Roadies to Mookanamane falls and Bisle view point

Roadies to Mookanamane falls and Bisle view point 

We all got geared up for a 2 days and 1 night trip in Bikes.

It was October 12th, 2013 — a Saturday, early morning at 4 o’clock. We, a group of 18 members with 10 bikes, decided to go on a long ride. The trip was about 550 km in total. Four bikes started from Electronic City, three from Hoskote, one from Malleswaram, and the rest from Vijayanagar.

The riders from Electronic City (Vinith, Ravi, Deepu, Punith, Jithu, Raghu, and Abhi) met us (me and Deepu Raja) in Malleswaram. From there, we headed towards Nelamangala to catch up with the rest of the group. After about 40 minutes of riding, we all merged with the others (Dilip, Sumanth, Adith, Sharath, Karthik, Nishanth, Ravi, Rajesh, and Ashwin) from Hoskote and Vijayanagar.

At last, the whole group was together. Many of us were meeting for the first time, so after the usual introductions, we had a quick sip of tea while chatting about a few things, including the rules to be followed whenever “the Jackie” (Punith) spoke. After that, we started our journey. The weather was chilly, but all the bikes were on track, roaring into the morning silence.

Vroom! Vrooommmmmmmmmmmmmm….

After about an hour, Vinith’s bike suddenly stopped on the highway. We pulled over to the roadside and inspected a few things, but we couldn’t figure out what exactly had gone wrong. Surprisingly, the bike started again on its own without us fixing anything.

We continued our journey, and our next planned stop was at a hotel in Channarayapatna suggested by Sharath. Unfortunately, the hotel was closed, so we headed to a Kamat hotel on NH48 instead. By then, we were starving and pounced on breakfast like a pack of street dogs. The service at the hotel was horrible, and some of the guys decided to switch to the self-service section, where they managed to have breakfast peacefully.

Meanwhile, the rest of us were waiting for Mangalore buns. We spotted two buns—but they were placed on the next table, just out of reach. We didn’t even try to grab them, though the temptation was real. 😉

After having breakfast Vinith left early to Hassan to get his bike repaired and we all went through Hassan bypass and were waiting in Sakaleshpur road for him.

After about one and a half hours, he finally came back. Just as we were about to get up and continue the ride, a mini local bus suddenly cut in front of Vinith, forcing him onto the sandy track. We all started shouting at him, partly out of shock and partly in fun.

Our next stop was at a place called Balupet, where we enquired about the route to Mukkanamane Falls. The locals told us that taking a right would lead us to Abbey Falls (Madikeri), but since most of us had already visited it, we weren’t interested. So, we chose the Sakaleshpur route instead and carried on with our ride.

Our next stop was near the Manjarabad Fort deviation road in the Sakaleshpur ghat section. We took the road leading to Manjarabad Fort but didn’t actually visit the fort. From there, the road condition turned horrible.

We stopped at Hethur for lunch, but only one vegetarian hotel and one non-vegetarian hotel were open. We all decided to go green and chose the vegetarian hotel. We ordered 18 meals for parcel, planning to enjoy them later by the riverbank at Mookanamane Falls. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough meals ready for such a big group, so they started cooking after taking our order. (Once you cross Sakaleshpur, you’ll notice that in most places, if you’re traveling in a group of 10+ people, you have to wait while they cook fresh food.)

So, we ended up waiting for around 2 hours. By then, the time was already close to 4 p.m. Finally, with the food packed, we headed towards the falls, bumping along the terribly bad road.

 Finally, we reached a narrow, steep mud road that led us to the waterfall. All our bikes lined up one after another as we began riding down. (Tip: If you’re planning to visit this place on a bike, it’s better to park on the roadside and walk, especially during the rainy season.)

Since it was the rainy season, the road was extremely slippery and the bikes were skidding heavily. Everything went fine up to a certain point, but then the road became even steeper and riskier to ride. I decided to take the chance anyway — I asked my pillion, Raghu, to get down and continued alone. Seeing me, two more riders, Ravi and Vinith, also gave it a try.

