Club toh banaliya, ab jaana kahan hain yaar..?? This was the question in everybody’s mind. We thought of a lot of places like Masnagudi, Nandi Hills etc. We used to discuss about these places and then somehow after a few days we used to just forget that we were planning our trip.
One day I was speaking with my friend Manish in the smoking zone of our office. He had been to almost all places in and around Mysore. And during our talk he spoke about B R Hills; and there it is, seemed like this is the place we wanted to visit. Even Manish has not gone there but he enquired with his friends and told me that this is a beautiful place and the ride would also be interesting.
Okay, now that we are sure about the place, fixing a date for the ride would be a problem because most of the members are new and will have to adjust their shifts. So, in order to see the response, I send out a mail communication stating that the ride would be on 17th of May ’08. As I expected the response from most of the members was naah... can u postpone it to 24th ... Well, we needed maximum participation and considering the members’ convenience the ride was postponed to 24th May ’08.
As usual the plan was to meet at Gokulam at sharp 6:00 Am and finally started at 7:00 Am yet again. But this time we had a problem in the number o
f bikes we had coz there were some last minute entries. In fact Manish was planning to come along with his friends from Bangalore in their car but his friends didn’t turn up. So, we had to pull one more bike and Nekash took his Bull out. And then, Road Burners started their first one-day ride after forming the club from Mysore to B R Hills on 24th May ’08. All of us but Mridul and Shinto stopped at the fuel station in Vontikkoppal to feed the ever hungry bellies of our machines. We started riding towards the high-way but didn’t find Mridul and Shinto where they were supposed to wait. As usual many of us took out the mobiles and started calling them and finally they arrived. In the meantime we clicked some snaps as well.Initially our plan was to follow the route Mysore – Nanjangud - Chamaraja Nagar - K.Gudi - B.R.Hills. But as we travelled, we took the other route via Yelandur. Compared to the other route, the road is not so good from Nanjuangud. We stopped at a small roadside teashop in Yelandur for breakfast and proceeded towards BR Hills situated at a distance of 24 Km from Yelandur. We reached BR Hills check point at 10:30 Am where we had to enter our motorcycle registration numbers. And yeah, the guard out there took some money as well ;-).
The Biligiriranga Hills, commonly called B R Hills, is a hill range situated in south-eastern Karnataka, at its border with Tamil Nadu in South India. The area is called Biligiriranga Swamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary or simply BRT Wildlife Sanctuary. The hills are in the Yelandur and Kollegal Taluks of Chamarajanagar District of Karnataka contiguous with the Satyamangalam range southwards, in the Erode District of Tamil Nadu. The hills that give the range its name are situated 90 km from Mysore and 180 km from Bangalore.
The ride through the forest was really amazing.
The lovely greenery and beautiful silence of the forest was incredible; and the only sound that broke this silence was the thumping of our machines. There were a few vehicles crossing the forest but the traffic was equal to nil. As we rode up, the forest was getting more thick and beautiful. We stopped at a place from where we could see the nearby hills and was photogenic. Clicked some snaps from here and Ashish was running around asking for a ‘single’ shot... ;-). We moved on further up and finally reached at the entrance of the temple.The hills are famous for the temple of Lord Ranganatha. The local form of the deity is called Biligiriranga and is depicted in a unique standing position. The Annual Car festival of the deity is famous in the region and attracts thousands of pilgrims from far and wide. The temple is situated on the 'white cliff' which gives the hill its name.
We rested there for some time and meanwhile Ashish, Mridul, Nekash and Shinto were busy clicking ‘single’ snaps… :-). We started climbing the steps leading to the temple and after reaching there we were just meandering here and there wonderstruck by the depths of the valleys. Numerous snaps were taken from here in all 
possible angles. Ashwin was giving all his best poses leaving me no time to take my eyes off the camera viewfinder. Some of us went for ‘darshan’ of the deity while others waited outside.Since there was a lot of time left we discussed if we can go some where else from there. A lot of place names were floated, like Bandipur, MM Hills etc. Finally we decided to take the other route via K.Gudi & Chamaraja Nagar. As we travelled, we felt that we took the right decision because this is route is blessed with amazingly attractive scenery. Riding through the curves and climbs breathing freash forest air, we reached K. Gudi Jungle Loadges & Resortes.
Kyathadevara Gudi (K. Gudi) Wilderness Camp is a unique blend of a wildlife sanctuary and hill station. The resort is located in the heart of the
BRT Sanctuary (B R Hills), on a hilly terrain at an altitude of 3300 ft., (to 5000 ft.,) above sea level. We enquired with guards about jungle safari and got the information that we needed to book prior to the visit. Anyway, since we hadn’t planned a jungle safari in our trip, we just roamed around the place for sometime clicking some snaps and then started moving further.We travelled throught the serene forest oblivious to the outer world. Suddenly I saw that Ankur has stopped in the middle of the road and was observing something. As I approached I could see a green leaf like creature moving on the asphalt. It was a Chameleon with incredible looks. I took out my cam wasting no time and clicked some snaps before it could run away. But it was moving so slow that it
seemed like it is injured. Anyway, since there was nothing much we could do for this poor fella, we left it by the road side. Later when we stopped for a break in the forest Ashish told that he ran over the poor creature thinking it was a leaf !!!We were approaching Chamaraja Nagar and on the way we stopped near a sugarcane farm and had some juicy sugare cane. All were hungry and were sucking sugare canes to the maximum. One thing I’ve observed with the villagers is that they are not much bothered if we are taking a few canes from their harvest. They were like ‘take as much as you need’. Which I feel is the result of not being tarnished by mingling with city cultured people.
We reached Chamaraja Nagar at around 2:30 Pm from where we had solid lunch. All were in a
mood to sleep and resumed our ride from there at around 4:00 Pm. On the way we stopped at a sunflower farm and took some snaps. We were planning to have a cup of coffee at Nanjangud but didn’t find the coffee shop we were looking for. Then we decided to have coffee from Gokulam and all started racing thinking that who’s gonna reach there first. And finally we reached back at Gokulam, Amruth Café at sharp 6:00 PM. Yet another expedition ended with beautiful memories and everlasting friednship...
