Road trip to Pyramid Valley International

After 2 weeks of downtime since the Gulakamale Lake trip, we found a Sunday with nice and cool weather. So in a plan made in half an hour, we head out to explore one of the places I always wanted to go check. It’s a Pyramid at the outskirt of Bangalore.

Pyramid Valley International is a serene place on Kanakpura Road, with a vast area full of greenery, and in between all that, a pretty big Pyramid.

I was always curious to go check it out in person and see what’s inside the Pyramid. But never got a chance. But now that we have a car, who’s stopping us?

FYI, as of Feb 6, 2022, Kanakpura road is in a horrible state. It was difficult to go above 40kmph, and we mostly had to keep the speed below 30kmph to save the hip of everyone in the car. So if you’re taking that road, you’ve been warned.

But all the signs of torment went away from our face when we entered the PVI compound.

At first we thought we were the only ones to be there because we saw almost no cars leading up to PVI, but the moment we took the turn towards the parking area, we were proven wrong. The parking lot was almost full. They took Rs 50 as either entree fee or parking fee, not sure. But that was the only money we paid.

From that point on, it was a pretty chilled place. Lot of trees. There is a small water body that has some scope of boating. Lot of people were boating around in there. We didn’t go because we were not interested. We walked straight up to the Pyramid because that’s where my interest lied.

Pyramid Valley International is primarily intended to help people meditate, and learn meditation. While walking to the Pyramid, we saw signboards mentioning that they even have 6-12 months long certification course on Yoga. It’s a pretty spiritual place. Not really religious. There were few statues of Gautam Buddha around. But as all Buddist places of worship, everybody felt pretty much at peace. No security check like at a lot of religious places. Nobody even came to check my backpacks. We just straight up walked into the Pyramid. And it was an experience I’ll remember for a while.

The inside of the Pyramid has a dark chamber, of pyramid shape even in the inside. With at least 100 chairs all around. And it was one of the most quiet place I’ve experienced in a while. You could literally hear a pin drop even if 100 people were sitting there. It was about 25% full when we entered it. And everybody was peacefully quiet. Nobody was checking their phones. Everyone was just sitting there.

I’d have sat there for sometime. But I really can’t take that much quiet. I feel very uneasy in my head if I don’t have some kind of background noise. But if you like quiet place, and/or if you like to meditate, you should definitely visit the place.

I’m not a religious person. Don’t know if I believe in spirituality. But I believe in good vibes from people and places. And this place definitely gave a lot of that. The only negativity I could find there was what I carried myself.

There was a small gift shop and book shop. We didn’t buy anything. We head out to the lawn where there were places to sit and chill. It was pretty nice. You can go there in the morning, and lie down and sleep all day long, and nobody would come and bother you. There is a real lack of that kind of freedom in the public/private places around us. I really admired it.

After spending some time there, we decided to head to the cafeteria and have some coffee, and then head out because it was getting dark. And at that moment I was still not feeling comfortable driving in the dark on a highway. But as luck would have it, that happened anyway.

I really wanted to avoid Kanakpura road while coming back. But all the other detours would add at least 1 more hour to the journey through forest/village roads, and it was already getting dark. So decided to suck it up and just take the same road back. And that turned out to be a good decision.

The road towards Bangalore was a little less messed up than the other side. So I could speed up a bit.

Then the fun part happened. If you see the map above, we made a stop near this area called Chikkanagipalya. Because, right on the Kanakpura road there (approx location), there were couple of roadside vegetable markets, and my mom got super excited to see fresh veggies. So we stopped beside one of the markets. And mom just went crazy. For about half an hour she shopped about 10kgs of veggies, which costed about Rs 350. The veggies were really good quality and inexpensive. Writing this after about a week of having them, they were really good.

And then when we finally decided to leave, sun has set, and by the time I got on to NICE road, it was properly dark.

It was a really fun experience to drive on a highway in dark. Had to be constantly cautious because I could only see headlights in the rear-view mirror. There were no noticeable street lamps, so couldn’t judge what all cars are behind me. Just keep on driving. NICE road is thankfully in a very good condition and you can drive without much tension.

Overall it was a fun trip all around. My parents really enjoyed it, and we did too. It was about 85km both ways. Hoping to cross 100km in the next trip.

PS: Bunch of photos above are courtesy of Ayanti.