My Experience - Buying an Apartment in Bengaluru

This article is more of a help to you than my expeirience .....give your feedback :-)

The moment I became self Dependent my first aim was to buy an apartment in Bangalore. Bangalore is the fastest growing city in Asia...but because of poor infrastructure and management it looks like it is degrading. But I feel that this is because of sudden growth and people now go abroad and start comparing with that kind of system. They were happy until they were here in India. Anyway by the time Metro and other public transport system get streamlined Bangalore will be the hapenning place for sure. So owning a property here is a great investment. Preferably a piece of land ...but the costs are too high for a common man. So, a 2BHK apartment was what I was looking for....but my parents had plans for a 3BHK. They thought they can settle down in Bangalore. But I was always against this ...as I knew the reality of life in Bangalore, where my parents would never feel comfortable. In an apartment what maximum they can do outside home. Also they need more social interaction which they enjoyed in our home town. But in Bangalore people hardly interact unless there is some purpose.

Anyway I never wanted to disappoint my parents. So I started looking for a 3 BHK apartment immediately after getting relieved from onsite duties in South Korea after 16 months. I started consulting my friends who had already purchased apartments. Also I registered in some websites like "99acres.com" and "magicbricks.com". I posted my requirement in the website as "Needed 3 BHK apartment, min 1400 sqft, According Vasthu, North and East part of Bangalore, Budget: 35-40L", Total Apt's in the building should bee maximum 16". I was not interested in huge apartment complex as I felt there wouldn’t be any privacy. In some of the huge apartments that I saw...I noticed that we usually have to pass in front of many others main doors before reaching or going out from our home....this I don’t like. Also we need to form a society and there will be additional cost for a Club, Gym, and Swimming Pool even if we don’t use those facilities. That’s main reason I was looking for a smaller apartment complex.

My father had enquired through his friends about some apt's in north Bangalore. He never believed in buying from any stranger....so he was going through his contacts. We found a contact and the builder had built a set of 2 and 3 BHK apt's in Kempapura, hebbal. My father arrived on a sat morning and the builder asked us to come to mekhri circle from where he was supposed to pick us up. He arrived on time and we reached the destination and had a look at the 3BHK apt ...we liked it very much and the location as well. It was well connected and well built. He quoted 42L for it...we started our negotiation and ultimately ended in 38L ...which was well within our budget. We were happy to find an apt of our liking in the first attempt itself. Friends had told us that it’s difficult and time consuming job. We thought we were lucky. My father went back happy and we started planning for the house warming date.

Anyway my father will never get satisfied so easily...he came back the next weekend. We visited the site again on our own. As the apt was still in finishing stage...workers were there and we saw every corner of the house that we had selected. We were satisfied. But when we started going around the site we spotted a board laid down by BBMP. We were shocked to see it....it was laid down to warn the buyers that the property is illegally constructed and the case is not resolved. Disappointed we returned to our home and called the builder who had showed the site. He said as if it’s very normal to get such legal notice when an apartment is being constructed. Anyway we did not want to take any risk. We dropped out. .....Here starts our journey for the search of an apt with a bad experience. Its been 6 months now... the apartment which I saw first is still empty without any occupants.....well we were lucky that we did not commit.

From then on every weekend of mine was dedicated solely to this purpose. Now, I was getting calls from builders through the website where I had registered. Every time they called me I fixed up the appointment and they used to pick/drop me at some point to show the site. This continued for a month but I was never satisfied ....Vasthu was not fine, sometimes locality, construction quality was an issue and some times legal issues. But within a month I realized one most important thing that its better to go to the site on your own...so that u can checkout the area and connectivity....Also you may find better apartments than the one u came to see. If you take the builders site visit ....u can’t go looking around. Also you get committed to the builder and if you like that apartment...you can’t negotiate much. Again you can find out the rates in other apartments being constructed or being sold in the surrounding areas.

