A Moonlit night

Credits :

Prabha & her car :) - popularly called the seva car
Ankur - sheer patient steering skills
Vivin - for waking up@3 & Sushma for not having slept :)

After a gratifying satsang with the Guru @ the Ashram, the journey began. We started off with a brief 5 hours halt @Maddy's, where we put Ankur to sleep & discussed on the camera settings for the night's shots.

(1:00 am ) Next, we were all loaded and set to go.

Things to carry :

Lots of Chocolates & I also prefer Natura
Water ( a bottle of warm water would also be nice )
Biscuits
Music player ( in case your car does not have one )
Emergency Lamps & Powerful torches
A GPRS enabled phone - u ll know why


What to wear :

Loose fitting clothing
Sneakers
Sweaters
A Cap as well


Headed for :

Skandagiri, an utterly scenic paradise (especially for photographers) with breathtaking views of the peaks surrounding North Bangalore and a spectacular glimpse of the Sunrise.


The Way :

Drive past the silent city of Bangalore & head where the Meru cabs head to - the new airport. Now dont take the diversion to the airport but continue on the Hybd road till you hit the town of Chickbellapur.

Now ask the man( or woman) on the wheels to slow down because we would need to find the hidden Vishweshwarayya statue( we did not manage that and then what happened is worth another post.GPRS phones can come in handy here :) when you lose your way )

Wikipedia had asked us to take the left at the vishweshwarayya statue and then head towards papagni mutt & find your car a cozy alight for the night.

A two and a half hour trek, ( army men and Ankur could possibly get there in less than that time ).The ways are marked except at a few places but chances of getting lost are as good as nil. Half way through with the trek, all of us ended up tying our sweaters to our waists, gulped up a bottle of water each. With Ankur virtually pushing us up to the summit, we ran to get a nice spot for our tripod.

January nights are really cold and trust me, even with gloved hands I could hardly sense the buttons on my camera. But then ego rushed in to do its job, Maddy had began taking night shots and I had to get into action. We always fancied something out of the stove to eat but then, the 3 vegeterians had to be content with biscuits ( they had only omlettes on top :( ).

And then finally the hero for the day decided it was time to call it a DAY :) and the crowd went WOW. Never realized people could be so happy just be seeing the sun :).

Some decent shots ( nothing for a WOW here :( ) is what I had to be happy with. we trekked down in less than 45 min and we had to rush. The next destination was again Ashram where we handed over the car keys to Manisha and then Ankur babu states that his bike keys are @ home. A three wheeler takes us all home, I sleep off@Maddys till 4 and he then drops me back to the place I call home ( only call .. not really ).



Enjoy the pics and would love to go with a bigger gang soon and we can have a lot more fun. And hope I get some nice shots as well.