Lazy Weekend Ride with BikeNomads

Had planned this ride with Bengalooru BN chapter as per our earlier BN ride. The ride was done on Saturday, May 31st 2008 with lots of surprises thrown in!

Firstly, most of the regular riders were tied up with professional/personal work and dropped out, the confirmed list shrinked to 7 riders with 2 tentatives thrown in :P The place to ride to itself was debated and finalised on the last day as per confirmed riders choosing. But alas, there were drop outs as the D day neared.
4 BNers ended up starting the ride and 2 BNers finished the ride :P But towards the end of the ride, it was one of most enjoyable 1 day rides i had done till date! explored unknown places and found some new routes and places, with the ride culminating in heavy rains!

Riders and Bikes:

1. Sachin Koppikar - Pulsar 150
2. Prasanna - Pulsar 180
3. Professor Nanjundappa - Unicorn
4. Vasanth - Karizma

Route:
Bangalore>Kanakapura>Bheemeshwari>Muthati>Kanakapura>Thalli(TN)>Hosur>Bangalore

Distance:
275 Kms for me

Pics:
My Pics: Click here

The Ride Log:

Lots of regulars backed out at the last moment and communicated through mail/group/sms about their inability to make it to the ride. The only last moment joinee was Sachin, he informed me the previous day that he would join in provided his bike was in shape, he suspected some engine related problems, he said that he would hitch pillion with me if his bike gave haath. With Balaji being around (he was confirmed) to show the exact location to spend time in Bheemeshwari and with Professor being around to take us through unexplored interior routes, i braced myself for an exciting ride ahead and tried to catch few winks of sleep.

Woke up at 5 Am. The meeting time was 6.15 AM opp to METRO in Kanakapura road, i had to go to Sachin's place as he had doubted about his bike's condition. After sometime sachin gave a green signal about his bike and we both were just about to start towards meeting point, balaji called and expressed his inability to join in for the ride :( looked like the previous night's food had upset his internals :P Poor guy had packed up his cramsters and riding gears and was all set for the ride earlier night, but his internals gave haath on the ride day. I told him that shouldn't be a problem and he should take rest, off we went to meet Professor and Prasanna (or so we thought!) at the meeting point.

We reached there at 6.20Am only to find Professor waiting for us. Checked my cell to find prasanna's message that he would catch up with us later on. I apologised to professor for making him wait, we started off at 6.45 Am after some chitchat and fag break. The weather was cloudy and cool, the irritants were truck/bus traffic as we proceeded. With me leading and Sachin tailing, we munched kms. I was busy enjoying the curvy kanakapura road and started to see that the duo behind me were slowing down considerably, so decided to cruise at 40 kmph for sometime :P After sometime, i saw Sachin in the RVM and tried to speedup, but i saw him honking and flashing his headlamps, signing me to pull over.

Professor caught up too. Looked like Sachin's pulsar had decided to become Autogeared bike! His bike was automatically downshifting from 4th gear to 3rd gear unexpectedly while riding. Now he had second thoughts, I assured him that he could manage as we were hardly 15 kms from Kanakapura, our breakfast point. But he was still skeptical about the bike, I adviced him to park the bike off at some secure place on the highway (near a hotel or school) and then he could hop pillion on my Bike or i could be pillion on my bike and he could ride. He agreed initially and later we proceeded slowly, i found an old school with secure compound, found it an ideal place to park his bike, so we could proceed ahead and then pick up the bike on the way back. Sachin changed his mind suddenly and said that we could proceed with the ride and he would manage with his bike's tantrums :P

We rolled in to Kanakapura, our breakfast destination was the famous "Vasu Hotel" to savour their masala dosas. I had got introduced to this hotel around 3 years back through Bangalore Xbhp guys, who used to plan Masala Dosa rides to this hotel :P After some enquiring with locals (my memory is becoming weak :( ) We found the hotel's spacious back entrance, parked our bikes and went in. The Hotel was not crowded to my surprise! Then i realised that we had gone there on a Saturday, while all my earlier visits earlier were on sundays, it used to be so crowded, that we had to wait for close to 20 mins sometimes to get a seat, or have the dosas standing ala darshini hotels style :P

