For a long time, we were planning to go outside and cook chicken and do some kind of picnic. At last that happened. After calling many friends several times, lots of excuses, lots of cancellation, at last just 4 of us from our flat, Anshul, Samrat, Kushal and myself went out for the cooking cum picnic session.
Saturday morning we decided we will do a barbeque on our roof, then we thought no fun in doing it on roof, we should go outside. Then by 6pm we decided we should go outside, I suggested some places within 80kms radius from Bangalore. Main problem was transport, we called lots of friends and then decided we should go on sunday then few more people can come. First we decided to go to panchapalli dam, I had heard the name of the place from BASC. In fact I was planning to go to panchapalli dam with BASC on saturday, but was not selected for the trip. So we decided finally we would go to panchapallli dam on sunday, cook and have lunch there. We called our friends and thought we could arrange 13 ppl, so we booked a 12 seater tempo traveller. We were very excited while planning for the trip. But slowly everyone started cancelling and refused to go on sunday, so we had to cancel the tempo traveller.
Meanwhile samrat and kushal went to tippasandra to do shopping for our picnic. They bought some dry wood that can be used for setting up fire for cooking. I was not aware that these things are even available for sale. We packed following items for our picnic:
1. utensils
2. plates
3. spoons, sarasi, chimcha
4. ata, rice, masala, adrak lehsun, mirchi, aloo, tomato, onion, etc
Just four of us decided to go. We were not yet sure about our destination. First I suggested the Ramadevara Betta( a small hill), but then realized cooking would be difficult without water. Then we thought of Mekedatu the sangam near Kanakpura. But then realized we would be spending 6 hours in journey, wouldn't be worth it. So at last searched google for "picnic spots near bangalore" and somewhere noticed Kanwa dam at Ramanagar. So thats it we decided to go to Kanwa dam on sunday, and this was at 11.40pm saturday. We planned to catch the 7am train to ramanagar, and went to sleep.
On Sunday, Samrat came down to wake us up at 6.30 am. We were already late, we cannot catch the 7am train, but luckily every train to Mysore halts at Ramanagar. At last reached Majectic by 8 and got on the 8.15 train. We are not sure what was the scheduled time for that train. but it was an express train we were charged 21/-. Samrat was amused at such a cheap train journey. We boarded the general compartment of the train and reached after an hour of journey. The train was empty and we had an uneventful journey with a small nap for everyone.
At the station we bought ghee and goodlife milk and asked the shopkeeper regarding the Kanwa dam and got directions from him.
Outside the station we bargained with an auto and reached the reservoir after 30mins. Well I was definitely pleased to see the water body, considering that we were afraid, it would be dry. I was very excited to see it. We ran towards water.
Lots of birds were visible there. I would suggest bird watchers to go to this place.
We started searching for a suitable place to setup our camp. We saw that there was another group there with a bucket full of chicken, mutton and all sorts of cooking assortments. After walking here and there we realized this is actually a very famous place for picnic. we saw remains of lots of temporary firewood stoves, small rocks on three sides and ashes in the middle, lots of burnt out chulhas, indicating many people come here for the same purpose that we came here for. After all the simple google search "picnic spots near bangalore" had worked for us.
We were searching for a proper shade, as the sun was very strong and the weather was uncomfortable. But the place under trees was already occupied by the other group, and we wanted to setup our camp some peaceful place. We spotted some rocks at a distance and thought the rocks might provide some shade, so we started walking towards the rocks. we sighted lots of birds there, it was really great. We noticed villagers come with goats and buffaloes to the water body.
We were disappointed, there was no proper shade near the rocks. we looked here and there, but no shade. Kushal and Anshul started to search for some shade while myself and Samrat went to wash and clean the chicken at the reservoir. There was a lady washing her clothes, her son was playing near her. We went and sat on a rock and started cleaning. After some time we noticed a Kite, white head and shoulder and a black body, hovering above us. We were afraid it would attack us for the meat. The bird was really majestic, hovering just over us. As we were washing the meat, we threw some shreds in the water and the kite flew down gracefully and took it up in its beak. We got excited and started throwing more lumps of meat, I noticed the kite would come down take the piece in its claw and then actually bend its beak and put the food into its beak from the claw. This gave us some chance to see acrobatics of the kite from very close distance. After some time few more birds started flying above us, they were either kite or eagles. they did not have white head, only one of them was white headed. We were afraid of being attacked by them, but it turned out they were really peaceful, they would just come down to take whatever food we threw for them. Well that was quite an experience feeding a kite with meat!!
Back at our camp Kushal could setup the firewood stove very easily. He used some camphor and paper to put initial fire, then the firewood did its job. Anshul started heating oil in a vessel. Anshul was our head cook, we were just assisting him. We would go around to search for some dry woods to sustain our stove. Anshul prepared an extremely tasty chicken for us. As it was very sunny, some of us had a nice bath in that reservoir . We finished our awesome lunch with chicken and rice. All the while sweating heavily both because of the spicy food and afternoon heat.
Following pics taken by Samrat on his iphone.
We realized camping under the trees is very important in such situations. Well anyway we finished packing and up cleaned our camp. Also very important is to ensure we dont leave any mess behind. We called up our auto driver and returned to Ramanagar.
photo credits: Samrat@iphone, Prithayan@coolpixL26
Travel Tips for Kanwa Dam
View Larger Map
2. Train, is the best Mode of transport. Cheapest and Fastest. There are lots of trains from majestic, Bangalore to Mysore. All trains to Mysore will stop at Ramanagaram.
Train Fare-> Express 21/-, Normal 7/-
3. Auto from Ramagara to Kanva Reservoir . Better to ask the same auto guy to come and pick you up back to station. You will not get autos easily here.
