For quite a few days now, I had a plan to ride to Dharmasthala. In the meantime, my friend also had a similar plan. Things worked out and we planned to ride. After a WhatsApp conversation, the plan was finalized. So I, Harish, Sharath (the friend) and his friend Ajay decided to hit the roads in the monsoon.

As usual, the ride started with an alarm. As soon as I woke up, at 5 AM, I made sure to call my friend as well so as to make sure that everyone woke up. Fortunately, they did and now it was time to start.

I freshened up and got ready. We had all packed our luggage the previous day so on the morning of the ride, we just cross-checked everything. Once done, I gave my friend a call again and asked him (and others to meet me at Gorgontepalya. which was decided as our meeting point.

So after saying bye to Mom, I left at around 6:15 AM and reached the meeting point in 15 mins or so. Others reached around 6:45 and after a little meet and greet, we started our ride. At 7:15 AM we started off and made our way to Hassan Highway. We had our first tea stop near Nelmangala - Hassan Highway Junction.

After that, the ride was filled with chilly weather, super clouds and till Hirisave, we enjoyed our ride to the fullest. In Hirisave, Ajay's Royal Enfiled Electra stopped in the middle of the road. We took it off the road, parked our bikes, and started looking for the problem. One of the worst things that could have happened, happened. The battery of the Electra was dead.

Then started the search for a garage. Two of us went on Sharath's bike to look for a place where we could get the Electra fixed. I was looking after our luggage and the two bikes. Finally, they found a mechanic and brought him with them. We towed the bike to the shop where we found out that the battery was not rechargeable so we needed a new battery. The mechanic went to get it and by the time we got done with all this, it was noon.

After that debacle, we resumed our ride and headed towards Charmadi Ghat from Hassan. As soon as we entered the Ghats, the weathered changed dramatically. It was all foggy and there was a drizzle too so we decided to put our rain gear on. The visibility was nearly zero and it was very, very misty. Because of that, we rode slowly (at around 20 km/h). We stopped at our first viewpoint but it was draped in mist. After spending some time there, we decided to proceed further.





Charmadi Ghat is such an amazing ghat in Karnataka where we need to stop each and every minute to enjoy the natural flavour. Yes, we used to stop here and there wherever we feel to stop. In between middle of the ghat, we encountered heavy rain and we were riding in heavy rain to enjoy the rain bliss.







So, we finally reached Dharmasthala around 5 PM. We got freshened up and started to enquire about rooms. An auto driver told us that there is a 5 PM slot to allot rooms. We rushed to the place, stood in the queue and finally, got the room. The room though was just INR 100/- which is really cheap. We dumped our luggage in the room and after taking shower, we headed to the temple for Darshana. We took Prasada for our families and had Anna Prasadam. Then after roaming around the temple premises for a while, we went back to our room.




Day 2: The plan was to ride to Kukke Subramanya via Southadka Ganapati Temple. We woke up around 6 AM and packed our luggage after freshening up. Soon, we were on our way to Southadka Temple. While the route was full of greenery, it was raining heavily and we were fully drenched.

Just before Kukke












By around 2 PM, we had completed all the temple rounding and came back to where our bikes were parked. Post this, we started our ride back to Bangalore and we decided to ride via the Bisle Thick Forest. The whole of this route was just a lot of mist and a lot of greenery and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

Kukke Subramanya



Bisle Thick Forest



We reached Bisle Beauty Spot around 4.30 PM. Below are the photos of us experiencing nature.











After spending some time we started our return journey and we all reached home around 9:30.

Check videos on youtube :

Bangalore to Dharmasthala via Charmadi Ghat


Bisle Ghat - Bisle Beauty Spot


Dharmasthala to Kukke via Southadka Ganapati temple