The road trip – Saturday. One day at a time! – II

Read part 1 before reading this one.

Before getting to the Saturday part of the Dubare trip, I’d like to share some of the “sharable” pics with you. Enter Picasa

Hope you have seen all of them and enjoyed. I missed out some other memorable incidents that happened on Friday.
Friday :
We were at Andy’s place having dinner. Andy’s mom ( a.k.a Auntie) was chatting with us as we were hogging the delicious food. Auntie was asking us all where we were put up in Chennai. Murali responded “Besant nagar”. Auntie was telling about her cousin and her family staying at Besant nagar. “She has a daughter and a son”. Then Murali jumped “where did you say they are put in Besant nagar”. And auntie was quick to add “The daughter is married and I’m not sure where they are put in Besant nagar”

Saturday:
Started form B’lore at 6:00 in the morning. Andy and me went in the bike. It was a 250 Km ride from B’lore. We were to have breakfast on the go, on the highway. Of course, we were able to find all the eat-outs that one finds inside the city. Barista was the first to come, then Coffee day and finally McDonald’s. We passed Barista (the chocolate excess there is My love..YUM) cos the deal was that all of us were supposed to have it at Mysore. But TRAITORS! The guys in the car stopped there and called me to tell about it. “Revenge!!” was my call. So we (the bikers) went to McD and gorged. The sweet taste of revenge! On our way we passed Mandya (babes!!) and then Hunsur (nothing there).

Then we hit the roads to Dubare. There is a Tibetan settlement on the way just before Kushalnagar. The roads are real good all the way till Kushalnagar, which is 5 Kms from Dubare. After that there are lesser roads and more of forest. So we got lost, thankfully!

We got lost and found the dam on the path less traveled!

Without getting lost we wouldn’t have found the dam and the amazing roads that we got into. It was real fun. You just have to take my word for it. Or you can see this video. Please excuse the unintentional crappy accent, my voice and the vocabulary. After a 300 Km ride on a Yamaha RX 135,believe me, talking is a challenge!!:)

Then we finally found our way to the resort – The Dubare Inn. It was heavenly except for the bloody tourists.

We checked in to this lovely cottage:

And couldn’t wait to get into the waters for rafting. Wait! that’s what I thought but I came back and found that Rafting or whitewater rafting is a challenging recreational activity utilizing a raft to navigate a river or other bodies of water. This is usually done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water, in order to thrill and excite the raft passengers.
None of the bolded things happened. Does it still qualify as rafting??

So we finished the “rafting” and had lunch at the Dubare Inn. We went to the Chicklihole dam after a shower and a 15 mins nap. And decided to go to Madikeri. And thus our journey began – from Dubare to Madikeri. We started by 6:30 PM and climbed the 35 odd Kms. It was a superb drive with so many curves and turns. Reached Madikeri by 8:30. Had dinner at a place who’s name had two names and last of which was “cafe”. I do not remember the first name, but please, I beg of you, do not enter that place. One of the worst I’ve ever had food from.

Then it happened, the miscommunication. I never thought that could happen without any gal involved. But, ya, it did! it was already 9:30 and that place was “meaning-there-was-no-one-to-ask-directions-from” closing down. So the plan was to drive down the hill and go to Dubare by 11:00 PM. But due to the miscommunication, Andy gave us the direction for Baghmandala, which was downslope, but in the opposite direction. So we came down the slope unaware to the wrong route that we were taking. After 5 Kms (i think) the topic came up:

Andy: you guys do know that Madikeri is between Baghmandala and Dubare, right? Its gonna take a long time for us to come back all the way up to Madikeri from Baghmandala and then down to Dubare.
Me: WHAT?! we are NOT on the way to Dubare?
Deepak (driving the car): WHAT
Murali: WHAT
Saravana : was sleeping as usual.

So we went all the way up to Madikeri and back to Dubare. It was midnight. And that’s the end of Saturday.

Sam Jayanth

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