In this video series, VJ heads out on a 13 days adventure/exploration ride across Karnataka state in India. His aim is to travel from southern part of the state (Bangalore) and reach northern most district (Bidar) and venture down to Bengaluru through western ghats.

He is challenged by limited time and forced to skip the coastal lands, but he hopes to cover that some other time. Besides, he is no alien to Karnataka's coastal lands.

As for today, in this ride, he makes a slow start of the day and heads towards Kolar district. The places he manages to cover are "Yaragola Reservoir" and "Markandeshwara Hill". Despite his high hopes to ride close to the now defunct Kolar Gold Fields, the heat and traffic plays a different game.

Suffering through the heat from Bengaluru's traffic hotspots such as Sarjapura, he manages to escape the traffic (finally) and heads towards open roads and breathes a sigh of relief.

After facing a mix and match of good and bad roads, finally the first destination in the list is close by. However, the joy is short-lived because the water levels are so low. In conversations with the locals, he learns that the region didn't receive sufficient rains and the dam gates are not open. A short dissatisfaction, but he has high hopes for what the future rides holds. The chatty local also gives an overview about the place - "the construction of the reservoir started in 2006 and nearly took 15 years due to conflicts between Karnataka & TamilNadu and also changes in government in Karnataka. The reservoir aims to offer drinking water supply to Kolar district and nearby villages. The sub-project of developing park to attract visitors are in the roadmap but the timelines are unsure. Because of poor rains this year, the catchment didn't collect sufficient water and there could be challenges to supply drinking water from this reservoir in the months to come. He also adds that the surrounding area has electric fence because the wildlife like Deers & Elephants are used to frequent before reservoir was built"

VJ feels that this could be a nice place to hang-out during weekends if they can complete park development and improve security & maintenance in the region.

On his way towards Markandeya Betta, VJ finds a nice scenic spot. The first thought that strikes upon looking at the boulders that were pushed to the surface of earth "this looks like the egg scene from the movie 'journey to the center of earth' starring Dwayne Johnson". VJ makes a quick stop to capture the beautiful rocks & boulders.

Soon after this the golden hour awaits near Markandeya Hills. After battling some bad roads, spooky dark corners, he makes his way in hopes to capture scenic shots and finding food. He gets partially lucky there because there was no food but a lot of monkeys welcomes him and VJ heads for some drone shots after a peaceful breather. As usual, he likes to chat with locals; speaking to one of them, he learns that the temple is open only in the mornings but he recollects from the pictures from Gmaps, that's not entirely true. However, he is certain that the evenings aren't the right time if you want to get inside the temple.

He would like to briefly tell the story about this place; here he goes-

This temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and has an interesting story. Markandeya's parents didn't have kids for a very long time and when they prayed to Lord Shiva, he was pleased with their prayers and offered 02 choices. An intellectual son who would attain an early death during his teenage or a dimwit who'd live for a century. The parents chose the former and Markandeya was born; as he had Shiva's blessings, he turned out to be an intellectual sage who was also an ardent worshipper of Shiva.

Upon learning about his untimely death, he goes to Shiva Linga and continues to pray. When Lord Yamaraja (god of death) comes to take him away, he clutches to Shiva Linga in fear; as Yama ropes his Yama Pasha on Markandeya, it also falls on Shiva Linga and Shiva bursts out from Linga with total fury and throws his Trident on Yamaraja and kills him. Only to revive him upon a condition that he'd never come for Markandeya again, thus making Markandeya an immortal.

That's an interesting story and VJ wonders the whereabouts of all the immortals from our mythology.

The next day, VJ plans to go to Madhugiri hill and so he continues his ride. As it gets dark, VJ wants to crash somewhere for the night, but it turns out he ends up in whitefield bangalore since the ride towards Tumakuru was a bit far from where he was.

00:00 Sneak peak
00:08 Thought for life
00:11 Timeline
00:15 Intro
00:47 Route Map
00:56 Escape from Bengaluru
02:11 Open Roads
03:11 The beautiful ride
04:12 Yaragola Dam
06:55 Accidental discovery
08:33 Markandeya Hill
11:42 Support

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