We found a table and settled in. Prasanna called up and he was enquiring for directions, we gave him specific directions, but still he ended up at another hotel :P Again the telephonic guiding helped him to locate us safely :P We savoured tasty masala dosas/pooris and what nots! The taste was heavenly, so was the price! :P looked like inflation had caught up with this joint too :( But it was still comparitively cheaper compared to any hotel in bangalore. Having filled our tanks :P we were about to proceed, when sachin had a change of heart again! He was determined to ride back to bangalore, cutting short the ride, so that he could handover his bike to AutoService for fixing the issue. All our convincing efforts were waste, the "Humble Giant" :P had made up his mind. So we bid byes to him and the remaining three of us proceeded towards bheemeshwari.

The weather was cloudy and cool breeze welcomed us. It was ideal day to ride on. Soon we found a place for a pic break and settled down for few pics and fag. Prasanna was not carrying his cam, so he was taking pics in my cam, giving me ample free time to soak in to the surroundings :P



After the pitstop, we proceeded again. Sun started to show up, the clouds were gone. Smooth roads all the way with lots of greenery around due to rains the earlier day, we were busy enjoying the scenic views and munching kms. Soon we hit Bheemeshwari fishing camp area, found the usual spots too crowded, lots of tourist junta had ambuished good spots near river :( We enquired with locals and they told we could head to Muthati for better isolated spots. So off we went in search of such isolated river bed spots. We noted down few such spots on the way, but still the hope of finding better spots made us go further ahead, not that i was complaining :P the roads were too good and sparce traffic made it a biker's delight.

We saw a Car trying go through one of the paths in to the jungle, so we decided to follow. The "road" was nothing but full of sand/gravel and rocks, predictably the car guy gave up after some distance and they parked to alight and walk all the way through that path. While we decided to explore further, it was a steep climb, had some scary moments. Prasanna and Me were riding on while professor wisely stopped at the foothill seeing the terrain. The path seemed to go on and on, so we stopped, i got a scare while alighting from the bike, my foot just slipped! there was no grip to give traction in that gravel and mud. Somehow managed to balance myself and safely put the bike on sidestand. Prasanna went to look ahead while i clicked a few snaps of the unforgiving offroad.



Prasanna came back and said that the path further ahead was motorable to someextent and later we had to trek, we ditched the idea and decided to climb down the offroad towards the mainroad. The fun began! I was the first to go, turning my bike was huge task given the limited width and uneven path, once turned, it was downward spiral in gravel/sand and rock, i was shit scared, i didn't want to drop my bike. I took my bike towards the downward journey, i saw professor positioning his cam and recording video of my antics! :P My bike's rear was dancing all over with out any traction due to stock zapper tyres, I switched off ignition and tried to control the bike downward using gears, after lots of scary moments, i managed to get down from the nightmarish path. Prasanna followed, he somewhat easily glided down, i guess he has offroading experience. Phew! we were glad that we made it down in one piece, we decided to have a fag break, when we noticed a monkey family looking at us amused!



:P After taking few "daring" pics with the monkey khaandaan, we proceeded towards muthati spot, which we had noted down earlier. There was a temple nearby, the priest offered to guard our lids, so we dropped off our lids in temple and carried on towards the river bed. We were the only ones there and it was calm and scenic with the river flowing and birds chirping. Prasanna went click happy capturing the scenery and few butterflies which were hovering around.



The calmness was shattered with the arrival of "honeymoon travels" kinda bus! Filled with all newly married junta and entire khaandaan, which was much worse than the khaandaan we had encountered earlier :P Needless to say, the photo-ops and silence was ruined with few monkeys from that family. We got the clue that it was time to move on, so we decided to head back to Kanakpura for lunch and from there to take the new route back to bangalore. Went back to the temple, picked up our stuff and rode on, we were passing through some amazing twisty roads, I could see prasanna honking. I let him overtake and he pointed towards the road ahead, Viola! It was a very smooth tempting curve with a slight elevation! Perfect place to take some cornering pics!



