Prachi and I, set out yesterday morning, well before dawn at 4:30 AM, with a plan to see the sun rising from the mountain tops. I prepared the routes to reach Mekri circle, with the help of Sudeep the previous night. The route from Hebbal to Nandi hills were available in wikitravel. It was a very cold morning of a hot summer day. We were right on track, as Sudeep suggested till we reached the underpass at Frazer town. From here we had to take Nandidurg road. But we were stranded and roaming around various roads at Frazer town, with a hope of reaching Mekri circle somehow. To my surprise there were a lot of people in that area considering the time of the day. One gentleman guided us properly to reach Mekri circle. After having lost some 20 precious minutes (It was precious for some reasons that would come later), we were again on track.
It was a straight highway from Mekri circle. The only traffic consisted of trucks. It was very hard to drive with our dim headlight. Till some distance from Hebbal, the road construction was going on at few places. From Yelahanka, the six lane road was straight with no traffic. We were missing our Yamaha libero with which biked to Pondicherry from Chennai, a 160 Km stretch along the coastline. Though we wanted to go fast, our kinetic was not made for racing. So, we had to stick to 50Km/hr limit. After the air force base station, it was little misty and chill. I could feel that Prachi was shivering in cold, but would not dare to say that, as she refused to take her jacket even after my request. I offered my jacket which she refused, saying it was not that cold. But she revealed the truth after we reached the hill top and said that she was praying God to bring the sun earlier, hahaha.
On the way there were a lot of industries along this route. We also had a chance to see the pathetically bifurcating road, rather a metal road that would take to Bangalore International Airport. There were construction of huge flyovers, which I assume would be the feed for BIAL. But as of now, I wondered how could they claim that it was ready to use and was supposed to start its operation from 1st of this month. Thank God, the central government committee which inspected it had postponed the inauguration.
As we proceeded, we took a break near a Jain temple on a little hillock on
the highway and took some snaps. From here on I told Prachi to look for a advertisement board for the Mount view resort, where we had to turn left, as instructed by Wiki. Just few hundred meters from this Jain temple, there was a road to our left with few advertisement boards. As we were just missing that road and proceeded on the highway, Prachi noticed that Mount view resorts board, which was hided by other boards and totally colorless to catch the attention. I would say we were fortunate. We took that turn. Now we were very close to Nandi hills. But it was getting bright too, indicating that we had to race with the sun to see him rise from the mountain. While on the way, unfortunately he won the race and showed his amber face from in between the rocky mountains. Though we lost, it was a beautiful sight, which we halted to capture in our c
ameras. This road too, was very good. I loved driving so far.There were 2 roads which we can take, where this road ended. There was a direction board in Kannada, which we could not read. We took the right one, which seemed to used more. After 5 or 6 Km, we realized that we were descending the hill. We stopped to inquire the route with an old lady. She could not speak any other language than Kannada. I could not make her understand what we wanted. From her actions, I understood that we were on a wrong route. We turned back and while on the way, we inquired a milk man and again with a young man waiting in front of a tea shop. They guided us properly, that we should have taken to road towards the left at the junction. Just as we entered the road from the junction, there was this resort, not so big. We continued our way in between the eucalyptus farms to reach the diversion marked by a Nandi, from where the mountain route starts. It was a 8 Km stretch. It was not a treacherous route, as found in the ghats. Just before reaching the top, there are a few bends, otherwise a very simple route. But the sun was beaming into my eyes, making it difficult to drive.
A fort entrance welcomed us, indicating that we had reached the top, though not the peak.
It was 4850 feet above sea level. We parked our bike there, got tickets and were wondering how to proceed. It was an open area with few monkeys, shops, but not sign boards. As it was early, there were no people from whom we can infer the direction to move ahead. We just climbed the stairs in front and entered a gate in front. It was a Harry Potter experience. There lied a whole new world full of greenery, big trees, hill style tiled house. We started moving around, taking snaps, after which we came to know that the entire region is kind of a fort and the visitors have total freedom to move around. Prachi was so excited, jumping and singing, becoming a kid. There was an amazingly clear tank called Amruta Sarovar. Just a few distance from this tank was a map of this region, which we glanced for a while and started to walk towards Tipu's fall. 