Luckily, the three of us managed to ride through without any trouble and parked our bikes almost near the falls, while the rest decided to stop and park at the safer point..

 By now, everyone was starving and eagerly waiting to reach the falls so we could finally eat. But there was a twist — a small trek had to be done to get to the falls, all while carrying helmets and food parcels.

When we finally reached, the breathtaking beauty of nature made us instantly forget our hunger. Without a second thought, we jumped straight into the river and played around for a while. Eventually, hunger struck again, and we sat down by the riverbank to enjoy our long-awaited meal. With happy hearts and filled stomachs, we wrapped up and started our journey from there.

Now came the real challenge — riding the bikes back up the hill. After some discussion, we decided to give a gap of ten minutes between each bike so that if anything went wrong, only one rider would be affected and not the one coming behind.

Vinith went first on his Bullet. He failed on the first attempt, rolled back, and then, with the help of a few of our guys, managed to reach the point where the other bikes were parked. Ravi followed next and made it through.

Then it was my turn with the Pulsar 220cc. Things were going fine until the back wheel got stuck in the mud. Somehow, I managed to keep the bike balanced while the others helped me pull the wheel out. Finally, I made it up and parked alongside the rest.

We all gathered on the roadside to decide our next destination. By then, it was already 6 p.m., it was getting dark, and rain had just begun to fall lightly. On our way earlier, we had spotted a lake surrounded by beautiful grasslands, so we decided to pitch our tents there and headed straight to that spot.

 We looked around for a suitable spot — the land had to be flat so that sleeping in the tents would be comfortable, and it needed to be at least partially covered to reduce the wind, otherwise empty tents could easily get blown away.

There were a few locals near the lake, so we asked them if it was safe to camp there. They warned us that elephants often came to the lake to drink water. A little further ahead, I spotted a nice flat area, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a graveyard. So, we finally chose the grassland opposite the graveyard and decided to pitch our tents there.

By then it was around 6:30 p.m., and the rain was slowly getting heavier. In a hurry, we set up all our tents — three T3 tents and two T2 tents — and got everything in place just in time.

 Just then, two local residents arrived on a bike. After looking at us, they told us that the place where we had pitched our tents was actually a graveyard too! By that time, we had traveled such a long distance on bikes that we were completely exhausted and almost ready to sleep in the graveyard itself.

One of the locals, however, turned out to be the real hero of the night — Ananda Gowda. Without him, things would have gone completely haywire. He showed us a superb spot to set up our tents and even took us to a nearby house where he arranged for food. We ordered meals around 7 p.m., and he told us they would be ready by 9 p.m. To our surprise, the food was very cheap in this region.

But that wasn’t all — we also needed a few other supplies. For that too, Gowdru accompanied us on his bike, riding nearly 20 km to help us get everything we needed.

By the time it was 9 o’clock, Jithu and Dilip went to collect the food. Meanwhile, Gowdru arranged firewood for us and even gave us kerosene to light a campfire in front of the tents. He himself set it up and lit the fire.

Just as the food arrived, the rain got heavier. Everyone rushed into the tents. Those who had “the stuffs” (about 10 of us) squeezed into a single T3 tent. In that cramped space, we enjoyed ourselves, laughing nonstop at Jackie’s ultimate killer dialogues.

Once the rain stopped, we lit the campfire again, sat around it, and finally had our food together under the night sky.

 After finishing the food, everyone went to sleep in their tents except for me, Vinith, Ravi, Deepu, Jithu, and Nishanth. We played music from our smartphones and started dancing around the campfire, enjoying the chilly night and the crackling fire.

By 11:30 p.m., we finally went into our tents as well. I couldn’t fall asleep immediately, so I kept shouting and joking around for a while before finally dozing off.

Sunday Morning, 7 a.m.

“Histories repeat again and again,” came to my mind as I grabbed a water bottle and stepped out for my morning relief. It was still raining continuously, but we didn’t care and carried on with our activities, getting thoroughly wet in the process.