So out came our Cameras, It was prasanna’s turn first, so off he went while professor picked a nice spot to shoot his share of pics, I ventured towards a elevated point after doing some “offroading” walking :P I was still in my full gear as I had to go next, so dangling the camera over my neck and walking with the helmet and gloves on took some effort and needless to say, I was sweating like a pig inside after few seconds. But it was worth it, the angle i got was good, I could capture the entire curve in one frame so I waited for prasanna to approach. Clicked some good shots, but prasanna was not satisfied with his approach, so off he went for his second try and this time he took the curve nicely and the pics too came out good.



It was my turn next, Handed over my camera to prasanna and I insisted that he climb up to the elevation point that I was at to get the same angle :P Poor chap did climb and perched on top while I got on to my zma and zoomed off towards starting point. I wasn’t too happy with my first try at the curve, so off I went again and the second time I managed to tilt the bike to my satisfaction with a wide grin plastered under my helmet after the effort :P It was time to look at the pics and they had come out very well, one of the best pics of my taking curves indeed!



We moved on as it was getting hot, We rode on and reached Kanakpura town by 2 pm. Professor and me decided to have lunch in one of hotels there. But prasanna had to get back to Bangalore as he had some work, so off he went after bidding us goodbyes. This was a strange ride indeed with riders dropping off right from morning, first it was sachin as his pulsar decided to become “auto gear” bike :P now it was prasanna, Me and professor carried on, we spotted a nice hotel near by and decided to fill up to brim :P After loads of Chicken and mutton with a few chappatis and rice thrown in, we were full :P We spent more time discussing about all sundry things.
We moved on from there by 3.30 pm and professor’s route was to be taken, professor had found a relatively unexplored route from kanakpura towards Anekal, so we took the deviation from kanakpura and proceeded towards Anekal The roads were butter smooth, I was delighted to see such good roads after the kanakpura roads, that too with almost little or no traffic! After some time we found a nice village and took a butt break there much to the curiosity of the villagers there :P Found a cute calf and future mode of transport there :P



Village folks were overjoyed when they heard us speak in kannada and more when they found out that we were localities, they were having lengthy talks with professor who had hard time explaining to them about why “simply” we were riding from Bangalore from morning only to end up in Bangalore again! :P While I got busy clicking after a fag, trying to capture the smooth roads and the surroundings




We got going from there after a couple of minutes after bidding bye to the localities there, the rain gods were taunting us with slight drizzle, so we put on rain coats for our tank bags. But the drizzle stopped and it was just cloudy later on. I had to tank up on the way and we found a rickety old bunk, had no choice, so I filled up for 200 bucks and we moved on. The roads and scenery were just amazing, professor and me were signing to each other many times showing our appreciation towards the whole scenery and the route. Soon we approached the deviation towards Anekal, only to be told by localities that a Bandh was announced in that town and there was some tension. Professor immediately had another route in mind, that would go via a place called “thalli” in TN and from there to Hosur! Professor is a walking talking Atlas I tell you! :P

So off we went towards “thalli” The scenery was again mesmerizing, no traffic yet again except for an odd truck or bus. The cloud cover was still there and at one point, the clouds too good with the sun trying to play hide and seek, it was time for out butt break too, so by 5 pm, we stopped at that spot and started clicking some amazing pics!




We got going after the clicks and by 5.30 we found another amazing stretch of road with good scenery too! Since it was already evening, we decided to take last of pics at this spot and proceeded with the clicking session.



A shepherd boy there got curious and got talking to us, we realized after talking to him that we had stopped exactly at the Karnataka – TamilNadu border! The border was marked by a 3 foot stick planted on road side which was painted in white and green :P We were technically clicking pics from Karnataka though! :P Some shots came out real good, thanks to the straight long road ahead.




