Nandi Hills - A Destination for a day trip for Bangaloreans

I was sick of planning the trips and cancelling them at the 11th hour. Mangalore, Gokarna, Jog falls... all were cancelled in the last minute due to the people who had committed to come but ditched in the last minute. Since then I have been 'just' informing my friends. Whether they come or not, i have started going alone. May be I was inspired by the movie Into the Wild , one of my favourite movie, which depicts the real life story of Christopher McCandless who travelled places alone.

My lonely trips started with Jog falls trip, all 800 kms I traveled alone. On last friday, i thought of going to Nandi Hills which is 75kms from Bangalore. So immediately I mailed my friends. But only Pramod cared to respond and replied YES. Thanks to Pramod for this wondeful short trip. We were joined by his friend & my roommate Sunil.

I woke up around 3.15am and by 4.10am me & sunil started from our house. Again the only fear in night time was street dogs in our area. Luckily we could not find any. Pramod & his friend joined us on Marathalli Bridge. We took Outer Ring Road, Hebbal, then NH7 to reach Nandi Hills. The bike riding in winter on Bangalore Roads at 4am without gloves was terrible. After we crossed Bangalore International Airport which is 45kms from my house, we thought of having a T-break. But when I wanted to switch the indicator on, i was not feeling my fingers. They were half-frozen with cold. In that situation, hot Tea not only helped my body, but also heated my fingers. In few kilometers, we took left turn to Nandi Hills road. Still 20 kms to go! After crossing 10kms from there, we got into the Ghat road. It was first time for me to go for a long trip on my R15. it was different experience on Ghat Road. At first blind U-turn on that Ghat Road, Pramod could not judge the blind loop, ended-up off-road, but managed to bring his bike back onto the road. By 6.15am, we reached the parking of Nandi Hills. The Sun was about to rise. But there was long queue for tickets. Except Pramod, we 3 stood in the queue. Pramod disappeared in the crowd. After 5 mins, he came back with tickets for all, gave a statement "Standing in the queue doesn't work in India". We rushed to the top of Nandi hill. I was disappointed to see no clouds. With clouds, it would be a great scene of sunrise. On east, sky on the other end of earth was in thick orange color. The Sunrise was about to happen! we reached the slope of the hill from where we could see half of the earth with slightest fog and the sky which was turning red.  The place was very dangerous, even small mistake can take to you down to the foot of the hill. A colleague of mine in Samsung died few months back when fell from the hills as he could not the slope due to thick fog. Though most of us were careful, we saw some crazy guys doing aerobics. Then we the small red object popping out on the east of earth. 

It was amazing to see the Sun coming out completely from nowhere! In 2 minutes, the Sun came out completely with blazing orange color. I have not seen such a beautiful sunrise in my life. When the Sun came little up, the slight fog over the earth turned into white feather. It was awesome scene of the nature. One of the best scenes to capture in the camera. We took lots of photos all over. All the pics are upload to picasa.

https://picasaweb.google.com/skarlapudi/NandiHillsTrip#

We spent over 2 hours there and started back to Bangalore around 8.45am. It was good ride on NH7 touching 116kmh and overtaking everyone.  I reached my room around 11am. I could have reached 30mins earlier. We spent that 30 mins for waiting for Pramod whom we lost trackoff due to speeding. I must thank my friends and my bike R15 for making the trip wonderful and smooth!