Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The joy of wilderness - Camping ride to Shettihalli Church

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”
 
“I will be back” this is what I said when I drove to Udupi , my hometown , in June . The rains had just started and already Shiradi Ghat was looking stunning with its evergreen vegetation and also the mountain streams everywhere  .
 
With the Independence Day long weekend , it was the perfect time to go on a photography ride , being a travel junkie , the Shiradi Ghat ride provides the perfect mixture of adventure and cruising experience  .With buttery smooth highway for most of the ride , opening up for gorgeous twesties complemented by its stunning views .
 
With the trip I had planned was a camping road trip it was just a perfect long weekend.
 
3 friends 2 of whom were on India’s fondest bike the Royal Enfield and me on my Pulsar AS200 set out on the 13th of August at 6AM , it being a long weekend the early morning traffic was bad until we hit the NH 47 , a near perfect weather greeted us and we were happily cruising , as usual I was hitting good speeds with me loving the AS200 the more I ride it , and Enfield’s were on their happy cruise mode. Soon after breakfast at Mayura we crossed Sakleshpur and I and Sree stopped for taking photographs .
 
 





At this point Deepak overtook us and we were not able to locate him for next few hours with me spending most of my time in photographing the waterfalls in the Ghats , with slight drizzle all along it looked incredibly beautiful and with no network , there was no trace of Deepak either . I and Sree decided to go to Sakleshpur and call Deepak to the hotel were we decided have our lunch and as I stopped to give a one last call to him , Deepak came along just to say he had went ahead some 70kms as the roads looked beautiful. Reminds me of my old riding days when I used to ride without an agenda.



 

 
 
After our lunch at Sakleshpur , we headed towards Shettihalli Churh on the backwater of Hemavathi Dam , that’s where we had planned to pitch-in our tent ,  I was not very eager to pitch the tent near the church and wanted to pitch-in anywhere along the long stretch on the backwater's .As we approached the abandoned church we could find lots of places ideal to pitch in tent . We spent some time near the gorgeous bridge built across the backwater connecting Shettihalli to other villages , the sunset was beautiful that day and after spending some time we went to our camp area and quickly set up the tent .







Just as we settled in , a couple of villagers came in to tell its not safe to pitch in the tent , we knew those guys were delightfully high and did not mean what they said , we exchanged a few friendly gestures and the rest of the night was spent well with loads of ride stories and some night photography experiments.
We dozed off at around 11PM and at midnight it started pouring. Morning the view from my tent was beautiful , we spent some time listening to songs and clicking few photographs and soon we saddled back to our return ride to Bangalore. On the way, gave a visit to the famous ruined Shettihalli Church and by 9am we hit the highways and reached home safe. A truly beautiful camping ride.


Until next time , be safe and god bless.

 




Monday, February 22, 2016

NH 4 Ride

Tana tana tana taan da , tana tana tana taan da , its my wakeup sound and now I have devised a new way to ensure to get up , sounds weird and is weird as well , but true that I keep the cell phone near the bathroom so that I need to get up to swith-off the alarm and then I hope that that body wins over the mind and I go to bathroom instead of bed. 

But hei listen said the mind, its f***in Sunday and you better sleep and the body said its f***in time to ride and I better getup.

And so the plan was ready, seeing the photos posted by my brothers from another mother who were on a ride to Nagpur , I felt left out , the initial plan to Chitradurga was changed and now it was a ride to Sirsi and Chitradurga. We saddled up the previous day . 1 shorts 3 tees and 1 jeans for 3 days, perfect . And for my pillion wife, hmmm, let’s not get there. And post saddling up before we sleep we have a pact , we decided to take bath the previous night so that we get that extra 5 mins of sleep , body over mind , did I say that! And so we did it, took bath and zzzzz....

Next day got up at 4.30am , straight into the toilet and was multitasking cleansing my bowel , checking whatsapp and brushing teeth and I heard a voice "aytaaa"(are u done) and real men never say no to their wife so I said yes.
At 5.30am we left our place in MS Palya and in no time we hit the NH4 , the road was awesome and I could feel the thrill of riding at 120kmph , in about hour and a half we had covered some 140kms and it was time for a tea break , we had tea at a chai shop near the Hiriyoor toll and saw the milestone say "Davanagere - 95kms" the sight of it made me hungry , now all that was in my mind was the Benne Masala Dosa.

The road continued to be beautiful and the bike performed brilliantly , just as I said wifey that am in love with this speed monster "duh duh duh" , bike was out of fuel , but who says the bikes don't have emotions , the bike stopped right in front of a fuel pump and I was thanking my stars for it. 

fueled up the bike and now it was time for us to fuel up , and as soon as I reached Davanagere , a butter dosa hotel welcomed us , the intentions were clear and the waiter understood , all it took was a smile before the waiter yelled out " eradu bennei " ( two butter masala ) the dosa is so rich with butter and ghee more than one dosa would spoil the fun , after the dosa a quick chai and we were back on road again .

