Monday, December 19, 2011

Mamallapuram and Chennai on bike - 01122011

Occasion : Marriage of my manager Vidya Sakar (VS).

We (Shishir/Jyothi (on Avenger), Raghavendra/Krishnan (on Pulsar 180), Kaushik/Rahul/Vishwanath/Shylesh/Venki (in Maruthi800), Pallavi/me (on my enfield/TB)), left Bengaluru by 5pm on 30th Nov, 2011.

Kept on riding riding, and reached Mamallapuram by 2:30am. Stayed in Mamalla Beach Resort. Next day spent some time in resort itself. Started towards Chennai by 5pm, reached the reception hall (GreenPark Hotel) by 8:30pm. Attended Marriage Reception, Had dinner, and started towards Bengaluru by 10:30pm.

Continuous riding till Bengaluru except for a break in CCD on the way where we stayed for almost an hour. Reached Bengaluru by 5am, reached home by 5:40am on 2nd Dec, 2011 Highlight of the trip is, Pallavi (ie, My wife) rode the bike for more than 100kms while going towards Mamallapuram.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Nandi Hills - 16102011

People : Nagaraj AH, Madura (Both are Pallavi's cousins), Pallavi and me. Vehicle : My Enfield, Naga's Yamaha FZ-R Highlights: My first early morning visit to Nandi Hills. It was pleasant morning over there. While coming back, Pallavi rode my bike for more than 10kms and it was her first riding the enfield. She liked it, and I should say I can give her riding control in any of my bike trips ;-) no mistakes done, and I am pleased.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Chandigarh - 20th May, 2011

Visited Rock Garden. Liked the concept. Pallavi loved it a lot. Played Jula (ಜೋಕಾಲಿ) after a long time. It was fun. After rock garden we went to lake, which didn't attract us so much as of Rock Garden. Later found a hotel near sector 17 (ie, busstand area). Went to Market area in evening.

Stayed in Chandigarh in night, and on 21st got a bus to Delhi and then a flight back to Bangalore.

Photos of RockGarden are here. We couldn't get more photos as we ran out of both memory card space and battery.

Dharamshala and Kangra - HP

18th May reached McLeod Ganj (sub-urb of Dharamshala) after seeing 2 temples (chamunda Temple and Baijnath temple on the way.

19th Visited Kangra temple, and then Kangra Fort. It was a good place, but it was very sunny. Not a special place for our wedding anniversary. After getting back to Bhagsu, visited Tibetian temple where Dalai Lama resides. Due to IPL matches in Dharamshala during the same time, the area was very crowded.

20th May, we left towards Chandigarh.

Map of our Car Trip here.

Photos of the trip are here

Manali - Himachal Pradesh

We reached Manali after Whitewater rafting at Phirdi on 14th May. Got the bike (Red Enfield Electra, 350cc).

On 15th May, went towards Solang Valley, and then Rohtang Pass (which was not open yet due to Snow). We rode the bike till Martha ~12k ft high on the way.

On 16th left towards Banjar - Jibhi, through Naggaru road. The ride was fun. Went upto a village called Ghiyagi (10kms from Banjar, and 10kms before Jalori Pass). Stayed in a small wooden cottage.

On 17th, Went upto Jalori Pass, from where we did a small trek of 6kms (one-way) to a lake (and a temple near by). Jalori Pass is at a hight of 10k ft. The trek was in forest and for miles of radius we didn't had any human population. It was a nice trek. We had food in Jalori pass and left towards Manali. Visited Hadimba temple in Manali.
Stayed in Manali that night.

Map of roads which we covered on bike

Photos of the bike Trip

On 18th Left towards Dharamshala (McLodgunj) in taxi after returning the bike.

White Water Rafting - 14th May 2011

After finishing with Sarpass, we all (pallavi, me, kiran, manoj, achalesh, abhiram, nivedita, gaurav, sudeep) decided to do rafting as we had a full 8hrs of time on 14th May. All others had bus at 6pm on 14th, and we left Kasol around 9:40am..
We all did rafting on river Beas at Phirdi, 4kms before Kullu (from Bhunter side). There are many many water rafting companies which offer you competitive price if you go in a group. We negotiated a very throw away amount of less than 300INR per person for 14kms.

Did it with guide 'Girish' (or Rapid Rider or something similar). It was fun. We took the long ride of 14kms. Rafting was of Grade 2 (Moderate range, no risk of overturning raft).

