This is one helluva experience I probably had waited for, in a real long time. And this post is one thing that my husband would've waited for, for long now :P
BR hills, the abbreviation goes Biligiri RanganathaSwamy hills. There is one neat, sweet temple at the hilltop, Ranganathar statue, one of the smallest Venkateswara swamy idols (by size) I have so far seen.
For the good Friday weekend, we were planning for a while for a good drive out of Bangalore. We were inquiring Ooty for long and slowly decided to not venture out during Summer, as the season is peak and everything gets too commercial around this time. We thought of Bandipur, but were too keen on hill stations given the weather. Finally came up with BR hills plan, close to 170+ km from Bangalore, that says a good 2-3hrs drive.
If I had called Horsley hills to be offering a different reality, what should I say about this place - fantasy? fear? fun? should be a mix of all of this.
Quite a "lot" of research, to check the weather, stay, routes, safety, activities etc and we ended up with just carrying nothing [on the head and hands ;)] other than a print out of google maps with the routes. Route goes very easy and defined, unlike the HH experience.
6.45 AM leaving home without any concrete plans. Tank had to be filled, ATM stopover etc, managed to set out, at 7.30AM, towards Mysore, 100+kms and then a diversion near Malavalli circle, (I was checking with my hubby dear if its the same as the M from MTR that stands for Mavalli, he says this is different and MTR history is based out of Udupi - both the hands up, I agree!)
Though we had all this clearly defined routes, we took a left near the circle and went into some gully in Malavalli and then came back to join Mysore road to hit the circle again hehe :D Got to notice a sign board ahead of the circle, only now, to take this diversion that ahead of the circle and not the free left at the signal, just at the circle! Anyway.. now the next 20+ km is a real challenge to your patience! The roads were bad, to say the least, the gears dint go up above 3. We stopped for Chai at a small shop between Malavalli and Maddur. It was so funny how the -walah's son wanted to show me some heroism on the cycle only to not notice the cycle stand was broken and his father had actually tied it up with a rope to the cycle. He pulled the stand off and the rope tore away, and then to see his father screaming and running towards him was a mischievous incident that my husband missed seeing, as he was away for his nature call :P
We then continued driving towards Kollegal, thats another 10-15kms from here, say. Kollegal is a decent town with a few hotels, looked like an important place for business for all the villages around. We went into a road side hotel for breakfast, that's when we decided to come back to this town by night for the stay. Picked up water, juice, chewing gums etc and then set onto the actual drive, 35km towards BR hills. 11-11.30AM at BR hills checkpost, we started driving upwards. The security at the checkpost told us that we would get accommodation up in the hills itself and they were telling us to goto the temple first.
The drive up was enjoyable. There was just nobody around for a stretch of say 3kms!? Both of us were scared like hell. I was trying to make some conversation - I got to read somewhere i' we have good luck, we will spot some wild-animals', to receive this bouncer back 'if we have bad luck!???!?' he continued, 'oh wild animals will spot us!?'
We carried on ahead the fear, thrill, excitement and everything, drove a few kms ahead, spot a view point. We just tried stopping to take a good view of the valley around, only to realize that it was a good amount of slope and then to get moving ahead in 1st gear became very tough. We did not get off the car and wanted to continue, the car engine went off a couple of times when he tried getting ahead and then he threw such a scared look at me, n then I went off for a while :P
Another 5-6km of good slopes, good roads, a very few hairpin bends and this implies the roads were steep. We decided to reach the temple first and 1/2 a km just before reaching the temple, the slope of the road was almost 70+ degrees. He had a nightmare, I could simply guess it!
We got into the temple to find the main sannidhi closed, only then we realized what the guys at checkpost were trying to tell us. We got to see a wedding, may be the most simple wedding I ever got to witness - can't skip mentioning that the groom was shivering like anything when he was tying the knot! We had the darshan of the amman and then decided to leave and look for an accommodation on the hills itself We decided if we get a good acco, we would stay put there itself and that we din't see a point anyway to go back to Kollegal for the night stay if only we find a good acco here itself. We left and went to a nearby hotel, as some of the shopkeepers suggested us to check with that hotel people. Its called 'Giri Darshan'. They were suggesting us to check out 'Gorukhana'. But before leaving I had checked their site and did not want to go for such an expensive accommodation for just 24hrs. So we were asking him for other options and then he showed us a building nearby which seemed like some Government quarters. We went there and the security guard/supervisor told us to check with another place closeby and to mention his name. As we entered the gate, we saw an i10 entering along and then those guys have approached someone before us, so luck just skipped favoring us.
