One of my friends here in Bangalore suggested I visit Shivanasamudra. It is a place known for its waterfalls. Shivanasamudra is some 150 kms from Bangalore and around 30 kms from Mysore. So we planned to go to Shivanasamudra in the afternoon, visit Talkad and then go to PlanetX, Mysore. Talkad is again a lake. PlanetX is a place where you have stuff like bowling, karting, pool, gaming zone, mini golf course, restaurant, etc. So far the places that I had visited around Bangalore, it was just me and my friend. This time though we had a friend of her’s for company – Rajesh. Rajesh knew the places well and so it was a welcome addition.
We picked Rajesh and then Rajesh took the driving task – a welcome relief for me having driven on all the previous trips. We followed the Mysore road. We stopped at a place for breakfast. I had ‘Plate Idly’ there. The size of the idly was bigger than any I had seen or eaten before. It was almost as big as a chapati (roti). It was served with sambhar and chutni. I had a tea to top it up – a nice breakfast.
We proceeded towards our destination. The road was pretty good and we were having a nice smooth drive. Then we had a take a diversion from the Mysore road. The road wasn’t as good as before. And my friend decided to do the driving. Soon she got bored with driving and it was my turn. As soon as I started driving the road again became good. Perfect timing – I must say.
We reached one of the falls. We wanted to go in the falls but it wasn’t allowed there. We could only have a distant view of the falls. But it was beautiful. We spend some time there capturing and enjoying the amazing view.
Then we proceeded towards another falls called the Bharachukki falls. As we reached there we could see people going towards the falls with towels and clothes which suggested we could actually get in the water. It was way down and we had to make our way through a long chain of stairs. As we climbed down we were expecting the effort it would take to climb those stairs on our way back. We made it down in good time and headed towards the waters. We had to cross a small stream. The rocks were very slippery and I almost fell down once. But we managed to cross it and reach the falls. There were lots of people there who were enjoying themselves in the water. Some had brought bathing clothes with them while some had entered the waters with clothes on. It was a sight in itself to see so many people enjoying the water together.
She was all set to enter the water while Rajesh didn’t want to enter water. I was undecided as always. She went to the falls and came back. She was enjoying it. She asked me join her. I finally agreed. I went into the water. Stood under the falls. The water came crashing on me. It wasn’t hard; instead it was pleasant and refreshing. Entering water with your shirt and jeans on isn’t something you do everyday. As I came out of water for a break the wet jeans made it difficult to walk. But I was feeling good. So was she. Rajesh meanwhile had found a stone to sit on. He was sitting there probably watching the view and keeping an eye on us. We asked Rajesh to join us but he didn’t. So the two of us went back. This time we went further into water. We didn’t like the crowd there and so came back to our original place. We enjoyed a few more rounds of shower in the falls and came back.
The way back included climbing the stairs. It was a long and hard task. We took breaks before finally reaching the top; breathing heavily. We had cucumber with chilly paste – a bad combination we soon found out. I changed my clothes and we headed towards Planet X. The road wasn’t good, just okay. We stopped near Talkad to visit some temples (I have forgotten the names). Rajesh told us the story behind the place – Due to a curse the entire place was covered in sand. The site that we were seeing was actually dug out of the sand. Every year the place gets covered with sand; and the structures are dug out.
The sand there certainly looked out of place. And one isn’t supposed to doubt the stories. There were three main temples. We had to walk on sand to see them. We would have been on a round trip of more than a km to visit the three temples and come back to the car. We then headed towards Mysore skipping Talkad.
We reached Mysore in another couple of hours and headed for PlanetX. The place looked good. We had around 4 hours to spend there before the place got closed. We started with eating as everyone was hungry. We ordered sandwiches coupled with beer/breezer. I had cranberry breezer which I liked. Then we headed towards bowling. There was an hour’s wait for bowling. So we went for pool to pass time. Since we were three, it was Rajesh versus the two of us. Rajesh was playing well and won easily the first game. He would have won the next 2 games as well but he didn’t say the pocket once and pocketed the cue ball the second time. Soon he was back to winning ways. We enjoyed pool for an hour and then went to bowling. Bowling was fun. Here I was playing really well for a change and won easily. Once the game got over, she wanted to have another round of bowling. We had another round of bowling, this time I was bowling left-handed as my wrist was paining. This time though I lost badly.
After bowling we decided to go for Hookah. I hadn’t tried it before so was looking forward to it. It was disappointing. It was just flavored hookah and I didn’t quite like it. But the other two seemed to like it. We had some snacks for company and headed back for Bangalore.
As we reached the car we remembered that we were almost out of petrol. It was quite late and most of the petrol pumps were already closed. The tank had come on reserve. It was definitely not good. We stopped and asked for directions. We continually kept looking for an open petrol pump. We passed 5-6 petrol pumps but all were closed. It was getting scary now. The idea of spending the night in car wasn’t pleasing at all. Luckily we found a petrol pump soon. We got the tank full. It was my turn to drive now. I think we reached Bangalore in two hours flat. We dropped Rajesh first. Then as we headed further we managed to lose our way after reaching quite close. A few u-turns later I dropped my friend and came to my hotel.
A fun-filled but tiring day had come to an end. Monday morning office was looking at us with anticipation while all we could think of was a good sleep.
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