Auto Fare 150/- or 200/-
Saturday morning we decided we will do a barbeque on our roof, then we thought no fun in doing it on roof, we should go outside. Then by 6pm we decided we should go outside, I suggested some places within 80kms radius from Bangalore. Main problem was transport, we called lots of friends and then decided we should go on sunday then few more people can come. First we decided to go to panchapalli dam, I had heard the name of the place from BASC. In fact I was planning to go to panchapalli dam with BASC on saturday, but was not selected for the trip. So we decided finally we would go to panchapallli dam on sunday, cook and have lunch there. We called our friends and thought we could arrange 13 ppl, so we booked a 12 seater tempo traveller. We were very excited while planning for the trip. But slowly everyone started cancelling and refused to go on sunday, so we had to cancel the tempo traveller.
Meanwhile samrat and kushal went to tippasandra to do shopping for our picnic. They bought some dry wood that can be used for setting up fire for cooking. I was not aware that these things are even available for sale. We packed following items for our picnic:
1. utensils
2. plates
3. spoons, sarasi, chimcha
4. ata, rice, masala, adrak lehsun, mirchi, aloo, tomato, onion, etc
Just four of us decided to go. We were not yet sure about our destination. First I suggested the Ramadevara Betta( a small hill), but then realized cooking would be difficult without water. Then we thought of Mekedatu the sangam near Kanakpura. But then realized we would be spending 6 hours in journey, wouldn't be worth it. So at last searched google for "picnic spots near bangalore" and somewhere noticed Kanwa dam at Ramanagar. So thats it we decided to go to Kanwa dam on sunday, and this was at 11.40pm saturday. We planned to catch the 7am train to ramanagar, and went to sleep.
On Sunday, Samrat came down to wake us up at 6.30 am. We were already late, we cannot catch the 7am train, but luckily every train to Mysore halts at Ramanagar. At last reached Majectic by 8 and got on the 8.15 train. We are not sure what was the scheduled time for that train. but it was an express train we were charged 21/-. Samrat was amused at such a cheap train journey. We boarded the general compartment of the train and reached after an hour of journey. The train was empty and we had an uneventful journey with a small nap for everyone.
 |
| at Ramanagaram Station |
At the station we bought ghee and goodlife milk and asked the shopkeeper regarding the Kanwa dam and got directions from him.
Outside the station we bargained with an auto and reached the reservoir after 30mins. Well I was definitely pleased to see the water body, considering that we were afraid, it would be dry. I was very excited to see it. We ran towards water.
Lots of birds were visible there. I would suggest bird watchers to go to this place.
We started searching for a suitable place to setup our camp. We saw that there was another group there with a bucket full of chicken, mutton and all sorts of cooking assortments. After walking here and there we realized this is actually a very famous place for picnic. we saw remains of lots of temporary firewood stoves, small rocks on three sides and ashes in the middle, lots of burnt out chulhas, indicating many people come here for the same purpose that we came here for. After all the simple google search "picnic spots near bangalore" had worked for us.
We were searching for a proper shade, as the sun was very strong and the weather was uncomfortable. But the place under trees was already occupied by the other group, and we wanted to setup our camp some peaceful place. We spotted some rocks at a distance and thought the rocks might provide some shade, so we started walking towards the rocks. we sighted lots of birds there, it was really great. We noticed villagers come with goats and buffaloes to the water body.
We were disappointed, there was no proper shade near the rocks. we looked here and there, but no shade. Kushal and Anshul started to search for some shade while myself and Samrat went to wash and clean the chicken at the reservoir. There was a lady washing her clothes, her son was playing near her. We went and sat on a rock and started cleaning. After some time we noticed a Kite, white head and shoulder and a black body, hovering above us. We were afraid it would attack us for the meat. The bird was really majestic, hovering just over us. As we were washing the meat, we threw some shreds in the water and the kite flew down gracefully and took it up in its beak. We got excited and started throwing more lumps of meat, I noticed the kite would come down take the piece in its claw and then actually bend its beak and put the food into its beak from the claw. This gave us some chance to see acrobatics of the kite from very close distance. After some time few more birds started flying above us, they were either kite or eagles. they did not have white head, only one of them was white headed. We were afraid of being attacked by them, but it turned out they were really peaceful, they would just come down to take whatever food we threw for them. Well that was quite an experience feeding a kite with meat!!
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| Our camping spot |
Following pics taken by Samrat on his iphone.
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| our makeshift kitchen |
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| some form of ata Roti by Kushal |
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| cooking with the awesome view of the reservoir |
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| The stove, "chulha" |
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| our professional cook |
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| keeping up with the fire |
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| the heat from the fire of the stove, was making it very difficult to continue sitting near it |
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| Kushal making his bata and anshul at chicken |
We realized camping under the trees is very important in such situations. Well anyway we finished packing and up cleaned our camp. Also very important is to ensure we dont leave any mess behind. We called up our auto driver and returned to Ramanagar.
photo credits: Samrat@iphone, Prithayan@coolpixL26
Travel Tips for Kanwa Dam
- gmap::
2. Train, is the best Mode of transport. Cheapest and Fastest. There are lots of trains from majestic, Bangalore to Mysore. All trains to Mysore will stop at Ramanagaram.
Train Fare-> Express 21/-, Normal 7/-
3. Auto from Ramagara to Kanva Reservoir . Better to ask the same auto guy to come and pick you up back to station. You will not get autos easily here.
Auto Fare 150/- or 200/-
really interesting!! would love to go there someday.
ReplyDeleteLovely Dutta
really interesting!! would love to go there someday.
ReplyDeleteLovely Dutta