Hiking in India....awesome

I’ll start this one off with an adventure I had yesterday night. Safe to say, this was probably one of the most exciting/crazy/awesome/excruciatingly tiring things I’ve done in my life. There’s a good amount of pretext before the good part so bear with me!

Last Saturday afternoon, while sitting on my couch happily eating a subway sandwich (as usual) after I had just come back from a run, I get a phone call from a nice lady who is good friends with some family friends of mine back home and also a professor at IIM-Bangalore. I knew that the family friends would be coming to Bangalore sometime this month, so when the professor mentioned that they were all meeting up for dinner at a nice restaurant, I had a serious dilemma because I already had HUGE plans. I was really looking forward to going to my office to work on this exciting valuation model all night for an upcoming presentation. Then at 8, I was gonna go to McDonalds (McDonalls) treat myself to a McAloo burger and ThumsUp. Man, I had it all planned out. (Punches Self)

Haha, just kidding. We planned to meet up at 7:30, and the restaurant was actually located EXACTLY at the place all the way on the other side of the city that I had walked home from before. (Read blog post #3 for clarification, haha). This time, I auto rickshawed that ish. I get to the ‘restaurant’, which happens to be a nice sports lounge/bar, and meet up with my aunt, uncle, and their son.

Before I go on, I gotta explain that they’re not actually my aunt/uncle; rather, it’s common in Indian culture to call close family friends aunt/uncle.
In addition to my aunt, uncle and their son, there’s also the IIM prof, her daughter (who works at ESPN), and some other family friends of my aunt/uncle and their daughter (who works at Google).

So anyways, we all exchange the usual formalities, and introduce ourselves to everyone else. Everyone at the table above 25 (that is, everyone but me, my aunt/uncle’s son, the ESPN girl, and the Google girl), are having just a great time reminiscing about olden days, while we’re having a fun conversation ourselves. The topic gets to what a foreigner like me does in a new city. Luckily, I have an answer beyond eating Subway and watching TV. I’ve planned a hiking trip with a travel agent suggested by a partner at my firm, and the mountain’s about 5 hours outside of Bangalore, and I can’t wait to go next week. The travel agent had asked me how experienced I was at hiking, so he could pick an appropriately difficult trek. I told him I was very experienced….I’ve never hiked before.

Haha, no, seriously, I’ve always had this fascination with hiking. Quite honestly, I want to get out the city, go somewhere completely random, burn my legs going up a ridiculous mountain, get to the top and just sit there. The last time I came to India, we went on a fair number of trains, and I always used to wonder what it would’ve been like to climb the mountains that you see miles away in the distance. They’re not huge mountains – nothing like the Rockies…or even the Berkshires, and because of that, they look pretty climbable. Like, seriously, how hard could it be to climb one of these mountains? Just start at the bottom, and keep going…right? (WOW, did I find out how wrong I was.)

So I finish this ridiculous mountain diatribe and ESPN girl, my aunt/uncle’s son, and Google girl are sitting dumbfounded.

I tried to explain to my logic just a bit further. So, it gets boring in the city…fast. Seriously, malls/clubs/shops become eye-sores within a week. I’ve pretty much walked around a lot of Bangalore by now and I know this place like Maahi Ve the day before Phillyfest (obnoxious Dmak reference, haha). But, more than anything, I wish I had a motorbike, so I could just go somewhere randomly. You can only go so far by walking or jogging. And apparently, you can’t just rent a motorbike in Bangalore. So finally, I booked this trip to this ridiculous mountain. It’s a two day trip, and I won’t miss work. It might rain, supposedly, which is the only negative, but now or never (seriously).

The three people sort of got what I was saying now. Then, something pretty funny happened. Google girl (her name’s Aakanksha – haha, I should really name her now) tells me that her and her friends are going on a midnight trek on a mountain 70 km outside the city THAT NIGHT and that I’d be more than welcome to come.

Could this really be happening? Um, yes, please. So, after dinner, I said bye to my aunt/uncle and their son, and myself, Aakanksha, her Mom and her Dad went to her house on the northern fringe of Bangalore, where her friends would be coming in two cars to go to this place. We get to her house, and within about an hour her friends arrive, and we meet them outside her apartment complex.

Absolutely amazing people! There were eight of us total – me, Aakanksha, Shashi, Madhu, Bharat, Kunal, Maria, and damn, I forgot the name of the last person. I’m sorry if you’re reading this!!!

Its now 2 AM, and Bharat, me, Aakanksha and Maria are in one car and the other four people are in the other car. The night’s really cool, and I open my window as we pull on to the equivalent of a freeway and start driving north. Slowly, we start peeling away from the city, buildings disappear, and on both sides the Indian plains stretch empty for miles. It was really peaceful, and refreshing when Bharat, who was sitting in the front, started blasting techno. Awkward. Haha, we chatted it up, talked about a whole bunch of things, and I asked where these guys had found out about this mountain. Apparently, as Aakanksha told me, from a blog post….awesome.

