What happens when four crazy software engineers plan for something over a weekend....... lot of things can happen.. one of them was
a crazy roadtrip to a hill station, roughly 500 kms of sheer driving.....





get set and go......

That’s what we did over one of the weekends, instead of spending time out in the busy streets of the over populated choking city of Bangalore, we decided to get closer to nature, This place was Ooty(termed the queen of hills).
So what is great about it, well the plan was to come back the same day.... that takes some real crazy minds to come out with this kinda plan.

still lot to cover…

We decided everything on Friday evening, still remember how our other colleagues thought what a crazy idea it was. I was supposed to pick Pavan, Sanket and Veeru (ma three team mates) from MG road around 6:00 am, yeah 6. was I out of my senses to have decided on this time, well you guessed it right, I never made it on time ;-) was an hour late..... :) the usual reason of Bangalore traffic that I have used so well on all my previous delays didn’t work this time around, at that early in the morning a traffic jam is something that no one is gonna buy... not even a software engineer…. :D

well the guys were so excited to get set and go.. that they didn’t mind the 1hr waiting.. :) also given the fact that I was gonna drive all the way... they gave me the liberty of not being punctual.

the Bangalore Mysore road.

It didn’t take us that long to get out of the city and hit the Bangalore Mysore highway... I have to tell you, this is one stretch of a road everyone would want to drive in....
I tested my car to its maximum limits, we touched the 140 - 150 Km/hr more than a couple of occasions and on an average were above 100... I knw that was dangerous but then that was the fun part... it was a roadtrip and the mission was to reach ooty have the afternoon tea and be back in bangalore for supper....:)

on our way to Mysore, we picked up a friendly drag with a fellow highway rider.. a black Inova guy...everytime I overtook him he used to catchup on me...like a stealh having a dog fight, right behind me...the fun was ultimate.Finally we did win... :D

my three partners in crime ;-)

FL:- Veeru, Sanket and Pavan

Ladies stop drooling at Sanket,he is married Veeru is engaged so only guys

left are, Pavan and me

and within no time we reached the heritage city, Mysore... an hour and half..that was good job.. normally on an average it takes 3hrs.... right on the money there to acomplish our mission....
we did loose our way a bit inside mysore, and landed up in front of the famous campus of Infosys...guess our software minds... did the mess up.. anyways finally got the right route... and were back on track.On the way to Ooty comes two wild life sancturies, Bandipur and Mudhumallai forest sanctury..

thank you sir…was really refreshing

into the territory of TN
better love wild life.. no other choice, when you are driving thru a jungle ;-)

Took our first pit stop in a highway side hotel, Had the typical south Indian break fast masala dosa and chai (Indian word for tea). Surprisingly these roadside restaurants taste awesome ;-)Well till now the journey has been fun…… lot of singing and racing. Also surprisingly Sanket didn’t sleep at all.


chai and masala dosa…ahh I miss Indian food :(

behind those mountains is our destination

We started entering the ghat section (the mountain roads)… and went through countless scary hair pin bends…during the course of this, I realised that there are other curves.. which are more exciting.. than the ones that female’s have ;-)
We did take few more stop over.. most of the time it was just to answer natures call. I guess when we are this close to nature.. it often gives a call ;-)

relief ;-)
now enuf of staring..:-x

After around 36 hair pin bends, we reached the lovely place called ooty.. phew it indeed is a paradise. No wonder back in colonial time The British had their summer business held here. They did have a great taste.

The view from one of the cliffs was breath taking.

By the way we didn’t come here for the view… remember, we started off to have the finest Nilgiri tea.We found it, at least the name says so ;-)

yeah guys enjoy the tea…how about taking my pic, I drove all the way

look at them they are so happy… hi hi hi I just got an evil idea;-)

hi hi hi…now you don’t look that happy…. :D

The time is around 2 30, oh my gosh.. we need to get back, as is with every road trip the excitement is only till you reach the destination, often we don’t realise that the more we keep going further we need to cover that much more on our way back L…. Well in our case the TN police didn’t help much either, they didn’t let us take the short route that we had taken to come up, instead we had to take another route which added 30 more kilometres to the already long way back….

On our way back, we did try throwing out veeru into the forest couple of times.. but he held on to the seat very tight.This time he was lucky…

We did find some wild animals by the road while coming back.. Though I wont call them wild….
Have a look…

We reached back safe and sound…. Around 10:30 we were having dinner in Bangalore,

so The Mission was accomplished.

Thats all folks...

me signing off.. will come back with yet another crazy adventure :D
till then take care, enjoy life and be nice