I have always enjoyed a trip... and I feel the best trips come if you don't have a plan.
It has happened in the past when the original plan was A and we finally completed B.
Though there might be a lot of folks who will disagree with me and will stress on the planning part of the trips - to plan it to the last minute detail as to where they are going, what time they might reach that place and where they might end up staying, I'd rather take things on the go and make the most of whatever comes my way (literally!)
Last weekend, I had a plan to visit Mysore on Saturday to meet a friend and his family. The plan did not go through... (when has a plan ever gone through!) and on Friday EOD, I found myself desperate to get going out of Bangalore.
Friday night, me and a few cousins discussed on Whatsapp, tried to book self drive vehicles to fit in all of us and finally, ended up deciding to go in my car.
Saturday morning, headed out by 530 and took the good old Mysore Road. Stopped for breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi near Janapada Loka. Had sumptuous buffet breakfast and headed out again. When we almost reached Srirangapattana, we decided to avoid Mysore and head to Nagarhole. Took the deviation at Srirangapattana and headed through the Ranganathittu - Palahalli - Belagola Road to reach Yelawal and Hunsur Road.
There are very few signboards directing you to the entrance of Nagarhole and we had to stop and ask for directions, coz there was negligible network connectivity in our Vodafone / Airtel networks. Nagarhole is a huge national park - aka Rajiv Gandhi National Park and we hoped to have a few sightings. We were welcomed by some deer very close to the entrance gate of the park. Post which, though we drove very slowly, we never saw anything else other than deer and monkeys (may be a couple of species here.. a Langur and the normal Rhesus Monkeys). We went to the reception of the park and enquired for the safari, only to be told to return by 2 PM for the Safari timings which are from 3 PM to 5 PM.
The nearest tourist spot was Iruppu Falls which is 18 kms from Nagarhole. We drove there and found the place lacking the grandeur of the falls - misleading posters led us to assuming a certain image - or may be it was also stupid of us to imagine a grand water falls in the peak summer time! The tourists to that water falls reeked of Alcohol and were ogling at any person of the female gender without any restraints.. as though they had never seen a girl in their lives ever!
Disappointed with the falls and fed up of the number of people "trying to get wet" - in all the possible meanings of the phrase - headed back towards Nagarhole to the only available hotel near Kutta. There are no pure vegetarian hotels and be prepared to eat Tandoor Rotis from the same Tandoor Ovens which cook Tandoori Chicken!
We reached Nagarhole back, at the reception ticket counter only to be told that the safari of 3 PM is completely booked, the safari of 4 PM is also booked for KSTDC and we had to write our names in a log book to wait and hope for the safari at 5 PM. This was the case due to the lack of buses. There were only two 31 seater buses available for the safaris... That was shocking! All my expectations of Nagarhole went for a toss.. Bandipur safaris were much better!
Disappointed, we started back towards Bylakuppe and at the last minute, ditched it and went to Nisargadhama - with the sole intention of trying out the Zip Line. We reached there at 430 PM and were told that the Zip Line would close at 5 PM. We were lucky enough to try it and it is a different experience.. made me curious to try various other such similar things.
We started back towards Bangalore at 6 PM using a different route which Google Maps pointed us towards.. the Hassan - Periyapattana Road - with an assumption that we will reach Bangalore earlier than the known devil of the Mysore Road. The unknown angel had good roads.. but all were single lanes with less opportunities to go to the max throttle. The road led us to Channarayapattana after which it was the known devil of the Mangalore - Bangalore Road. Throttle was maxed out.. and so were our hungers. Stopped for dinner to make good of our bad lunch experience at Hotel Mayura Veg, near Bellur Cross and the dinner took its toll on my focus.
Slumber almost made me go on the road divider with 20 kms to go to Nelamangala (thankfully I did not take a diversion to Magadi Road) and after a small break of a couple of mins to wash the slumber out of my eyes, reached Bangalore by 11 PM which was an excellent timing. The total trip was for 589 kms and that was one awesome unplanned long drive!
Keeping options open made me explore Nagarhole and try to overcome my fear of heights by ziplining for some 200 mts. Avoided usually seen places and had a good experience overall.
Looking forward for more such unplanned drives.. or may be a partially planned trip for the sake of availability of driving options to include more people!
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