The first victim of leeches was Karthik, and slowly almost everyone ended up with bites. After packing the tents, we thanked Anand Gowda for his help and said our goodbyes before heading toward the Bisle viewpoint. As usual, the road was the same rough, terrible stretch we had ridden before.

When we reached the Bisle Ghat viewpoint, it was completely covered by clouds. We were literally standing inside the clouds, with no chance of seeing the mountain valleys or waterfalls. After about 20 minutes, the clouds began to clear, giving us glimpses of the valleys below. We quickly took some photos and considered heading to Kukke Subramanya, which was only 25 km away. However, the thought of dealing with the irritating road and the long ride back to Bangalore made us skip it.

We started our journey back to Bangalore. Some of us decided to take an alternative route through Athihalli instead of retracing the same road. This road turned out to be much better and also saved us around 50 km, connecting us to Shanivarasanthe.

Our next pit stop was Holenarasipura. A few of the guys mistakenly took Mysore Road instead of joining the Bangalore bypass, which made us wait for almost an hour. It was a bit confusing for me too, trying to figure out which route would lead us back to the highway, but I kept asking the locals for directions. Eventually, the guys on Mysore Road realized their mistake, took a U-turn, and rejoined us.

We all continued riding together, with our next stop at Channarayapatna, where we had tea and some snacks to recharge before the final stretch to Bangalore.

Finally, our trip was coming to an end. Before parting ways, we decided to take a group photo. We rode to a nearby lay-by, parked all 10 bikes, and sat on the road to capture some memorable snaps.

After that, everyone dispersed and headed back to their respective homes, marking the end of an unforgettable adventure.

Interesting facts about INDIA

1.      The world’s first granite temple is the Brihadeswara Temple at Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu. It was started in 1004 AD and is made from 130 000 tons of granite.

2.      India is about 1/3 the size of the United States, yet it is the second most populous country in the world, with a population of 1,166,079,217. India is the seventh largest country in the world, at 1.27 million square miles.

3.      India is the largest democracy in the world.

4.      The Kumbh Mela (or Grand Pitcher Festival) is a huge Hindu religious festival that takes place in India every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, breaking the record for the world’s biggest gathering. The mass of people was photographed from space by a satellite

5.      Many Indians find toilet paper repellent and consider it cleaner to splash water with the left hand in the appropriate direction. Consequently, the left hand is considered unclean and is never used for eating.

6.      To avoid polluting the elements (fire, earth, water, air), followers of Zoroastrianism in India don’t bury their dead, but instead leave bodies in buildings called “Towers of Silence” for the vultures to pick clean. After the bones dry, they are swept into a central well.

7.      It is illegal to take Indian currency (rupees) out of India.

8.      India leads the world with the most murders (32,719), with Russia taking second at 28,904 murders per year.

9.      India has one of the world’s highest rates of abortion

10.  More than a million Indians are millionaires, yet most Indians live on less than two dollars a day. An estimated 35% of India’s population lives below the poverty line.

11.  Cows can be found freely wandering the streets of India’s cities. They are considered sacred and will often wear a tilak, a Hindu symbol of good fortune. Cows are considered one of humankind’s seven mothers because they offer milk as does one’s natural mother.

12.  Dancing is one of India’s most highly developed arts and was an integral part of worship in the inner shrines of every temple. It is notable for its expressive hand movements.

13.  Rabies is endemic in India. Additionally, “Delhi Belly” or diarrhea is commonplace due to contaminated drinking water.

14.  Many Indian wives will never say their husband’s name aloud, as it is a sign of disrespect. When addressing him, the wife will use several indirect references, such as “ji” or “look here” or “hello,” or even refer to him as the father of her child.

15.  A widow is considered bad luck—otherwise, her husband wouldn’t have died. Elderly women in the village might call a widow “the one who ate her husband.” In some orthodox families, widows are not allowed near newlyweds or welcomed at social gatherings.

16.  India is the birthplace of chess. The original word for “chess” is the Sanskrit chaturanga, meaning “four members of an army”—which were mostly likely elephants, horses, chariots, and foot soldiers

.