We got going by 5.45 pm. We decided to stop at Hosur directly which was still some 45 kms ahead. It was already getting dark, so resigned to our fate that we will be hitting Bangalore only by night. One the way to hosur, rain gods lost their patience and the down pour started! We rode in rain and it was already 7 pm. I struggled a bit due to my spectacles getting fogged, managed to drag myself till hosur. Ride till hosur was okish as the two lane road had sparse traffic and street lights to some extent, but the moment we hit the NH in Hosur, things got screwed, visibility was zero due to rain and to top it up, we had to be on left lane, the slow moving trucks ahead were spraying rain water from their tyres towards us. I was finding it extremely difficult to even see the rear view mirrors the traffic was heavy too. So I signed to professor to pull up ahead.

We thankfully found a hotel which was situated inside a large complex with a spacious compound with trees and all. It was still pouring cats and dogs, so we parked our bikes and ran for cover. Found seats and savioured hot bonda and bajjis :P They never tasted so good. We thought we will make a move when the rains slow down. So we waited there and gulped down god knows how many plates of hot spicy munchy eatables and loads of tea, we even found maddur vada there! I hadn’t imagined that I will be eating maddur vada in hosur one day! The rains showed no signs of abating so me and professor had a nice chit chat about every topic under the sun :P before we could realize, it was already 9 pm! Still it was pouring, we decided to move on slowly and reach Bangalore.

The next few kms were the most horrible ride for me, I absolutely hated it being there at that time! With loads of trucks/buses/cars and Suvs racing past me with their blinding headlamps and shitting shrill horns, my spectacles getting fogged, my puny 55/60w headlamp not illuminating enough for me to gauge the road ahead of me. It got worse once we crossed over to Karnataka, the elevated flyover construction going on had made the roads water logged and there were no clear markings on the road shoulders! Veering to extreme left made me go through nasty potholes while trying to stay in middle lane meant the cages zooming past me by inches, I rode on by guess work and found professor once or twice on the way, he was somehow better off than me riding in that situation. So I signed to professor near bommanahalli that I would move on and we parted ways. From there on, it was “Auto pilot” mode for me as it is my usual route to and fro office :P
Reached home around 11 Pm. Totally drenched and with all the dirt on hosur road sprayed on my lid, riding gear and bike, but still I had a big wide grin under the helmet :P

Busy bee....

As much as i hate change in life, this one's being forced down my throat :(
Not that it was unexpected, but i was always procastinating on this particular change in life, I always thought that it would happen "sometime in future"
Well, the "future" turned out to be this month and it hit me quite hard when i had to face the facts. Iam talking about my professional life.

Finally, Iam quitting my job in my existing company, after close to 5 plus years! Time just flies indeed! I never thought that this day would come so soon (yeah 5 years is soon :P) I learnt a lot of things, met a lot of people and made many friends for life here in my existing company, but all good things come to an end in life and this chapter of my life is coming to an end unexpectedly :(

It's been an emotional roller coaster ride for me from past few weeks, ever since i had to make the hard decision to move on with my professional life seeking greener pastures. Haven't found time to blog in between, had to take many hard decisions and face up to realities of life. This feels like iam breaking up from a relationship!
I guess this is one of those turning points/defining moments of life, where the purpose of life is answered to me by the one above.

It will take sometime for me settle down in my new work place, Iam serving my last few painful days (emotionally) in my current company, end of one chapter in life is beginning of a new chapter in life they say, so in June, i will be beginning a new chapter of my professional life, till then, I will be a busybee, buzzing around here with formalities and stuff.

Will be back with a ride report soon though! This weekend, Bangalore BikeNomads chapter is going out on another one day ride/meet like last month's ride. Am looking forward for this weekend's ride to recharge my batteries.

Long time no see Ride

Been ages since i had gone for one of the Xbhp G2Gs. Saw a post in Xbhp about weekend ride to nowhere (literally!) so thought of joining in as it was supposed to be a chota breakfast ride to BigBanyan Tree. Santoosh too joined in and so did murugesh, 3 is a crowd indeed :P We three met up as usual and rode on to meeting point, The Nice road - Mysore road intersection by early morning 6.30. Soon we found company with two sbk riders, all decked up with riding gear (for a change!) We found a MV Augusta! Later came to know that they were from Red roosters SBK group.

