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Home : Travel : Bangalore : One section
On Saturday, July 10, we went to Pearl Valley, a popular picnic spot not too far from Bangalore. From our experience with Nandi Hills, another picnic spot about 60 km north of Bangalore, we knew that it would be crowded there on a Sunday.
It took about 90 minutes to drive the 40 km from Bangalore to Pearl Valley. The road goes in the general direction of Bannerghatta National Park that we visited during our first stay. But Pearl Valley is a little bit further down the road.
We parked the car near a little restaurant that overlooks the entire valley. From there you have to descend a couple of hundred stairs to reach the bottom of the valley. At first, our driver wanted to stay with the car, but we were able to persuade him to come with us.
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At the bottom we found lots of rocks under shady trees. There was a waterfall coming down the rocky side of the valley. It was a rather small waterfall. Later we learned that it is a lot bigger at other times in the year. Bad timing!
People were splashing around in the little pool at the bottom of the fall.
Boys and men were either wearing shorts or swimsuits. The Indian
women got in wearing their full clothes.
Suddenly a bunch of monkeys appeared. One very adventurous monkey went to the
bags of the girls splashing around in the water and looked through
them. The monkey knew exactly what it wanted. Before anybody could shoo
it away, it grabbed a mango and climbed into the nearest tree.
The monkeys were not the only animals around. There were also a lot of
the jungle crows. You will find these in numbers everywhere
here. And they can make quite some noise. Rudi took out his mini-disc
player and recorded the sounds we could hear.
Of course there was also a little temple here. It seems to be impossible
to go anywhere in India without having one of those, too.
We left this waterfall to follow the water further into the valley. Soon we
reached a quiet little pool with big rocks where the water was
flowing in. The pool had the typical red-brown color of the earth. It
was a wonderful place where you could sit the whole day and relax. At
least it was quiet on a Saturday. I can imagine that this place is
packed on Sundays when the Indians don't have to work...
Being a popular picnic place also has its dark sides. You find litter
everywhere! This was compensated by the colorful butterflies flying
around our heads.
Further down the valley the little trail became ever more invisible. We had a beautiful view of the surrounding hills. Turning back we could see the two waterfalls cascading down into the valley. High up on the hillside was the restaurant we started from. It looked so far away and high up, it seemed it would take hours to get back there.
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Since it was a beautiful day with the sun shining the ascend of the stairs made us sweat a lot. Rudi had to take several rests along the way.
Back at the top we went to the little restaurant and sat outside on the terrace enjoying the view over Pearl Valley.
Next to us was a group of Indian women with their children. Everyone
seemed to have a good time and there was quite some chattering. Rudi
made another recording of this.
On the way back to Bangalore we came through the little village Anekal. As in any little village we passed, life was taking place on the streets. The driver had to use the horn a lot to be able to get through the little streets.
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