We then decided to go back to Giri Darshan for lunch and then leave to Jungle lodges resort to check for acco. When I checked online, there were no availability, we still wanted to take a chance. Upon inquiring around about the location of JLR, we got to know its a place called K.gudi, that's another 20kms drive from BR hills. We got curious after reading all the reviews about JLR and wanted to check it out at least to know what's so special about it even if we are no going to find an acco there and as there was nothing much to do in BR hills, the time was only 3 or so, we did not mind doing a 40 more kilometer.
After a very very cheap lunch, by taste as well, we set onto the drive towards JLR. The route throughout was apt to the name, Jungle lodges! Completely into the jungle, very deep and dense, with no bit of human heads around, God what should I say, if we were scared climbing up BR hills, me calling this experience "chill-down-the-spine" or "lump-bobbing-up-and-down-the-stomach-and-throat" would be way too less than what we actually experienced. Fear, thrill, excitement multi-folded and what's more interesting was to just know nothing of what was ahead of us. As we continued, at several stretches, it was close to playing roadrash game, as in how the roads and everything seem to be formed as we get ahead, its just the same! So by plans if its like having no clue what was ahead, with the drive it was like literally we did not know what was ahead! The music player did not work while going, so it was more of random ruffled thoughts within and exchange of few stories and experiences, convincing each other that it was worth the experience and everything. After an absolutely wild 20km drive, we reached JLR. We got to check out their loghuts and tented rooms, and as expected they did not have any availability. We sat there in our car for a while listening to songs, got to spot elephants and deers. And then left to reach back BR hills to check out Gorukhana and decided if we aren't finding acco there, we should start driving down, max by 5PM as we read in a few reviews its absolutely dangerous to drive down the hills after dark.
When we hit Gorukhana, the manager there told us that they do not have anything available but they can provide some acco in their sister concern groups, V.G.K.K, who seem to run a welfare centre for the tribals, that includes school/college/hospital/hostels etc. They can show us a few rooms in the hostel rooms in that campus and we can pick if we like something. We went back to check at around 3.30. I must say the campus was so beautiful! A big lawn in the middle surrounded by round shaped cottages and a few buildings. So quiet and pleasant and then jungle view from everywhere! We checked out a few rooms and decided on some room and then planned to stay back there that night. The room we picked was amidst the cottages where some girls who were studying there were staying. I wanted to go for this one, because if at all we shout out for some help in case of emergence, may be there are people to respond.
After leaving our luggages, we went out again to the temple and came when it was just about to get dark. We got into the room, it did not have water, they were running with a very low-lit CFL tubes. There were some people to help. We paid a guy and asked him to get water. He wanted to rest for sometime and then we went out just to take a stroll in the campus given the beautiful lawns and the forest surrounded atmosphere. We sat on the staircase talking stories, a sudden thought 'they say it gets very dark in the forest soon, but its not the case here' and before we completed this statement, it got dark, so heavily dark. We walked back to the room and he wanted to take some rest before dinner.
He was just getting on to the bed, meanwhile noticed this moth what they call Gypsy Moth Caterpillar (kambali poochi in tamil). We got so allergic and then slowly the next one to next to next! We changed the position of the cots and then noticed a few of them up above the roofs, the rooms had this thatched roof. As it was getting darker, more of them started falling down and then we decided to get out of this room. Before that, I just told my husband that I would go, check with those girls as they might also be facing similar problems, so that we might find some solution. In parallel we were discussing, if at all they are not going to give us an other room, we should just sleep in the car, its way too dangerous being there overnight!
While coming back from the temple, I heard those girls chatting and then there was this girl who knew Tamil, to a very lil extent. I went near their room and was finding out. A few of them came out and were suggesting something to turn the lights off and that they will go away. My husband could hear the conversation from that room and when I went back to tell him what they suggested, before I started he said they did not understand what kind of insect you were referring to, the light logic won't work for shooing these off, go bring one of them and show. There were no signal in the mobile phone to reach out to anyone to ask for any help! Then I went and got 2 of them and showed, they got to know what it was and they went in search of their supervisor.
Before going ahead, I would want to write a little bit about the condition of this place and these people who live there. I went to meet those girls to check if they can help us by giving one of their rooms for us that night. The ones that we were given/shown had 3 cots, and we thought there would be 3 people living in a room and with so many rooms around, they might be able to accommodate themselves in the other rooms and give us theirs. But came to my shock was the clumsiness of those rooms with more than 8 girls stuffed into one room and all that! Phew! I simply gave up the idea of even asking them about it. I'm not sure why should that be the case when there were so many vacant rooms available in the campus! These girls live without proper electricity or water. They have to live up with the singly CFL lamps that they are given, to study/work/do anything! The question 'Aren't we blessed' should have an answer in superlatives was the only thing I had in mind after seeing all that!
