After mandya Right turn > Melukote.

Bikes: GS 150 > Pulsar 150.

Participants: Manohar > Karthik.

Previous Visit: Manchinbele – The epic Ride back.

PLAN:

28th November 09 , exact one year back we had been to maddur our first trip… completing this trip would mean exact 25 trips in one year \m/

After asking their call on the trip… It was only 3 of us who were ready to go( Manu , Mithul & me)

Next day morning , went near college at about 6 am… sat on the footpath , then get a BAD news… Mithul`s dropped out… But Manu didn’t give up on the trip.. he came at about 6 : 15 am.

Ok ok “BR hills on one bike?” I exclaimed.. but Manu said he also wanted to ride his bike.. so decided to go to Balmuri Falls as it was a pretty close and we hadn’t seen it. So morning 6:30 am we left To Balmuri falls on SH 17 , Mysore road.

RIDE:

SH17… one of my favorite Roads...we cruised along at a decent pace , covering ground. As it was a Sunday we spotted arount 10-15 super bikes zooming at full speed. As we entered Chenpatna about 10 eagles flying only about 8 feet above the ground as the sun rise began… whew tat was an amazing Sight .. within 1 to 1.5 hours we reached maddur Tiffany`s for break fast.

MADDUR TIFFANY`S :

MAddur Tiffany`s our Adda :) , Had hot hot Idli vada & excellent coffee , spent a good 30mins at tiffany`s and left towards Balmuri.

WRONG TURN HEAVEN:

Mandya is about 25 kms from Maddur , a 4-lane SH 17 , helped us to cover distance at a decent rate.. the new spotted a board “ Melkote à 38kms “ .

I stopped in front of the board & so did manu… haha yep !! Put Balmuri on HOLD until some other time.. only Melkote was on our mind .

New Destination : Melkote.

ROAD TO HEAVEN:

Surface wise the road was not as good as Mekedat road… but surrounding was just brilliant.. Greenery everywhere , 12-10 feet grass on both sides of the roads. We stopped once or twice just to enjoy the beautiful Green fields.

As we headed further we could finad a lot of “Aaale mane” ( Jaggery preparation houses) , we drove a bit slow and reached the bottom of the hill after 45 mins or so…

Next 3-4 kms was ghat section which would lead us to the main palce & the temple. As we ascended we saw an auto fall on a womens leg… horrible it was… we continued further to complete the mini-ghat and reach the top.

MELKOTE:

Entering melkote , parked our bikes and visted Kalyani , then we wanted a good aerial view of the places surrounding Melkote. We saw small steps so decided to follow it thinking tat it would lead us to the top.. but it was the steps which would lead us down :x, but we weren’t disappointed because it lead us to a beautiful place.

Greenery was everywhere , with a very large number of ponds & lakes some near , some far . It was indeed a very beautiful sight.

TEMPLE:

Then we thought of trekking our way up through the bushes and Trees , but realized we would have to counter the Huge walls of the temple ( They call it Melu – Kote for a reason Haha!!

So we headed in the normal route and reached the temple. The steps of the temple are kind of steep , goes to show how old the temple is. The aerial view from the temple is something I can never forget… about 200 lakes & ponds surround this palce…. At one glance we could easily spot 30-40 of them.

Then as were leaving the temple , we had “Puliyogre” believe me it is one of the “NOT TO MISS” things at this place… it was very tasty , gave us the extra energy we required , bought bottles of juice and started towards our bikes.

RIDE BACK:

After spending an hour so enjoying the surroundings decided to head back to Namma bengaluroo. On our way back we stopped at a beautiful pond in the middle of the forest. It was very similar to our Kanva reservoir – our favorite spot. Spent somequality time here also & left…. Stopped at a few Aale mane enquiring about the prices etc… and finally we reached SH 17.

As we headed towards Maddur tiffany`s for lunch we saw something that shook us to our boots… Blood all over the road , a car stuck on the divider , a CD100 bike torn to parts… Man , lady & a young kid fallen down.. people were just rushing in… stopped there for sometime .. & left towards MT.

MADDUR TIFFANY`S:

After a decent lunch we were sitting outside. A lot of young kids were roaming outside the hotel as there was some function. Ok thought of checking my weight… Manu stood first 90kks.. hmm.. the kids didn’t wanna mess around with him. When I stood 50 kgs…. Damn !! The kids started running all over the place yelling … then caught them and made them sit on our bikes to shut them up.

RIDE BACK:

Then we finally left towards Bengaluroo , completing the next 80 kms was formality . A small stop after Ramnagara & we were back to our homes.

This trip was something special , had completed 25 trips in year , and moreover it was unplanned like the first one . Melkote - the perfect trip though everything was unplanned. And yes shravanabelogola is just 30kms from melukote… so can cover that also .

Until Next time \m/

WIKI LINK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melukote

MAPS:



ALL PHOTOS:

24) Manchinbele + Big Banyan – Epic Ride back ( 4/11/10)

Place: Manchinbele + Big banyan.

