Shivagange, Tumkur on August 1, 2009- part 1

The plan initially started out as a 2 day trip before one of our friend Bhanuprakash leaves for his Masters to the US turned out to be a 1 day trip. And how memorable this trip was!! The initial plan was to go to Shivanasamudra and nearby places in Mysore in the mid of July. Then the destination got changed to Rottikallu, Sakleshpura which was planned for in the third week of July. And finally on Bhanu`s birthday night, after serious discussion about the places to visit and our knowledge on geography in and around Bangalore, we all agreed to go to Shivagange, Tumkur. Also in the itenary were Devarayanadurga and Namadachilume which are also pretty famous tourist spots in Tumkur.

Lemme introduce to you the characters of this travelogue:

• Mony alias Bindass Mohan(as his orkut profile says) alias MMS(my latest nickname given to him).
• Bhanusha alias Tagaru mari.
• CC alias Dilip CC.
• Bonda or Naveen Kumar B, my schoolie.
• Lucky or Lakshman.
• Govinda alias Venky, one of my closest schoolie.

The plan was to leave Bangalore by 5 am on saturday, August the 1st. I slept pretty late the last night at 2:30 am which has become a habit of mine. The lazy lord i.e "ME" kept moi mobile in the computer table draw and never ever bothered to keep it next to me before sleeping. Mony, CC and Venky called me nearly 10 times but to no avail. Hero was out dreaming ;) Then came a phone call at 5 20 am to my landline number which my mom picked up and woke me up :(. At the same time, Bonda also came to my place to wake me up. I told Bonda that I ll meet up with the other guys after 10 mins. Then, got ready within a flash which is one of my speciality:), sporting a tee-shirt, jeans, moi jacket and pair of sandals(sandals idea was cos the places we were about to visit had many temples). And then, I planned to leave for Mony`s place which was the starting point of our travel that day. I went there and sat next to their gate on a raised concrete structure. I was still in the hangover of having less sleep and thought over few things that came to my mind. Then came Govinda whose house happens to be down the street of Mony`s and asked me what I was doing there sittin alone. After few minutes, we went to Mony`s place, had a cuppa coffee and by 6 am, Mr Bhanusha had come with his Hyundai Santro. We all, moiself, Bonda, CC, Mony and Venky went to get into Bhanu`s car and thats when we came to know the first problem we were about to face, the space problem. 6 people in a car, 2 at the front(Bhanu and Bonda), myself, CC, Mony and Venky at the back(Are u kidding me??). Thats when the talks came of getting a two wheeler also along with the car for the trip. Also, we had to pick up Mr. Loocky from nearby Chandra Layout to make the magnificient seven who were about to summit Shivagange. So we left from Mony`s place to pick up Lucky boy and this is where the journey to Tumkur`s Shivagange istarts: