Pondicerry

Pondicherry in Tamil nadu

Chikmagalur

Chikmagalur located in southwest karnataka, is a beautiful Hill Station. approx 260 kms from Bangalore,On the way you can visit Sravanabalagola as well.

Route: Bangalore -> Hassan -> chikmagalur
There are a lot of beautiful places to visit in and around Chikmagalur, On the way from Hassan to Chikmagalur u can visit Halebedu, a temple with architectural excellence. Belur is a nearby temple. From belur Chikmagalur is just 20Kms.

Palani

Palani in TamilNadu is a holy place which gave us an unholy feeling. It was the worst place were worship has become a real business, we could find the priests literally asking for money and the exact dialogue was give money for the gods. entering Palani we have to take 30rs ticket for cars, from there on u can find many agents who will misguide u for sure, they approach as though they r helping us and later on ditch u.

If going to palani, dont listen to any one who approaches u, directly park the vehicle,and take the winch to go up, if using stairs u will meet atleast 10 priests asking you to give money. For all the offerings made,money is being charged by the priests, on top of the fixed amount set for the offerings.

Reaching palani --- palani is exactly 375 km from electronic city, Head straight on the hosur road, Hosur -> Krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> salem -> Bhavani -> Perunthurai(Take left from NH47 at Perunthurai) -> Dharapuram -> Palani.

Kodaikanal

Kodaikanal in TamilNadu is one of the best hill station in TN. Kodaikanal is exactly 440Kms from electronic city. Shortest route is thru Palani its 65kms from Palani.

Route : Electronic City -> Hosur -> Krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Salem -> Bhavani -> Perundurai -> Dharapuram -> Palani -> Kodaikanal.
Palani -> Kodaikanal route is excellent u can really enjoy the scenic beauty, out of the 64 kms 50kms is Ghats road and its an excellent drive. On the way you can get a Dam also :)

Reaching Kodaikanal you will find hundreds of people to guide u, Better avoid them all, there are a number of Hotels and resorts in kodaikanal, as its a small place its easy to find them out.


One of the best thing there is almost all the tourist spots are on the same route,that too within 15Kms span.

Best is to stay near the kodaikanal lake, you can enjoy a bicycle ride around the lake, and enjoy Boating.

From the lake take the road towards right and on the way u will find all the Spots, and just follow the road and it will take a full round and u will reach the Lake again :)
Main spots we visited : Cockers walk, Pillar Rock, fairy falls, Green Valley(Suicide point), Guna Caves, View Point, Pine Plantation

Wayanad

A very beautiful hill station in God's Own Country...

From Bangalore... 250kms from Bangalore.. You can reach Wayanad from Bangalore via mysore, gundalpet. Its always better to stay in Kalpetta, as this is a central point from where you can cover most of Wayanad.

One of the must visit place is Manathavady.. On the way you will get worlds second largest dam build with sand.., Banasura Sagar.. Near Mananthavady, you can visit 'Kurava Islands', 'Pazhassi's Tomb' ad the famous Thirunelli temple on the banks of Kabani river. Also there is a sanctuary at Tholpetty, were you can have a ride through the forest.



Pookkode lake near Vythiri..., you can enjoy boating here. Two beautiful waterfalls are there in and around Meppady, Sujippara and Meenmutty. To reach meenmutty you have a 3hour trekking. Also there is a beautiful rose garden at Ambalavayal. The famous Edakkal Caves are also located here. There you can have a trek upto 1000 meters. You will easily spend 5-6 hours at edakkal caves. There is one more dam nearby this place, Karapuzha..



10 kms from Sulthanbathery is the famous Muthanga wild life sanctuary. Also you will get the place where it rains the most in kerala.., Lakkidi.. If you are ready to travel to Calicut from Wayanad.., you will get the beautiful Wayanad churam :-) Its very nice to drive through.., especially if you are coming during early morning.., you can enjoy the scenic beauty.. Above all Wayanad is filled with tea estates and you can enjoy the lush green vegetation....

Hoganakkal

Hoganakkal In Tamil Nadu is a beautiful water falls,140kms from e-City, Bangalore. There you find the famous bamboo boats and can go beneath the falls... its a very good place to visit, you will get fresh fried fish to eat at the shore. The boats generally costs Rs 750/-, The best route to follow is .... Reach Hosur from Ec, after the hosur bus stand take a right to the Royakotta road, head straight to Royakotta ... then reach palakkode and from palakkode to hoganakkal.