I started collecting the information about new apartments being constructed, apartments ready to occupy, apartments still on floor plan.....hmm its a huge ocean by itself. I browsed websites which I mentioned earlier, read news papers (TOI's Times Property is good), even attended couple of Property Exhibitions. Done it all....but was never satisfied. Almost after 2 months from the day of starting for an apartment search I came to know some trade secrets. I’ll detail them one by one. Some of them are my personal opinions :-)

Trade secret No.1: "All sold out except one"

Before I explain this let me tell one fact...every apartment complex has apartments of varying convenience, build, vasthu, door/balcony facing and ventilation. I mean some are located at appropriate place in the building and some or not. So it’s obvious that cost also varies. So now coming to the trade secret...all builders first try to sell the apartment that is not so well situated in the building and which is least liked by customers. So even if you are in favor of the locality, cost, construction quality the builder will disappoint you by saying that all apartments are sold out except one....and that one is the not conveniently located. But the builder projects it as the best one.

My suggestion here is....look into all the apartments in the building...select 2 or 3 apartments that you like and tell the builder that I’ll buy only these apt's with him. He may say it’s sold out....but I’ll bet you, u'l get a call from him within a week that "the person who had bought the apt earlier has decided to sell it, but for a higher price". Yes this will happen....When the builder has no other option he will try to sell for higher cost at least. So you so can go ahead and bargain to come down to your suitable price. I had bargained one apt for 8 Lakhs ...believe it or not :)

Trade Secret No.2: "Bargain Bargain Bargain"

Every builder knows that bargain will be involved, so they add an additional 2-3L cost to the apt well before. But the problem here is that there are some sound/rich parties who never bargain and settle to the cost the builder quotes. So this actually fixes the cost per sqft in that apartment complex. And for my surprise I have found that those rich parties are created by those builders only. Here I’ll like to mention about people who's job is to buy apartment's with the builders even before the building gets started to construct (Price will be low) and sell it when its completed(Price will be high). So usually you get to hear from builders that some apartments are blocked. It’s actually the builder himself sometimes.


Trade Secret No. 3: "Slow and steady wins the race"

Never get settled to an apartment very soon. Even if you like an apartment keep in touch with builder and keep postponing the booking by telling that ur parents need to vist or something else. Mean time look for some more apartments. But if the builder forces you too much then it means 2 things
1) Builder is in hurry to sell ...he may be short of funds. So good time to bargain
2) Builder has some issues with apartment ....may be legal. So you can clarify for it.

Case 1 is good ....Case 2, be careful.

Trade Secret No.4: "No time is bad time to buy an apartment of your liking".

If it’s your first buy and if it’s for your stay...you go and just buy it, don’t wait for the prices to come down or so. Rise and fall in prices of real estate affects only the builders and people who buy apartment for investment and not for one who wants to buy and stay in it. This is hard to explain ...but believe it, in the long run u'l never benefit from waiting for good time to buy.

Trade secret No.5: Adding 5-6 Lakhs to Builder's quoted price.

This is not a secret actually but a fact. But usually people tend to forget this. First thing you need to do before starting a search is fixing the budget for the buy. This budget should include the cost of the apartment + BWSSB, BESCOM & car parking charges + Registration cost + Interiors & Furniture’s + Miscellaneous.

For example,

If you’re total budget : 35.00 L
Then it should also include the following

BWSSB, BESCOM & car parking charges : 2.50 L (approx)
Registration Cost : 1.50 L (Depending on the area)
Some builders add these later during the finalization process ...so make it clear when they quote the price initially.

Interiors & Furniture’s : 4.00 L Min (Depends on your taste) **
Miscellaneous : 1.00 L (May be excluded)

** If you are relocating then you can reduce this a lot. I am assuming of setting up everything new..like Fans, tube lights, Geezer, Stove, Gas Connection etc. etc. Usually after buying the apartment you feel these costs as extra burden ....so to avoid this add these costs to your initial budget itself.

So now 35 - 2.5 - 1.5 - 4 - 1 = 26L is the price range in which you need to look for the apartment. I suggest you to fix to your budget and look in that range itself or else all things will go out of control and you will end up paying more than the actual cost of the apartment. Also, if you register to some website you mention your budget 2-4 L lesser than yours....coz builders will drag you there ultimately.