I was doing good speeds and a deviation near Ranibennur read “Sirsi 97 kms " and quickly we were on that road , I was heartened to see even the remote villages had decent roads , but this road is marred with loads of speed breakers , and the accelerator who was the hero in NH 4 with breaks playing the supporting role changed their roles and now the breaks played the hero.

I was determined that I should not miss the route and I was asking people for directions and I was surprised that the dialect of Kannada changed every 20-30 kms , there also came a situation where I knew a stranger I spoke to was speaking in Kannada and I hardly understood , such is the diversity of the land and language , Karnataka , incredible indeed.

11.30 am we were in Sirsi that is 400kms is flat 6 hours and we checked into the spacious room of Samrat hotel in Sirsi , my good friend Ravi had booked a room for us in Samrat and with in minutes of checking he was there with the bright big smile of his. 

Ravi , did I tell you about him!? My ex colleague in Samsung , partner in many indulgences and trips and now  an entrepreneur , proud of you mate.

I want to have lunch where we get Jowar roti said a strong female voice , and yes it was my wife , in the meantime Ravi had got his car and we were off to Yana , we had our lunch at a Khanavali , Khanavali are small lunch rooms which serve typical North Karnataka delicacies comprising of Jowar roti , Brinjal Sabji , thick curd , rice and rasam , as we entered the small home run khanavali , where the main hall of the house was converted to a lunch room with 4 tables , kids were running inside out and a Dr Rajkumar melody playing in the All India Radio ,first thing I said as I entered "oh annavra hadu , oota sooper agi iratte " ( Dr Rajkumar song , food will taste good ) , and so it turned out to be , wife's wish fulfilled , means happy times ahead.

We were off to yana ,which is famous for these two massive rock outcrops known as the Bhairaveshwara Shikhara and the Mohini Shikhara ("Shikhara" means "hill"). The huge rocks are composed of solid black, crystalline Limestone . The conversation grew , Ravi opened up on this adventurous journey of being an entrepreneur and it was inspiring , I also shared my insights and it was a true meeting of two good friends , the joy of meeting a friend after a long time and travelling to do it is just a superlative feeling. We reached Yana and it was indeed a beautiful place


The Beautiful Yana


The Cave Inside Yana


The Beautiful Yana
Few pictures and from there we went to a couple of temples one being the famous Sirsi Maarikamba and we were invited to Ravi's home for dinner , Ravi had his own opinion of what a bad choice we had made by being veggies as his mom was an amazing cook of non veg cuisine , she is not bad in veg either , we had a great meal , bid them bye by traditional way of touching the feet of elders to bless us with safe miles ahead.We went back to room and Ravi promised to meet us in the morning

Day 2

He was there as early as 7am , we had breakfast at the favorite breakfast point of Sirsi , a early morning Masala Dosa and a tea to wake us up wide open. I bid bye to Ravi with a hug and a promise to return, we have few waterfalls to visit in the kitty for the day.


Started the day with Sahasralinga It is in the river Shalmala and is famous for being the location where around a thousand lingas which are carved on the rocks in the river bank.In fact, the name Sahasralinga means thousand-lingas in Sanskrit , adjacent to the river is a beautiful hanging bridge , my bike was the model here I clicked a few photographs , the good thing about having a bike as model is though they have character they don’t carry a swag , true to how we need to be.

The Beautiful Bridge Near Sahasralinga

From Sahasralinga we went to Soanda mutt dedicated to one of the legendary figures of dwaita movement sri sri vadiraja gurupada ( my thousand salutations onto his lotus feet) , we felt out of place here , everyone was in their temple costume ( a white cotton dhoti wrapped like a pant called kachha , and a angha vastram to cover the top part of the body , and ladies in sarees) and here we were two riders wearing jeans . There was a strange feeling inside me . Entering the sanctum wearing a shirt is prohibited , I took of my shirt , had my head wet in a small pond adjacent to the sanctum and conveyed my deep felt devotion towards the guru who worked tirelessly towards the betterment of  society. 

We started from sonda and our next destination was the much awaited Magod falls , we reached Yellapura and from Yellapura 3 kms deviation off the Yellapura Gokarna highway and 15kms from the deviation lies the beautiful Magod falls , the road leading to the falls is pathetic , really sad to see the apathy of the facilities available to one of the beautiful landmarks ,we chose the wrong time to visit the falls so to say with nothing much to see , but we knew that we will witness something special here if we visit during monsoon or post monsoon. 