This is claimed to be a place where Tipu used to execute his criminals. On way to this rock dropping into a steep cliff, there were large stretches of grass, which we used for some of our photo session. We sat at the edge of the cliff for a while, planning to have some snacks, which did not materialize due to the dogs that were encircling us.Then we moved in the direction of the temple at the peak. We had a few snaps of the temple, though we did not get inside, as I assumed that there would not be any architectural significance. By now, Prachi's Gujju character, which I relate to 'food-o-philia',
manifested itself. Complementing her character was the restaurant at the
top called "Hotel Ranjita". It served bread-omelet, bread butter toast, maggi noodles and cup noodles. I had bread omelet, she had a toast and then we shared a plate of noodles. There was another restaurant with bar, which seemed better but not open at that time. We continued our strolling, after sipping (I mean it) a tender coconut. There was a little girl named Pavitra who was taking charge of a shop selling, tender coconut and cucumbers. After ordering for 2 tender coconuts, I asked if she could open the coconut with the machete she was having. With a smile, she continued. It was actually tough for her. I went ahead to help her, which she rejected. But at the end I had to get my hands dirty. The hole for the straw was not enough big, so we had use all our energy to drink. While we were drinking, she was using the catapult to threaten the monkeys. All
the shop keepers had catapult to get rid of the monkeys.
We also had a chance to visit a beautiful
guest house called " Gandhi Nilaya". We entered this prohibited V.I.P guest house, thinking that it was an ashram. Then the guy named Muniraju who was taking care, welcomed us inside to have a look and said that it was under maintenance. It was so lavish inside. To stay here permission from vidhan soudha is required. There was a very well maintained Garden inside the campus, from where the villages at the foot hills where clearly visible. Thanking him by taking a snap of him, for which 
he posed religiously we were on our way again. We sat on one of the many
benches found across the entire region and relaxed. I would say Prachi really relaxed by singing her currently favorite song, "Tujhe dekh dekh sona" repetitively, which I had to bare. Then we climbed a few steps to have a look of another guest house called "Nehru Nilaya", which was still more magnificent from outside than the previous one. It had some very rare, unseen and beautiful flowers in its surrounding.From here, we descended the hill towards the entrance of the forts. We took a small hilly route in between the trees to substitute the pleasure of trekking. The entire route had a small coin like structure, scattered all over. Another leach like structure lying around. Later we came to know that this leach like structure encloses numerous of those coin like seeds. Then we came across a small natural tank besides a rock, covered by thick shade of the trees. This scenery evoked the interest of video shooting in me, which was probably due to influence of watching the National Geographic and The Discovery Channel. After taking a small video, which eventually came good
with sounds of birds and insects, we went to visit the Tipu's Palace. This was not palatial as the name suggests. It was a small house where Tipu had stayed during his visits.We ended our journey into this fortified kingdom, came out to the reality, which welcome us with the arrival of a BMTC bus with loads of people. We had some bottled drink and started our journey down hill, while we noticed that we were running out of petrol. Though I know it was risky, I switched of the ignition of the bike and started to descend. On the way we bought some grapes, which seems to be the specialty of the region, from one of the many sellers who are periodically placed on the sides of the road. When we reached the highway, we were little hopeful that we would have enough petrol to reach the nearby petrol station. We were wrong at our guess. The bike started choking when I slowed down at a speed breaking. I made it run till it can. Finally when it stopped, I could see a HP board at a distance. I made the choke on, so that it could run a little more distance. We were really fortunate to find a Petrol station, which was a desperate need of the hour. Then we continued our journey happily till Yelahanka, from where another misery struck us, which we are used to, "Traffic Jam". We had our lunch at Hotel Ramanas in Cunningham Road, then proceeded home. It took us 1.5 hour to reach Bangalore from Nandi hills, while it took more than an hour to reach our home from Cunningham road.
It was a very nice trip. At the end of the day we had covered 190 Km, on our little kinetic. Cheers!!!