Going back, we hear the supervisor's voice after a while in Kannada, shouting at them for trying to help us rather blaming them for giving such a room! He was shooing them away. I let my husband talk, and he decided to do the talking not by words. That guy was starting to explain, 'this is a forest and getting a room itself is tough here .. blah... '. Hubs' gave back the keys, implying if you have a decent room, let alone a good one, get me that, else we'll get our way out kinds. The supervisor was then yelling to one of the co-workers to show us the other rooms and then we went back to the very first room which we saw. The first thing was to look for the worms and then we found just one, this was way too better compared to the previous ones and we noticed a loft under the roof, fortunately. This is now the neatly laid cement one, as compared to the thatched roof that the room has. So even if there is going to be some on the roof, we can sleep under the loft and the probability of one falling down from there is too less. We were fine. With all the scary thoughts, we delved into a 4hrs of disturbed sleep, listening to the thunder and lightning outside, we just then knew what is it called 'forest rains' and a 2hrs of deep sleep to save us from so much of tiredness after the drive, skipping dinner. Okay, life can be like this too!
We were up by 5.45am and then saw it was just into dawn. We couldn't resist getting into the nature again. Went out to take a stroll, doing some research on the way that place was constructed and the lawns and garden that they were maintaining and everything. We sat on the rocks and clicked some pictures, chatting and yapping a lot. It was close to breakfast time and those girls were out for their day's start. We joined them along, did the morning chores and were ready to bid good bye to this institute. Now if I call it just an experience, I should be under rating it. We paid some money which they said will goto the institution's fund and we can claim tax for it. With a total new outlook towards the environment, we bid adieu to BR hills and started driving through the forest again to reach Kollegal for breakfast at Annapurna, if I remember correctly.
We started driving towards Bangalore, now via Kanakpura road, no potholes/manholes, a complete smooth drive, with a fulfilled holiday and a happy healthy mind.
Noticed this contact number for accommodation at a house which we missed getting. This might be helpful for some of you. 09036809218.
BR hills, the abbreviation goes Biligiri RanganathaSwamy hills. There is one neat, sweet temple at the hilltop, Ranganathar statue, one of the smallest Venkateswara swamy idols (by size) I have so far seen.
For the good Friday weekend, we were planning for a while for a good drive out of Bangalore. We were inquiring Ooty for long and slowly decided to not venture out during Summer, as the season is peak and everything gets too commercial around this time. We thought of Bandipur, but were too keen on hill stations given the weather. Finally came up with BR hills plan, close to 170+ km from Bangalore, that says a good 2-3hrs drive.
If I had called Horsley hills to be offering a different reality, what should I say about this place - fantasy? fear? fun? should be a mix of all of this.
Quite a "lot" of research, to check the weather, stay, routes, safety, activities etc and we ended up with just carrying nothing [on the head and hands ;)] other than a print out of google maps with the routes. Route goes very easy and defined, unlike the HH experience.
6.45 AM leaving home without any concrete plans. Tank had to be filled, ATM stopover etc, managed to set out, at 7.30AM, towards Mysore, 100+kms and then a diversion near Malavalli circle, (I was checking with my hubby dear if its the same as the M from MTR that stands for Mavalli, he says this is different and MTR history is based out of Udupi - both the hands up, I agree!)
Though we had all this clearly defined routes, we took a left near the circle and went into some gully in Malavalli and then came back to join Mysore road to hit the circle again hehe :D Got to notice a sign board ahead of the circle, only now, to take this diversion that ahead of the circle and not the free left at the signal, just at the circle! Anyway.. now the next 20+ km is a real challenge to your patience! The roads were bad, to say the least, the gears dint go up above 3. We stopped for Chai at a small shop between Malavalli and Maddur. It was so funny how the -walah's son wanted to show me some heroism on the cycle only to not notice the cycle stand was broken and his father had actually tied it up with a rope to the cycle. He pulled the stand off and the rope tore away, and then to see his father screaming and running towards him was a mischievous incident that my husband missed seeing, as he was away for his nature call :P
We then continued driving towards Kollegal, thats another 10-15kms from here, say. Kollegal is a decent town with a few hotels, looked like an important place for business for all the villages around. We went into a road side hotel for breakfast, that's when we decided to come back to this town by night for the stay. Picked up water, juice, chewing gums etc and then set onto the actual drive, 35km towards BR hills. 11-11.30AM at BR hills checkpost, we started driving upwards. The security at the checkpost told us that we would get accommodation up in the hills itself and they were telling us to goto the temple first.
