Thoughts of a Biker

Kemmanagundi

2007-11-19T20:41:00.015+05:30

Kemmanagundi literally means "pit of clay" which might not sound very interesting but trust me, it is one of the best kept secrets of Karnataka.

There were around 5-6 bikes planned for this trip but as usual many backouts and we came down to two and no points for guessing me and Ashu.

We met at MG Road at 6:30 AM and he was with a pillion, Ajeet. Soon we were inching towards Neelmangla through heavy truck traffic. Tank up at Shell Petrol Bunk and we stopped for breakfast at a dosa joint. Road was good, weather was perfect and we took next stop after 100 km and had some fresh juice. I glanced at my wrist watch and a smile came to my face. We were just 40 odd km from Hassan and it was not even 11 AM. Good we were on schedule.

We soon crossed Hassan city and took the road to Belur via Halebidu. There was a big pothole on the road and my speedometer cable snapped off due to that jerk :(. Though road was not one of the best but I loved the route. Soon we were in Chikamaglur and we stopped for lunch. Vegeterian it was. You see navratri and all :).

We had barely moved 5-6 km from Chikamaglur and it started raining. We had to wait at a small shack as neither Ashu nor Ajeet had any rain protection. "Necessity is the mother of all inventions. This was proven true with these raincoats. Cost Rs 8/- per piece :).

A shorter but bad road route to Kemmanagundi is if you take a left turn after some 8 km from Chikamaglur but we chose the longer but good tarred road route. The roads were amazing and rain kept us company almost throughout . We reached Kalahatti falls at around 4 PM. We were slowed down substantially because of rains. By the time we reached Horticulture Department Guesthouse, sun had started turning red.

Now the difficult part. We had tried booking the guesthouse over phone from Bangalore but no one picked up the phone and like we feared there was no room available. I must tell here that there is no other place in Kemmanagundi to stay apart from this guesthouse unless you want to spend some quality time with big cats of the jungle :D. After some persuasion and negotiations, we finally managed to get a room with dirty sheets and damp beds :(. Thank god we carried our sleeping bags. No electricity and we had a candlelight dinner at the canteen. Walked back to our rooms and retired.

Next day morning, my shoes were still dripping so I wore floaters. We rode out towards Z-point. It was all muddy and slushy with last day's heavy rains. We went as far as our bikes could do, clicked some photos and returned.

Spectacular views! There wasn't any time to trek till Z-point. Maybe next time. We headed towards Hebbe Falls.

After diverting from the Chikamaglur road towards Hebbe falls, we could see the landscape changing from green to brown. It was a mining area and we could see that in the dark coloured soil. After sometime the real bad jeep track started.

Hebbe falls is some 8-10 km from this point and it took us almost an hour to cover. The track looked like a seasonal waterway which was used as road when there is no water in it! I doubted whether my bike would be able to take on it but it was a pleasant surprise :). After reaching the foothill, there was a small walk till we reached the waterfalls. We had to cross few streams and on the way I noticed that my feet were infested with leaches! I could see stains of blood on them. I washed my feet and floaters throughly in the water and moved on.

Hebbe Falls. What a sight! We spent some time admiring and clicking the waterfalls and soon were back on track. We wanted to reach Baba-Budayangiri by noon. The ride towards Baba-Budayangiri was full of spectacular green hills and twisty roads. And ther trafiic was so low that we were wondering if this was the correct road! We stopped at this spot which looked like just taken out from windows XP wallpaper! I had never seen anything so pure green and blue! We stopped and clicked loads of photos there.

By noon, we had taken the diversion and were climbing towards Baba-Budayangiri. This road was smooth and quite steep. It felt like top of the world from B-Top! The beautiful green valley below with clouds shielding sunlight at some spots was just fantastic. But we had to move on and we did.

The roads deteriorated further. The soil is very clayey and it was damn skiddy after rains. But we were out of bad roads and into Chikamaglur by 4 PM. Lunch time!

After having some chicken biryani, we started off for Bangalore at around 5 PM. It was hardly 10 mins on the road and it started raining heavily! We immediately took shelter under a shed. We waited for more than half an hour and there wasn't even slightest hint of rains slowing down. We finally decided to push off at around 6.

As we moved towards Hassan and then to Bangalore, there was no sign of rains slowing down. Though I had a rain proof jacket, I didn't have rain proof pants. We were chilled to bone riding for 150 kms in rains !! Due to heavy rains and headwind, visibility was very less and we could not go past 60 kmph. Finally some 100 km before Bangalore, we stopped for garamagaram chai and changed to dry clothes. What a relief! The rains were now just a drizzle and we just wanted to reach Bangalore as soon as possible. With non stop riding, we managed to enter Bangalore at around 1 AM. Due to less speed in rains, I got a whopping 47.5 kmpl of average!

Reached home at around 1:30 AM, took a hot shower and crashed on the bed with a content smile. I just visited the most beautiful place in Karnataka!

Summary:
-------------

Date:
20th Oct 2007 to 21st Oct 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
2. Ashutosh - RE Thunderbird
3. Ajeet - Pillion with Ashutosh

Route:

Bangalore - Neelmangla - Hassan - Halebidu - Chikamanglur - Kemmanagundi - Hebbe Falls - Baba Budayangiri - Chikmanglur - Belur - Hassan - Bangalore

Total Distance covered: 760 KM

Night Stay:

Kemmanagundi: Horticulture Department Guest House. Double Room for Rs 550/-

More pics can be seen here

The Great South-Eastern Ride

2007-10-18T23:04:00.001+05:30

Two bikes, 4 states, 1 week, 2000+ km - that makes the Great South-Eastern Ride.

I had to attend a wedding ceremony in Vijaywada and was thinking of attending the reception at Vizag too. Naren was all set to book the bus tickets in the evening. Suddenly while having my lunch in office, this idea struck me - "How bout riding to Vijaywada?" I had not ridden to that part of the country and the distance looked like do-able but I was sure no one will join me for this ride. Pondered on this for some time. What the hell, I will ride solo :). I had to take leave from mon to wed. I thought of chipping in two more leaves and extend the ride. So finally thought of riding from Bangalore - Vijaywada - Vizag - Puri - Kharagpur.

When I told this plan to Anjai Lal at the lunch table, he laughed it off. Actually it did look crazy. Some 1800-1900 km one way. Anyways I posted my intent on BN and got some idea about the roads. Only thing was that I will have to do it solo as no one will take 5 days off for this crazy ride. Little persuasion and Saswata agreed :).