Photos of this activity are missing as we were entering water and didn't want to carry the camera into the raft.

YHA India's Sarpass Trek - 2011 (3rd May -> 14th May)

It was Feb, 2011. When Kiran sent a mail to our gypsys group saying YHAI Trek registrations are open. I asked Pallavi if she is interested.. and as usual, she said "yes" with full energy.

Details of the trek in YHAI website . If the link doesn't open, then you may wait till next feb for the opening. Keep an eye on the yha india website for any programs.

We did some jogging for 20days or so as a preparation of fitness. I recommend it, as it helps you to comfortably finish the trek.

The schedule of ours in this trip looked like below.

May 3rd: Went Delhi in flight. In HPTDC volvo bus left towards Manali.

May 4th: Got down at Bhunter. Took a bus to Kasol (bus goes to Manikaran). Went to base camp, and registered. (5,100ft)

May 5th: 5:30am -> Bed tea, 6am -7am: exercise, 7:30am -> breakfast, 9-12:30 -> acclimatization walk. 1:00pm -> lunch, 3:00pm -> orientation. 4:30pm -> tea, 7:30pm->dinner. 8:30pm -> camp-fire. 9pm -> good night. It was our batch's cultural program for camp-fire, and we did practice well. Our gang did a skit 'the lost soul' (written by us, narrated by manoj). Me and Kiran sung 'Naavaduva nuDiye kannada nuDi'. All of us sung, 'mile sur mera tumhaara'. It was good.

May 6th: Rock climbing and rappelling were planned activity, but due to rain, rocks were wet and we couldn't do that. Instead we went on a walk to near by villages, and it was fun. In evening we took shower in hot-spring of Kasol.

May 7th: We were supposed to leave to higher camps, but due to the bad weather it got canceled. So we went to Manikaran. Had food in gurudwara there.

May 8th: Our hiking started. We left towards Grahan (7,500ft)

May 9th: Left towards Padri (8,600ft)

May 10th : Left towards Ratapani (10,600ft)

May 11th : Left towards Nagru (12,500ft)

May 12th : Went to Sarpass (13,800ft) and got down to Biskeri (11,200ft). This is the day we had to walk almost 14kms, and 95+% of this trek was on snow. We left at 4am in morning and finished the trek by 11:30am.

May 13th : Our schedule was to goto Bandak thatch. But we skipped it, and went directly to Barsoni (6,400ft). and got a bus and went to Kasol base camp. Got our certificates and left the base camp. We were done with the trip :-) successfully!! We stayed in kasol (hotel) that day, had food in 'little italy'. Had isreli food.

May 14th : left towards Kullu to do water rafting.

some photos here

Sunday, April 10, 2011

cycling on weekend - 09042011

did cycling for ~30kms on saturday with Sac (colleague at Gluster). It was fun. Could finish the trip within 2hrs.

Map : http://goo.gl/maps/gghw

Sunday, February 20, 2011

skandagiri

People : Guru, Saryati, Samrat, Chandru, Pallavi and me.
Vehicle : 2 Cars (i20, Logan)
Distance : 70kms from Bangalore (one way), 5kms off Chikballapur)

Left Bangalore @ 4am. Back by 12:15.. could manage to be on top by sunrise.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

BiLikal Hill (ಬಿಳಿ ಕಲ್ಲು ಬೆಟ್ಟ)

Also called as 'Rangaswamy Betta'

Map info here: http://goo.gl/maps/TD1S

Will update the photos later.

People: 8 (Guru, Pallavi, me, Aditya, Haridas, Mahendra, Poorna, Sal).
Vehicle: 2 (one hired sumo, another guru's logan).
Distance: ~60kms from bangalore.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A trip around the linganamakki back waters - 22012011

A trip around the linganamakki backwaters on a 2 wheeler (Pulsar 150) with my wife. Not any kind of 'trip' type travel, but had to visit couple of relative's houses. Left home @ Hosalli on 22nd Jan, and came back on 23rd Jan, 2011.

The road which we took looks something like http://goo.gl/maps/sd0q but from Nittor to Sagar, there is a short cut, which goes on ferry @ place called 'Hasiru makki'.

It was almost a 200kms journey and all through it was green. We missed my enfield for its comfort of long drive. Other than that, the trip was nice.