October 17, 2005

Bheemeshwari Camping Trip - Bangalore Weekend Getaway


Picture Perfect Campsite

Some of my friends were talking on Thursday about the weekend and all of a sudden we decided to do a wilderness camping, but unfortunately no one had much information about wilderness camping. I looked at some of the books I had and searched on the internet. But looks like everyone was talking about camping but no one seems to provide enough information about were to camp, where to get permission and stuff. Anyways we decided to just go there and find out.


View of Cauvery from the tent

On Saturday morning we set out for camping, we reached Muthathi and got hold of a local guy, he showed us some place were we can camp. But those places were all really dirty. We decided to look around some more. And we went to Bheemeshwari which was another 5 kilometers from Muthathi. There was a Cauvery fishing camp there. We talked with the watchman there and he told us that there is a secluded place 2 kilometer from there and we can probably camp there. We drove for another 2 kilometer and we found a really nice place. We pitched out tents there, but after that we found another really nice place very close by, so we just carried our tent to that place. It was a picture perfect campsite.


Misty Mountains

We meet some local people in the night and we had a small dancing section and a small game section with the boys. It was fun, because we couldn’t speak their language. But still we had fun.


Rain Drops

In the night we spotted a fox, which was for some reason just watching our tent from the bush. There were supposed to be elephants also in this place. But unfortunately or fortunately we didn’t spot any.


Sunrise

To camp in any forest you need to get permission from the District Forest officer. Unfortunately I had no clue where to get permission, all I knew was I had to get permission. We also followed the ‘leave no trace behind’ policy.


Gang

It was really fun. I felt really bad to come back in just a day. I would love to do more camping, so if you guys know any good place close to Bangalore please let me know.

More pictures...

Posted by Sam at 08:06 AM | Comments (7)

August 10, 2005

Active Weekend

I am just too lazy to write now, so just see the picture and get the picture.



Vijay - back flip




Venky - that must have hurt




Hari - diving




Me - learning to dive

Two of my friends are getting married next month, so we went to a resort and spend the weekend. It was suppose to be a bachelor’s party, but it was filled with activities. We played badminton, snooker, cricket and swam for almost two hours.

Posted by Sam at 11:58 PM | Comments (3)

July 10, 2005

Bangalore Weekend Getaway – Mysore

Last weekend two of my cousins came to visit me, at the last moment we decided to get out of Bangalore. We didn’t want to drive too far and we did want to do something fun. Since we couldn’t come up with any fun plan, we decided to go to Mysore and on the way back we thought we will stay in some resort and have some fun.

Mysore is 130 Km from Bangalore, we left Bangalore really early to beat the traffic (7.00am). It took us around 3 hours to reach Mysore.

In Mysore we visited the St. Philomena’s Church. This Cathedral church was built in the 1950’s and this is one of the largest churches in India.



St. Philomena's Church



Another view of the Church

We also visited the Mysore Palace. This palace was very impressive. You can hire a guide for the palace and without the guide I don’t think I would have gotten impressed. If you are visiting the Mysore Palace make sure you get a guide for the palace.



Mysore Palace



Another view of the Palace

After the Mysore Palace we headed straight to the resort which was located 12 km from Mysore. We checked into the resort and we headed straight to the swimming pool. We spend almost 2.30 hours in the swimming pool playing game. Well we invented our own game which is a combination of water polo and American football. It was lot of fun. But we all got really tired after that. The rest of the evening we played some more games and hit the bed early.



The Gang

The next day we got up really late and had our breakfast and checkout of the resort and headed back to Bangalore. On the way to Bangalore we saw a go-kart place and decided to do some racing. It was fun, but not that much fun for me. That might be because I am not a good race driver I guess.



Go-Karting

It was a weekend filled with lots of activity and fun. More picture

Posted by Sam at 07:37 AM | Comments (2)

June 30, 2005

Travel Modes in Rural India

I was clicking my camera on everything on the way to Ranganathittu. Here are some pictures; these pictures will not be in the perfect frame because I was clicking these from a moving car.



Top of the Bus



Side of the Bus



Side of the Truck



Back of a tracktor



Tracktor ride



Back of the truck

Posted by Sam at 08:59 AM | Comments (1)

June 28, 2005

Bangalore Weekend Getaway – Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

Last weekend I went to visit Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary which is around 120km (75miles) from Bangalore. We (myself, my brother and a friend of mine) left Bangalore around 3.00pm and reached there at 6.30pm. Yeah it took us more than 3.00 hours to drive 120 km.

We checked into New Amblee Holiday Resort. This was a pretty well maintained resort. They had a nice swimming pool, two pool table and a ping pong table. As soon as we reached the resort we got into action. We did some swimming, played ping pong and played some pool. The next day was my birthday so we just spent the rest of the evening near the pool with some drinks. For those of you who tried to call me that day and thought that I was sleeping, sorry guys I was not sleeping.

We got up the next day and went to see the bird’s sanctuary. This was located just 2km from the resort. It was a small sanctuary but it was pretty impressive to see all the different kind of birds and especially some crocodiles floating in the water when you are traveling in a small open boat. If you don’t like too much crowd in the boat, you can get a private boat. Which cost around 200Rs, and if you pay them bit more they will take you closer and farther than the regular circle they cover. We paid them a little extra and took the longer route.

It was not a big place; we spend around 2 hours in the sanctuary and started back home.

More picture

Posted by Sam at 08:38 AM | Comments (8)