A typical Sunday in our house would be not much to speak of. It would only rank slightly above watching paint dry. So this particular Sunday we decided not to put to the dust bin, like so many before it. Someone had told about this place called ‘Sivasamudram’ and partly to quench Ranjith’s dying thirst to go on a trip on his Apache we decided to give this place a try.

We were pretty punctual to start off with, planned being a 6 am start and realizing a 7 am start – pretty good for our standards. We took the Mysore road from Bangalore, knowing that it is probably 30km extra. We had a quick bite at one of the many ‘pure’ vegetarian dhabas en route and rode along. The road was excellent and the guys had a great time ripping along. We left Mysore road at Maddur towards Malavalli. That also meant pretty much the end of proper roads. The road from then on were glorified country roads at best. The traffic though was light and the scenery awesome. It was hard to believe all this was less than 100 km away from the hustle and bustle of Bangalore.

We reached the place by around 11 having taken some lavishly long breaks on the way. It was not that difficult to find as there were plenty of signs to guide us. Sivasamudram’s claim to fame is its two waterfalls and the fact that Asia’s first hyro-electric power plant is situated there. As we were not very interested in the latter, we headed straight to the first of the falls – ‘Gaganchukki’. The waterfalls were just grand! The sound, the view everything was amazing. But there were just too many people and it seemed highly commercialized even for Indian standards. We spend some time there taking snaps.

The second waterfall, the ‘Bharchukki’ even though visible quite clearly from here was actually an 18km drive away. That place looked grand again, but was more crowded and dirtier (I mean extremely dirty) than the first one. However again the view just made up for it. There is another waterfall quite close to it and you can go down and have a dip in the water if you want to. We did go down, but the water was too crowded to warrant a dip. A word of caution though – going down would seem quite easy, but bear in mind that the farther you go down, the greater the panting you’ll have to do while you climb back up ;)

Just after noon we started off back. We made a horrendous decision to take the Kanakpura road to Bangalore. The road was just about navigable at best. It took us a lot more time even though the distance was much lesser. On the way, the only notable incident was that the Splendor (our other bike) lost its headlight. So we had to guide Bachu all along back to Bangalore. It was a little bit too tiring for my liking going on a bike. Well, I am more of a car person I guess :) Anyhow it is a nice getaway if you wish to kill some time when you are in Bangalore. Its worth it, just to soak in the peace and calm of the villages despite the crowd at the destination.

  Route  : Bangalore – Maddur (via Mysore road SH 17) – Malavalli (SH 33) – Sivasamudram (NH 209)   134 Km  
 Alternate (highly not recommended) : Bangalore – Kanakapura – Malavalli – Sivasamudram (NH 209 all the way).   119 Km