We came back from Magod falls had our lunch at Yellapura , the sun was blazing and my heavy riding gear made it more difficult , we had a good lunch at hotel near Yellapura town and the two waiters there were more than helpful to help us with the route to Satodi falls . Satodi falls is 25kms from Yellapura town , a deviation from the Yellapura - Hubli highway and I was riding on one of the most rugged roads , with narrow path leading to patchy roads leading to broken roads leading to absolutely no roads for the last 5kms , now as I sit to write my experience , I feel good about it , but back then when I was riding specially to my pillion wife , it was a pain in the wrong place. Nonetheless ,the waterfall is a stunner , how we hoped it was at its full glory , it would have been a sight to behold. 

The Stunner - Satodi Falls

The Stunner - Satodi Falls
We reached the waterfall and the lady warden at the parking lot was kind enough to accept to take care of our riding gears and luggage, a huge relief. Last few months have been really lucky with waterfalls , it all started with the stunning Koodlu falls , followed by the Soochipara and Kanthapara off Kerala and this time around the Mogod and the Satodi and all the falls have given me the vivid experience of the magic and the creativity of nature. 

By the time we were back from Satodi falls it was 4pm and our ambition of reaching Chitradurga that night looked bleak, meanwhile I rode at great speeds but I missed a deviation as the signboards were removed coz of road widening and rode 15kms extra. Off-roading the whole day had took a toll on the body and we decided to stay in Haveri town. We booked a hotel in Haveri and after a quick dinner we just crashed , our body needed rest.

Day 3 

Started late to our standards , for early raisers that we are , we only got up at 7.30am , I could see my body was stiff and could also see wife was tired . We  had a quick Idli breakfast which tasted awfully bad and soon we hit the highway , next stop was the Chitradurga fort. We started from Haveri at 9am and we were in the Chitradurga fort at 10.30am .

Sun was ruthless and the riding gears were not kind either , we requested the gate keeper of the historical fort to take care of our belongings and he obliged do so , we paid him his fee of INR 20 and  went inside the fort , a guide approached us and we rejected the offer as I know we would have walk for more than 45mins considering the exhaustion and the heat we knew we were not up for it , we saw and admired the engineering marvel of the fort

Standing Tall - Chitradurga Fort

Around 2pm we were back on the highway towards Bangalore , we had lunch at the Atitya hotel near Hiriyoor and were back home at 5.30pm after being for 1005kms on the road , 

Though it was really hot out there , time well spent on road indeed. My wife is turning out to be an exceptional pillion rider which makes miles memorable.

See you all soon 

Be Well
Santhosh.Upadhya





Thursday, January 14, 2016

Christmas Ride - Waynad and Kannur

Hei how was the ride son?
Sooper dad!:)
How was the weather out there!
Oh! From a cold Bangalore to moderate Waynad to humid Kannur now back to cold Bangalore , hope the body copes:)
How many kilometers u rode!?
Around 1000 dad , 1004 to be precise
Oops u need some rest , do take rest.
Summary of a 4 day ride in a discussion of 4 minutes with dad , and that’s how exactly it was , I started from my home at early morning 6 and it was cold , we decided to take Kanakapura-Chamarajanagar-Sultan Bathery route and I took the nice road from Peenya to enter into the Kanakapura road , roads are well done everywhere and traffic was moderate. Once I crossed Sri Ravishankar ashram I could sense the real village atmosphere , people who often ply on Kanakapura road might have noticed the huge lake near Harohalli , fog had settled down on the lake and the road which cuts the lake was barely visible which made for some great visuals.



With my life and ride partner _ Its a selfie Time


The only problem travelling on Kanakapura road is the lack of hotel facilities ( Kamath , Adigas , A2B are you listening ) with loads of tourist attractions like Mutatthi , Bheeemeshwari , Shivanasamudra there are no hotels available barring the Mayura in Shivanasamdura which is 3kms off NH 209 , with no hotels we had to go to Mayura and I rate 2 out of 5 for the hotel for lack of options and no great taste. After breakfast it was an uneventful ride other than catching up with 2 grazing elephants in Bandipur on the way to Sultan Bathery. I had booked my accommodation at Chingly Residency using Yatra.com , though the room and service was great it is too far from the usual tourist visits of Waynad like Edakkal caves , Soochipara , Kanthapara and Meenmutty waterfall and Chembra peak , booking accommodation at Kalpetta would have been a better option. We checked into our room at around 12.30pm , took bath , rested for a while and went out for lunch and visited Edakkal caves. We reached Edakkal and a 2 km trek takes you inside the cave , the walk is tiring and I did not find the place interesting , may be someone who is interested in history may like it. We stayed there for a while and after we trekked down , we asked a local for any other interesting place and he suggested us to visit Neelimalai . A 12km ride from Edakkal took us to the foothill of Neelaimalai . From the foothill a 4*4 drive takes you to the top of the cliff and they charge INR 500 for the ride. The ride was really interesting , how easily the Mahindra M540 maneuvered the broken pathway was fantastic , we reached the top of the cliff and from there we can see Meenmutty waterfalls, the view of waterfall from there is beautiful. Neelimalai is a thick forest area and from the top of the cliff we can see houses of tribes settled in the forest. We came back from Neelimali to our room and that was end of day 1.