T - 1 day:

Eicher road maps were opened, local.live.com was searched, printout of the maps were taken , leaves were already approved and we were set to burn some real rubber next day.

Day 1 (Bangalore - Hoskote - Chittoor - Naidupetta - Vijaywada)

Woke up at 4 AM as per plan. But I think God did not want us to leave in time.

4:45 AM: Got ready and looked out of balcony - it was raining! We did not want to start riding in rains so called up Saswata to delay our departure by 30 mins. So 5:30 AM was the new rendezvous time.
5:25 AM: Got call from Saswata that he has a flat tyre! Instructed him to get it fixed from the 24X7 petrol bunk at Airport Road.
5:50 AM: Another call from Saswata - "That bunk has no repair shop".
5:55 AM: Left home. 300 m from home, a black cat crossed the road in front of me. Not that I really believe in these superstitions, but the way things were happening since morning, I could not help noticing and registering this.
6:05 AM: Met Saswata. It seemed the valve of his rear tube was gone. Went back to his home on my bike to check if that valve can be replaced(??) from his roomie's bike. Had no idea at that time that it was not possible.
6:30 AM: Called Ashu, if he can give any mechanic's number. The one he gave did not pick the phone. Reached back at the petrol bunk. On enquiry found that HP bunk at MG road has a 24 hr mechanic shop. I rushed to that shop.
7:05 AM: Woke up Bashir bhai, the mechanic and persuaded him to come with me for changing the tire-tube. It started raining again :(
7:15 AM: Bashir bhai took his auto and we left in his auto. Bashir bhai was desperate not to get wet.
7:40 AM: Auto made some wierd sounds, jerked and stopped. We tried pushing it also but in vain. (Imagine two guys one in full riding gear pushing an auto on Airport Road.)
8:00 AM: Finally reached Saswata after walking the last 1 km.
8:30 AM: Back at MG Road to pick my bike and we moved to Old Madras Road full 3 and a half hour behind schedule. The insane traffic till Hoskote further threw us 30 more minutes behind schedule.

Anyways, from past experience we have seen that there is generally only one breakdown per ride and we have passed that (touch wood :D). A quick breakfast after crossing Hoskote and we were on the smooth two-lane highway to Tirupati. The road was amazingly nice and for the first time I saw a three digit figure on the speed limit board and that too on a two-lane road without divider!

One chai stop in between and we stopped for lunch only after crossing Tirupati. It was scorching hot contrary to the early morning showers we saw. Had nice North-Indian style food for lunch and a break of around 1 hour and we again hit the road. Now we were waiting to reach Naidupetta where we were to merge with the 4-lane Chennai-Kolkata Highway (Part of the GQ project). We saw rain clouds hovering over Naidupetta from a distance and asked Saswata to stop and wear the raingear but he insisted on moving on. Result - Completely drenched in the rain.
My Fieldsheer Hydro Tour Jacket saved upper body from getting wet but I was drenched otherwise with that irritating sloshy sound coming out of the shoes everytime I move my feet.
Naidupetta to Vizag was a breeze with patches of hot sun and rains. We witnessed some amazing sites of sun playing between clouds which left us with an awe.

Couple of stops in between for chai and we hit Vijaywada at around 10:30 PM. Thanks to Bandi for fabulous arrangement at the Vijaywada club. Filled our bellies with some real good chicken and dozed off. Odo Reading: 664 KM.

Day 2 (Vijaywada):

No riding today. Woke up lazily. It was too hot and we roamed around in AC car only. Attended first South Indian wedding. It was a very nice experience. Some real good veg food and we were off to bed pretty early.

Day 3 (Vijaywada - Rajahmundry - Vishakhapatnam):

We had to cover just 400 km and we had a full day to do that. We started off at around 9:30 AM. The roads were just amazing! 4 lane divided highway with greenery on both the sides.

There were some showers in between which were quite enjoyable. We stopped for clicking pics in between and finally parked at a dhaba near Rajahmundry for lunch.

Rajahmundry is almost half way between Vijaywada and Vizag. We had some delicious Kaju-masala with tandoori rotis. This actually was a great combination :). After some 1 hour of chilling out in the dhaba, we hit the roads again. The landscape became yet more beautiful with small hillocks replacing the green pastures on both sides.

We entered Vizag at around 6:00 PM. Usual city traffic :(. After a lot of directions from a lot of people, we reached our place to crash - Waltair Club. Again thanks to Bandi, this was one amazing place to stay! Didn't do much that day apart from a nice drive on beach road in his Skoda. Had some real good fishes and prawns for dinner and went to bed.

Day 4 (Vishakhapatnam):

Got up at leisure in the morning. First thing was to search for Bajaj Service station. The chain was quite loose after 1K+ km of riding. I must say the people at Varun Motors were very proactive in checking my bike for problems. They quickly tightened the chain and checked the oil level and viscosity. In an hour we were back to the Waltair Club. Evening was spent roaming around on beach road and a short ride to Kailashgiri.

The view of Vizag city lighting up when it gets dark looks quite fascinating. Tried some experiments with the night mode in my camera. Results were OK not very good.

Attended the reception in Waltair club and dozed off with a smile imagining about the route which was ahead.

Day 5 (Vishakhapatnam - Ichhapuram - Balugaon - Nirakarpur - Puri):

Planned to wake up early but it was well past 7 when we woke up. By 8:30, we were on the road again riding through slight drizzle. After some 10 km I suddenly realized, that my cellphone is not there with me. Rushed back to the club and got caught in heavy rains :(. Finally found the cellphone and joined Saswata again. Today we were racing with rains. There was a constant drizzle for about 100km and we could see dark rain clouds behind us.
Suddenly I noticed that I cannot see Saswata in my rear view mirror. I slowed down but no sign and then I recieved an SMS from him - "Engine gone. Not able to start. Get Mechanic". Now this was the last thing to expect. Tried calling him but could not connect. I rode back and caught up with him after some 8 km. First suspicion was engine sieze but it did not look like that. Then I remembered, I am riding with Saswata! That means he must be out of petrol. Checked the fuel cap which was on reserve. "Oh reserve mein tha? mujhe laga ki abhi ON mein hi hai" was his expression. I tied his bike to mine using a rope and I did the towing job for some 5 km till we reached the petrol bunk.