Hopefully these secrets/facts will be handy to you....but these may be more applicable during the time when I was searching for an apartment.....where the real estate market was bit slump. I think this favored bargain...but builders may be more rigid if market is in boom. Coming back to my experience.....After 4-5 months of my search all the 3 BHK's that I had seen were going beyond my budget. No doubt I had seen 3BHK's in my budget but usually the area was not so good in all cases. So in a decent locality 3BHK's usually start at 45L and above. But our liking was not yet satisfied. Then slowly we started pushing our budget from max 40L to max 45L. Once we reached 45L our search continued and now the builders with whom we came in contact started showing good apartments but the cost was 50-55L. So always the builder pushes your budget further...that’s why I suggest fixing a budget and don’t deviate from it. So, now I started convincing my father about going for 2BHK itself and also started looking for 2BHK as well.

One more small warning to buyers regarding Pent House and Duplex house. These are usually constructed illegally without the approval from any authority. there is a restriction on the height of the apartment...so whatever is built beyond that height is illegal. Builder can help you get it reguralized but its always a risk. The undivided share of land that is registered to the buyer along with apartment will not be included in case of pent house and Duplex house in most cases. Some banks even dont grant loans to such houses.

Then one day I went for a search on my bike in East Bangalore ...Kasturi Nagar, Banaswadi etc., which is well connected to all IT Hubs in Bangalore except Electronic City and Global Village on Mysore road. As I was passing by I saw board hanging from a small apartment "2BHK apt for sale". I went and enquired...surprisingly I found the apartment owner itself staying there. There were 7 apt in total including one pent house for owner and one other 2BHK apartment also was occupied by the owner. Out of remaining 5, 2 were already sold-out and 3 were yet to be sold. The main thing that attracted me towards that apartment was the huge & beautiful garden that it was facing and that too a musical fountain garden. I was pretty much sure that, among the 3 available the owner would say that the garden facing apartments are sold-out. But to my surprise one 2BHK apartment facing the garden was still available. Also surprisingly the cost was also well within out budget and they reduced to 35L from initial 38L. But the compromise was to settle for 2BHK. This garden facing apartment was located near to very good locality ...HRBR layout, just 1km from ring road, 12km from my office and whitefield, perfectly build as per vasthu, and above all owner was himself staying there. After a long discussion with the family we decided to buy it....finally I found the apartment on my own without anyone's help. so today I am the proud owner of a 2BHK apartment in Bangalore.

Touching Moment for me

It was wednesday 2nd of july 2008, a normal day for me. I was staying in my new apartment in HRBR Layout. I got up early at 6AM to get ready to go to office. The stop where I need to catch the company bus was 1km away so I need to leave atleast 15min early. It was 7:15 when I rached the stop and I was shortly joined by Mr.Kim ...a south korean working in L&T since 3 years...he too takes the bus from the same stop. We were chatting as usual....then I saw a beautiful girl approaching us. She was short, wheatish complexion with long hairs which were nicely tied to make plates. Her smile was what attracted me the most.

This is the conversation we had later on (may be not as it was)

She: Are you from L&T ?
Me : Yes
She: Actually, I took bus service from yesterday and I am supposed to pick-up the bus in the previous stop at 7:15 ...But I was worried as it was 7:20 already. So I asked my brother to drop me to the next stop hoping to find someone from L&T. I saw your tag and just enquired.

Me: ooh don't worry usually the bus comes 10-15 mins late than standard time.

Then I continued chatting with Mr.Kim. There she was standing waiting for the bus.

Me : Did you recently join L&T ?
She: Yes, but actually I have joined as a MTech project trainee for 10 months.
Me : Oooh thats great ...where are you doing your MTech from ?
She: I am doing it from CMRIT.
Me : ooh I too was in L&T during my MTech Project time.

She: Whats your name ?
Me : Ashok ....Ashok Patil ! Whats your name ?
She: Archita ......Archita

We both told our names twice coz we were not sure whether both of us heard it in noise of the traffic :)

I did not see her the next two days. Weekend passed and I think on tuesday I went to the stop as usual. But Once there I immediatly noticed her standing with a friend and gave me a smile.....hmm well thats the best thing about her...her smile :))). I wished to talk to her but she was busy talking to some girl ...her friend I guess. Mr.Kim joined me and we started our normal chatting.