The place is also reachable from Salem.. via Dharmapuri. while going from EC dont take the Krishnagiri route as you will have to pay Tolls and also travel 40 kms extra. :)



We have already visited the place 4 times and still feel to go there again, the place is too good, to this place the transportation is not at all a problem as there are so many Tamil Nadu state buses in this route, you ca get the bus from Hosur, Krishnagiri, and if coming from salem you get the bus at Dharmapuri. There is a bus directly from bangalore and it passes EC by 6:30am

Sivana Samudram

sivana samudram is a beautiful water fall 160kms from bangalore, here you can take a good bath in the falls, also interested can do a small trek to the top of the falls, its better to plan a one day trip and on the way back to bangalore you can visit thalakkad were there is a famous shiva temple and can enjoy swimming in the kaveri river, this place is very safe to swim in the river, you can also enjoy boating in bamboo boats. From bangalore .. if starting from e-city take the nice road and reach Kanakapura road and take left and head straight, the roads are good and the traffic is less too, you can enjoy the ride.....
only thing always take the Kanakapura road and dont go via mysore road its 40 kms extra.

Yelagiri

Yelagiri in TamilNadu is the nearest hillstation in Tamilnadu from Bangalore, its almost a mini OOty, its very calm and cool place just 150 kms from bangalore(e-city).
Reaching Yelagiri , go straight on the Hosur road head straight till krishnagiri, from there take a left towards the chennai highway, and head straight till bargur and then take a right .. reach thirupattur and take a right to reach the ghats road leading to yelagiri..


The Sunset at Yelagiri is wonderful to watch, there is abeautiful lake were you can do boating, near by there is a small waterfall were you can take a bath in the chilled water.It will be a nice place to spend a night as the e climate is too good and you can enjoy a camp fire toooooooooo.. :)

North East India

The NorthEast India trip we covered Meghalaya,Assam and Sikkim.
We started for Shillong on a WED morning, reached shillong by AN, and visitd in and around shillong with Peter's brother. We stayed in a Guest house in Shillong, Shillong is a female dominated place, it was surprising to see everythings there are managed by the women of Shillong.
Next day we went to Chirapujee, to see whether its really raining there :), it was a nice place to vist,it was really raining hard, and was totally misty.


We visited the famous elephant falls, 7sisters water fall and so on.. And to our greatest surprise we met a Malayalee inside the Shillong Caves ......
Thursday evening we took a cab to Guwahati, to catch the train to New Jalpaguri(NJP) in west bengal. We boarded the train at 10:15pm and reached NJP by 7:30 am on friday.
There we had already arranged a scorpio to go to Ganktok(Sikkim) we reached Sikkim by 1 PM, from there we took lunch and started our journey to Lacheng its 120KMs streach, there is literally no roads and its a really scary road, and its a real adventure...
Friday night we stayed at Lacheng, next day early morning we started for Yumthang valley the most beautiful place we visited, its a realy good valley at an altitude of 11000+ feet. We really enjoyed the scenic beauty.


Saturday evening we reached back to Gangtok, we went for shopping in the MG Marg, its abeautiful commercial street to vist,its extremely well maintained.. Only problem we found there is the food the hotels were not that good.


Next day sunday, we started for the indo china border Nathula Pass, its one of the places you must visit if u go to Gangtok. its 53 kms from Gangtok.Near by is the BABA mandir built for a soldier.There the main thing is that you can keep a bottle of water for a day and take home and use it as a medicine, it is believed that consuming the water for 21 days will take ur illness away.

Then by late afternoon we started from Gangtok to NJP to catch the train(Darjeling Express) to Kolkatta, we reached sealdah next morning and for our bad luck that monday was All INDIA BANDH, and we got stuck at railway station, our flight back to Bangalore was at 6pm, we decided to reach the Airport some how, we tried for govt vehicles and luckily got a police jeep to go to airport, we had our food at the road side shops and took rest in a small lodge nearby airport, we reached airport by 4 and luckily our flight was not canceled and we reached back at bangalore by 9pm.

Go GOA!!!!

1500+ kms on Bike :-)... Our GOA trip...