We thought of having lunch at either Rambha or Balugan where, we heard, we will get very good prawns :). Riding till Ichhapuram was quick on the 4-laner. Ichhapuram is on AP-Orissa border, the last town in AP on this route. After crossing Ichhapuram, the road suddenly disappeared! I mean there was nothing, no road not even potholed one. zilch! And to complement it, there was a small drain perpendicular to where the road should have been. On enquiry, we were told to take a left, cross the village, take a right and we will hit the NH 5 again. We followed the directions through dusty village roads where everyone was staring at us without a blink and we reached the so-called NH-5. Dodging through the potholes and trucks we managed to go few tens of km further. Didn't even notice when we entered Orissa. I was quite amused and shocked to see this state of NH-5. I always had this notion that being a part of GQ, NH-5 is all 4-laner.

"Ye 4-lane highway kab aayega?", I stopped and asked one elderly looking person. "Kam se kam 3 saal to lagega.", was his reply.
"Are yahan nahin, aage kitni door milega?"
"Achha! aage ??? balugan ke baad hoga"

And we rode on! It started getting extremely hot and humid. Sun blazing on our heads. Suddenly the landscape changed. We could see small hillocks and there we got the first glimpse of Chilka lake! It's just beautiful. Period.

We stopped at a roadside dhaba and devoured on spicy prawn curry and rice. After enquiry about the route to Puri, we were told to take a right at Nirakarpur towards a state road which will directly take us to Puri bypassing Khorda.

The state road from Nirakarpur to Puri was a mud road, cemented at some patches but the landscape was so beautiful that you would not notice the road condition. The 60 km stretch through villages, paddy fields and marshes was very refreshing.

By the time we reached Puri, it was already dark. We found a decent double room with tv at Hotel Nayak's Plaza for 200 bucks. This guy was so thrilled to know that we were riding from Bangalore, he gave us special discount (or he just said so).

Quick shower, darshan at Jagannath Puri dhaam, lazy stroll at the beach and we were back to the hotel. Dozed off - less than 24 hours to reach KGP :).

Day 6 (Puri - Konark - Bhuvaneshwar - Cuttack - Kharagpur):

We planned to wake up early to see sunrise at Konark temple but as usual we were late :). We checked out at 8:30 AM. Konark is about 40 km from Puri. This route should be must on every Biker's list. The road goes through a wildlife reserve and then along the sea. No traffic at all at this time of year. On visiting the Sun Temple, I was amazed - if this is just Konark, how intricate and intimate would Khajuraho be?

We had our breakfast and moved towards Bhuvaneshwar. Crossing Bhuwaneshwar through heavy traffic in full sun was a pain. Again prawns for lunch and a small nap at a roadside dhaba and we were good to go again. The feeling on seeing the first board showing distance to KGP cannot be described here. I was like yes! we did it :) Now I can stretch my arms and reach KGP :).

The roads were all good again. 4-lane highways and I did a speed test of my Avenger also. I could cruise at 115 kmph for quite some time.

Last fillup at a petrol bunk, one person came to me and asked, "Koi picture ka shooting ho raha hai? Aap log hero ho?", appreciating the riding gear :)

We entered KGP at twilight. We miscalculated the distance of last leg as somewhere near 350 km. It was infact around 450 km.

KGP at last! A round of surprises to known faces there and I settled in my wing in RK Hall. No early to bed now :) . Eggies time :)

Day 7 (Kharagpur):

Amazing good old kharagpur :)

Day 8 (Board Howrah - Yeswantpur Express from Kharagpur):

A big task for the day was to book the bikes in train. The procedure is pretty easy. Will write about that in some other post (maybe). It seems the parcel charges are increased and now they charge as per Rajdhani charges. We had to pay 1550/- per bike from KGP to Bangalore. Boarded our train post dinner. Lying on the berth, recaping last week with a content smile, we left Kharagpur.

Summary:
-------------

Date:
25th Aug 2007 to 1st Sep 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
2. Saswata - Honda Unicorn

Route:

Bangalore - Hoskote - Chittoor - Naidupetta - Nellore - Vijaywada - RajahMundry - Vishakhapatnam - Srikakulam - Ichhapuram - Balugan - Nirakarpur - Puri - Konark - Bhuwaneswar - Cuttack - Kharagpur

Total Distance covered: 2005 KM

Night Stay:

Vijaywada : Vijaywada Club. Courtsey Nitish Bandi
Vishakhapatnam: Waltair Club. Courtsey Nitish Bandi
Puri: Hotel Nayak Plaza. Rs 200/- for double room with TV. No AC.
Kharagpur: RK Hall of Residence, IIT KGP :D

More pics can be seen here

Skandagiri: The long awaited trek

2007-10-07T16:01:00.000+05:30

I was tempted to go to skandagiri when I first saw a set of pics being forwarded on mails but something or other, the plan never matured. It was one fine day when Ladha and Piyush saw these pics and we decided to hit it coming sunday.

Saturday night no electricity => Plan almost dropped due to lack of sleep and internet. Internet? yeah we needed to check where exactly this place is located. Finally power came back at midnight and I checked the route in some blogs. A sleep of 2 hours for few of us including me and night out for others and we were ready by 3 AM to hit the roads. 2 water bottles, 2 bags to keep jackets while climbing and 6 of us on 3 bikes headed towards outer ring road. Myself with Piyush as pillion on my Bajaj Avenger, Dotty with Mahe as pillion on his Bajaj Avenger and Nair with Ladha as pillion on HH Passion.

To reach Skandagiri, one has to take the Devenahalli road, yeah the new airport is coming up at Devenahalli. Total tide was 70 km. Straight till Chikaballapur from Bangalore and then a left turn from there leads to Papagni Mutt which is the base of the hill. Road is a four laner till the Nandi Hills left turn and a two laner bumpy one after that. It was still dark when we parked the bikes near Papagni Mutt. We were quite surprised seeing sizeable number of two wheelers parked there. So, we were not alone :).

Whole idea to start so early was to reach the top by sunrise. We refused to take a guide and started moving towards a faint trail. It was dificult to say if we were on the right track. Some plastic bottles lying here and there kept us going in the belief that people do come here :).

We were half way (or we thought so) when horizon started turning red. Ah the sunrise ! The surroundings were clearer now but the peak was nowhere in visual range due to slight mist. As we climbed up, the mist turned to fog and then to thick clouds. We could hardly see anything farther than 3 ft and yes we lost our way!! We had to cross some seriously steep rocks and Piyush almost lost it there. He was like what the hell are we doing here and how are we supposed to come back! Luckily we found the trail after sometime. I guess it tool close to 2 hours to reach the top with some 3-4 breaks in between.

