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Me, Karthik and Kannan

All of us went to my place and we spent some time talking about the past and then tried to see a movie from selection of over 30 good classic english movies. As was expected we ended up not seeing any movie that night!

On Sunday we wanted to avoid the city and its crowds and wanted to drive down to some place around Bangalore and return the same or even the next day. After much debate we finally settled on Nandi Hills - according to a guide some 60 kms from Bangalore. We left around 2PM and had brunch on the way at some dhabha. The food costed a third of what we paid at Tandoor but was just as good!

The sceneray started getting beautiful and green once we left the city limits. We were pleasantly surprised at how beautiful it was so close to Bangalore.

Road to Nandi Hills

The road to Nandi Hills passes through Devanahalli, where Bangalore's International Airport is coming up (for the last so many years). The roads were great for most part of the trip and I had a blast driving the distance (some 73 kms from home).

Road diversion to Nandi Hills

The road near Nandi Hills was quite bumpy and there were quite a few un-tarred stretches that tested the limits of the car suspension and to make matters worse it started to rain and we were afraid the rain might ruin our visit.

Rain on the windshield

But the rain had a very positive effect on the weather and when we reached the hill top - it was very cool and the climate was perfect.

Nandi Hill

When we reached the hill top, it was a major anti-climax. Being a holiday - half of Bangalore was there. It was very crowded and dirty and there was hardly any empty space to sit down alone.

People and shops everywhere

Apart from the people there were lots of monkeys and dogs!

Nearly 75 kms from home and we were wondering what the hell we were doing here!

What was our plan (to escape the city crowds) again?

Nonetheless we wanted to make our trip worthwhile and tried hard to ignore the crowd and the crap and focussed our attention back on the great scenery that we were treated to right from the time we left the city behind.

Breathtaking view from the top

Me near the edge!
Behind me is the road to Bangalore City

I took a few more pictures around Nandi Hills. See them here.

We left before the sun set and in the end felt the trip was a pretty decent one. The drive was good and the hill top was fine - but could have been better if there werent so many people everywhere. The scenery was awesome and the company was great and I spent some quality time with my friends!

We returned to Bangalore by around 7.30 PM and had dinner at Casa Picola, where we met my school friends - Aditya and Deepak - and then all of us went on to have a nice evening! Kannan and Karthik went home from there, while the rest of us went to Aditya's house (or should i say palace?) and stayed over there.

I returned home today and slept like a log. Went to Indiranagar for dinner and to buy some much needed food stuff for the week ahead.

Back to work tomorrow and I have a Microsoft certification exam coming up on Saturday, for which I am yet to start preparing! Our training concludes this week and our project allocation at work might also happen, for which we will meet some of the project managers. I hope I get into a good project and team.

It's gonna be an interesting week ahead for sure, one that will (hopefully) match the excitement of the past weekend!

And yes everybody - Happy Independence Day!

posted by Sabarish @ 8/15/2005 10:25:00 AM