The drive up was enjoyable. There was just nobody around for a stretch of say 3kms!? Both of us were scared like hell. I was trying to make some conversation - I got to read somewhere i' we have good luck, we will spot some wild-animals', to receive this bouncer back 'if we have bad luck!???!?' he continued, 'oh wild animals will spot us!?'
We carried on ahead the fear, thrill, excitement and everything, drove a few kms ahead, spot a view point. We just tried stopping to take a good view of the valley around, only to realize that it was a good amount of slope and then to get moving ahead in 1st gear became very tough. We did not get off the car and wanted to continue, the car engine went off a couple of times when he tried getting ahead and then he threw such a scared look at me, n then I went off for a while :P
Another 5-6km of good slopes, good roads, a very few hairpin bends and this implies the roads were steep. We decided to reach the temple first and 1/2 a km just before reaching the temple, the slope of the road was almost 70+ degrees. He had a nightmare, I could simply guess it!
We got into the temple to find the main sannidhi closed, only then we realized what the guys at checkpost were trying to tell us. We got to see a wedding, may be the most simple wedding I ever got to witness - can't skip mentioning that the groom was shivering like anything when he was tying the knot! We had the darshan of the amman and then decided to leave and look for an accommodation on the hills itself We decided if we get a good acco, we would stay put there itself and that we din't see a point anyway to go back to Kollegal for the night stay if only we find a good acco here itself. We left and went to a nearby hotel, as some of the shopkeepers suggested us to check with that hotel people. Its called 'Giri Darshan'. They were suggesting us to check out 'Gorukhana'. But before leaving I had checked their site and did not want to go for such an expensive accommodation for just 24hrs. So we were asking him for other options and then he showed us a building nearby which seemed like some Government quarters. We went there and the security guard/supervisor told us to check with another place closeby and to mention his name. As we entered the gate, we saw an i10 entering along and then those guys have approached someone before us, so luck just skipped favoring us.
We then decided to go back to Giri Darshan for lunch and then leave to Jungle lodges resort to check for acco. When I checked online, there were no availability, we still wanted to take a chance. Upon inquiring around about the location of JLR, we got to know its a place called K.gudi, that's another 20kms drive from BR hills. We got curious after reading all the reviews about JLR and wanted to check it out at least to know what's so special about it even if we are no going to find an acco there and as there was nothing much to do in BR hills, the time was only 3 or so, we did not mind doing a 40 more kilometer.
After a very very cheap lunch, by taste as well, we set onto the drive towards JLR. The route throughout was apt to the name, Jungle lodges! Completely into the jungle, very deep and dense, with no bit of human heads around, God what should I say, if we were scared climbing up BR hills, me calling this experience "chill-down-the-spine" or "lump-bobbing-up-and-down-the-stomach-and-throat" would be way too less than what we actually experienced. Fear, thrill, excitement multi-folded and what's more interesting was to just know nothing of what was ahead of us. As we continued, at several stretches, it was close to playing roadrash game, as in how the roads and everything seem to be formed as we get ahead, its just the same! So by plans if its like having no clue what was ahead, with the drive it was like literally we did not know what was ahead! The music player did not work while going, so it was more of random ruffled thoughts within and exchange of few stories and experiences, convincing each other that it was worth the experience and everything. After an absolutely wild 20km drive, we reached JLR. We got to check out their loghuts and tented rooms, and as expected they did not have any availability. We sat there in our car for a while listening to songs, got to spot elephants and deers. And then left to reach back BR hills to check out Gorukhana and decided if we aren't finding acco there, we should start driving down, max by 5PM as we read in a few reviews its absolutely dangerous to drive down the hills after dark.
When we hit Gorukhana, the manager there told us that they do not have anything available but they can provide some acco in their sister concern groups, V.G.K.K, who seem to run a welfare centre for the tribals, that includes school/college/hospital/hostels etc. They can show us a few rooms in the hostel rooms in that campus and we can pick if we like something. We went back to check at around 3.30. I must say the campus was so beautiful! A big lawn in the middle surrounded by round shaped cottages and a few buildings. So quiet and pleasant and then jungle view from everywhere! We checked out a few rooms and decided on some room and then planned to stay back there that night. The room we picked was amidst the cottages where some girls who were studying there were staying. I wanted to go for this one, because if at all we shout out for some help in case of emergence, may be there are people to respond.
