Manchinbele and NICE

Date: 02 july 2006
Time: 10AM
After a rathar dull saturday at home, it was time to hit the highway again. The weather in Bangalore these days simply lures you out of the house. I dug out the archives of my grey area and pulled out Manchinbele dam, put in there by Doc. One phone call later, I the plan was in place. I had made up my mind, in any case, I am gonna run with HASH this evening, which meant I had to be back by 3.
Manchinbele is a dam over the river Arkavathy forming reservoir around 30 Kms west of Bangalore. You have to ride on Mysore road, about 3 kms after Kengeri, a right turn takes you on a very bumpy road to The big Tamrind tree, continuing about 8kms further takes you to this quiet and serene dam, willfully hidden from the urban chaos.
It was quite a relief to take the butts off the bullet after the bumpy ride and walk up to the dam. The view from the dam was quite breathtaking. There were 3 gates to let the water (or dam it) to the channels on the other side. The watchman (if a black ribbon around his neck is any identification!!) told us that the water is as much as 70feet deep and quite a few lives have been lost in there.
Stopped over on the way back at Tamrind tree, buzzing with people in stark contrast to what we had just left behind.
Sooper weather, some wonderful views, and a terrible road is what i will not forget for a long time.

So after this, I had to rush to Anjanapura village. HASH was running that weekend on the NICE Bangalore-Mysore corridor. I had to ride on Macarise Club, some 10kms off Kanakpura Road to reach the run destination. Though I reached there some 10mins late, I could run and catch up with the rest of the hashers. The NICE is coming up at a good speed. There was a mix of countryside, road and uphill along the trial. There was a great participation this time, loads of hashers and many virgins, with svelte, well-proportioned figures ensured that the 'ceremonial' ring around the ice, had lots of action.
Biryani was served at the Macarise Club. One Bhubaneshwar hasher, an Australian citizen who shared my passion for the Bullet, wanted to pillion ride back to the city with me. (I wonder if he maintained that passion for the bullet after the ride!!). Apparently, a free lance economist working on a Public works dept project on State highways and world bank. Yes, I am trying a back door entry into one of those.
From 10 in the morning to 10 in the night, this is how it went...