The winds were amazing at the top but no view because of thick fog. We were quite surprised to see so many people on the top. Had some chilli bajji, omlettes and tea. After some 20 mins, fog started clearing and we could see some breathtaking views. And at this point, we realized that we have gained much more height than we thought :)

Descent was much quicker with trail very clear thanks to no fog :). Soon we were at the foothills and this time we could see the peak too. Everyone had that content smile saying yes, we did it :). Most of the people were first timers in trekking and it was a wonderful experience.

On return, we took a different route. We took a right turn from Papagni Mutt towards Nandi hills and then the usual Nandi Hills - Bangalore route. We did not stop anywhere on our way back and were back at home for lunch. Finally trip accomplished with so many lazy bums :)

Stats:
------

Date:
12 August' 2007

Route:
Bangalore - Yelahanka - Devenahalli - Chikaballapur - Papagni Mutt

Distance:
70 km one way

More pics can be seen here.

MM Hills

2007-09-15T23:12:00.000+05:30

I really love unplanned trips :). We planned of just meeting at MG Road on saturday morning and decide then and there where to go. Good old Ladha was pillion with me. We on my avenger and Hathee on his reached MG Road on time. We called Saswata to find out he was getting ready.

Waiting for Saswata at HP Petrol Bunk, MG Road

We moved on till Mysore Road Shell Petrol bunk and asked him to join us there. He arrived after some time with a surprise package of Sagarneel. So four bikes with 5 riders headed towards Mysore Road. Early morning ride with Ladha as pillion to talk during ride-it was good :). Soon we reached CCD and settled for breakfast at the restaurant nearby.

Now the million dollar question popped up - Where to go ? After some discussions we shortlisted Malai Mahadeshwara Betta better known as MM Hills and Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta also known as HGS Betta. I called vasanth and sachin to enquire about distance, road conditions and all but they were also not very clear. After consulting a waiter from the restaurant we zeroed upon MM Hills as according to the waiter it was just 70 km from there and looked good for single day ride. So zoom we went towards Mandya and then towards Malavalli.

Somewhere near Malavalli

Near Malavalli, we saw the first signboard showing MM Hills. It was still 121 km from there and we had already come close to 100 km already! Few people were not ready for such a long ride and we had to return back the same day. But now there was no turning back and we moved ahead. We stopped at few places to click pics. After Kollegal the roads became bumpy and narrow but the surroundings were just beautiful and weather amazing! We crossed few small villages where people were staring at us as if we landed straight from Mars.

90 degree isshtyle pose :)

Soon after some more beautiful rural roads, we reached the foothills. We clicked some snaps there but did not keep the fabulous twisties in front of us waiting for too long.

It is so amazing, I guess a different kind of high riding through forests, negotiating curves, approaching a hair-pin bend. The feeling cannot be described in words. Enjoying the surroundings, we soon crossed the hills and reached a valley. It was a bit disappointment when we reached the destination as there was just a temple and it was real hot at that time of day! But as someone said that it's not the destination but the journey which matters, we had our lunch and started climbing the hill again carefully leaning on those pretty curvy roads :). On the way we took a detour which looked a very promising road and boy what a road it was ! Thick forest and roller coaster kind of ups and downs :). After around 5-6 km of ride, we reached a village and sadly that was the dead end so we had to turn back.

On return, we stopped near shivanasamudram to chill at the banks of Cauvery.

The great ride was complemented by showers and we thoroughly enjoyed the ride in rains. By 5 PM, we touched the Bangalore-Mysore Road. Had a refreshing cuppa chai and chilli bajji and hit the couch in CCD :). After relaxing for more than a hour, we started moving leisurely towards Bangalore only to stop at the good old Chandigarh Punjabi Dhaba near Ramanagram :).

Garama-garam chai, mast chicken and kishore kumar songs. What else for a perfect evening :). Filled our bellies as it was already dinner time. From Ramanagram to Bangalore is just a formality and we quickly did the run. At our apartment parking, final reading was 480 km. I guess maximum for Ladha in a day :). I hope he did not hurt his back much after pillion riding for 480 km in a day :).

Summary:
-------------

Date:
4th Aug' 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish with Ladha as pillion On Bajaj Avenger
2. Sumit Chatterjee aka Haathee on Bajaj Avenger
3. Saswata on Honda Unicorn
4. Sagarneel on Hero Honda Achiever

Route: Bangalore - Mandya - Malavalli - Kollegal - MM Hills - Shivanasamudram - Bangalore

Total Distance covered: about 480 km

More pics can be seen here.

Monsoon Ride: BR Hills

2007-08-21T23:47:00.001+05:30

It happens all the time. Tens of people make a plan and finally only one or two left. Same story repeated with our plan to ride to Biligiri Rangaswamy Betta also known as BR Hills. Cutting the long story short, finally only me and PJ were left for the ride. PJ was travelling with his wife and had booked K.Gudi Jungle lodges which was out of budget for me. So were thinking of dropping the plan and he would leave in his car with his wife.

Surprise surprise! Came to know about a group of people from "Avenger Owners Bangalore" community who were going to Shivanasamudram. Since it was enroute BR Hills, they joined us or rather we joined them? Whatever, finally 6 avengers with 8 riders were ready for one amazing ride.

Only 3 bikes (myself, PJ with his wife and Rajesh) showed up on saturday morning. We started off and others were supposed to catch up with us on the way. We were having breakfast when other three bikes (Vishal, Nipin, Gautam and pillion Pradeep) zoomed past us. We quickly paid the bill and moved ahead. After catching up, a round of introductions and we were on the roads again.

Ride was pretty smooth till Shivanasamudram except for few small patches between Maddur and Malavalli. Shivanasamudra falls were in full glory at this time of year. Clicked loads of photographs and moved towards BR Hills. It was still 10 AM.

Road till Kollegal was good with amazing surroundings. After Kollegal, the two lane state highway became a single lane village road passing through villages and farmlands. Though the road was bumpy, I enjoyed it thoroughly because of amazing landscapes. Soon after we were at the toll gate of the BR Hills wildlife reserve. This is where the most beautiful ride ever started. As soon as we entered the sanctury, it started to drizzle. Lush green surroundings, light drizzle, smooth tarmac and twisty road. What else can one ask for? Around 10 kms of amazing ride and we were at BR Hills.

Food first. Everyone was hungry and we could locate only one place. Had nice meal and cheap too :). BR Hills was quite a small place. A hill top, a temple and a village. There was a jungle lodge around 20 km away. We spent sometime clicking photographs. Thanks to Vishal and his camera, we had some really good pics :).

