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.
I 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
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| The Beautiful Yana |
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The Cave Inside Yana
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| 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.
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| 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.
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The Stunner - Satodi Falls
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| 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
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| 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