17.  The Indian flag has three horizontal bands of color: saffron for courage and sacrifice, white for truth and peace, and green for faith, fertility, and chivalry. An emblem of a wheel spinning used to be in the center of the white band, but when India gained independence, a Buddhist dharma chakra, or wheel of life, replaced the spinning wheel.

18.  The temples of Khajuraho are famous for their erotic sculptures and are one of the most popular tourist attractions in India. Scholars still debate the purpose of such explicit portrayals of sexual intercourse, which sometimes involve animals.

19.  The earliest cotton in the world was spun and woven in India. Roman emperors would wear delicate cotton from India that they would call “woven winds.” Mogul emperors called the fabrics “morning dew” and “cloth of running water”.

20.  In ancient and medieval India, suttees, in which a recently widowed woman would immolate herself on her husband’s funeral pyre, were common.

21.  The Himalayas—from the Sanskrit hima, meaning “snow,” and alaya, meaning “abode”—are found in the north of India. They extend 1,500 miles and are slowly growing taller, by almost an inch (2.5 cm) a year. Several ancient Indian monasteries are found nestled in the grandeur of these mountains.

22.  India is the world’s largest producer of dried beans, such as kidney beans and chickpeas. It also leads the world in banana exports; Brazil is second.

23.  In India, the fold and color of clothing are viewed as important markers of social classification. Additionally, a woman will be viewed as either a prostitute or a holy person depending on the manner in which she parts her hair.

24.  With 150,000 post offices, India has the largest postal network in the world. However, it is not unusual for a letter to take two weeks to travel just 30 miles.

25.  In India, grasping one’s ears signifies repentance or sincerity.

26.  The Bengal tiger is India’s national animal. It was once ubiquitous throughout the country, but now there are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers left.

27.  Indians hold prominent places both internationally and in the United States. For example, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems (Vinod Khosla), the creator of the Pentium chip (Vinod Dahm), the founder/creator of Hotmail (Sabeer Bhatia), and the GM of Hewlett-Packard (Rajiv Gupta) are all Indian.

28.  Alexander the Great of Macedon (356-323 B.C.) was one of the first important figures to bring India into contact with the West. After his death, a link between Europe and the East would not be restored until Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) landed in Calicut, India, in 1498.

29.  The British Raj, or British rule, lasted from 1858 to 1947 (although they had a strong presence in India since the 1700s). British influence is still seen in Indian architecture, education system, transportation, and politics. Many of India’s worst famines are associated with British rule in India.

30.  Every major world religion is represented in India. Additionally, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism all originated in India.

31.  About 80% of Indians are Hindu. Muslims are the largest minority in India and form approximately 13% of the country’s population. In fact, India has the third largest population of Muslims in the world, after Indonesia and Pakistan.

32.  India has the world’s largest movie industry, based in the city of Mumbai (known as the “City of Dreams”). The B in “Bollywood” comes from Bombay, the former name for Mumbai. Almost all Bollywood movies are musicals.

33.  Mumbai (Bombay) is India’s largest city, with a population of 15 million. In 1661, British engineers built a causeway uniting all seven original islands of Bombay into a single landmass.

34.  Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) is known around the world as Mahatma, which is an honorific title meaning “Great Soul” in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. He devoted his life to free India from British rule peacefully and based his campaign on civil disobedience. His birthday, October 2, is a national holiday. He was assassinated in 1948.

35.  The lotus is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. The Baha’i house of worship in Delhi, known as the “Lotus Temple,” is shaped like a lotus flower with 27 gigantic “petals” that are covered in marble.

36.  The banyan, or Indian fig tree, is considered a symbol of immortality and is mentioned in many Indian myths and legends. This self-renewing plant is India’s national tree.

37.  Marigold flowers are used as decoration for Hindu marriages and are a symbol of good fortune and happiness.

38.  The official name of India is the Republic of India. The name “India” derives from the River Indus, which most likely is derived from the Sanskrit sindhu, meaning “river.” The official Sanskrit name of India is Bharat, after the legendary king in the epic Mahabharata.

39.  Introduced by the British, cricket is India’s most popular sport. Hockey is considered the national sport, and the Indian field hockey team proudly won Olympic gold in 1928.

