The Bike Trip to Shivaganga

Three weeks has elapsed from the date of journey and the date of post. Here are the details for the travel freaks:

Place: Shivaganga
Description:

1. Hillock
   
2. A temple on the hillock

Distance: 56km from Bangalore
Road:

1. highway, as seen in the pic
2. off the highway, its an experience to ride your bike

Mode of Transport

1. Bike (no substitute for this) - you can rip on the highway at 120km. easily. provided your bike can stand it. my honda unicorn kissed me for taking it on such a road.
   
2. K S R T C Buses - highly avoidable, though available

Watchout for:

1. Monkeys - there are hell of a lot of monkeys all the way up, which would jump at the slightest sight of your food packet
2. Don't open food packets in front of these creatures, it will go to the extent of jumping on you to grab all that is in your hand.

Our Experience:

three of us left bangalore at 12 noon. no pitstops. except at pole which showed the route map (previous post). the other two stopped for a smoke. we did a mistake of not packing enough food. as soon as we reached there, we replenished our pepsis and bisleris. these are available aplenty at the foot of the hill and also on the top of the hill. one kurkure packet which we thought for us, was snatched by the monkeys.

the view got better as we ascended the hill. its believed you may have to walk through clouds in cold seasons as you trek (wow!), which when we went didn't happen. local people are, as always, helpful.

the original plan of reaching the zenith and spending sometime there was foiled by the monkeys. we headed back, this time with an escort - a dog! - which warded off the monkeys. it seems the monkeys are scared of dogs (!!) and on the return journey, after stopping at a dabha for food, reached bangalore at 1900hrs.

we took one hour to climb up and about 40 minutes to descend.

thats that. you can easily consider this if you feel like going away from bangalore for a few hours. you can enjoy the ride/drive.