Then what happened next has inspired me to write this. As I was chatting with Mr.Kim a BMTC bus stopped in front of us. The door opened exactly in front of us. A short handicapped man got down and came down limping. Very soon he opened his foldable stick....which made us realise that he is blind too. I immediatly felt that its too dangerous for him to be there, as it was ring road junction. He took the road railing as a guide and moved further towards the signal. I assumed that he will manage some how. He had to pass from where Archita was standing. What I was hesitant in doing ...Archita did not waste a single moment after she saw him and asked him if he wanted any help. The man actually wanted to cross the road. So there she went holding his hand and helped him cross the road. Looks like it is straight from a movie scene....but it happened in front of me. It was really a inspiring and touching move from her. By the time she left him on the other side, our bus arrived. I holded the bus till Archita returned and I thanked her for what she did as I felt that It should have been done by me.

I really respect her a lot for what she did. Thanks Archita once again.

Trip to Wayanad (Kerala)

I was waiting since long to go on trip with friends for couple of days. Our group of old friends from L&T (Working for a project Called AceMap) was the right Choice, as we all are in different companies now and it will be a great re-union. But many attempts to at least meet in Bangalore itself had failed. So I had no hopes of making a 2-3 days trip outside Bangalore. But one fine day I got a call.. Which was conf call involving yadavi, Mahesh and Gundappi....everyone had suddenly planned to go on a 3 day trip and they asked for my confirmation....location was yet to be decided. In the back of my mind I was eveready but my involvement in interiors of my new home was the only hurdle....I delayed my decision to say YES. After the call... I was surprised to know that, all our Ex L&T buddies had agreed to come on the trip....more surprising was the fact that all girls in our well know AceMap group had agreed to come ...Yadavi, Sumana and Haritha.

As an Icing on the cake ...sagar and Kadambari's (Our first newly wed couple in the group.....one more couple in the making: added freshly :-) ) confirmation was great news. Karna canceled his important commitments and was joining us...thanks to him....we need him badly to keep the group laughing ;-). I too made some arrangement and decided to go. Reddy Sid and deepak were always in right from the beginning ...and so was Gundappi. The most surprising and the best thing was Manoj(Batista) joining for the trip. Finally everyone was ready. :-)))))

The day was not yet fixed...and the place as well, but everyone gave the confirmation on the availability on June 6th to 8th. Amazingly all were ready to apply leave on 6th ..Friday. Everything seemed to be perfect. Even we went to the extent of meeting at some place in the weekend to plan for the trip. By 30th of May, after some consultation and research we concluded to go to Wayanad (Kerala) ...Its a district of hill stations in kerala which comes first when we go via Mysore. It’s around 280 Kms from Bangalore. The next few days before the trip we did lot of research on finalizing the places to visit in the district and about accommodation.

The main issue that came up after consulting colleagues from kerala was the monsoon season which was about to begin in kerala. It was predicted to be entering kerala in first week on June. Sadly we got the news that monsoon has hit kerala exactly as predicted. This was when some of our group members started raising issue of...it not being the right time to visit kerala. But some of us did not loose hope. As the day approached some of us still had the doubts to make it. Also we had planned too much for the trip by then. We knew from experience that planned trips get cancelled. But some how we managed to arrive on the journey date and still no one had raised any issue.

We had decided to leave on thursday night by 9PM and reach our destination on friday morning. Spend friday Leisurely....Saturday was to visit some of the places and to return on sunday back to bangalore by night visiting some places on the way.

Thanks to Mahesh for his arrangement of a 3 BHK home stay at Meppadi a place in wayanad. It was told that it was in middle of the tea estate....so we got excited. The owner was doctor who agreed to 4000/- Rs per day than his usual 7000/- since it being a off-season. TT was booked by Mahesh as well.

All set, each one of us left office early on thrusday evening. We decided on some pickup points. Most of them started from sagar's home and rest were picked up near Mysore road. When the TT came near mysore road to pick us...I saw all of them but it took time to digest the fact that everyone were in the TT. I was really happy to find everyone in the TT. Started the journey with some snaps and whistles. The only new person in the group seemed kadambari ...but that feeling was gone by the time we crossed bangalore :-) ....she mingled with others so early and so well.

Some of us had already had dinner but few missed it ...as it was earlier planned to have dinner on the way. But since our starting time got delayed by 3 hours it was bound to happen. So we stopped at some dhaba on the way at 12 to have some light food....then moved on after tasting some ice-cream at a CCD in between.