Distance: 35 x 2 = 70kms.

Participants : Dhiren (dJ) > Siddarth ( STIG) > Ashok > Arvi > Manu > Sp.

Bikes: RTR > GS 150 > Pulsar 150.

Directions: Bengaluroo > Mysore Road ( SH-17) > RRDC > Right Turn > Bigbanyan > Manchinbele.

Previous Trip : TK Falls.

If you have less than 5 mins, Click here: Manchinbele- Basic information

PLAN:

Another unplanned trip , so obliviously some part of it had to be Epic. Ok 4/11/10 was a Thursday , so all theory classes , so mass bunk :P

10 am everybody escape… so we ended up near the bakery asusual sipping tea etc etc… we had the whole day ahead of us … so we had two plans in our mind

1) Go to a hotel and eat a heavy lunch.

2) Go to a place Nearby.

And we chose the latter … this decision took us 2 hrs to execute :D , 12 pm we left college towards destination unknown ( on SH 17) , I told others about a reservoir near Bidadi ( not manchinbele , now its like our native) so we decided to go there .

RIDE:

 

Well nothing much to say about the ride , it was our 5^th OR 6^th visit to the place… so it was just formalities… cruised along Mysore road to reach RRDC , took a right turn there and headed towards Big banyan tree ( Dodalladmara)

Wanted to stop at Bigbanyan , but realized that we could visit it on our way back. So headed further towards Manchinbele.

TRACTOR WHEELIE :

Vokay this was truly unbelievable , as we got the first glimpse of the place it was breath-taking… little did we know we would sight something else which wouldn’t take our breadth but Choke us :P :P

Entering manchinbele , we a saw a tractor lift the front two wheels up almost 60degree :O , we stood there with our jaws dropped in shock.



As the second one came by , wit was a little kid driving it … we requested him to do the wheelie , and this little kid did it even better about 80 degree… whew it was like we were imaging things… then the 3^rd tractor came by .. we went a little overboard and asked whether we could sit on the tractor and then asked him to perform the wheelie :P

Well he couldn’t get it done , so we headed towards the water ..

TIME: 13:15

MANCHINBELE:

Well , the water level had decreased a lot , we had a long discussion whether to get down in the water or Trek up the hill…

The water at this place was never clean , so decided to trek. We had to park our bikes behind some bushes well hidden , and started off towards the mountains . it was quite an easy trek but then the rain god came into the picture.

It was about 2pm , and started raining heavily , dJ had “ ___meter” in his bag ( sorry forgot name) so gave my towel ( a must find in my bag :P) to wrap it up.

Then we stood under a tree for about 20mins , Chinta his STIG , fat guy`s, Megan Fox stories kept us well entertained. **BOWS DOWN**

The sight of savandurga was amazing , it was covered in mist , looked awesome :) . Then we trekked further up to reach a flat land. Hmmm it was a little different since our last visit to this place “ Manchinbele –The reunion” , But yea we walked further and reached the end… sat there for sometime and decided to head back.

The cool weather made the trek super non tiring . Heading back we checked our bikes and left towards namma bengaluroo :) :)

BIG BANYAN:

We reached here at about 3:15 pm , well nothing much is there at this place … so a small round at this place to wrap it up :D. We left BIG BANYAN at about 3:30 pm.

EPIC RIDE BACK:

Vokay here is the most thrilling part of this entire trip. As soon as we entered Mysore road , it started raining heavily. This was real heavy rains. Each droplet was like a thick bullet hitting our faces and chest… believe me that hurt !!

We thought of stopping at kengeri , but decided continue , SH-17 was literally in floods

Obstacle I :

It was becoming difficult to control the bike , finally , we reached Gopalan arch and headed further into Nayanhalli, then ashok and me decided to take a shortcut near a BP petrol bunk ,… So took a U-turn.. the next sight was something il never forget… there was huge amount of water flowing out of the petrol bunk…GULP!! This made all the potholes , humps , Stones , etc invisible…

It was a one shot go… taking a deep breadth , went off…. Finally after a few seconds in the mercy of the forceful water we made it out of it \m/

Obstacle II:

From then on we thought it was a walk in the park. Further we saw a car & scooter stopped near a small bridge… made my way through to sight the mother of all challenges for tat day…

Knee deep , flowing water over the bridge…ashok advised me to head back… But I thought I would give it a shot anyway. Started of at 20kmphr, taking care not to decelerate as water would enter into the Exhaust.

Everybody else were curiously looking at me whether I would screw up … that gave one more reason to cross it. After a min of hard time to keep the bike on course , made it out of it … took a look back at the people who had stopped smiled at all of them and headed further.

Whew what a felling it was… the other two bikes had taken the normal route… we all ended up at the bakery again shivering in cold , drenched totally , soaking wet .

Ordered some tea and snacks etc etc…

After having them headed back home , satisfied … it was a insane trip !! but the ride back is one hell ride I will surely remember…

Until Next time \m/

MAPS:



ALL PHOTOS: