Chamundi Betta at midnight!

It all started on Saturday morning when I reached Mysore and told Nikhil, “How about Chamundi Hills today?” Nikhil instantly agreed. So the plan was on. As for the timing, I suggested evening, but Nikhil thought playing table tennis was better and so favoured a night visit at around 9. And as it turned out, we ended up played TT well beyond that time. But somehow we still had the energy for a ride to the hills. And so we made a post dinner plan. Dinner was a modest fare at a roadside eatery (delicious though) and then at around 10:45 PM we set out towards Chamundi Hills, after picking up Deepak on the way.

The road was deserted, the weather was cold enough for an adventure but not uncomfortable, and the bike ride was awesome. We stopped on the way up for a couple of quick photographs (to prove that we actually did all that stuff, you know).Here they are:

With very few vehicles to disturb us, the view of the city below was absolutely breathtaking. Needless to say, the photo doesn’t do any justice to the sight we saw.

We did a quick about-turn when we reached the top and while coming down, we stopped at another view-point (this one was on the right side of the road) and devoured the fried rice parcels we had brought with us. The whole thing got a little more exciting when I reminded the others that cheetahs were spotted in the area. Of course when the others went on about how the cheetahs like to go for pillion riders, I was a lot less amused (I was riding behind Nikhil, you see). Anyway, since the road was mercifully devoid of pillion-rider-eating-cheetahs, we reached the foot of the hills at around 12:30 AM, safe, sound and dog-tired.

I have been to Chamundi hills more times than I can count, but this midnight trip turned out to be very special indeed!