It was around 1:30AM after we crossed mysore ...our TT had some problem and was making some noise. We stopped to check and the problem was detected. The driver consulted a friend on phone about the seriousness of the problem. Got a positive reply and we moved ahead. But by the time we reached Nanjanagud the noise increased. The driver checked again and found the problem had aggravated and disappointed us by saying that we can’t move further. We were shocked to hear this. It was 2:30 AM in the morning and here we were a bunch of 12 buddies in a broken-down TT. Cant do anything but wait till sunrise and get the vehicle repaired and move. But it was clear that the broken spare part wud be available only in mysore and not any earlier than 9:30.....6 hours from now. Fatefully we were in some small town at least. Slowly we cud not sit in the TT and our mosquito friends had come to sing songs. We no more were able to sit in the TT ...we got out. Then we realized that we had stopped in front of a bank attached with ATM. All were feeling sleepy and not being able to sleep in the TT we planned to go and sleep in front of the ATM itself.....there we slept on a jamkhana we had got. We had a torch for our help.

But all of a sudden we were shocked to see couple of police come to us suspecting us to be bank robbers. Actually we had not noticed a bank security personnel sleeping in front of the bank. He had woke up to our noises and suspecting us, may have had complained the police who had arrived on the spot. This was the most funniest and scary moment of the trip. The police only
left after seeing lady friends with us :). After they left some of us got back in front of the ATM to find a spot to sleep. It was still 3:30 AM and it seemed eternity till we started moving. Some of us went for a walk and then by 5AM a small Tea shop opened ..where we had Tea and waited for sunrise. At around 6AM people started coming out for morning walk. Then the driver started a new story that rather than waiting till the spare part to arrive ...we make a new arrangement for a vehicle. May be the driver was not sure that even if the spare part arrives he cant repair it.

Now we made a hasty decision of arranging for a new TT ....made some contacts and people there also helped us to find a new TT. By 7AM for our disbelief we made it and arranged a new TT and by 7:30 we were on the move ....yahoooo :). Within a short distance we realized that we have got a better TT than the previous one and most importantly the driver was cool.

We entered the jungle and journey was cool and finally we crossed karnataka border and entered kerala. The roads were smooth and on the way we spotted some Fox and Peacock in the jungle. Slowly I went to sleep and others were busy playing some memory games. It was around 12 Noon by the time we reached our accommodation. This 3 BHK house was cleanly maintained and was sufficient for 12 of us. It had a TV and other basic facilities. Settled in the place ..took bath and got fresh by 2. Now we realized that none of our mobiles caught signal....except 1 or 2. I was happy to be away from mobiles and looking at the watch to run on schedules was absent...I felt the freedom. Everyone were hungry and left for lunch. We were aware that food will be problem in kerala. But for our luck we found a hotel named "Prince" which served white rice rather than their usual boiled rice. Also veg food was available.

After lunch we decided to visit a waterfall called soochipura falls. It was 4 PM by the time we reached there....on the way we stopped at a tea estate to take some snaps. Here we could see a pointed peak which went up into the clouts and was looking amazing. On reaching the falls we got to know that we need to get down the valley for about 1km to reach the falls. Getting down was ok but climbing back was the issue with some. We have so far so we went ahead. The path to the falls was clean, beautiful but slippery. The falls is a really beautiful place to visit. By the time we reached back to our house we were tired and raring to have dinner. We got parcel from the same hotel Prince. After dinner some of them got down to play cards and some were watching TV. But I was feeling sleepy and went to bed.

Next day a guide was to join us to show some places. we decided to getup and leave early by 6AM. But as usual we were late by 1 hr. The guide came and told that the best place to visit now is Chembara Peak. As we moved towards it we were all shocked to see that Chembara peak was the same pointed peak that we saw the previous day from a tea estate. Some right away said that they are not going to climb it. But later agreed only after the guide said that the TT will cover 75% of the height. The way to the peak was beautiful and the climate also looked superb. After going uphill for some 4 kms the TT trip was over and from there we needed to walk. But still the peak of the mountain looked far away. Even at the height we stopped had gorgeous
Scenery we imagined the scenery from the peak....which motivated us to climb. Also guide boosted our motivation by showing some pics in his mobile.... there's a lake on top of the peak. Just after we climbing some height we were tired and moving ahead was becoming difficult. We might have climbed some 50% we stopped and decided not to go further. Others were still
motivated to see Deepak, sid, reddy, gundappi and yadavi made it to the top and they were lucky to see some excellent sceneries....which the others missed. Then after some hour or so they returned and we started descending. We had some things to eat and left back to hotel.

