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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
