Mascal Camping: SG Hill Meets Nature (part 1)

TWU XVIII escaped for a camping adventure over the weekend to a place called Mascal.

In what seems to be the start of a tradition, we ThoughtWorkers mention three things in our posts about Mascal:

1. Mascal is virtually impossible to find.
2. It lies 40-45 km away from Bangalore's Diamond District.
3. Search engines returning nothing -- nothing but ThoughtWorker blogs.
• J'adore Bangalore (July 2010)
• Marjorie Pries: Don't believe everything you think (August 2009)
• wend: to journey (June 2009)

Background

Thanks to my awesome GPS-enabled phone, I've been able to put this place on the map. The journey was 2 hours and 47 minutes in a bus. Just when I think I can't possibly be surprised any more, I get into a bus that makes a habit of passing cars and driving 3 inches from the edge of a dirt road carved out of a hillside.

Our 49.4km route:

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The trip was arranged with Outback India, who employ some of the nicest people around.

Both of our paid guides were going to school and doing this on weekends. We also had an amazingly nice volunteer who does this just to meet different people. An avid How I Met Your Mother watcher, we discussed the US-Candian relationship as told by the show. He's headed off to London for Audio Engineering next month.

Arriving

The last leg of the bus ride is a trip through an extremely small village. We step off the bus and are greeted with super skinny cows.

It was clear from the beginning this was going to be far different from another day at the office, though you wouldn't know it to look at me. Who else could pull off bringing a camera, collared shirt, and water bottle camping?

The trek from the bus to the campsite was about 1km through fields and over rocks.

Once there, we basked at the marvel that I call mini-stonehenge. It wasn't long until some of us had made our way out to the lake and conquered the microwonder.

We didn't spend this day alone, either. A very friendly street dog had decided to spend the day with us.

Luckily she was a very low-key and non-threatening dog, as she stayed well into the night.

Activities

Of course it didn't just end with getting to the campsite. We had a day full of activities...