The slow whistle of wind seeping in stealthily into my helmet, the beats of Nucleya pumping through my head and the triple digit speeds bode well for me and by 3:00 P.M I was parking my bike outside Hoysaleshwara Temple. This is a Shiva Temple and is surrounded by numerous tanks and ponds. The temple is built in the vicinity of the large Dorasamudhra lake. If you go further you will have the Digambar Jain Temples, less crowd than the main temple but beautiful view nevertheless. I managed to squeeze in only 30 min here because I still had 2 destinations to go before I reached Coorg.

Started around 3:45 P.M from this place and Thank God, the good roads continued with me although the Belur Road which I took was way narrower than the rest, but on the plus side the traffic was on the lower side. There is a point in the route where you briefly join – Bandadaka Bengaluru highway and take a turn to go in another narrow road. Now, be warned that this is a village area. The Road gets narrower still and you can expect cattle anytime at the road without any warning. Also when the google maps tells you, you have arrived at the destination, there is a offroad path which you can see. DO NOT take it. Go 300 meters more and there is a second off road path – This actually goes to the Church while the first one leads to a private property. Cars can go easily on this path too.

The destination: Shettihalli Church – Built way back in 1860s and fallen prey to time. This place is perfect for a photoshoot - The backdrop is provided by Hemavathi reservoir; there is an awesome bridge nearby and the place looks fantastic with the setting sun. When I finally reached, it was around 5:30 PM. The funny thing is I tool almost 1.5 hrs. for 50kms and I don’t know how. There were 2 food breaks which I took, but still I don’t get it.


There was a pre-wedding photo/video shoot going on when I reached. The photographers were armed with DJI Drones, Cannon Mark-V Cameras and all the other goodies you could imagine. They requested me to wait for some time until they finish shooting in the church so that I could take some pictures. I didn’t mind as the sunset was still 30 min away so I walked to the river bank and took some time off. Places like this are present, so that a man can ponder on the bigger things in life, take a step back see what’s going wrong with him, introspect and perhaps, just perhaps take a decision to steer his life back on track.


My wandering thoughts were brought back to earth when the shoot shifted to the river banks and the church was fair game for photography. I had barely setup my bike and started with the shots when I could see a small pack of tourists coming in by the dirt road and that was the end of the peace. I managed to take some pictures before rushing out. I was in no mood to stay there with a horde of tourists cramming up the place. Looks like even isolated spots like these are coming under the radar of general tourists fast. Sigh.


It was 6:30P.M when I left. There was no time left for my last place on the list so I decided to skip it and straightaway rush to Coorg and check in. I knew I was close when the roads started curving and the curve became sharper and roads even more smoother. It was 8:00 when I finally checked in.


I was unloading the bags from the bike when I suddenly realized – “I forgot to have lunch yet again”. Damn you straight roads!!!!

P.S - Please forgive me for the image quality, my laptop has gone crazy and is not being able to upload properly. I had to use the sniping tool to reduce the image size and then upload them to the thread. Dunno what's going on.