The Xbhp troupe joined us, they had taken NICE road. I was in for a surprise! After close to 6 months, i saw Professor there! He had joined the ride through Xbhpian John's contact. I was overjoyed bumping in to him, we had loads of things to catch up since our Last ride together was the Gokarna Ride in October 2007! That was one heck of a ride to say the least! Newayz, Soon, we all rode to Bigbanyan Tree, in absolute formation, with me and professor as Tail and Santoosh as lead. With in no time, we were there, near the Huge banyan Tree.



Had a vella time there, before our hunger pans started. There were no hotels near by, John was talking of going back to mysore road, catching up breakfast and leaving for home. Me and professor felt that we needed more from this ride, so we all informed that it would be better if we could go to Manchanabele dam, which was very nearby. Most of them agreed, few of them turned back. Soon, with santoosh as lead, we all rode in formation towards the Dam, through villages. The roads were nonexistant! It was total offroading to the core! The roads were akin to the ones i had encountered during Kemmangundi ride After prolonged offroading, we hit nice tarmac with awesome twisties! Few more kms in to it, we saw the first view of dam, it was beautiful.



Took some pics and joined the gang, we ventured deep in to the interiors towards the dam, offroading began again! Then john found a path way which lead us in to the backwaters, it was just too steep. While most of the bravehearts ventured in to the deep steep with their steeds, me, professor and few others bailed out and parked our bikes in safer places, we walked our way down, only to find a biker civilization near the back waters :P



Fellas were enjoying in the water like small kids :P not to mention overjoyed John, who took his P220 in to water like a ship! Santoosh too ventured deep in to water and parked his bike. Loads of laughter and chit chat followed, not to mention the photo session and john did his role of tickling everyone's funny bones. Me and professor caught up with loads of things since our last ride together. Met new members of xbhp and made new friends :) After more than an hour there, everyone got hungry, john and co wanted to head back towards bangalore and catch up breakfast on the way. While we four (santooh, murugesh, professor and me) decided to check out interior roads and do a lazy ride. We bid byes to everyone and took the interior roads towards Savandurga.

The roads were bliss, excellent tarmac with greenery all around. We soon hit the intersection of savandurga and ramnagaram. We had excellent breakfast in one of the local hotels, awesome "thatte Idlis" and fresh Lemon rice, few cups of tea. Total bill? Close to Rs 30! It was worth the wait breakfast :P We decided to ditch savandurga, which was 4 kms from where we were, instead, we took the route towards Ramnagaram, which would join mysore road. The road was dream come true! Excellent twisties with well laid tarmac. Santoosh and me had swapped bikes and santoosh was literally scraping his shoes on my zma! I was enjoying his hooligan bike after few months and enjoyed riding the torquey beast.



We found a nice shady spot under a tree, which overlooked a curve and decided to take cornering pics. Murugesh popped few wheelies, i couldn't capture it in full glory :( Santoosh managed to capture it properly in his cam. Soon, we were taking good cornering pics, professor even took my zma for the cornering pic :P as expected, he was impressed with zma's flickability and handling (next bike saar? :P) We were relaxing after the tiring photosession under the shade, when we found ourselves an unexpected host. We found ourselves being questioned by a bangalore kid, he was amused by our bikes and riding gear :P He wanted to know if we would like tender coconuts! We took couple of pics of the overjoyed kid, posing on my zma :)



We then found out that the kid and his father owned a farm house, which was bang opposite to the spot from where we were standing! We got invited by his dad to their farm house, it was beautiful, acres of land with coconut trees and mango trees! Kid's father was very humble, despite being a big shot in bangalore, he was very friendly and treated us to N number of tender coconuts! plucked fresh from trees! I had never had such tasty tender coconuts! We all had rounds of it and soon got full!
Santoosh managed to get one "mileage" tender coconut, which was going on and on! Looked like the tree had dumped all the water in to his single tender coconut! :P



We relaxed under a coconut tree in their farmhouse chatting with the kid's father and not to mention, answering the innumerable questions by the kid :P His father also was kinda surprised at our ride for no reason :P He found it difficult to believe that professor at his age was riding a bike :) It was well spent time there, after more than 2 hours of chit chatting and consuming many tender coconuts, we had to move on, We bid byes to our hosts, who had treated us very well. The kid's father even gave his contact number to us and gave us an offer to use the farmhouse if we wanted in future! :P Advantages of being a biker i guess!