Since, there was nothing much to do there, we started back to Bangalore except PJ and Mrs PJ who moved towards the jungle lodge. We departed after giving lots of advice to them at around 3 PM. We spent hell lot of time in the jungle clicking photos and yes for the first time, I saw a wild elephant :).

After around one hour, we were moving towards Kollegal when someone struck with this idea to visit Brindavan Gardens and immediately we all took a U-turn :). The road to Mysore through Yellandur was bumpy at most of the places but as we neared Mysore, it got better. By the time we reached Brindavan Gardens after asking directions for n times, it was already dark and the garden was in full glory with fountains and amazing light work. We clicked some snaps and saw the musical fountain show. IMHO the musical fountain show at Wonderla was much better.

By 8 PM we were again back on the roads searching for some place to fill our bellies. Vishal told about some Hotel Fishland near Srirangapatna famous for its Mangalore style fishes. Fishes and that too Mangalore style! What else can one ask for :D. Soon me, Vishal, Prady and Rajesh were devouring Mackerils and Anjils while Gautam was trying to catch up with Nipin who mistakenly did not stop and moved on. We got a call from Gautam that he is waiting for us at Maddur CCD and there was no news from Nipin. We could not even reach his phone.

After dinner, it was a sprint to CCD. We relaxed there for some time . In the meantime got a call from Nipin also. He reached Bangalore. After around an hour, we were back on the tarmac, this time slower. We reached Bangalore at around 2:30 AM after covering around 500 km. Amazing experience especially my first sighting of a wild elephant! :D

Summary:
-------------

Date:
14th July' 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish
2. Prabhjot with his wife as pillion
3. Vishal
4. Gautam with Pradeep as pillion
5. Nipindra
6. Rajesh

all on Bajaj Avenger

Route: Bangalore - Maddur - Malavalli - Shivanasamudram - Kollegal - BR Hills - Yellandur - Mysore - Srirangapatna - Bangalore

Total Distance covered: about 500 km

More pics can be seen here and here.

Yercaud!

2007-08-18T23:46:00.001+05:30

We have been planning for a wet ride to Yercaud last weekend. But due to some commitments it got postponed to the June end. Ashu and Sathish backed off from the ride due to some unavoidable circumstances. So it leaves three of us me, Saswata and Gurinder. I saw a post on BN that few people are planning for a weekend trip but they were not decided on the destination. I proposed Yercaud and 3 more people joined in.

I got my new Fieldsheer Hydro Tour Jacket on friday evening and I was dying to test it on the road and rains :).

Plan was to meet at NIIT, Off Silk Board flyover on Hosur Road at 6 AM on saturday morning. Only Saswata and myself turned up. We came to know that only two of us will be riding and Himanshu might join though he was still in the bed!

We started off at 6:35 AM. Weather was cool with clouds playing hide and seek with the sun. We saw an Australian couple on a Harley on the way. They were apparently on the 13th phase of their world tour on their motorcycle! They have clocked 3,70,000 km till date on their bike!! hats off to them. Gathered all this info from their website :D.

After riding for some 40 km, my speedometer got kaput. Saswata has blown his speedo/odo long time back. So now none of us had one :D. We rode till A1 plaza and filled ourselves and our bikes there. Half hour break and we were back on roads.

Ride till Krishnagiri was smooth on 4-lane NH-7. We crossed Krishnagiri at around 9. Around 3-4 km after crossing Krishnagiri, we got a call from Himanshu that he is about to reach Krishnagiri! We waited for him there. Few snaps and back to the roads.

Road after that was a mix of good and bad patches till Salem. Salem is around 200 km from Bangalore. It started getting hot by then. We were in Salem at around 10:30 AM.

After Salem, ghats for Yercaud starts. Yercaud is only 30-40 km from Salem. The ride was refreshing with cool air blowing and beautiful twisties passing by. The view was breathtaking! We stopped few times for some snaps.

Yercaud welcomed us with no hotels available. Apparently there was some function in a boarding school there and all hotels were booked by the parents of the students. We roamed around in the town and visited Pagoda Point. Finally we found a hotel! We dumped our luggage and went for some sightseeing. We visited Ladies seat, Gents seat and Children seat, all of them being some nice viewpoints. We rode through heavy downpour and made good use of our raincoats :).

After rains stopped, we took a ride on a boat in the lake and managed to get good chicken biryani for dinner :D.

I did some experiments with the night mode in my camera. Few pics came out good. We dozed off at around 11 PM.

We woke up at around 8 and were ready soon to get going. We went to Kiliyur waterfalls.

Had to trek down a steep trail to see the falls. We were told there is no water at this time in the falls but we trekked down. We could go only till a point where an uprooted tree was lying blocking the trail and it was really tricky to cross that. We called our mini trek off, clicked few snaps and turned back.

Soon we were having a breakfast which turned into a lunch or rather brunch with heavy egg-parottas. After filling our tummies, we started the descent.

Amazing twisties and more amazing views like a whole family of dad, mom and 4 kids climbing to Yercaud on a bullet ! and a couple taking on the hairpins on a scooty pep! :). This happens only in India! :D

We stopped for naariyal paani (tender coconut water) before entering Salem. We rode till Dharampuri in abeautiful weather. Himanshu wanted to have some tea so I stopped just after crossing the city. But both Saswata and Himanshu were out of sight. Called them and found Himanshu had a flat tyre in front of a puncture repair shop :). Interesting. I took a small nap on my bike. I must say Avenger is not that bad to sleep on :D. Soon we were on roads again after having tea. I kept stopping on the way for pics. There were some fabulous views on the way.

It started raining as we entered Bangalore and I parked my bike at my apartment at around 6 PM, satisfied with the ride and the new jacket :D. More about the jacket in some other post.

Summary:
-------------

Date:
30th June' 2007 - 1st July' 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish on Bajaj Avenger
2. Saswata on Honda Unicorn
3. Himanshu on TVS Apache

Route: Bangalore - Hosur - Krishnagiri - Dharampuri - Salem - Yercaud

Total Distance covered: about 550 km

More pics can be seen here.

Bird Watcher's Paradise: Ranganathittu

2007-07-18T21:47:00.000+05:30

Ranganathittu- a beautiful bird sanctury situated in cosy little town of Srirangapatna.

Ride to Ranganathittu was a surprise one. I saw a posting from Vasanth on BN announcing this ride. I immediately joined in. I had heard so much about this place that I could not resist it.

