Narayangiri

Narayangiri is a rocky hill near Jalamangala. The ascent is easy and not much steep. It also has a few railings on the way. The rocks generally have a good grip, but gets slippery during rains.There is also a temple at the top.

Difficulty: Easy, Rocky

The plan:

It was decided to meet at 6:30 with “the train doesn't wait!” thrown in hoping for the best. 6:30 was going to be tough as i sleep early. I mean early morning, like i’m writing this @2:00AM and yet to sleep. So by the time I felt a little sleepy it was 2:30 and I planned to get up @3:30 and catch the first bus from a place 2 KM far from my place at 4:30. Yeah, a stupid plan. I learnt a lot about planning for busses is Bangalore because of this trek.

The Trek:

It started @4:00 AM (should have considered the traffic  ). Walked about 2KM to catch a bus, which by the way was late and so had to wait at the bus stop for another half an hour. So finally got a bus at 4:50 AM. My awesome early morning sleep was broken with a jolt! Reached majestic in 20 mins. Now what! Felt terribly hungry. Went straight to the 24 hrs dakshen restaurant inside the station and filled myself to the brim. I could meet others only at 7.15 AM. What a wait!

With sleepy eyes, managed to get in the train after a quick round of introductions. Got to know that car parking was so costly that few people decided to leave in car for Narayangiri. We decided to meet at Ramanagaram.

All the sleep was gone as soon as we boarded the train. Reason- dumb charades. And this game doesn't stop. You just expand the team, get new players, movies get crazier, and the fun increases exponentially. We reached ramanagaram in about an hour and went straight to a hotel. I was already filled with idly’s but tried the one scoop kara bath+one scoop kesari bath combo which was very nice. Here we packed our lunch and then walked towards the bus stand. There we met our car group and then boarded a bus to Jalamangala. We were joined by 2 more guys who couldn't make it to the railway station. And another round started, and everyone in the bus seemed to enjoy our game. With more people and space issues, we had to give movie names through SMS a few times! Before we knew it, we were there at our destination. A few kilometers and we reached our base. Now cameras were out and the game paused. Wait not for long though. We quickly climbed to the top with very few stops in between. The terrain was not difficult and was a easy climb with greens on the right and rocks ahead. We spotted a few cave like structures, can’t call them proper caves though, and clicked some awesome pictures with all kind of poses. All showcasing their acting skills for photographs  .

As soon as we were on the top, the game started again. Movies got tougher, acting more creative and hunger at peak. We decided to have our packed pulao. After some post lunch power naps and photo shoots, we were ready to head back. We descended quickly and covered some photogenic spots on the way, we were back pretty early so decided to take a bus after having some mango juice. Luckily we got some seats and reached Bangalore with a experience to remember!

Some Tips:

1. You can't go wrong with Idly Vada’s generally. So grab them whenever you can.

2. You can play Dumb charades anywhere and for as long as you want.

3. Bangalore has a lot of buses. Don't worry you can reach on time.