A ride to "BR"eath taking hills

The road to BR hills

After sitting jobless for two days at my aunt's home at Chamrajnagar I decided to visit BR hills. At home hearing my plan of riding to BR hills I was presented with a long list of dangerous animals which are there on the way to BR hills. The warning to be careful of dangerous animals was fine until I realized that some of the animals they warned me about are found only in African forests. So I decided to ride the next day with or without permission.

Just a demo of heaven

 So the next day at 5 is when everyone was asleep I tried to sneak out of the house only to be caught by my grandfather who woke up for prayer. After giving the response to his questions which I give during my VIVA exam I started from home at around 5:30 AM. After reaching the entrance gate of BR hills reserve forest I had to wake-up the half-asleep forest guard whose response was "Why have you come so early". After signing my name and number I entered the reserve forest zone. I expected some animals to say a "Hi" to me but what I got was loud welcome by a crazy baby elephant welcoming me at top of its voice as soon as I entered the forest zone.

Meeeee....

 
 I had ridden around 1 km when a baby elephant starting screaming and running towards me. When I was around 35 meters away from the elephant I braked to wait and watch the elephants next move and then decide (I was expecting the elephant to go somewhere else). But once I realized the elephant was running towards me, my only reaction was getting numb and freeze. Before I could think much the elephant was almost 3-4 meters away. At this moment the human instinct of running away kicked in and 2 downshifts and full throttle and I was blindly riding jumping over every obstacle on the road. After throttling like a madman I checked my mirrors to make sure the crazy elephant kid was left behind only to find my mirrors vibrating so much that the mirrors themselves were looking blurred. After that what followed was 35 km of ride without even a single human being coming into sight. In these 35kms I found a group of deer, a normal elephant and a solo wild boar which didn't give a damn about me and was eating something as if nothing matters to him.

How cool it would be if bikes could see...

On the way to BR hills, we find K-Gudi. They say that the TV serial Malgudi days was shot here. After a 20 km ride with an adrenaline rush (thanks to crazy elephant kid), I stopped at K-Gudi. Since there were a bunch of houses for forest guards I felt safe to stop my bike there. After a short photo session and another 20 km of the ride without any human touch, I came out of the forest zone and quickly gulped 2 cups of tea at the first shop that fell into my sight.

Riders asana

From the tea shop, I had to ride a mile more to reach the peak. As soon as I rode 300 metres I found the viewpoint and all I exclaimed was "It's rewarding". The risk of sneaking out of home at 5 and getting chased by an elephant was worth it. After video calling my 5-year-old cousin and telling him I will get him an elephant kid if he goes to school I left the viewpoint and reached the temple/summit.

Monkeys after mixing oldmonk with redbull (daredevils)

 BR hills is a very small village with a temple at top of the hill. apart from 4-5 tea shops and 1 hotel, there is just a temple. The backyard of the temple is the viewpoint you find in the maps. But I found the view while riding uphill to be mesmerizing.

After spending around an hour there in between a bunch of monkeys, when I was about to leave I met a person who had come from Chamrajnagar. He said he came alone in the bike and I told him lets ride back together. Coming near the parking area when I asked him where was his bike he said he gave it to his friend and now he will be my pillion. Well, at that point I tried to take it positively and thought of giving him my phone to make a video of the ride.

Hide and seek...

 After reaching home and my cousin telling me that "He believed I would get him an elephant kid" and he went to school and searched my bag for the baby elephant. Later I opened my gallery and to my happiness found that the pillion guy had recorded 58 minutes of videos. But once I opened the video I realized only my back and head were captured in the video, Thanks to his videography skills 101%

Blue hour...