16-Dec-2001 -- Getting good, to-scale maps of India is very difficult, so we decided to do without one as we were quite close to this confluence. The GPS receiver estimated that the confluence was 42.7 kilometers from my home in Bangalore. Looking for some maps on the Internet revealed that the confluence was somewhere in a place called Malur in the Kolar district of Karnataka.

With information about how to get to Malur, three of us, Praveen Khanna, Ritesh Ranjan, and I got onto to my Bolero and headed East. Finally, I get to use the GPS receiver for something. It was 11:15 in the morning.

The drive to Malur, on Old Madras Road, via Hoskote was uneventful. Once we got to Malur we found a perfect left turn that pointed to where we were heading, we took it and after driving for a few kilometers, we came to a fork and we took the right as thats where the receiver pointed. A few kilometers on the road and we were almost there. For a while, we expected the road to go right through the confluence, however, the road curved to the left and the GPS pointed right, towards a brick factory. The confluence lay about 400 meters from there, behind the factory. We were a little disappointed, this was too easy. We were hoping for a short trek at least.

The 400 metre walk was not as easy as we thought it would be. A railway track came into view behind the factory and crossing it was not too easy as the bushes were really thick. We finally found an opening and managed to scramble up an opening in the bushes and cross the track. On the other side, there was a big ditch, almost like a small moat. After having no luck in finding a way to cross over, we slid down the "moat" and climbed up the other end. 200 metres more to go. This was an easy walk and as the woods cleared up, we came to a potato field. A few villagers were just finishing their lunch and they ran to us, wondering what we were doing in the middle of their field. We couldn't manage to explain about latitudes and longitudes. We finally told them we were on a picnic. We finally zeroed in after going around in circles for a while and we got an exact reading on the receiver. What was amazing was that right at the confluence, there was this small patch of chile plants. What are the chances of planting a few chile plants in the middle of a potato field at a confluence?!

That was it, we took some photos, chatted a bit with the villagers and headed back to Bangalore. We finished off with a mug of draught beer at one of the several great pubs in the city. We were back at 3pm.

There are two more neighboring confluences I plan to visit. I expect them to be much more challenging than this one. Will keep you posted on that.