Nandi Hills, also known as Nandidurg, used to be the summer retreat of the famous ruler Tipu Sultan. The famous Yoga Nandeeshwara temple is located on the hilltop and is said to be guarded by a huge statue of Nandi (the bull).
This is my 2nd trip, though an unplanned one. It starts with my regular weekend night drive. While leaving I pinged my friend and said to be ready as I’m coming to his place. It took us almost 40 minutes to reach his house and then we all left for the drive. There’s no finite destination or route for these trips. This time we decide to take a long detour to my apartment. An hour of drive and now we are standing at the entrance of our society, deciding where to go next. After a long discussion all of us arrives at a common destination Nandi hills.
The total round trip is about 150 kms, so our plan is that my friend will drive first and on returning I will come to the wheels when he gets tired. At 3 am we start for Nandi hills and travel through the city to the Hyderabad highway. The distance seemed to get covered quickly with 90’s songs and remembering old times.
We reach to join the 7 – 8 kms long queue of vehicles from the gate of Nandi Hills, which opens at 5:30 am. Gates open as per the schedule and we proceed ahead. Everything was going fine until our car stops at an uphill road. Suddenly my friend tells that he can’t take the car up as he’s not feeling confident enough. Every time he tried to move the car ahead, it down a bit. We all get tensed as everybody was counting on him for this. The traffic jam due to us and the noise of car honking at us starts to shoot up quickly. At that time don’t know from where I get an immense confidence boost and exchanged place with him. Just to throw some light on the situation, my friend is a good driver and I’m a newbie at this. Similarly to a fairy tale, I managed to pull the vehicle uphill and drive the rest 8 kms from there. I think the fear of something that might happen to my car if it keeps on rolling down, gave me that confidence boost.
I parked the car in parking and then we reach the ticket counter to get the tickets. The situation of the parking is not good at all and the crowd is nearly unbearable.
This seems more like a battle to get them as people will not maintain single queue and keep on pushing from behind. I even felt someone’s hand reaching my pockets while I was taking the tickets. I squash hard that hand and quickly move out of the queue. I feel like I won a war on getting the tickets. We start to climb the rest of the way, the other option is to go by car but the steep slope will give the engine and brakes a hard time. We can smell the overheated engines as the cars pass us. Thus I gave it a miss.
The walk has its own benefits as we get a chance to explore the serene beauty of the place in the awesome weather.
The view is beautiful with lush green trees and clouds surrounding them with sprinkles of water. The journey to the top is long and we are taking more time by making multiple stops to take pics.
Finally we reach the top. At this time I’m sure that we won’t be able to see the sunrise due to the clouds. We sat on the rocks, rest for a while absorbing the beauty of the nature. The sun’s playing hide n seek with us from behind the clouds. Nobody agrees with me to go to the Nandi temple as they are tired, so I settled with a long shot of the temple. It didn’t come good due to poor light conditions.
Every place has its signature click, like the one people take in front of Taj Mahal as if they are holding the Taj with its tip. Likewise, this place has a signature click spot, that’s the railings at the end of the rock. I can see no sunlight but hundreds trying to take the signature shot.
We start to feel cold, so we resume our journey on foot to the parking. I can see several cars still coming with the smell of overheated engines. I’m proud of my decision of not coming up in the car which others find amusing, don’t know why. We reach the parking place and the scene there is more like of a weekday at the gates of any IT park. Everyone is trying to go out first leading to a massive jam. After hours of wait and a lot of patience we managed to go out of the parking and driven the rest of the way to the home in peace.
To summarize my experience about Nandi hills, it is a beautiful place and not so far from Bangalore. But, this is not a place for those who come for chilling on a weekend, trying to forget the chaos on roads of Bangalore of weekdays. It seems like the complete traffic is shifted to Nandi hills on weekends. The drive becomes frustrating than pleasing, atleast while trying to come down. You need to measure the two parameters while planning for Nandi hills, scenic beauty and crazy traffic. If you’re ready to face immense traffic to see nature’s beauty then this is the place for you. Sadly I lack patience and am a little overprotective towards my car so this visit probably will be the last for me to Nandi hills.
KD Chronicles - Travel Blog 