Away from hustle bustle of bangalore

jassi · 1st July 2007, 02:55

Although I have done a few road trips in my dad's car in pune - this was the first time I got the chance to take my own 2 yr old santro out of the daily bangalore grind. Normally I wouldn't have got the time, but fortunately our company organised an all india team offsite in a resort called "our native village" in hesserghatta which is not very far from Bangalore ~~our native village~~

Most teammates who were flown from other states, took the volvo buses which were arranged. A few of us from bangalore decided to go in a motorcade. So started on Thursday morning at 11am to avoid traffic and landed in a big traffic jam on the gurudwara ulsoor one way road.
After getting out the traffic jam met with the gang after ulsoor lake - we had 1 swift lxi, palio retro 1.6, alto and my santro. There were other guys in scorpios and innovas who had already left behind the volvos at 10 am from mg road. We were a group of like-minded late starters

We braved all the traffic upto metro yeshwantpur.
From there on we had a map to follow. Below directions maybe useful to ppl who wanna go (they were provided by a colleague who had arranged the event)
At Metro Yeshwantpur we turned our trip meter to 0.
Now drove on the road to Penya on the Poona Bangalore highway.
At 2.1 km we passed RNS motors on the Rt side, then next passed the Penya turnoff at 5 km, we stayed on the Rt lane.
At 6.4 km there was Optolabs on the Rt side and next to that was the black glass Reliance house. Took a Rt turn immediately after this – this is the Hessarghatta Road.
We drove for another 19 kms – but for the next 9 kms the road was full of potholes. The road does become good after this patch.

We then passed an IBP petrol bunk and St Teresa’s Nursing college on the left and decided to get some fuel at an IBP bunk . The guy had no premium fuel so took some 6 ltrs of regular stuff in the hopes of finding a shell bunk ahead. However we soon realized, there were lotsa pumps ahead but none accepted credit cards. So decided to take some cash out at a UTI atm. Parked the cars on the crowded road (lotsa traffic) and took cash out of the atm. My swift friend warned me there was a big hole where he had parked and I shld take care when taking off behind him. Infact the side of the whole road where we had parked was dug up n we had parked partially on the road and the dug up area. I have big 185/60/13 yokohamas so wasn't really worried, till I hit a large stone (which I didn't see) while avoiding the hole. Was very irritated and was hoping there was no damage to moving parts as well as the brand new anti-corrosive underbody coating. Drove with music off to check for any strange sounds but all seemed cool as confirmed by my passenger buddy.

After this we came across an arch and Vijayashree International public school on the Rt.
At this point there were plenty of directions to Kuteeram and Nitryagram and also the brown coloured boards of “Our Native Village”. Followed directions to the KUTEERAM
At 8.7 km we came across a V fork at which we took the Rt fork with the Saptagiri college of Engineering on the Rt side (a black building).
At 9.6 km we got another V fork and took the Rt fork again with Janapriya Nivas on the Rt.
At 9.9 km we got the railway crossing and that was a long half hour wait. After that we went straight – avoiding the mud track on the Rt.
We then stopped, to empty our tanks. Also i tried to check under the car for any damage nothing visible, except lotsa dripping fluid - checked thoroughly after opening hood, but that was just water from AC - never seen so much dripping though!! We enjoyed the scenery around the tracks - trees and grass all around.
Started again and at 10.5 km we passed the Chikkabanavara village- went straight through the village.
At 12.2 km we passed the BWSSB station. At 14.8 km we heaved a sigh of relief because the roller coaster ride on bad road had come to an end – the road became good now.
At 17.9 km we hit the the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research with a road turning to the right, we stayed on the straight road.
At 18.9 km we passed the Central Poultry research institute and took the right. There we saw the nice Hessergatta Lake in front of us. At 20.8 km there was the Turkey feed unit.
At 21.4 km took a left turn from the board of Our Native Village and Kuteeram.
At 22.5 km we passed the Adarsh film studio in front of us- road turned to the left .till now we had been following the Kuteeram sign boards. After this there is turning on the Rt for the Govt film institute-which we ignored.

