Hebbe Falls

• Visit after the rains. The gushing waterfall at its full flow is an amazing view to behold. Take a bath. The sprinkles gives you goosebumps. 
• Take Maxx from Chikmagalur city. Regular vehicles can't reach this place with the mountain terrain and bad  roads. They charged us 500 bucks and it was worth the experience.
• You have to trek the last mile up to the waterfall. The last turn when the waterfall opens up to full view is magical or at least I thought so.

The first time I visited Chikmagalur, the four of us - Vivek, Sumeet, Ashutosh and myself started from Bangalore for Kemmengundi. It is a newly popular hill station near Chikmagalur  It was our plan to stay here for the night and visit nearby waterfalls among other things.

Windmills@Chikmagalur

Jaipur

Jaipur - Ajmer - Chittorgarh - Udaipur

• From Aamer at one end to Chokhi Dhani at another,  Jaipur is full of must go places.
• Budgets boutique hotels are readily available here thanks to being a tourist hotspot. Decide based on where you want to go after Jaipur.
• Don't miss the amazing top view of entire Jaipur from the window Of Madhavendra Palace. 

The two of us started at 10.30 AM on 23rd, December, 2009 from Delhi for a long drive. The road was smooth and the drive was fun. Somewhere on the way we decided that we should go all the way to Jaipur. Consequently we were standing in front of Aamer Fort at 4 PM. It is an old majestic fort stretched in few square kilometers. We walked on the walls of the fort before getting hungry.

Front View of Aamer Fort@Jaipur

Yercaud

We were three of us. Sumeet, Ashutosh and myself. The summers placement was just over and with a 5 day break ahead of us, we planned to visit this little known hill station near Salem. We started on a fine November morning from Bangalore to Yercaud on my car. The distance was 240 kilometers.

Rainbow on the way@Yercaud

Starting at 8 in the morning, we were fast enough to enter the town around 1. En route I drove my car into a stray dog. The incident was going to upset a lot of our plans.

Road of 36 Hairpin Bends@Yercaud

We skimmed through few hotels. The luxury of own car allowed us to search far and it was sheer serendipity that we ended up with heaven. Sterling Resort was not a resort as such. Our first impression was that of a hanging paradise. Our room was valley facing. For 2700 a day, it was a great deal for the three of us.

Tickmark Tourism Hot Spots@Yercaud

We decided to have our lunch in the room only. By the time we were done, the clouds also parted and we could clearly see the magnificent view of Salem from our room. We spent the evening driving around the hills and boating in the Emerald Lake. Later we had our share of drinks sitting in the terrace and watching mist playing with our view of twinkling Salem at night.

Emerald Lake@Yercaud

Next morning we woke up late. We started with a high point from where the town was visible. The Monfort School has an expansive campus as visible from top. We then visited a string of so called hot spots including Pagoda Point, Bell Rock, Gents Seat and Tipperary Estate. The only thing we missed was Kiliyur Falls. The path to the falls is tricky and it takes 5-6 hours going and coming back.

View from Sterling Resort@Yercaud

We started at around 3 from our hotel rooms and reached Salem comfortably before I realized that the accident with dog had damaged car's radiator. We ended up towing our car some 100 miles back to Bangalore with the help of a local garage. I would call even that as some adventure.

Nagothane

Bhaiya is a regular member of Countryside Adventure (www.countrysideindia.com) treks. I was in Mumbai during my term break and so we planned to go for the Nagothane trek which was planned by this club for the coming Sunday. It was 20th September, 2009 - the last day of my term break. We reached Sion on our own. A 30 seater packed minibus was waiting for us. We found our seats at the back and started our journey. The weather was pleasant and I was thoroughly enjoying the greenery alongside the highway that goes all the way to Goa. Our destination was some 120 kilometers from Sion. We disembarked near a village and lunch-box was distributed to us. The trek was a short one with moderate gradient.

Nagothane waterfall was visible from a distance. It is a cascading one of moderate height and the surroundings are beautiful. Having a bath in cold water under the warm sun of Mumbai was pleasant. We then opened our tiffin-box and had a sumptuous lunch. While trekking back, bhaiya noticed some amazing miniature natural mazes  of which he took some pictures.

We came back to Mumbai by 5 PM and by the time I reached home I was dead tired. I had to wake up early for the 7 AM flight to Bangalore next day.