The Perfect Road Trip

I have to admit that the contest ' The Perfect Road Trip' on Indiblogger got me writing this. 

This trip brings back fond memories of those carefree days. A trip that 5 friends took without much planning, without knowing where to go. It also makes me feel bad about where each of us are today. 

We friends often met up at a little chaat shop on random weekends. In between the conversations we ended up making plans of various travels we all wanted to do together. These were lists made on tissue paper over numerous cups of coffee. Though most of those made it's way to the dustbin, one lived on. All that the list had was a date written on it  with 'Mysore Road' and a promise made to each other to stick to it no matter what.

Days rolled by and we got busy with our routines until that week. We were determined to keep up to our promises and left everything to go on our weekend away. It was my friend's husband's Alto that we took rolling on the Mysore Road - the new highway that was laid down to connect the two cities. 

The road trip started with a quick pit-stop at Bidadi for the famous 'Thatte idly'. We sat down and made a rough plan for the trip. We decided to head towards 'GopalaSwamy Betta', the hill that rises high, overlooking Bandipur. The overnight stay would be in Mysore, for Day 2 we planned to head towards KRS and then make our way back to Bangalore. 

Further down the road after a quick stop for 'Maddur Vada' we took a detour. One of us remembered hearing about a huge lake in a village some 20kms off the main highway. I still don't remember the name of the village or the lake.  It was nothing like what we had seen before. We drove up a little hillock to a huge bund, climbing a dozen steps up the bund was this lake with its pristine waters. At one end of it were many fishermen doing their work for the day. A couple of my friends who had no control on their taste buds went by to a little fisherman's hut to taste the catch telling us vegetarians what we are missing out - oh! you know that story.

Moving on we headed straight towards GopalaSwamy Betta with a quick stop for lunch mid-way. The Hill was much bigger than we expected, had a small temple with a few temple shops.... one of the most unadulterated places I have ever seen. We then went for a walk on the summit, breathtaking views of the Bandipur National Park, we were excited to watch the herd of elephants, lots of deer and a brilliant sunset. 

It was getting dark and we decided to head back to Mysore and find a place to stay. Without fussing about much we stayed at Dasaprakash. The night's dinner was at the Parklane Restaurant & Beer Bar which has a very unique decor...that of a garden or a forest with loads of plants and creepers around the tables. The most unique part was the way you call a waiter - there was a switch hanging in the centre of the table to light a lamp at the top of the table informing the waiter. Pretty much like how you call the air stewardess on a aircraft. 

We made our way back to the hotel seeing the well lit Mysore Palace. We called it a night by playing a few card games. 

The next started early, after a tasty serving of good old South Indian breakfast we headed towards KRS. None of us wanted to do the usual dam visit and the Brindavan gardens with its truck loads of tourists. Instead we took another detour and made our way to Blue Lagoon - where the reservoir is. We stopped by a tiny village where there was a Saturday market (Shanivara Santhe). While a couple of us bought some veggies, fruit and other random stuff, the guys stopped by the local booze shop.

We had to cross a farm land manned by this old grandpa who royally collected 50bucks per person to get past his land to reach the blue lagoon ( we were not too sure if this is what it was called).

Basically, this was the land that had surfaced up when the water was not too high. There was water all around as far as the eye can see and the view of the dam - the entire length of it which was a sight to remember. 

We played in the water, cooked food from the stuff we picked at the local market, had beer which was cooled on the river bed.

It was the most simple road trip we ever had. We had no idea where we were heading to and what we would see. We ended up going to places we had never heard before, eating at places we had never visited before and overall had the most refreshing breaks to beat the mundane routine.