After leaving our luggages, we went out again to the temple and came when it was just about to get dark. We got into the room, it did not have water, they were running with a very low-lit CFL tubes. There were some people to help. We paid a guy and asked him to get water. He wanted to rest for sometime and then we went out just to take a stroll in the campus given the beautiful lawns and the forest surrounded atmosphere. We sat on the staircase talking stories, a sudden thought 'they say it gets very dark in the forest soon, but its not the case here' and before we completed this statement, it got dark, so heavily dark. We walked back to the room and he wanted to take some rest before dinner.
He was just getting on to the bed, meanwhile noticed this moth what they call Gypsy Moth Caterpillar (kambali poochi in tamil). We got so allergic and then slowly the next one to next to next! We changed the position of the cots and then noticed a few of them up above the roofs, the rooms had this thatched roof. As it was getting darker, more of them started falling down and then we decided to get out of this room. Before that, I just told my husband that I would go, check with those girls as they might also be facing similar problems, so that we might find some solution. In parallel we were discussing, if at all they are not going to give us an other room, we should just sleep in the car, its way too dangerous being there overnight!
While coming back from the temple, I heard those girls chatting and then there was this girl who knew Tamil, to a very lil extent. I went near their room and was finding out. A few of them came out and were suggesting something to turn the lights off and that they will go away. My husband could hear the conversation from that room and when I went back to tell him what they suggested, before I started he said they did not understand what kind of insect you were referring to, the light logic won't work for shooing these off, go bring one of them and show. There were no signal in the mobile phone to reach out to anyone to ask for any help! Then I went and got 2 of them and showed, they got to know what it was and they went in search of their supervisor.
Before going ahead, I would want to write a little bit about the condition of this place and these people who live there. I went to meet those girls to check if they can help us by giving one of their rooms for us that night. The ones that we were given/shown had 3 cots, and we thought there would be 3 people living in a room and with so many rooms around, they might be able to accommodate themselves in the other rooms and give us theirs. But came to my shock was the clumsiness of those rooms with more than 8 girls stuffed into one room and all that! Phew! I simply gave up the idea of even asking them about it. I'm not sure why should that be the case when there were so many vacant rooms available in the campus! These girls live without proper electricity or water. They have to live up with the singly CFL lamps that they are given, to study/work/do anything! The question 'Aren't we blessed' should have an answer in superlatives was the only thing I had in mind after seeing all that!
Going back, we hear the supervisor's voice after a while in Kannada, shouting at them for trying to help us rather blaming them for giving such a room! He was shooing them away. I let my husband talk, and he decided to do the talking not by words. That guy was starting to explain, 'this is a forest and getting a room itself is tough here .. blah... '. Hubs' gave back the keys, implying if you have a decent room, let alone a good one, get me that, else we'll get our way out kinds. The supervisor was then yelling to one of the co-workers to show us the other rooms and then we went back to the very first room which we saw. The first thing was to look for the worms and then we found just one, this was way too better compared to the previous ones and we noticed a loft under the roof, fortunately. This is now the neatly laid cement one, as compared to the thatched roof that the room has. So even if there is going to be some on the roof, we can sleep under the loft and the probability of one falling down from there is too less. We were fine. With all the scary thoughts, we delved into a 4hrs of disturbed sleep, listening to the thunder and lightning outside, we just then knew what is it called 'forest rains' and a 2hrs of deep sleep to save us from so much of tiredness after the drive, skipping dinner. Okay, life can be like this too!
We were up by 5.45am and then saw it was just into dawn. We couldn't resist getting into the nature again. Went out to take a stroll, doing some research on the way that place was constructed and the lawns and garden that they were maintaining and everything. We sat on the rocks and clicked some pictures, chatting and yapping a lot. It was close to breakfast time and those girls were out for their day's start. We joined them along, did the morning chores and were ready to bid good bye to this institute. Now if I call it just an experience, I should be under rating it. We paid some money which they said will goto the institution's fund and we can claim tax for it. With a total new outlook towards the environment, we bid adieu to BR hills and started driving through the forest again to reach Kollegal for breakfast at Annapurna, if I remember correctly.
We started driving towards Bangalore, now via Kanakpura road, no potholes/manholes, a complete smooth drive, with a fulfilled holiday and a happy healthy mind.
Noticed this contact number for accommodation at a house which we missed getting. This might be helpful for some of you. 09036809218.
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