Archive for June, 2006

Riding Solo To The Top Of The World

Jun 29, 2006 Uncategorized

Talking about crazyness (viz playing volley ball in a moving train), came across this video teaser in 60kph.com of a lone rider who went on a 350 CC bike to the top of the world, all ALONE and shot this film.

Excerpt from 60kph.com -

Riding Solo To The Top Of The World is the unique experience of a lonesome traveller, who rides his motorcycle to one of the remotest places in the World, the Changthang Plateau, in Ladakh, bordering China.

Situated at an average altitude of 15,000 feet, Changthang covers almost 30,000 square kilometers of Ladakh. A land devoid of roads and with temperatures that dip to minus 40 degree Celsius in winter.

As a one-man film unit, he astonishes you, filming the landscape he passes by and the people he interacts with, capturing moments of beauty, pain, love, hardship, self doubt and spiritual triumphs.

Ride and Trek to Shivagange

Jun 21, 2006 Bike Trip, Karnataka, One day outing, Travel, Trek

View of the Shivagange hill

Last weekend I had been to Shivagange, which is around 60KMs from Bangalore. Started from Bangalore at around 7 AM on Saturday in two bikes – myself and my colleague-cum-friend Vineet. There are two ways to reach the place from Bangalore. Till Nelamangala (28 KMs from B’lore) is common for both routes.

  • Route 1: Take a left turn to NH48, (which goes to Mangalore). Travel till Gudemarana halli(16 KMs from Nelamangala). Take a right turn, travel for 15 KMs to reach Shivagange.
  • Route 2: Instead of taking left near Nelamangala, go stright on NH4 till Dabaspet(20KMs from Nelamangala). Take left turn and travel for 6 KMs to reach Shivagange.

We took the second route and our own time to reach the place. We stopped for ‘n’ number of times for photo sessions. And a breakfast stop at Dabaspet. Reached the place around 9.15AM. The distance to be covered to reach the top is approximately 4.5 KMs (according to the localites). Started our hike slowly and steadily, taking lot of breaks since we had whole day for us.

Steepy zig-zag steps to the top

We managed to reach the top by exact noon. Spent some time over there and also visited the spot ‘Shantala Drop’ – a suicide point similar to the Tippu drop in Nandi hills. Queen Shantala, wife of Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana committed suicide here. The drop is more than 500 ft.

When we reached the place, we were the only visitors except for the ‘pujari’ of the temple and herd of monkeys. One thing we need to be careful is Monkeys. If you are not carrying any stick/staff to scare the monkeys, then be ready to get attacked by the monkeys. They not only sntach any bags/carry bags from you, but also check your pockets for any eatables. We started down by 12.30 since the monkeys outnumbered us by more than 1:50 and we were down in the village by 2.30 PM.

On our way back, instead of returning to B’lore, we went my hometown – Kunigal. We reached Kunigal by 4PM and after a quick nap enjoyed the Portugal-Iran football match.

  • Route travelled: B’lore – Nelamangala – Dabaspet – Shivagange – Kudur – Kunigal
  • Total distance covered: 85 KMs bike and 9 KMs of trek

Nandi, the official vehicle of Lord Shiva

End of the day, a satisfied rider-trekker after a short ride and trek, munching mom-made snacks watching a football match.

About the place:

Shivagange, a hillock of more than 1000 ft got its name because of the holy shrine of “Lord Shiva”. There are numerous temples of Shiva, Parvathi and Ganga in the hillock. This place is also called as “Dakshina Kaashi” – Kaashi/Varanasi of South India. One strange happening here in Shivagange is, if you do an ‘abhishek’ of ‘ghee’ in the temple, the same ghee turns in to ‘butter’. — No, I’m not kidding. I know few people who have witnessed the same. Hence it is compared with holy shrine Kaashi.

Other places one can visit in the same hill -

  • Pathala gange -a a belowground spring, where water level goes down during rainy season and increases during summer!!
  • Olakal teertha — (Olakal = (in Kannada) manual wet-grinder, manual means one has to rotate the top oval shaped stone mannually).
  • Nandi on top of the hill
  • Shantala drop
  • Veerabhadreshwara temple