About an hour later, we get to this tinny village in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and take a left onto the village ‘main road’. The streets are completely empty, but oddly enough (as you’ll see all over India), there’s huge posters for Reliance, Airtel, Kannada movies, blah blah blah, STILL!

It’s quite as anything (well, apart from us, and our techno), and we continue driving down the street, and absolutely everything disappears. Before there were highway lights, and even other cars passing by here and there. Now, nothing. Absolutely pitch black, and every now and then you’d see a small, unlit house. If I ever become a horror-movie director, I know where I’m going.

We keep driving, and driving down this road, but we can’t find the turnoff that this blog talked about. We go down the road for about a half hour (at ridiculous speeds), and finally we stop. We can’t even see any mountains anymore; its too dark.

Its now about 330 AM, when Bharat decides to go back down the way we came. Then, on the side of the road, standing underneath the singular streetlight, is an old man. Bharat speaks Kannada the best out of everyone, so he asks him for directions.

As is typical anywhere in India, the old man is happy to give directions. Almost too happy. Its 330, shouldn’t you be asleep? We’re still not quite sure what he’s talking about, so we invite him into the car to show us (the other car, hahaha). So, we finally do find the turn off, and after about 10 minutes driving down a small, narrow, rocky road, we finally get to a temple that the blog described being next to the mountain. We’re there, finally.

To my surprise, there’s at least 10-15 other people there as well. It starts to rain a bit, but we gather our stuff, get out of our cars, and start walking to the trail that goes up the mountain. Again, let me reiterate that it’s PITCH BLACK. We had a few flashlights, but it was pretty difficult to see where we were going. The trail winds up the side of the mountain, and we started climbing officially at around 4 AM. I am not tired in the least.

We start climbing, and quickly the trail becomes fairly treacherous. At times, it was almost a 50-60 degree incline of slippery rock that needed to be scaled using both hands and feet. About an hour later, we’re halfway (or so it seems) up the mountain, and day break seems to be coming. Madhu and Kunal give up; it looked pretty hopeless. We stop every now and then, but everytime it seemed that we were finally at the top, and that the mountain couldn’t possibly be any larger, it just seemed to be getting bigger. My legs were aching rocks, and as concept of stretching hasn’t reached India quite yet, everyone else is tired as well. But, come on, it was impossible to even think about giving up. An hour later, day break comes – we had missed seeing the sunrise at the top of the mountain. But, still, can’t give up. Finally, after incredible exertion, we finally reach the top, where there’s at least 20 other people. (Where did these peeps come from, I’m thinking). Heck I saw dogs at the top.

But, we’re there. At the top. And we can’t see anything because it’s too misty. Soo anticlimactic. What’s worse, we realized the hike down would be even harder because it was slightly drizzling the entire time, and the rocks would be even more wet. But, it felt good. Maria, Aakanksha, Shashi, and myself are the only people who actually make it all the way to the top. And we just talked, and talked and took pictures for a long time. I'm going back to Hyderabad after July 31st, and Shashi and Aakanksha are also going to be there at that time, so there's a good chance that I'll have another blog about this in about a month!

Also, climbing a mountain is really tangible accomplishment. If you’re ever in need of quick reassurance, do some stretching, wear shoes that have some grip, and go climb a mountain (go be somebody!). Hahah, jk.

The trek down wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be, and we stopped multiple times to take pictures of just breathtaking views. Every now and then, in between breaks in tree, you’d find ledges from which you could see for miles. My god, the vantage point below the mist was amazing. The countryside rolled on till the horizon, and the air was so clean (huge break from pollution-filled Blore). Farms, small villages, winding roads, greenery. It felt good. I could’ve sat there all day.

But I was also INCREDIBLY HUNGRY, and I wanted nothing else but coffee, some Jilebi and a bed. We finally made it down, and drove back to Bangalore (I was passed out in the back seat), and I got home at 11. Haha, before I got home, I went into UB City Mall (the most luxurious, posh mall you’ll seriously ever see) where they had a Subway and got a sandwich. I smelled fantastic, my hair was incredibly neat, and I was not covered by dirt at all. Except not. It was awesome seeing people gawk at me. Yea, that’s right, I went hiking at 4 AM, you punk-ass mofo and it was awesome. I got back to my apt. and passed out before even knowing it.

Incredible.


I posted some pics. I, like an idiot, FORGOT MY CAMERA, and had to take pics with my phone. They’re ok. I’ll get pics from my friend Shashi soon, and post them as well.




EDIT: I'm a big fan of this picture. Looks like a Bierstadt painting.




Haha, that's Maria, not some random person! She would later drop my waterbottle down a ravine.







The mountain from a distance...