Immediately after this we took the next right turn and after a 1.5 km drive through some spectacular open savannah type of landscape going into the horizon, we got to a T junction through a clump of trees. Took the Rt turn. and 500 mts later we were there "Our Native Village"

The place was nice - had a rustic village kind of look and fortunately we were late so got a room all to myself. Fields and trees all around it looked great.

We had a few official sessions (well can't be avoided) and then party time - lotsa drinks (i stayed almost sober) and it was still 11pm. Most people got sloshed (literally - we had so much beer we sprayed it all over each other, i think the taklus will soon grow hair from beer conditioner) and left, except me and 4 more colleagues. We cracked stupid jokes "knock-knocks" and even stupid surdi jokes by our surdi colleague. Then one of the drunken colleagues decided he could take on the muscular bartender in arm wrestling - lost 5 times and still claimed he could beat the guy hehehe.

It was still 1 so decided to hit the fields in a friends scorpio - we drove on the fields chasing rabbits in the scorpio, the drunk arm wrestling guy hanging out the car with a glass of vodka (dangerous!!). Then we all took up the challenge on climbing this huge tree - only to realize we couldn't come down, man it was a funny 30 mins

. Crashed in the awesome bedroom at 3am.

Next morning, we decided to skip the games and lunch stuff in afternoon and left at 1130am for the road back. The drive back was no traffic fast one and made it back to bangalore in 3hrs. We then had lunch at this northy buffet joint and parted ways.

I could hear some strange sounds everytime i braked to slow down- more audible at low speeds. So decided to goto advaith hyundai service station on mission road. Decided to tank on some shell fuel from old madras road and then it happened - i got into shell bunk, was driving to pump in lane 5, when a stupid learner in a santro with "L"s all over it decided to swing out of lane 4 and head to lane 5 and bang my car on the right back door!!! I got out and argued over his mistake. But he said it wasn't his mistake (imagine after he hits me on the back). i said ok fine lets goto a police station and lodge a case so that we can get 3rd party insurance and he said "NO". i said ok lets goto hyundai service and I pay for your bumper damage (near zero) and you pay for mine and he says "no". He seemed confused and scared when I asked him if he has insurance, i dont think he even had a proper license (learner lic maybe). I shouted in anger when he seemed so illogical and even swore once (me bad boy), but finally saw he had a family in car and let go after writing his car number down (just incase). he saw me doing that and drove away like hell hehehe without even filling fuel.

Well then made it to Hyundai on mission road, there was some small wheel cylinder rusted in rear brakes, which they cleaned for free (as I had just got 1st paid service done before trip). i got car washed and the damage on right door was all his silver paint, my real earth paint was intact, but alas there was a dent.
Anyways caught a movie at inox "fantastic four" w office buddies, dropped one of em who was staying at Taj, normally don't drink, but had some rum and hot water at caesars on mg road to remedy my nad throat frm partying, dropped another colleague at airport at 8pm, went for another movie "aap ka suroor" (waste, plz dont watch it!!) with my best frnd in blore.

While driving home at night 1am went through a human breath-analyser cop at old madras road, who wanted me to breathe out on his face before he let me go hahha too funny I think they should get some proper breathe analyser. That was the funny end of my 2 days of fun (except for dent), came home and crashed.

If you are still reading, you have some tremendous patience. let me know if it was worth reading (maybe the directions will be useful if you want to go to hessrghatta)

Over and out
-j

jassi · 1st July 2007, 03:16

ok heres the link to the directions from their site
~~our native village~~ which is what I think my friend adapted his directions - imagine I thought the guy actually drove down and wrote those directions down every few kms

Also the map http://www.ournativevillage.com/map.jpg

Now my post will be a bit shorter to read

Mods - if u feel this is more of a travelogue vs a street experience feel free to move it to the other section - i put it here cos it had lotsa street experiences in it.

Cheers,
j

ravibhat · 1st July 2007, 16:22

oh thats big really took 30 minutes for me to read and you might have taken 1 hour to prepare it.