There were 4-5 riders planned. I knew Vasanth from the Munnar ride and had read a lot of posts by Sachin. Rest were unknown to me.

Meeting point Raj-Rajeshwari nagar Arch on Mysore Road at 6:00 AM. On reaching there, a pleasant surprise, Venkat. Venkat and Sachin were waiting for us. After waiting for sometime, Vasanth and his pillion Santosh arrived. We started off and rode coolly till Cafe Coffee day. We had some delicious tumbler idlis and kesari bath for breakfast.

The ride was very peaceful and soon we were at Srirangapatna. We have to take a right there to go to the bird sanctury. It is only 5-10 km from this point. The sanctury reminded me of the picnic spots from childhood days. But I could not see any birds other than crows and sparrows!

Then we took a ride on a boat in the lake. And yes, there we could see so many species of birds. Open bill storks, white ibis, err I don't remember other names now :) but the place was amazing though a bit stinky. Organic stink from water and bird droppings(?) and maybe some dead bodies of birds also. There were few crocodiles also in the lake but could not shoot them (I mean with my camers:D).

It was almost lunchtime, when we left the place. We went to Venkat's native place which happens to be in Srirangapatna only. That was an old mansion and his cousin treated us very well with delicious food. The curd-rice was the best I ever ate. Do consider the fact that I do not like curd rice very much. Venkat narrated some very interesting stories about Bajaj and Lambertta and Fiat Padmini of older days. How Padminis were transported to Madras and how scooters were booked in advance. It looks like we have evolved in leaps and bounds since those days. We started off early in the evening for Bangalore.

We took a break at Maddur CCD and again back to Venkat and his amazing experiences. This time all technical. I seriously get so amused at times knowing this man's knowledge. Hats off to him! This was a real long break and we headed back to bangalore. After 2 hours and 90 km, I was at my home. Content with the short beautiful and informative ride.

Here is a link to more info on Venkat's Auto Service.

Summary:
-------------

Date:
16th June' 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish on Bajaj Avenger
2. Venkat on Kawasaki Eliminator
3. Sachin Koppikar on Bajaj Pulsar 150 DTSI
4. Vasanth on Hero Honda Karizma
5. Santosh pillion with Vasanth

Route: Bangalore - Maddur - Srirangapatna - Ranganathittu

Total Distance covered: 280 km

More pics can be seen here.

Ooty Revisited

2007-07-18T21:44:00.000+05:30

Two wheels, roads and rains ! Ride On !!

This was my second ride to Ooty and I came to know about three more biking enthusiast in this trip. Prabhjot aka PJ, Sathish aka dude and Yogesh aka yogi.

Ooty is one destination which can be done any day any time! It has that perfect distance for a 2 day trip plus all sort of roads from magnificent 4-lane highways to smooth 2-lane state highways to jungle riding to twisty turns and hairpins.

The plan for the ride was incepted by PJ. I must say if it were not him, this ride would have lost in reluctance of the well known reluctanter "Ashu" (Wow! I also invented a new word like Shakespeare :D. Reluctanter :D) .

After Ashu dwindled away from the ride, it was only me and PJ. I was not very much "keen" to go on a ride with a person whom I have never met! But thanx to that person, PJ, I met a budding biker all full of praises for his wife :).

Finally we were able to pull in dude and guri and 4 people were game for the ride. me, PJ, dude and Guri. We were supposed to meet at the HP Petrol bunk on MG Road at 7:00 PM. Thanks to heavy rains, Guri could not make it to the rendezvous point. After waiting in vain for rains to stop, rest three of us geared and started off towards Mysore. The ride was a breeze. With constant drizzle, rather quite a downpour, low visibility but comparatively less traffic, we maintained constant 80 with myself as spot. Our first stop was at Ramanagram for dinner. Delicious Chicken for me and Sathish and plain dal chawal for newly turned veg PJ. It's really fun eating chicken in front of a person who has recently turned veg. Oh I love that look at his face!!

We were already fully drenched and we rode on again in rains. I have always wanted to ride to some hill station in rains but not without a raincoat :( . Alas! we were not carrying one. After this we took only a small break for chai that too when we were only 30 km short of Mysore. Rains played hide and seek but we kept constant 80-90 kmph and soon were roaming in quite streets of Mysore searching for Kalidas Road. Our plan was to stay at one of my friends' Anshul's place. By 2:00 in the night we were dozing.

Ashu had told us the earlier day that if he completes his work at office he will catch up with us but seriously, I did not have any idea that he actually will turn up! We got a phone call in the morning that Ashu with Yogi as pillion and good ol' Guri as fellow rider were about to reach Mysore. So ex-Mysore, there were 6 of us on 5 bikes.

It was good to see sun after previous night's rains. Guri was as usual merciless on the highway with full throttle and rest of us were trotting behind him at 80-90kmph.

A breakfast at Gundlupet and a small break in Bandipur and we were soon cruising inside Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctury, Tamilnadu. By noon we were all set to scale the Nilgiris on rather infamous 32 hairpin bends road. The climb was amazing, one of the steepest, I did on my bike. By the time we reached Ooty, it started raining again.

We stopped for a chai and then searched for a shop selling raincoats! And then, after muffling my saddlebag, I realized that I was infact carrying a rain poncho all the way! Good biryani lunch at Ooty and we were soon off to Coonoor-Wellington.

Ride to Wellington and Conoor was refreshing with slight drizzle, green fields and view of the chaiyya chaiyya train. One stop for pics and we carried on to Wellington.

Now, I must point out a difference between bikers and married men. Not that married men are not bikers but still, the budget married people have for a night stay is equal to the budget for all the trips in a month for a biker! Our new rider PJ wants to stay in this Riga Residency Hotel only which had a double room for some 1.5-1.6K! After some bargaining, we settled for 1.1K. There was a vintage car on display in the hotel lobby and we used it to the fullest for our cameras ! :)

Wellington unlike Ooty is very cosy and sleepy going easy at its own snail-pace. We had our dinner at quite-a-shady-place in Coonoor. Omlettes, Egg Kerala Parottas were good and filling and soon we were in our beds. Ah! I love that chilly air when I am under a cozy blanket :).

I was not at all feeling like getting out of my blanket the next morning, but somehow I managed to. We were soon lining up in front of Riga for photo-sessions :)

Photo-sessions and we were off to Botanical Garden. Nice place for couples/kids and combination of both but strict NO! for bikers and bachelors. After wasting a sizeable amount of time there, we started our descent on the hairpin bend road.