Everyone was happy at the turn of events. It was totally unplanned ride, which was throwing up pleasant surprises. We soon headed towards ramnagaram, enjoying the curvy road and we hit mysore road. We stopped near Kamat hotel for late lunch. Found it too crowded, so Professor suggested that we check out "jaanapadha loka" which was right next to it. We found a Canteen inside. To our surprise, we found out that it was Kamat Hotel's canteen and the rates blew us away! Rs 15 for full meals! while the same meal costed Rs 90 inside Kamat! We immediately grabbed our plates, we were given Ragi ball meals (Ragi muddey) Santoosh was trying ragi ball for the first time :P We had to give him instructions about eating it and even demonstrated couple of times :P He gave up on eating it after few bites :P

Enjoyed our meals, with ducks for company, found the ducks amusing coz they were literally poking us for dropping some food for them like domestic dogs! trained ducks i guess! We then spent few more minutes relaxing there and pondered over the way this ride had turned out. All of us felt that this was a perfect lazed out weekend ride. We decided to move and hit mysore road towards bangalore. I lead, with santoosh as tail. The highspeed ride came to an end just before we hit bangalore, bumper to bumper traffic welcomed us. Santoosh and murugesh parted ways. While me and professor decided to hit CCD in jayanagar to meet up with Sachin and his friend. After struggling through the traffic for close to an hour, we hit CCD.

Met up sachin and his friend for a loong chat session. Decided to do some rides together in near future. Professor bid adieu after sometime, while me and sachin stuck on in CCD for some more time. Finally, i left CCD and reached home by 9 pm. It was a wonderful weekend ride, the overall pleasant surprises made me smile at the end of the day, bumping in to professor after a loong time was one among them :)
The trip meter read "165 kms" it was 165 kms of pure joyful ride!

My Best Friend's Wedding

Not a review of the movie by same name :P
Literally, my best friend kicked the bucket (of bachelorhood!) last week. The victim in this case is Girish, my first "cramster pillion" :P or my "cop friend" as he's known to my biker friends :P

He got married last week in his native, Kunigal. I didn't go by Karizma for a change, got caged with friends. Hopped on to one of my friend's Ikon car and 4 of us had a whale of time all the while driving till kunigal, one advantage of car is that you can talk with your friends who are accompanying you while on the move, samething is not possibile in bike rides, atleast till Bike intercoms are made available here.

He got married on May 1st, since it was an off for me (labour day ki jai!) and for my friends, we all made it in time. We left bangy on April 30th for his reception (had taken off for one day :P) Got stuck in horrible traffic near dasarahalli circle in NH4, after scraping our way through bumper to bumper traffic, my friend kartik aka Rossi on 4 wheels :P made sure that we reached kunigal in hardly 1 hour.
Caught up with college gang, they had come in another car. After reception, we headed to nearest daaru point, grabbed our beers and hit an isolated part of highway and drowned our sorrowness through beer :P reached hotel and the fun started, fellas were meeting each other after many years, few were meeting eachother for the first time since they had left college!



Obviously lot of catching up was done, not to forget leg pulling and wise ass comments!:P I was left capturing all the moments on my cam, the chat session was hilarious and comical most of the times, time flew and it was 2.30 am when i hit the sack! Caught up with few winks of sleep and wokeup early morning to be there for muhurtham. Few kumbhakarans were still sleeping, left them in their lalaland and 5 of us who were ready, headed to choultry. Girish was all decked up like a goat who is decorated before being sacrificed :P he was going through rituals and traditional ceremonies, I went click happy with my cam and captured some good off beat shots :P