How is food in the resort ? I am searching for good resort around bangalore to take my company guys and also many family members.

Regards,

Ravi.

jassi · 1st July 2007, 16:40

Hi Ravi - 30 mins

it took me 30 mins to post that stuff.
Food there was good. They had a buffet arranged for us - breakfast, lunch and dinner - all indian food. Also the staff there was good enough to prepare egg, cheese and veggie sandwiches, whenever we asked.
We were a total of 40 ppl and most were on a 2 ppl room-sharing basis, unlike some of us late latifs who got our own rooms

-j

ajmat · 2nd July 2007, 08:30

I was at the resort a couple of weeks back. The roads believe are bad. The Swift on its low profile tyres had it bad.

Resort is great - the eco stuff behind it is really amazing and food is not bad. One needs to stay over for a day to enjoy it.

javed406 · 2nd July 2007, 11:52

Can u post some pics of the resort?

rjstyles69 · 2nd July 2007, 13:12

ajmat, there is an alternate route to reach this place. You can actually go via Jalahalli East and further on to reach this place.

theMAG · 2nd July 2007, 13:20

Thats a great resort- it was on TV too

jassi · 2nd July 2007, 13:26

~~our native village~~
Keep clicking next on that link to see all pics of the resort. unfortunately I forgot to carry my camera

they even arranged a dance floor for us to party. Besides this we had an event mgmt team there to make us do games, milk cows, etc

skandyhere · 3rd July 2007, 12:03

pretty detailed! and yes, it did take SOME time to go through it. thanks for posting!!

