Kabbaladurga

Lazy Sunday? Take your bike out and head to one of the many 'bettas' or 'durgas' outside of Bangalore. That is exactly what we did last Sunday. A few calls here and there and we were already 10 of us! Talk of jobless S/E engineers. We decided to go to Kabbaladurga, about 70 odd kms from Bangalore.

The team: Moch, Jitha, Shashi, Harsha, Holla, BK, Pari, Ramya, Jo and yours truly.

We all decided to get together at Family Mart near Kanakapura road junction at 0730. By the time everyone turned up, it was around 0745. Remarkable! considering there were many late additions and last minute calls for co-ordination. Getting to Kanakapura road junction wasn't a problem. But the good ol' Family Mart, which was our reference point for many a trips, wasn't to be seen! Not a trace of it!! Apparently, someone had done a ctrl-x, ctrl-v of the location of the mart. Whatever! Had breakfast at some Adiga restaurant and I was made to pay the bill. The reason? It was supposed to be my 'wedding day' :D. Aah the price I had to pay for the prank...

Slow-paced ride for about 2 hours (with a break) on a not-so-bad-by-Indian-standards road, and we were at Kabbala village.

The route: Bangalore - Kanakapura - Satanur(right turn) - Kabbala.

Kabbaladurga is a fort on a monolith right next to the village. Parked our bikes at a villager's residence and started the climb. The climb is not tough, although at a couple of places, you may have to be on all fours. There are steps to the top. At some places, there are railings which you can hold on to. But you need to be a little acrobatic, considering the railings are about 3 feet away from the steps. Getting down, it began to rain, which made the descent slippery. Other than that, there is nothing much to the climb (and descent).

Once back to our bikes, we bade a tearful adieu(?!) to BK, who decided to part from us to go to his granny's place. Aah the pain of separation! :D. We decided to take another route on our way back. Chennapatna was a little more than 20 kms from Kabbala and the temptation of getting to Kamath for lunch was too good to resist. At Chennapatna, had a tough time explaining to Ramya what Chennapatna toys are. Poor Ramya didn't know what Chennapatna toys are (toys-deprived childhood she had, probably) :D. Had a grand lunch and a customary doodh-peDha session at Kamath and got back to Bangalore.

Question for the day: What are the odds of 10 people coming on a trip and not one of them having a camera, not even a phone-camera?

Thus continues the quest...