Started from Bangalore at 5PM... Fist halt at Hubli.. Searched for the bus stand at 2AM as usual, for a stay.. ;).. We are forced to park our bikes at Bus stand pay parking... Stayed at a nearby lodge, had a good sleep till 8..

Next day morning, we had breakfast and left Hubli at arouund 11AM... There are 2 routes to Goa from Hubli... One route is Hubli-Karwar-Goa (90kms extra)... another is Dharwad-Ramnagara-Goa... Never follow the sign boards... head straight to Kittur, towards Belgaum... From Kittur, take NH 60A... Take a left towards Bidi..., then Ramnagara..., Please carry enough water as you will never get a drop of water on the way... :( Reached Panji, by 3PM.. Had a nice bath at Sea and took a room at Panji.. Anybody interested in DJ inside a ship can pay Rs:150/- :).... Calangute is the best beach.. and it is 15kms from Panji....



Next day morning we went to Calangute beach and had a nice time with water sports and in sea... We paid 500/- per head for all the 5 rides there... Paragliding was awesome..., that too 1.5kms offshore :-).... You can enjoy Banana ride also.., in which they will drop you at about 0.5kms in sea from the shore... (for those who donno swimming... it is too good as they will provide life jackets :-))...



For drunkards..., FENY and any other drinks are very cheap and you can have it in beach.... Dont forget to enoy the sunset....


Started back from Goa on the 2nd day evening and had a halt at Karwar.... Next morning we headed to Gokarnam, visited the famous Siva temple there and continued our journey back to Bangalore through Honnavar-Jog falls-Shimoga (we had a narrow escape at Shimoga from hindu-muslim riots, with a broken tail lamp of the great Fiero... :( ) and reached at 1AM... This is one of the best trips we had on bike... :)

Humpi - Aihole - Kudalasangama

The first trip which we covered over 1000 kms....

Humpi
One of the best historic places to visit in Northern Karnataka, out of which many were constructed during the reign of Krishnadevaraya...

Aihole
A historical place with an entirely different architectural style as that of Humpi... 120 kms from Humpi..

Started at 5PM from bangalore, first halt was at Chitradurga to have dinner :-). From Chitradurga to Hospet road is full of Trucks..., reached Hospet at 1AM, and stayed after covering almost 350kms. This is the best place to stay on the waay to Humpi(affordable)..


Next day morning we started for Humpi... That day we covered almost all the monuments in Humpi.., and then in the evening we had a nice view of Thungabadra Dam.. We started for Aihole that day evening at around 7PM, and we are forced to stay at Ilkal, as it was the only township 36kms before Aihole.. In Aihole, you wont find a single hotel...

We covered Aihole by that day afternoon and headed to Kudalsangama.. A place where 2 rivers meet, with a famous Shiva temple almost at the point of convergence... The view is truly awesome...


Journey Back to Bnagalore after the wonderful trip.. started at 3PM on the 2nd day, reached back (Electronics City) at 2AM, with a few stops in between..

Shimoga + Jog Falls

Shimoga 268 kms from Bangalore, start at NH4 .. reach Tumkur 70 kms from blore and take left to proceed to shimoga.. Reaching Shimoga find out the Busstand and u'll find lots of lodges to stay. Tourist places in shimoga are all in different directions. Famous place to vist is Jog Falls north west of shimoga its only 110 kms from shimoga. This was the only trip we went with a Bike, a bit risky as the roads are almost deserted and better to have two Bikes.

Coorg ---> Kodagu

Coorg(Markara) is 250 kms away from Bangalore, many good places to visit near by, water falls and temples(thalakavery), and all usual tourist spots. Apart from all there is a beautiful place Mandalpetty.

its 18 KM from Abbey falls, on the same route.. In the 18 kms several kms there is no road and its a tough and interesting drive. Specialty is that U can drive ur car to the top of the hill, its a superb experience.. start for Mandalpetty from Abbey falls at around 2:30pm, as the 18 km journey takes almost 1.5 hrs road is that good.
stay : Markara ... lots of lodges are there.

Home stay is also available. Roads in and around coorg is not that great. On the way back u get golden temple. Nagarhole national park, and nisargadaama.

Savana Durga

50 km from Kengeri.. Shortest route from E-city via Banyan tree, Dam...

Alternate Route --> Take Magadi road and reach Savandurga directly.. 80kms from E-city