We asked Ravi for permission to leave at 3 p.m. He said ok, but someone else said no! Mother nature unleashed her fury in the form of heavy rains. She said "Thou shalt wait for two hours". We did. Many of our team mates knew about our trip just then and were wildly jeering at our delay. One of them was even praying that the rain never stops (we had informed him at the last minute and he couldn't make it). So nice of him!
I told Sathish and Bhanu that we leave now or we will never make it. After all, it is the first step that takes the most courage and determoination. We left when the rain had slowed down. We drove sathish's room picked up his stuff and left. It was raining intermittently as we drove towards the outskirts of Bangalore. Traffic, bad drivers and slushy roads made it a real pain in the whatever to cross the Nelamangala.
Once we crossed Nelamangala, we stopped at a Hanuman temple and prayed for a smooth trip.
After we sought his blessings , we started our drive to Hassan. By then it had become dark. We had decided on a formation. Sathish drives first, me next and followed by Bhanu. This had become an unwritten rule throughout the entire trip.
We kept driving for almost 2.5 hours with a few breaks to take a leak or ask for directions. When we reached Bellur Cross, it had started to drizzle. Bhanu was completely against driving in the rain. So we took a room in the only lodge in the area. The great SBG Logde. The double bed room costed Rs. 310. The guy even refused to provide an extra bed for money. Since that lodge was the only one around, the guy made his rules. One either had to abide or get lost. We abided.
We then went in search of hotel to get something to eat. And to our horror all shops were closed due to a bandh in light of the upcoming elections. With some asking and searching we stumbled into a idly hotel. The hotel was a midsized hut. It was lit solely by a petromax lamp and the door was closed (opened) in such a fashion that the locals could find it. To the untrained eye it would be just another house. We ordered for 15 idlies and 4 vadas. We went to the room to feast on our hard found dinner. And man, wasn't it delicious! The chutney was the best I have ever had in karnataka. But it wasn't enough, so Sathish and Bhanu went to get more of the sumptuous idlies.
After the heavy and filling dinner, we had a tough time sleeping. We had to squeeze ourselves on the uncomfortable bed. The room had a colony of mosquitoes and to make things worse, the fan was working in a slow mo mode. We were a good 40 kms short of our target for that day.
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