1st July 2007, 02:55	#1
jassi BHPian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Melbourne Posts: 980 Thanked: 12 Times View My Garage	Away from hustle bustle of bangalore Although I have done a few road trips in my dad's car in pune - this was the first time I got the chance to take my own 2 yr old santro out of the daily bangalore grind. Normally I wouldn't have got the time, but fortunately our company organised an all india team offsite in a resort called "our native village" in hesserghatta which is not very far from Bangalore ~~our native village~~ Most teammates who were flown from other states, took the volvo buses which were arranged. A few of us from bangalore decided to go in a motorcade. So started on Thursday morning at 11am to avoid traffic and landed in a big traffic jam on the gurudwara ulsoor one way road. After getting out the traffic jam met with the gang after ulsoor lake - we had 1 swift lxi, palio retro 1.6, alto and my santro. There were other guys in scorpios and innovas who had already left behind the volvos at 10 am from mg road. We were a group of like-minded late starters We braved all the traffic upto metro yeshwantpur. From there on we had a map to follow. Below directions maybe useful to ppl who wanna go (they were provided by a colleague who had arranged the event) At Metro Yeshwantpur we turned our trip meter to 0. Now drove on the road to Penya on the Poona Bangalore highway. At 2.1 km we passed RNS motors on the Rt side, then next passed the Penya turnoff at 5 km, we stayed on the Rt lane. At 6.4 km there was Optolabs on the Rt side and next to that was the black glass Reliance house. Took a Rt turn immediately after this – this is the Hessarghatta Road. We drove for another 19 kms – but for the next 9 kms the road was full of potholes. The road does become good after this patch. We then passed an IBP petrol bunk and St Teresa’s Nursing college on the left and decided to get some fuel at an IBP bunk . The guy had no premium fuel so took some 6 ltrs of regular stuff in the hopes of finding a shell bunk ahead. However we soon realized, there were lotsa pumps ahead but none accepted credit cards. So decided to take some cash out at a UTI atm. Parked the cars on the crowded road (lotsa traffic) and took cash out of the atm. My swift friend warned me there was a big hole where he had parked and I shld take care when taking off behind him. Infact the side of the whole road where we had parked was dug up n we had parked partially on the road and the dug up area. I have big 185/60/13 yokohamas so wasn't really worried, till I hit a large stone (which I didn't see) while avoiding the hole. Was very irritated and was hoping there was no damage to moving parts as well as the brand new anti-corrosive underbody coating. Drove with music off to check for any strange sounds but all seemed cool as confirmed by my passenger buddy. After this we came across an arch and Vijayashree International public school on the Rt. At this point there were plenty of directions to Kuteeram and Nitryagram and also the brown coloured boards of “Our Native Village”. Followed directions to the KUTEERAM At 8.7 km we came across a V fork at which we took the Rt fork with the Saptagiri college of Engineering on the Rt side (a black building). At 9.6 km we got another V fork and took the Rt fork again with Janapriya Nivas on the Rt. At 9.9 km we got the railway crossing and that was a long half hour wait. After that we went straight – avoiding the mud track on the Rt. We then stopped, to empty our tanks. Also i tried to check under the car for any damage nothing visible, except lotsa dripping fluid - checked thoroughly after opening hood, but that was just water from AC - never seen so much dripping though!! We enjoyed the scenery around the tracks - trees and grass all around. Started again and at 10.5 km we passed the Chikkabanavara village- went straight through the village. At 12.2 km we passed the BWSSB station. At 14.8 km we heaved a sigh of relief because the roller coaster ride on bad road had come to an end – the road became good now. At 17.9 km we hit the the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research with a road turning to the right, we stayed on the straight road. At 18.9 km we passed the Central Poultry research institute and took the right. There we saw the nice Hessergatta Lake in front of us. At 20.8 km there was the Turkey feed unit. At 21.4 km took a left turn from the board of Our Native Village and Kuteeram. At 22.5 km we passed the Adarsh film studio in front of us- road turned to the left .till now we had been following the Kuteeram sign boards. After this there is turning on the Rt for the Govt film institute-which we ignored. Immediately after this we took the next right turn and after a 1.5 km drive through some spectacular open savannah type of landscape going into the horizon, we got to a T junction through a clump of trees. Took the Rt turn. and 500 mts later we were there "Our Native Village" The place was nice - had a rustic village kind of look and fortunately we were late so got a room all to myself. Fields and trees all around it looked great. We had a few official sessions (well can't be avoided) and then party time - lotsa drinks (i stayed almost sober) and it was still 11pm. Most people got sloshed (literally - we had so much beer we sprayed it all over each other, i think the taklus will soon grow hair from beer conditioner) and left, except me and 4 more colleagues. We cracked stupid jokes "knock-knocks" and even stupid surdi jokes by our surdi colleague. Then one of the drunken colleagues decided he could take on the muscular bartender in arm wrestling - lost 5 times and still claimed he could beat the guy hehehe. It was still 1 so decided to hit the fields in a friends scorpio - we drove on the fields chasing rabbits in the scorpio, the drunk arm wrestling guy hanging out the car with a glass of vodka (dangerous!!). Then we all took up the challenge on climbing this huge tree - only to realize we couldn't come down, man it was a funny 30 mins . Crashed in the awesome bedroom at 3am. Next morning, we decided to skip the games and lunch stuff in afternoon and left at 1130am for the road back. The drive back was no traffic fast one and made it back to bangalore in 3hrs. We then had lunch at this northy buffet joint and parted ways. I could hear some strange sounds everytime i braked to slow down- more audible at low speeds. So decided to goto advaith hyundai service station on mission road. Decided to tank on some shell fuel from old madras road and then it happened - i got into shell bunk, was driving to pump in lane 5, when a stupid learner in a santro with "L"s all over it decided to swing out of lane 4 and head to lane 5 and bang my car on the right back door!!! I got out and argued over his mistake. But he said it wasn't his mistake (imagine after he hits me on the back). i said ok fine lets goto a police station and lodge a case so that we can get 3rd party insurance and he said "NO". i said ok lets goto hyundai service and I pay for your bumper damage (near zero) and you pay for mine and he says "no". He seemed confused and scared when I asked him if he has insurance, i dont think he even had a proper license (learner lic maybe). I shouted in anger when he seemed so illogical and even swore once (me bad boy), but finally saw he had a family in car and let go after writing his car number down (just incase). he saw me doing that and drove away like hell hehehe without even filling fuel. Well then made it to Hyundai on mission road, there was some small wheel cylinder rusted in rear brakes, which they cleaned for free (as I had just got 1st paid service done before trip). i got car washed and the damage on right door was all his silver paint, my real earth paint was intact, but alas there was a dent. Anyways caught a movie at inox "fantastic four" w office buddies, dropped one of em who was staying at Taj, normally don't drink, but had some rum and hot water at caesars on mg road to remedy my nad throat frm partying, dropped another colleague at airport at 8pm, went for another movie "aap ka suroor" (waste, plz dont watch it!!) with my best frnd in blore. While driving home at night 1am went through a human breath-analyser cop at old madras road, who wanted me to breathe out on his face before he let me go hahha too funny I think they should get some proper breathe analyser. That was the funny end of my 2 days of fun (except for dent), came home and crashed. If you are still reading, you have some tremendous patience. let me know if it was worth reading (maybe the directions will be useful if you want to go to hessrghatta) Over and out -j
	() Thanks

