Morning ride to less known Thattekere Lake!

Crew Members: Arun, Geo, Appu, Jatheesh, Ruwise, Nikhil and myself

Duration: 5 hours (In total!)

Expense: Fuel costs for the bikes!

Date: 26th January 2014 (Yes! Republic day special ride it was! :D)

Terrain info: A lake in the middle of forest! Pretty dangerous! (Blog will explain why!)

Abstract: A very well planned but not very well executed trip! (You'll know why! ;))

Geo goes loquacious when the topic of our discussion ends in lakes and finally to Thattekere Lake! That's one of his favorite hang out spot! Ever since I start hearing about this place from him, I wanted to pay a visit there! 

We all had a chill out party at Arun's apartment in Bellandur the day before. Except Jatheesh, every one else was present there! You know what happens when mallu guys get together and we had a pretty awesome time chatting and narrating each of ours trekking experiences. Last week's Kumara Parvatha trek was the hot topic! And this went on till midnight! Our plan was to start our trip by 4:30 in the morning and to reach the destination at the most by 5:45AM. During January-March, when most of the narrow rivers and water sources in the forest gets dried, wild animals like Elephants, Bysons, Deers, Sloth bears, boars are forced to depend on this man made Thattekere lake for water and early 5-7 is their routine time in fetching water!

Some one said - 'I have kept an alarm for 4AM'! We called up Jatheesh and told him to come to the apartment by 4:30AM as he is the one who generally wakes up late among us.

Every one had sound sleep and alarm tone appeared like some disco music in every one's dreams and went unnoticed!

Geo woke me up at 7 in the morning and I jumped with a shock! Checked my phone and saw 8 missed calls from Jatheesh between 4:30 and 5:20 in the morning and a message in Whatsapp saying 'I am going back to sleep'! :D

Soon we all got freshened up and made Geo call Jatheesh and convince him to come as soon as possible! He agreed and mean while Geo and Nikhil left in Nikhil's bike to Electronic City where Geo resides. Ruwise took a bus to his place in Bommanahalli and he agreed to meet up at Electronic City. Jatheesh came by 8 AM and myself, Arun, Appu and Jatheesh had breakfast and kick started our trip at 8:30AM! And this explains the abstract I chose for the trip (A very well planned but not very well executed trip)!

We reached Geo's house in 45 mins and in another 30 mins we started from the place. Destination is 23 Kms from Geo's house in Electronic city and road in not in very good shape. Mean while, we were 7 and we had only three bikes - Enfiled Electra, Enfield Thunderboird and Yamaha FZ. I had to ride in triples! :D
The moment we left city, it was all villages! There were lot of the humps in the road which made the ride a nightmare at times! There was a temple with a name that started with 'Kote' and I regret not remembering the whole name! This temple was on top a small rock hill and it looked amazing! Its a nice hang out place if one can reach the there by evening 5! 

We drove ahead and then came up a noticeably big Anjaneya temple on the RHS. Beyond the Anjaneya temple, a stretch on 1.1Kms in extremely rugged road and it extremely dusty! I strongly recommend carrying a dust mask and goggle for the driver and the pillion if you are attempting a bike trip! And we drove through a small village which made us look me feel like I had time traveled at least 30 years backward. In another 6 Kms, we reached a decent road and Geo stopped for breakfast. Geo, Ruwise and Nikhil had the genuine 'halli thindi' (village breakfast and it appeared delicious). There were ragi cultivation happening around and couple of ladies were dropping the harvested ragi from a height in wind to separate the chaff out of it. I asked the lady if I can take a photograph and she was happy to comply! 

The tuck shop opposite had two labrador pups tied at the door and I went crazy! I went near them and they were very excited to get some one to play with them. I asked the shopkeeper about the details and he said they were named 'Bonu' and 'Bhawani' and there were two months old. Bonu was already on my elbow biting my hand. I clicked a pic of Bonu.

Soon we left and in 30 mins we reached our destination crossing couple more villages. It was 10AM by then! Lake as such was so magnificent! The view was awesome and it appeared to me a perfect picnic spot! The lake was so placid. There were two cars parked on the banks of the lake and three couples and their kids were having a picnic there!

The eucalyptus forest on the other side of the river stood out! I was thinking how this place would have looked if it was not so low in water level!

We parked our bikes and started to walk. There was a bund constructed on top which one can walk and reach the other side of the river. Geo showed us the spots where the elephants generally appear for their drinks! There were lot of birds in the lake and I wished if my lens was 18-400mm instead of 18-200mm! I clicked couple of pics with the best zoom I could.

We could find couple of other guys on the other side of the lake with pretty big lens and they were behind the birds appearing there. Sun was already at its peak this is the time of the day I hate clicking photos! Once we reached the spot were elephants appear we could see the shores of the lake carrying foot prints of elephants and there were elephants dungs all around and not one appeared fresh! Which could imply one of these two possibilities - Either elephants did not turn up there that day or elephants realized not to take a dump where they drink! :D
We walked around and entered in to the eucalyptus forest and most of the trees were covered with termites nest. Geo was walking in front and he lightly at one of the trees. A flake of termites nest fell off and I saw a baby scorpion there! We took a couple of photos of it! I have seen enough black scorpions in my home in Kerala but this one was the smallest scorpion I have ever seen! 

We talked and reached the other side of the river there were more birds. There were traces of cap fire there and remnants of fish and crab cooked! If we had come with fishing hooks, we could have given a try. Soon we realized there is no point in wasting more time here! We decided to come once again to this place and do a night camp! This lake is rumored about in having a crocodile inside. There were instances were elephants attacked people here! And yes we decided to have a night camp here in March! Remember I told we were nuts in my previous blog! The statement holds good every where! We made our walk back to the bikes.

We took a group picture and we started our ride back and I noticed the a temple at the point where we deviated from the roads and the name it carried was Thattekere Mahadeshwara temple. Another thing I noted, the place where we entered into the forest and lake had a check post gate which I initially thought was a forest check post gate but later realized it wasn't. The gate carried spikes and it was to avoid elephants to walk into the village! And that made me really excited about the night camp we had planned! On the way back, I was of the mission to count the number of humps and guess what the count I ended up with was! 63 humps and 14 inverted humps! Yes, in the stretch of 23 Kms! So I highly recommend, guys with back pain and trouble with disc, not to attempt a bike ride in this road! We were back in Bangalore city by 1:30PM.

Our team pic:

Things to remember:

1. Walking into the forest is only advised with forest permissions and with the local people that they send as guides.

Do's:

1. Start off early from the city and try to reach there by 6 AM at least!
2. Do carry dust mask and goggles if you are planning for a bike trip!

Don't:

1. Please don't leave behind any plastic covers and other non-degradable waste as this places in pretty clean now.

2. Don't attempt to walk around in lake in dark.

3. Never attempt a camp unless you are nuts like us or if you are few in numbers!

4. Don't let too many people know about the place! :P
    This place is Majestic and don't turn into another Majestic of Bangalore! :P