A Daytrip to M.M Hills

[pmvelu]

Friends,

Car : Santro XO
Route Taken : Mysore - Thiru mookadalu Narsipura (T.N.Pura) - Kollegala-Kamagere-Hanur-Gowdahalli-Maha Madheswara Beta (M.M.Hills / Madhewara Malai in Tamil)-Mysore
Kms(End-to-End) : 290
Theme : Religious
Highways Touched : SH 212, SH 209
Mysore - M.M Hills (one-way) : 142 kms
Camera : Sony H7

Note on Photos:-

Few Photos I have taken but when I try to use the "Manage Attchments" option, system says , Do a manual re-size and upload .Every photo is 2.4 MB and I am trying to understand how to do that with ease and as it's already 2 days over, I thought of posting the travelogue first and previously it was a cakewalk with Imageshack !

Yesterday , we (Me, My father, wife & Kid) visited M.M hills.

We Started around 6 am proceeded towards Mysore Palace , Took Left and drove towards Chamundi Hills Road.

Sign board says ----> Olive Gardens / Planet X 2 kms .

Went straight & again

Signboard says -----> Chamundi Hills.
Went Straight and that's Bannur / T.Narsipura Road.

Took Right turn and went straight and to the right Chamundi Hills is visible and also Lalitha mahal Palace Hotels. Went straight and road is a mix of Average to poor to V.Poor and After Passing through a Narrow bridge, we took a left ( Straight will lead to T.Narsipura Bus stand). After 200 metres, to the left we saw "Yoga Narsimha Swamy temple / Cauvery". Parked the car and found it's unnaturally crowded with local villagers and a BIG group of pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh .It's totally crowded and to our surprise, the temple is also closed.We took few photos , had Tea and resumed our journey !


We Re-Joined the Main road and proceeded and after 50 metres, the signboard says:
^
|
|
|
Talakadu : 15 kms
Shivanasamudra Falls : 43 kms

--------------->
Biligiri Rangana Hills (B.R Hills) : 78 kms
M.M Hills : 121 kms

Note to Talakadu / Shivsamudra Visitors : In one of our past trips we visited Talakadu in ths route only and the road is pooooor but manageable. For talakadu this is the better route(road) & for shivsamudra, the best route(road) from mysore is Mysore- Bannur-Malavalli-Shivsamudra .

Back to our current trip :
We took right and saw signboards suggesting we are at SH212 and road is too good and after few kms ,
^
|
|
|
Chamaraja Nagara
<------------
M.M Hills
Kollega
B.R Hills

We took left which effectively meant we came out of NH 212 but road is good and @ 58th km(car Metre Reading), there was one good temple with Eucalyptus Trees / Shades / Water pipes and there we stopped the car and has the breakfast which we brought and also clicked few photos.

We drove straight and the signboard says:
^
|
|
|
Kollegala 8 kms
M.M Hills
------------>
B.R Hills 34 kms

We Went ahead and passed through Kollegala bus stand and took a right (Here(Near Kollegala Bus stand) it's better to ask as if we continue straight it's SH-209 meant for Melavalli - Bangalore). Around 2 kms we travelled in NH-209 with signboard strongly suggesting we are towards Bangalore . This is the expected route and we took a right and from here on Signboard clearly indicates, we are on the Road Towards , M.M Hills(KArnataka), Mettur(TamilNadu), Salem(TamilNadu).

We passed through Kamagere (84 kms), Hanur (94 kms) and then road is poor with no much human presence and it's all through dry shrubs and passed through Gowdahalli (116 kms).On the way to our surprise we Saw several buses to & from M.M Hills and then we realized we are going to Face the Most croded M.M Hills (As SHivrathiri is the most auspicious festival celebrated by almost all Villages surrounding this hills both from KA &TN Sides). We Reached the base of the Hills .(HEre all buses Stops for 1/2 an hour mandatorily and here there are some road side hotels). FRom this point, the Ghat road Starts , it's 27 Hairpin Bends and through few hills.

Just after the arch, signboard says:

^
|
|
|
Mystery Trails Trekking camp base
---------->
M.M Hills

Road is Average to poor in the entire stretch (Manageable) & just because of the festive season, so many tourist buses and adhoc KSRTC services which means it's free for all with No Horns in even Hairpin bends (I horned in every turn but in some of the hair-pin bends , half-way thorough a bus will come in the opposte direction in full speed and I need to reverse OR wait for bus driver's instructions). We need to be careful as road sides are with BIG holes and pebbles and it's not just a good idea to get down the road and make it back (For Smaller cars).

Atlast we reached M.M Hills (142 kms) and the place is sooooo crowded with people. We parked the car just in front of Police Station (For Safety point& also due to the extra-ordinary crowd we do not know which is the Normal road to reach Parking too)and every metre is occupied by Villagers and even to reach this police station, we need to Plough through the Crowds , Patiently asking people to move without Horn etc.

I kept my camera / Mobile Phone etc in the car and just quickly went to the temple and it's awesome .I mean the Crowd, the Dances by Villagers to the heavy drum beats , Cooking / Sleeping in all the places . No Police force to control crowd but few policeman were there, No Enquiry counter, No Information board and People are so Nice and we asked atleast few people how to get into the temple and each one showed a different way.(Whatever they told is also correct it seems as based on the crowd, there might be adifferent opening to the temple-This is what a old man in our queue told us as he just slept for the night in the road itself and as the crowd is ok now, he came for darshan it seems)We are already in the front of the temple BUT the main door was closed and we wanted to find where is the Q . Atlast we are able to find out the Q, No Special Darshan Funda and only Free Darshan for all and we stood in the Queue for aorund 3 hours and it was bright sunshine !

Had darshan and came out , Find our car along with some other police vehicles (Thank GOD we made a good decision) and drove back in the same route back to Mysore with just a 1/2 an hour halt for Lunch on the way(Which We Again brought with us from Mysuru).

We reached our home around 6 pm.

From M.M Hills :
Hogenakkal Falls - 38 kms
Palar - 15 kms
Mettur - 48 kms
Salem - 100 kms
Hope this will be of some help for our T-Bhp Members who plan a similar trip in the future.

[snaronikar]

Nice report. Would have appereciated if you had posted some pics. But you are informing that you have taken camera Sony H7. What happened?

[akroy]

The highways you touched are NH and not SH.
Waiting for your pics.

Abhi

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by akroy

The highways you touched are NH and not SH.
Waiting for your pics.

Abhi

He must have meant state highway

Nice report, look forward to the pictures.

[pmvelu]

@Naronikar,

As Mentioned in my earlier post, previously I was able to upload directly onto Imageshack and will just tag in the post and the re-sizing part from 2 MB + to 200 +kb will be taken care automatically. After much try , I was able to re-size all photos using a software called xnview.Thanks Mate as you are spending time some time and providing your comments on all my travelogues !

@Akroy,

Oh , thanks for the information. I thought it was State highway .

@Mobike,

Thanks for your time & comments .

Only I am able to click very few photos this time because in the entire ghat road the traffic was too much and there was no space to park on the way to take photos and also not much greenery and the entire hill range is having only dry scrubs and trees too without any leaves ?!. As I said earlier, not able to click photos around the temple as I thought it will be risky to take a high-end camera in such a Huge crowd.

T.Narsipura Temple / Sangam / Breakfast Place / M.M Hills Base/On the Ghat Road/A View of M.M Village :-