Return journey was peaceful. Few breaks for chai/coffee. This time we rode really slow through Bandipur and enjoyed the beauty.

We stopped at Mysore for lunch. Lunch was good and soon we were cruising smoothly on SH-17 towards Bangalore.

Guri was soon out of sight on his TB. Rest of us rode together till Ramanagram and had chai/coffee at a dhaba. We bid goodbye to each other and left for our respective homes rather PJ left for his home and rest of us just for our rooms. This was my first wet ride and I enjoyed it thoroughly!

Want to read different version of the story? Goto PJ's log.

Summary:
--------------

Date:
21st Apr 2007 to 22nd Aprb 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
2. Ashutosh - RE Thunderbird
3. Prabhjot - Bajaj Avenger
4. Gurinder - RE Thunderbird
5. Sathish - Bajaj Pulsar 150
6. Yogesh - Pillion

Route:
Bangalore - Ramanagaram - Maddur - Mysore - Gundlupet - Ooty - Coonoor/Wellington

Total Distance Bangalore to Bangalore: 600 KM

Night Stay:
Hotel Riga International, Wellington. Double room with extra bed for Rs 1100/-

More pics can be seen here

Trekking at Wayanad

2007-07-13T11:20:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: The sole reason for this trip not being a bike trip is Ashu and only Ashu. Period

We have been thinking of a bike trip to Wayanad for a long time now. So finally we decided to go for biking to Wayanad and a trekking/camping to Chemra peak. Apparently all the participants of the trek were not very keen to bike till Wayanad. They were interested only in the trek and wanted to go there in a hired four-wheeler. We came to a mutual agreement that me and Ashu will go on our respective bikes and others will go in a Qualis.

Me and Ashu were supposed to leave by 8 PM and halt at Mysore for night. I even talked to Bhatiya in Mysore for accommodation at his place. When I was all set to go, I get this sweet little doubt from Ashu that can we go in qualis as he is not very confident with the condition of his bike. @#$%@#$%. I called KP if he can arrange for place for 2 people in the vehicle. After sometime I got Roger from KP. We were all set to leave by 10 PM in qualis :( when I received one more call from Ashu. Apparently he got his bike checked by a mechanic and was ready to go on bike. I was like what the hell! It was really difficult convincing KP now. So we had to go in this cage all thanks to Ashu. I know I know Ashu must be getting mad at me by now but it's OK :D.

Finally we left Bangalore by 11 PM.

Riding (oops driving :D) in a cage has its own pros also. You can listen to loud music, chit chat, see a movie, joke around, eat and drink, etc during the journey. After sometime, we were all half-asleep. Nothing much to tell about the drive which was quite un-eventful unlike bike rides. By morning 5, we were moving througoh the foggy roads to enter Kalpetta. We decided to have a nap before proceeding to the plans so took a hotel room and dozed off. By 9 AM, we were good to go. Had breakfast usual idli/dosa/vada and drived towards Chemra peak. We had to take permission from the forest officer for trekking and camping in that area. On enquiry from the forest office, we came to know that it was fire season. i.e. vegetation has dried out and the forest was prone to jungle fires. In case of any such mishap, it would be difficult to come back safely and hence, we were denied the permission. What now ? :(

I remembered that Kartik and his friends did trekking in some route in Wayand 2 weeks back. I called him and got details of this Guide called Thomas. We called Thomas and soon we were driving towards his home. Thomas is a local farmer and stays near Meenmutty falls. He guided Kartik and the gang in the trek. By 1 PM we were all ready with our backpacks and tents for the trek! :) Our driver Hemanth was also interested and he too joined us in the trek.

We were all in high spirits. Starting was easy. We had to descent on the steep hill till the Meenmutty falls and then continue the descent till Neelambur where we would camp for the night. Everyone joking around and following Thomas. There were some really dangerous patches in till Meenmutty falls but we crossed them easily.

By the time we reached falls, we were tired but a look at the refreshing falls took it all away. We were told by Thomas that this fall is in three stages and we will see other stage on the way. We took some snaps and were back on the trail.

Now comes the tough time. The trail was really very difficult. There were steps of half your size sometimes in vertical and sometimes in horizontal direction. You miss one step and deep gorge is waiting for you! No phone signal nothing. Sometimes it was real scary with a steep descent, absolutely nothing to get a hold for feet or hands and a nice gurgling stream falling deep down on your left. One cannot afford to lose concentration! And I had this stupid heavy backpack with tent also. My idea of trek was to "walk on 2 legs" so I did not care much about the weight of the backpack but here it was "walk/crawl/jump/hang and use all fours"!

But the place was amazing. We could see deep down at the valley and were hoping to reach there before dark to setup the camp. There were not much photo sessions on the way because no one cared about photos anymore and were interested in reaching the place asap and some of useven thinking about the steep ascent we have to do next day :D. We stoppped in between at a stream to drink water and refill our bottles. We were carrying a lot of water but we almost exhausted that. After few hours (don't ask me exact number) we entered a somewhat plain area and a dense jungle. It will soon be dark and Thomas urged us to move faster as it will be very difficult to set up camp in dark near a waterhole where wild elephants come to quench their thirst! Manish started to fatigue and it was not possible to move any faster. Then Thomas told that by this pace we cannot reach our campsite and we will have to camp in the jungle itself. We got off the trail and started moving towards the sound of the gushing stream.

This off-trail trek was even more difficult on the steep slope full off damp dried leaves. There was no hold for feet and we almost slided down following Thomas. In few minutes we were at the stream. I was the first to reach there after Thomas. I kept my backpack there (Oh what a relief!) and we started exploring the options for the campsite. Thomas suggested to camp on a rock which was right in the middle of the stream. The idea did not look very much enticing to me as there was nothing to secure the tent and if someone rolls over then whole tent plus people inside will plunge into the roaring stream :).

There was a small area beside the stream full of thorny bushes, small plants, stones and pebbles. We thought of clearing that and setting up camp there. To reach here, we had to cross the stream and Thomas did a very good job of building a makeshift bridge over the stream using logs. Thomas started cutting off bushes from the campsite and me and Abhishek (Fart) took a dip in the refreshing stream. We cleaned the place as much as we could and erected the tents before it got dark. We were so very much tired and hungry!

Thomas started a fire and I heated all the MTR food. We mixed everything (rice, pulaao, daal, rajma) in one big bowl and ate it quickly. Even the MTR food tasted like a gourmet meal :). We sat down and chatted for sometime in dark listening to the flowing stream and feeling the eerie silence of the jungle. Thomas made his bed near the campfire and rest 8 of us including Hemanth got into the two tents. There were still stones on the ground but we slept like a baby even on the stone bed after a tiring day!