The best uninterrupted spot for me to take pics was right behind the marriage photographer who was taking pics, so i stood behind him all the while, used my height advantage :P and craned over and got good shots. With in 15 mins in to muhurtam time (7.30 Am onwards) girish tied one of the most important knot of his life and lost his bachelorhood, needless to say, i captured the moment :P later, My friends and ExHtmtians RaminderSingh and Ganapathy arrived, they were followed by my colleague Ravindra and his wife. After wishing the couple, i escorted them for breakfast downstairs. It was too crowded, somehow managed to get seats and chaps had breakfast, i had already had it early morning when it was less crowded :P



By 10 am, Ex Htmtians and my colleague bid byes and left, By 11 Am, we started to move, but girish wanted us to stay further, but we felt that we could cover Melukote on the way back to bangy, so we bid byes to him and moved out of choultry by 11.30 Am. I had taken the State highway during one of my earlier rides from srirangapatna on mysore road to Kunigal on NH 48. The 60 plus kms of it was pure bliss with serene countryside scenery, i wanted to show my friends in cage the same route, but ended up taking wrong deviation from kunigal! We took the first left pointing towards Maddur, we should have taken second left instead to hit that state highway. But this new route took us further through interior villages and country side and lots of offroading too! it was first time for me, offroading in a cage :P My friend kartik, who was driving, thoroughly enjoyed this route, others didn't complain either. The serene country side with village folks going about their daily life was a treat to see. We stopped on the way to take some pics, i was missing my bike already :(



The only reason i felt good was due to Cage comforts like AC and plushy seats, AC was giving us much needed relief from outside heat and hot weather.
We finally hit Nagamangala and from there melukote was just 6kms. Savoured jackfruit sold on the way and stopped to take pic of melukote temple seen on top of hill.



The narrow roads led us in to the temple complex and we set out to explore by 2pm. The temple was well maintained and painted too, found some similarities to other temples i have visited.



Took pic of the Rath which was parked in a giant enclosure and tried to have darshan, temple was closed for darshan, so off we went towards "shooting spot" as it's called. The task involved climbing a small hill, i was too lazy to venture out, so was kartik. The other two fellas went exploring and came back sunburnt and dehydrated :P We moved on and hit nagamangala, from there on we were on the correct route towards srirangapatna-mysore road, the road was ala US style, with road side markers running parallel to each other. It was difficult for fellas to believe that it was a statehighway!

We hit Mysore road-srirangapatna and proceeded to Maddur Tiffany's hotel for much needed lunch. Savoured local speciality maddur vada and couple of dosas. It was the same hotel, where we had breakfast during the BN bangalore meet few weeks back. After my friends had finished oogling at few pretty faces there :P we moved on to Cafe Coffee Day near channapatna, more known as maddur CCD or 24hrs CCD. It as again the same CCD which we had haunted during the BN bangalore meet. Got to witness PDA (public display of affection) by one couple whose hormones were working overtime i guess! :P much to the amusement of everyone present there, the couple stirred up lot of hushed whispers there and not to mention my friends drooling over the moderate babe :P

Found a cutie kid near our table and kartik snapped a pic of hers.



Kid's mom was overtly exposing types with complete backless kinda Party wear dress, she was looking like she was dressed to go to a disco party or something! we couldn't believe that she was mom of that kid, could have said kid's cousin by her looks :P Kartik's flirting instincts kicked in and he made a small talk with the mom of kid by showing her kid's pic, he even got her addy! (or so claimed by him, not verified :P) thankfully not the phone number :P All the while, her hubby was not around, so not to worry :P (sorry Mr Hubby!) After savouring mochas and some CCD crap, we decided to move on.

Kartik was belting his Ikon through out, this guy's got some awesome driving skills, he has all those thousands of kms of highway driving experience under his belt (or seat belt :P) i strapped on my seatbelt and watched the "Video game" through the windscreen. He as hitting 150/160 kmph few times, gave me goosebumps sometimes, but being in a cage alters your perception, only time i could feel the speed was when i tried to stick out my hand through the window or watch the speedo :P In no time we were in bangalore's bumper to bumper traffic. I reached home at 7.30PM and the rest of the guys carried on to their places.

Overall, it was a nice occassion for old friends to get together and bitch collectively :P will get another such occassion soon, another college friend of mine is tying the knot this month, so the gang will meet up soon, camaan the enjayment! :P