The most memorable thing of our trip happened on our way back from Chembara peak. We had taken with us a cricket bat and ball....on our way back we saw a football ground and within no time we created a cricket ground of it. Stumps were ready and teams chosen and here goes the toss. Sagar team had me, sid , gundappi, haritha and kadambari and Manoj had reddy, deepak, karna, yadavi and sumana. Manoj team batted first and scored 56 runs in 6 overs...with good contribution from reddy and deepak. Later Sagar's team could not reach the target set and fell short of 26 runs. It was a great exp to play cricket in such a beautiful place in midst of so much greenery. Tired we returned to the hotel and after the lunch we all left to a reservoir called Banasura Sagar Dam. It was raining heavily ...we could not even step out of the TT. Disappointed we moved from there and left to a place called Phokote lake....where we expected to do boating. The lake was a beautiful place but unfortunately the boating time was over. But the place was beautiful and we enjoyed the full walk around the lake. Here we had a kerala handicraft shop ...where some of us shopped. This was the last visit of the day. It was dark by the time we reached our house. Tired by the whole day’s activities we again ordered a dinner and started our night session of cards. Played till 12 PM ...and went back to sleep. The end of day two.

Sunday was the last day of the trip so we had to vacate the home ...our first TT which broke down and delayed our reaching the destination came to our advantage...coz we could only check out from the home stay on Sunday at 9:30 AM which made totally 2 days....had the TT not broken down we would have reached the home stay at 6AM on Friday morning ...so by sunday
9:30AM wud have made it 3rd day .....so we saved 4000/- :-). Moving ahead we had planned to visit Edakkal Caves. Inspired the the kannada movie on the same name "Edakkal Guddada Mele" we were curious to see it. It was 11 AM when we reached there ....but for our shock we have to climb once again to visit the caves :( . All our outing in kerala till now had been trekking only ...we were tired. But we have started it and we have to end it.

We decided to go ahead. We ordered lunch for 12 ppl and started climbing. But very soon we got to know that a Jeep carries ppl for some distance towards the cave....all girls and two of us got into it and started ....others came by walk. The jeep journey was adventurous. After the jeep there was lot to climb. After lot of effort we reached the caves. Inside the caves there is a huge rock stuck in between other two humungous rocks ...that’s why it’s called Edakkal. There are ancient scripts written all over the caves inner wall ...a guide explained us the script. We could go further up the hill to reach a hill top, from where we it was said that we can see the borders of all the 3 states ...Karnataka, Kerala and TN. But it was too much a risky climb and above all we were tired. So we started our descend and reached bottom by 2PM. Lunch was ready ....it was the best food we had in kerala till then ...or were we too hungry ?? anyway that was the last destination of the trip. Then we left towards bangalore.

All the way we were playing dumb cherads till we reached bangalore. There we entered the bangalore traffic and the nightmares begin and refreshed from the trip we all went back to our homes and had a deep sleep. But the hectic work that we had left behind was already lurking behind our minds.

To end with ...I would definitely like to go on a long trip like this one guys .....but on a different landscape altogether. May a beach ....what say ? ...how about Goa ???

Skandagiri - Midnight Trekking

I never thought I could get to see such beautiful scenery at such a close distance to bengaluru. We got to hear from our friends about their recent trekking visit to skandagiri.
Skandagiri is around 70kms from bengaluru, very near to another popular hill station, Nandi Hills. The uniqueness about trekking at skandagiri is its night trekking. Trekking in the daytime will also be great idea but it’s preferable during the night, which makes possible to see the sunrise and the layer of clouds that is formed below us….simply breathtaking.

