Chalo Ramdevara Betta

A trek to any place is refreshing as is rewarding in terms of getting away from the chains of the city and becoming one with the nature. The increasing heat from the sun and decreasing number of people on the roads during this time kind of put me in a dilemma then as to whether or not to go on a trek. Having already gone on a trek with the Bangalore Trekking Club to Ramdevara Betta at Ramnagara where I enjoyed a lot with the best company of people, I was looking forward to a similar fun-filled experience yet again. The mind is greedy that way. Once it gets a taste of something good, it yearns for more of the same. Mine was no different.

On the early morning of 25^th February, when most part of Bangalore was still asleep and lazily spending their Saturday, I set out from my house to meet the fellow trekkers at the Majestic Railway station. Met some known faces and tried to strike a conversation with the unknown ones to get to know them. It was overwhelming to meet a lot of like-minded people. Like me, most of them had the same mantra to while away their leisure time: “When arrives the weekend, travel till the world’s end.”

Random Banyan tree

The day had started to heat up already and it was not a good sign as we had to scale up boulders and rocks. Anyways, nobody complained about it and we all got into the train once everyone had given their attendance to our organizer, Ashish. We had a quick introduction of the 26 people team and then followed a rigorous Zee-TV-SaReGaMaPa-Level Antakshari. For most part of the journey, people sang their hearts out, ranging from retro, to modern, to kannada, to tamil songs. The bathroom singer in me did not hesitate to showcase the singing talents to the world. While we were at this, one of the trekkers told that Kyatsandra was the next stop and in about sometime, we got off the train.

The sugarcane juice stalls at Kyatsandra did not let us go past them without getting tempted. Besides, the scorching heat of the sun left us no choice. So, we drank the juice to our heart’s fullest. Soon after this, we started to walk towards the base of the peak and after treading for about 1.5kms, we reached the place. The trek was fairly easy. The only thing that was challenging was dodging the sun’s pristine rays. This was the day the sun decided to glow at its best. I pulled off a tongue-out emoji’s emotion by using the sleeves and sun-screen in defense.

(Not so) Bird's eye view

The views were beautiful and kept us awed for a while. The city of Kyatsandra looked so tiny from up there and this is as simple as it needs to be to amuse me. We began our normal tradition of taking a million pictures on the top besides pulling the legs of people (metaphorically, of course) and talking all the things in the world. My friend, Geetha and her friend, Haravind had joined for this trek and I could see that they were loving the ‘being one with the nature’ part too. Ashish, for the amazing photographer he is, besides a super cool entertainer, started to click pics of people being in the air for a brief moment. This was the day when he gave people a million DPs and even more memories to look back at. This was followed by lunch and Potluck was the best thing that could happen. God bless Prashant who'd got yummy Dharwad pedas and Ashish for the Tang which were so relieving! I relished the Palak Paneer that my mom prepared. The descent began soon after.

The 7km trek ended on a happy note with sugarcane juices making us happy yet again, after the descent this time. We all walked back to the railway station to head back to Bangalore where daily traffic haunted us and other things were overshadowed by the traffic. There was a quick feedback session at the Kyatsandra railway station. Everyone praised Ashish and I do not see a reason why not for he has been an amazing organizer. While it was time for the train to arrive, I began to sulk at the fact that yet another beautiful trek had ended. I bade the city and hopped on to the train that took me home. Even before I realized, the board on the outside read “SBC”.

The team