1st July 2007, 03:16	#2
jassi BHPian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Melbourne Posts: 980 Thanked: 12 Times View My Garage	ok heres the link to the directions from their site ~~our native village~~ which is what I think my friend adapted his directions - imagine I thought the guy actually drove down and wrote those directions down every few kms Also the map http://www.ournativevillage.com/map.jpg Now my post will be a bit shorter to read Mods - if u feel this is more of a travelogue vs a street experience feel free to move it to the other section - i put it here cos it had lotsa street experiences in it. Cheers, j
	() Thanks

1st July 2007, 16:22	#3
ravibhat Senior - BHPian Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Bangalore Posts: 2,256 Thanked: 37 Times View My Garage	oh thats big really took 30 minutes for me to read and you might have taken 1 hour to prepare it. How is food in the resort ? I am searching for good resort around bangalore to take my company guys and also many family members. Regards, Ravi.
	() Thanks

1st July 2007, 16:40	#4
jassi BHPian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Melbourne Posts: 980 Thanked: 12 Times View My Garage	Hi Ravi - 30 mins it took me 30 mins to post that stuff. Food there was good. They had a buffet arranged for us - breakfast, lunch and dinner - all indian food. Also the staff there was good enough to prepare egg, cheese and veggie sandwiches, whenever we asked. We were a total of 40 ppl and most were on a 2 ppl room-sharing basis, unlike some of us late latifs who got our own rooms -j
	() Thanks

2nd July 2007, 08:30	#5
ajmat Team-BHP Support Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Bangalore Posts: 15,059 Thanked: 29,712 Times View My Garage	I was at the resort a couple of weeks back. The roads believe are bad. The Swift on its low profile tyres had it bad. Resort is great - the eco stuff behind it is really amazing and food is not bad. One needs to stay over for a day to enjoy it.
	() Thanks

2nd July 2007, 11:52	#6
javed406 BHPian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Bangalore Posts: 36 Thanked: Once	Can u post some pics of the resort?
	() Thanks

2nd July 2007, 13:12	#7
rjstyles69 Senior - BHPian Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bengalooru.. Posts: 4,344 Thanked: 845 Times View My Garage	ajmat, there is an alternate route to reach this place. You can actually go via Jalahalli East and further on to reach this place.
	() Thanks

2nd July 2007, 13:20	#8
theMAG Distinguished - BHPian Join Date: May 2006 Location: Avon, CT Posts: 7,217 Thanked: 1,811 Times View My Garage	Thats a great resort- it was on TV too
	() Thanks

2nd July 2007, 13:26	#9
jassi BHPian Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Melbourne Posts: 980 Thanked: 12 Times View My Garage	~~our native village~~ Keep clicking next on that link to see all pics of the resort. unfortunately I forgot to carry my camera they even arranged a dance floor for us to party. Besides this we had an event mgmt team there to make us do games, milk cows, etc
	() Thanks

3rd July 2007, 12:03	#10
skandyhere BHPian Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Charlotte/Blore Posts: 347 Thanked: 92 Times	pretty detailed! and yes, it did take SOME time to go through it. thanks for posting!!
	() Thanks