We pals decided to go for the night trekking. Initially we planned to go by bike, but later hired a quails for 8 friends. But by the day arrived the count came down to 5….but we never lost hope. On the day itself it was raining heavily but we decided to go ahead assuming that it will not be raining at skandagiri. Then the driver of the taxi which Deepak had booked 2 days earlier had some issue and pulled out at the last minute…..but we were determined to go. Thanks to Mahesh who on the spot arranged another taxi. By the time we all grouped and left, it was 11 PM. Things we took with us were Torch(Compulsory), Water (a must), match box, food (Biscuits, fruits) and cloth/monkey cap to beat the cold wind on top of the hill …..all these need to be carried in a back pack….as u need your hands free while climbing.

Here starts our real adventure….none of us in the group did not know the way to Skandagiri …including the driver. We had a rough sketch of the route map …a print out taken from net. We went in wrong directions initially ….but got the right directions from the villagers sleeping in front their houses…whom we woke up in the midnight ?. It was 00:30 AM when we reached skandagiri. We registered with forest office and paid a fee of 15 per head. Guides were available ….but we did not opt for it. They charge around 300-500 Rs depending the size of the group. Not opting for a guide looked foolish initially as we started moving in a wrong direction in the beginning ? …but later the forest officer showed us the right way. We had walked some 500mts on a flat path ….we came across 3 ways ….we didn’t know which one to take. Finally we decided to take the path that was leading towards the hill which was visible like a huge rock in the darkness. Here onwards there was no path to walk …only stones and shrubs all the way. We could find some signs marked as “way to hill” ….which confirmed us the right way we were going in.

As we moved ahead slowly taking snaps, the way got steeper. Now we were feeling the strain on our legs….we moved ahead taking rest every 15 mins. I was not talking much to save my energy …..others we joking, singing and talking all way. At 1 AM we were on our midway or so ….we were completely exhausted. Now we were taking breaks at very short intervals and to our advantage very cool wind was blowing, which made our journey less stressful. As we moved further through more difficult path ...we could now see the fog getting formed (actually we were moving into the clouds as we moved higher and higher). Also now we were not able to see the lights of the far away city and villages.

As our treacherous journey up the hill continued we were able to hear voices of people who had started their climb ahead of us….this made us happy as some of us still had the doubt that we were moving in the wrong direction. As we moved further it seemed like the journey will never end and so at some point we decided to stop and take a nap. But as we could see the tip of the hill we moved further …but when we reach there we again can see another tip ?. Then we finally came to a dead end….from were we took a right and then at last we could see the torch light and a camp fire put by trekkers who came earlier….this gave us lot of relief. It was 3:30 AM when we reached the top and we were surprised to see a guy who had put up a small shop selling Tea and Omlet. We took tea which was refreshing. Some people had put up tents and sleeping there ….they had come fully equipped. We could not see anything but the camp fire. Wet wind was blowing heavily….actually we were in the clouds now. We got to meet an old man who was also a guide ….who shared his stories with us. We were feeling sleepy but we listened to his interesting stories. Then we eat some things we took and waited for the sunrise. Slowly some more groups started joining us and a small group of people on the top became a crowd now.

At around 5:30 AM we could see some distance in the dim light of the rising sun. Usually the sun rises at around 6 AM. Now we started taking more snaps and took video’s too. As the moment arrived closer we still could not see any signs of the clouds disappearing. At 5:55 AM too we were not able to see any sign of sun ….clouds were still thicker. Guides disappointed us by telling that we could not see the sun rise as clouds were more today. We waited till 6:15 but no signs of sun yet…..this was disappointing. But now we could see far more distances and the light intensified ….which also indicated the sunrise already completed. The scenery was really good and misty. We could never imagine such cool breezy climate in mid of hot summer. At 6:30 AM we decided to get down the hill. Disappointed about not being able to see the sunrise we started our descent. Slowly as we moved down we could see the sun like a moon and as we got still further down we saw beautiful sceneries in the morning golden sunlight. But now we got to realize how much dangerous path we had taken uphill which we could not see in our torch light ? on our way uphill. We hardly had 2 stops on our way downhill. It was 7:15 AM when we reached the bottom completely exhausted. The driver was ready to leave ….as we left we could see the tip of skandagiri hill wearing a cap of clouds. As we were completely drained out we didn’t know when we fell asleep in the vehicle and we only woke up to the honking of vehicles in the bengaluru traffic.

A day to cherish in my life and the craziest thing I have ever done …the trekking in the night. But I would love to go again hoping for the perfect sunrise that I have seen in pictures.