View of Meenmutty Falls from Neeleimalai
Day 2 started with breakfast at the Udupi hotel in Sutan Bhatery. After breakfast we headed to Chembra peak , A 39kms ride from Sultan Bhatery takes you to Chembra peak check post , from there we need to take ticket to reach the viewpoint , and if you want to see the lake on top of the hill , we need to buy a INR 750 ticket (valid for 10ppl ) and trek 2.5kms which approx. takes 90-100mins to reach the lake. We decided not to trek and we just went till the view point spent some time clicking pictures.


Stunning View on the way to Chembra Peak



Not all who wonder are lost!


The you go , hope someday a home right there

When you feel its the end its just a bend


From there we went to Soochipara waterfall which is a 8km ride from Chembra , we reached Soochipara around 1pm had our lunch and went to the waterfall , a  1.5km walk from the ticket point takes you to the beautiful waterfall , the waterfall and the path leading to the waterfall is very well maintained. For every plastic water bottle you carry an entry is made of it and if you don’t show the same during your exit a fine if INR 50 is collected , thought a sane way to stop the mess the plastic bottles create. After reaching the waterfall clicked a few photographs.


The beautiful but crowded Soochipara Falls

From Soochipara waterfall a 4km ride takes you to the beautiful Kanthapata waterfall , the ride to the waterfall itself is exciting with almost some 60 degree inclined roads. The waterfall was small , beautiful , less crowded and clean . After spending sometime at the waterfall we headed towards our room , saddled up for next day’s ride to Kannur.


The Beautiful Kanthapara Falls


The Beautiful Kanthapara Falls
Day 3 started early at 6am , the weather was cold and once I crossed Kalpetta the beautiful scenic roads opened up , we reached the sunrise point on the way just in time at 6.40am to see the sunrise at 6.45am what a spectacular view it was . 


Sun Rise @ Sunrise View Point

We reached the Lakkidi view point , we got down the ghat , and from there Calicut is 45kms , we took a deviation at Adivaram to join the NH 17 at Koliyandy to reach Kannur , after riding in NH's like NH 4 and NH 7 the NH 17 is outdated and risky ,the truck traffic is heavy and the roads are narrow and also the humidity was getting on to us . Finally we reached Kannur , hungry and tired . Karthik and Swetha who had come a day earlier came to our room and after a quick bath we had our lunch and we took a short nap. We went to the Payamballam beach which is approx. 2kms from our room , had great time at the beach , the sunset was spectacular which made possible a exiting photography session , and after a quick dinner we saddled up for our next days ride back to Bangalore.








Lost In Thoughts



Army Guys Training at the neach


With the love of my life


As the sun sets with the promise of another beautiful day


Aashu in her usual self


Back from work

Day 4 the ride back was uneventful we started at 6.30am and reached Bangalore via Hunsur - Mysore , we bid our goodbye to Karthik and Swetha at the nice road junction and by 2pm I and Ashritha were home , a great ride and time well spent on the road.

Hope you liked the photographs and write-up , until I comeback with another travel story , be well. Happy New Year.

Route Map:

https://www.google.co.in/maps/dir/Bengaluru,+Karnataka+560001/Kanakapura,+Karnataka/Sultan+Bathery,+Kerala/Vythiri,+Kerala/Koyilandy,+Kerala/Kannur,+Kerala/Gonikoppal,+Karnataka/Bangalore,+Karnataka/@12.2003274,75.9235234,9z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m50!4m49!1m5!1m1!1s0x3bae166f94f04901:0x5e06e423109f8222!2m2!1d77.5992708!2d12.9765944!1m5!1m1!1s0x3bae58514a06ef17:0x2b7a698976431240!2m2!1d77.4198823!2d12.5462442!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba608bb285e4b7d:0xe29cb8dc789996ce!2m2!1d76.2626653!2d11.6656117!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba672874352ade7:0xca4f8007338f0b5f!2m2!1d76.0402621!2d11.5516594!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba68a189944e903:0xf160445b1b9d786e!2m2!1d75.6935323!2d11.4446468!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba422b9b2aca753:0x380605a11ce24f6c!2m2!1d75.3703662!2d11.8744775!1m5!1m1!1s0x3ba5ba3eec753a5d:0x73364f90572e0b3e!2m2!1d75.9260011!2d12.1845867!1m5!1m1!1s0x3bae1670c9b44e6d:0xf8dfc3e8517e4fe0!2m2!1d77.5945627!2d12.9715987!3e0?hl=en