Weekend Travelogue: Sangam, Ranganathithu, Gaganchukki

Route: Bangalore – Ramanagaram – Channapatna – Maddur – Mandya – Srirangapatnam – Mysore – Bannur – Malavalli – GaganchukkiFalls – Malavalli – Maddur – Bangalore (401 km)

I had to undergo some hectic 4-5 months both in office and home that I could not even think of taking the road.Atlast i completed everything & ready to take on wheels.

Saturday: 23 Feb, 2008Finally I thought I will sleep the entire weekend and plan some drives in subsequent weekends. So comes the boring Saturday, I was dozing off since morning. Suddenly the phone rings, My friend raj was on line & planned for a travel.

Ok done, although I was not so interested for a Mysore drive but went ahead with it.

Sunday: 24 Feb, 2008We get up at 4:15AM and after a nice bath, start at around 5AM to pickup raj from his house in RT Nagar. It took me another 30min to reach there. Finally we start our journey at 6AM and soon hit the Mysore Road flyover after Corporation Circle.Early morning drives are very refreshing and thankfully there was not much traffic on SH17 and soon we start to zoom on Mysore Road (SH17) and car starts to hit 100kmph. We were enjoying every moment. While passing Ramanagaram, everyone was hungry so we decided for an early breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi where we reached by 7AM. As always had the special idlis and tea and while coming out say a series of R1s and Hayabusas. This was the first time I was seeing those bikes and these were indeed very tempting. At the same time I wonder whether we can utilize these powerful bikes in India (I mean, where are the roads?)

It was around 8AM we start again from Kamat and pass Channapatna and Maddur in no time. I like the Mandya – Srirangapatnam stretch except for those 2 bumps just after the downhill, guys please watchout, those are axle breakers. Anyway I was already aware of those, so no problem; I hit 140kmph in this stretch. Pachhu was amazed by the car’s cornering ability and performance since he was traveling for the first time in my car on highways.Sangam: Reached Srirangapatnam by 8:45AM, took left turn for Sangam. Sangam is another 8km from there passing Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace (Dariya Daulat Bagh) and Gol Gumbaz. Sangam. It is the place of religious importance where the river LokPavani meets Cauvery and it was nice to reach there in the morning. Last time I went there during the monsoons and the river was overflowing. This time the level was low and we could see the two shiva lingas at the junction of the rivers. We took a coracle ride and went past the lingas and took some pics as well.

Ranganathithu Bird Sanctuary: We spent a few minutes in serene environment at Sangam car park. After a few rounds of cakes and chips we started again. This time we headed straight to Bird Sanctuary. We took left towards Mysore on SH17 and immediately after a few kms there is a right turn (Hunsur / Coorg Route). After taking the turn RBS is about 4 kms from there which we reached by 10AM. Reaching early in the sanctuary helped. We could experience the chirping of birds. We spent sometime sitting at the bank of cauvery and chitchatting. Also saw a bunch of crocs roaming around and a few of them resting on the rocks in between the river. We walked around the bank and took some pics.

Now what? I told lets go to KRS / Brindavan Garden. Nobody was interested for KRS but they wanted to see some falls too. So we decided to go to Shivasamudram after lunch. We decided to go to my favourite restaurant Hotel Heritage Shelters for lunch which another 10km enroute KRS. We had some nice lunch of Tandoori roti, Chilli Chicken, Egg bhujiya, Egg Biriyani, Paneer alongwith lassi and softdrinks and also spent some quality time taking pics in the hotel campus. I like this resutarant both for ambience as well as food.

Gaganachukki Falls: After filling the belly with the nice stuffs we headed towards Shivasamudram. I had to take a new route this time. We went past the Infy campus and hit Ring Road and past the Bangalore junction and headed towards Bannur junction. There is a left turn for Bannur from Ring road which we took. We took the following route:Mysore – Bannur – Malavalli – ShivasamudramFirst time on this stretch: I was traveling on this stretch for the first time. The road turned out to be a nice one. Although you cannot do very high speeding because there are bumps within every few kms but there were nice picturesque surrounding and nice curves.Excellent road on NH209 after Malavalli: Road construction activity was happening in Bannur and after Malavalli. The NH209 from Kanakapura meets at Malavalli. The stretch after Malavalli to Shivasamudram was pathetic last time but it has become excellent now. I was doing 120kmph after Malavalli till Gaganchukki falls on this newly laid road.Hotel at Gaganchukki: A couple of things that has changed in Gaganchukki. There is a nice hotel cum restaurant has opened up there. I also went and enquired the room rates and checked the rooms. I felt an AC room for Rs2300 was quite expensive. Also the room amenities don’t quality for such a price. We did spend some nice time there. As it was already evening we decided to return back and do Barachukki and Talakad sometime later after monsoons.

After the mad rush in Bangalore, the sisters did enjoy the beauty of Karnataka outskirts.Return journey: We did the return journey through the Malavalli – Maddur – Bangalore route. We started at 4:45PM from Gaganchukki and did a nonstop dash to Pachhu’s house at 7PM. Mysore Road was choked with traffic. We had a nice dinner prepared by Shikha there and return back to our house by 10PM. It was a nice break after some hectic months and was quite refreshing indeed. Moreover, the sisters enjoyed a lot.

Total distance from home to home came out to be 401km and the car drank 23lit of petrol with 75% AC.

Signing off

Vijay