I had never gone out with my friends since I got married in May 2005. May be I was missing my bachelorhood and wanted to go out with friends some day. This time my wife was away at her native to celebrate Ganesha Chaturthi festival and five of us decided to go to any of the hill stations near to B’lore. It all started with Ashish who initiated all this and both of us had a travel gift voucher as well from Sterling Resorts. We decided to go to Yellagiri on 23rd of August (2008) and spend the whole week end there.
On 23rd Aug morning at around 7.30am we started from Valtech in my Chevi U-VA. Satish, Nagaraju, Selva & Ashish (colleagues and friends) also joined me. Yellagiri Sterling Resort is about 150 km from our office which is located in J. P. Nagar 3rd phase. (from left sats, nags, sel, me and ashi)
Till Hosur, it was quite difficult to drive due to lot of deviations and traffic. But later on it was a smooth drive till Yellagiri, except a little distance which was patchy. All of us had a good breakfast in one of the small daba kind of hotels located adjacent to the highway near Krishnagiri. Believe me five of us had heavy breakfast just for about 90 bucks. The same would have cost us anywhere around 250 bucks easily in any of the hotels in B’lore.
We reached Yellagiri at around 11.30 am, bargained with the Sterlite guy to give us 2 rooms on the 2nd floor (terrace). Sterlite’s this facility in Yellagiri was not actually a resort though they claim so. It was as good as a home stay. They hardly had any of the resort kind of facilities. They used to cook based on orders given. Don’t expect liquor in this resort. But they do not object if you get on your own. Except Carom and badminton (both of poor quality) they had no other activities also. Later we came to know that it was a rented property. Anyways we enjoyed our time in our own way with the stuffs we carried from B’lore ;-)
Day – 1: We took some rest and played Carom and Badminton for a while. In the evening all of us went for a walk. Weather was pretty pleasant though it was not cold. We also went to the creek side, paying Rs 3 /- per head. Since it was already quite dark we could not do/see much. We were neither interested to go on boat ride nor move around the garden. The garden is also not that big. I think you get better gardens free of cost in B’lore! After returning back we chilled ourselves quite nicely and played Carom till 1.30am. It was fun to pull each other’s leg and listen to every one’s version of Valtech.
Day - 2: Morning after having a decent breakfast we did not really know what to do. Previous day’s plan of going for a morning trek also did not materialize as we had got up quite late. There are not many places either to go for site seeing. Finally we came to know about a temple which is about 6-7 Kms from Sterling resort and from there around 2500 steps to reach the place. Nagaraju and Selva decided to join me for this “big” trek where as Satish and Ashish planed to stay back. 
An old man came with us to guide. He said we have to trek for about 7 km to reach that temple. But we later felt it could be around 4 km only. Though it was not 2500 steps, I could count around 1500 steps literally. It was combination of steps and climbing the hill. Believe me the old man (66 yrs old) was much faster than us. Though he used to smoke bidis quite often, was never felt like getting tired! He said he visits the temple 4 times a day with tourists like us! We spent about half an hour around the temple and returned back. We took about 2 hrs complete this trek. All 3 of us were pretty tired. We again had a very good lunch at Sterling, played little bit of Badminton again, took quiet a few photos and decided to leave to B’lore after taking some rest.
In the afternoon we went to a nearby resort to check the facility there. Though the name of this Resort was Taj Gateway, it is not actually from the Taj Group. However it looked much better than Sterling’s! 
In the evening mood was changed. No one was in a mood to leave the place immediately. All decided to leave Yellagiri next day early morning (Monday) and reach Bangalore by 8.30 am at least. We started from there at around 5.30am and reached B’lore by 9.00am. My car gave about 18.5 km mileage. It was really nice to get this kind of mileage from GM. I was more than satisfied with my car!
Overall it was very nice being away from the daily routines & Bangalore traffic.