40.  Indians made significant contributions to calculus, trigonometry, and algebra. The decimal system was invented in India in 100 B.C. The concept of zero as a number is also attributed to India.

41.  The national fruit of India is the mango. The national bird is the peacock, which was initially bred for food.

42.  Most historians agree that the first recorded account of plastic surgery is found in ancient Indian Sanskrit texts.

43.  Hindi and English are the official languages of India. The government also recognizes 17 other languages (Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali, Manipuri, Konkani, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu). Apart from these languages, about 1,652 dialects are spoken in the country.

44.  India’s pastoral communities are largely dependent on dairy and have made India the largest milk-producing country in the world.

45.  India has the world’s third largest road network at 1.9 million miles. It also has the world’s second largest rail network, which is the world’s largest civilian employer with 16 million workers.

46.  Rivers have played a vital role in India’s popular culture and folklore - they have been worshipped as goddesses because they bring water to an otherwise dry land. Bathing in the Ganges in particular is thought to take away a person’s sins. It is not unusual to spread a loved one’s ashes in the Ganges.

47.  Raziya Sultana (1205-1240) was the first woman leader of India. She was considered a great leader, though she ruled for only three years before being murdered.

48.  Most Indians rinse their hands, legs, and face before eating a meal. It is considered polite to eat with the right hand, and women eat after everyone is finished. Wasting food is considered a sin.

49.  During the Vedic era in India, horse sacrifice sanctioned the sovereignty of the king.

50.  It is traditional to wear white, not black, to a funeral in India. Widows will often wear white in contrast to the colorful clothes of married or single women.

51.  All of India is under a single time zone.

52.  On India’s Independence Day, August 15, 1947, the country was split into India and Pakistan. The partition displaced 1.27 million people and resulted in the death of several hundred thousand to a million people.

53.  In recent years, Indian authors have made a mark on the world with such novels as Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988), Vikram Seth’s Suitable Boy (1993), and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997).

54.  India experiences six seasons: summer, autumn, winter, spring, summer monsoon, and winter monsoon.

55.  India is the world’s largest tea producer, and tea (chai) is its most popular beverage.

56.  The Taj Mahal (“crown palace”) was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631). This architectural beauty has been called “marbled embroidery” for its intricate workmanship. It took 22,000 workmen 22 years to complete it.

57.  The first and greatest civilization in ancient India developed around the valley of the Indus River (now Pakistan) around 3000 B.C. Called the Indus Valley civilization, this early empire was larger than any other empire, including Egypt and Mesopotamia.

58.  After the great Indus Civilization collapsed in 2000 B.C., groups of Indo-Europeans called Aryans (“noble ones”) traveled to northwest India and reigned during what is called the Vedic age. The mingling of ideas from the Aryan and Indus Valley religions formed the basis of Hinduism, and the gods Shiva, Kali, and Brahma all have their roots in Aryan civilization. The Aryans also recorded the Vedas, the first Hindu scriptures, and introduced a caste system based on ethnicity and occupation.

59.  Alexander the Great invaded India partly because he wanted to solve the mystery of the “ocean,” which he had been told was a huge, continuous sea that flowed in a circle around the land. When he reached the Indian Ocean, he sacrificed some bulls to Poseidon for leading him to his goal.

60.  Greek sculpture strongly influenced many portrayals of Indian gods and goddesses, particularly after the conquest of Alexander the Great around 330 B.C. In fact, early Indian gods had Greek features and only later did distinct Indian styles emerge.

61.  Chandragupta Maurya (340-290 B.C.), a leader in India who established the Mauryan Empire (321-185 B.C.), was guarded by a band of women on horseback.

62.  When the first independent prime minister of India, pacifist Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), was featured in Vogue, his distinctive close fitting, single-breasted jacket briefly became an important fashion statement for the Mod movement in the West. Named the Nehru jacket, the prime minister’s coat was popularized by the Beatles and worn by such famous people as Johnny Carson (1925-2005) and Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990).

63.  India has the 3rd largest military force in the world, yet the country has never in its history invaded another country.