Morning light and chirping of birds made us get out of bed. The place was so beautiful in the morning!

Had some busicuits/Breads and packed our tents/slepping bags etc. By 8:30 AM we were ready for the ascent. In the beginning, we moved swiftly. Climbing up seemed easier than climbing down but the notion was proved not entirely right after about mid way. Thank God, Ashu barely missed a near-slip-and-valley-waits-for-you moment.

I cannot tell the amazing feeling when the road was visible! I almost ran to it :). Soon we were at Thomas' place. Our driver, Hemanth swore that he will never go for trekking after this :D. We ate breads with jam and ghee given by Thomas. HE also treated us with the best butter milk we ever had. After freshening up at his place, we bid him goodbye. We threw our bodies in the qualis and left the place.

Drive was normal. Same music, everybody just wanted to reach back home. We stopped at Mysore for food. After filling our bellies with some real good biryani, we left for Bangalore. Managed to take a nap before stopping at Maddur for tea. Before dinner time, I was at my door. This was the toughest trek I ever did but would have been even more wonderful if we would have ridden to the place :D.

Summary:
------------

Date:
10th Mar - 11th Mar 2007

Drive:
Bangalore - Mysore - Guldlupet - Kalpetta

Trek:
Meenmutty Falls - Neelambur

Night stay at tents near Neelambur.
Guide: Thomas. Ph No. 9947598935, 04396217290(PP), 04396218263(PP)
Guide charges: 1200/- (total 7 people)

More pics can be seen here.

Ride to Goa

2007-07-05T20:09:00.000+05:30

Finally, I am writing this long pending trip log about my longest ride till date. Bangalore to Goa.

Vegator Beach, Goa

Anjuna, Goa

"Chalo Dil Chahta Hai wale fort chalte hain!" Sounds normal right? But it's 2 AM ! Life is so normal in Goa at wee hours also. It reminds me of those good old days of KGP.

As usual it all started with a plan to go somewhere else. We planned to go to Thekkady/Periyar wildlife sanctuary on the long weekend. Take the RH(restricted holiday) of Korean new year on monday and it was a four day weekend for Samsung employees. We were all set for riding to Thekkady on friday morning.

A week before, Court gave verdict for the Cauvery dispute which resulted in a tension between Karnataka and Tamilnadu. There were some rumours (or actual incidents?) of Karnataka registered vehicles being burned in Tamilnadu and vice versa. Since we all have KA registered bikes and almost 80% of our journey was in Tamilnadu, we took a wise decision of dropping Thekkady for this weekend and decided to visit Goa instead!

Finally five of us including me, Ashu, Chatterjee, Pandey and Saswata left for Goa on thursday night. Since, we were going towards west coast, we could not resist having fishes at Hotel Fishland, Manipal! So we added 150 more kilometres to detour to Manipal and then follow NH-17 from there to Goa.

Day 0 (15th Feb 2007): Bangalore - Neelmangla - Hassan -------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time we left office, it was 7:00 PM. We met at MG road after some time. We could leave city only by 9:00 PM. Hassan is around 200 km from Bangalore. We took small breaks every 50 km or so and maintained a decent speed. We reached Hassan around 2 AM and checked into a hotel.

Day 1 (16th Feb 2007): Hassan - Belur - Chikamaglur - Sringeri - Manipal - Marwanthe - Someshwar - Murudeshwar
------------------------------------------------

We started off from Hassan at 9:00 AM. Ride till Belur was awesome on the smooooth highway. We kept going and stopped at Chikamaglur for breakfast. Usual dosa, idli, chai etc. All five of us were riding headlight to taillight till Chikamaglur. From here to Sringeri is the twisty turny road on which I was dying to ride since my last trip in a cage(read car) on this road. Here, I overtook others and stopped after around 50 km to click some snaps.

Chikamaglur-Sringeri Road

Our next stop was Agumbe. We did not stop at Sringeri. After few snaps at Agumbe, we stopped directly at Hotel Fishland, Manipal at around 3:00 PM.

Descent After Agumbe

Hotel Owner Shetty was excited to see us yet again to devour his fishes. New entrant this time to our stomachs was sword fish!

Hotel Fishland, Manipal

We bid goodbye to Shetty at moved on to NH-17. After around 50 km was the beautiful Marwanthe beach.

Marvanthe Beach, NH-17

The road goes parallel to the beach for few km here. First we thought of seeing sunset at Marwanthe and stay there itself for night but that would mean around 250 km to Goa next day. So, we rode for few tens of km to reach Someshwar where we saw the sunset over the Arabian Sea. This was the perfect sunset over the sea for the first time. There was no haze on the horizon and we could see the sun diving into the water creating ripples with its rays.

Views Of Sunset, Someshwar Beach

We zoomed our bikes then to our night halt Murudeshwar. Murudeshwar is famous for its huge statue of Lord Shiva and we reached there on MahaShivratri night. There was nothing much to do in Murudeshwar apart from visiting the statue and the temple below it.

Statue of Lord Shiva, Murudeshwar

We hit our beds soon. Only 180 km from our destination. :)

Day 2 (17th Feb 2007): (Murudeshwar - Karwar - Madgaon - Panaji) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We got ready by 9 AM and started off for Panaji. Someone said that we should stay at Gokarna and enjoy that only, no point going till Goa for such a less time! Soon this plan was dropped and some time later we were having breakfast near Karwar.

Warship Museum, Karwar

Goa border is just 10 km from there. Saswata and Ashu left while rest of us were settling bills. We told them to wait for us at "Welcome to Goa" board. We will move together from there but there was no one there. Later the reason they gave for not stopping was that there was no such board at the border !! @#$%^&#.

We carried on and soon the Ghat roads started. I accelerated and Amit and Sumit were left behind. Uske baad kuch to chaos hua, sab log idhar udhar ho gaye and everyone entered Panaji on his own without knowing where the other person was!

About to reach Panaji

Something happened that day and none of our mobiles were showing roaming enabled! So finally I was roaming in the streets of Panaji to find a Reliance Web World! Tried calling others but no one was reachable. Everyone had the same problem! All mobile operators made zero roaming rental from that day, maybe that was the reason. Finally after 2 arduous hours, I got my phone working! After 10 mins, recieved a call from local number! It was Amit. Finally all of us were together and it was already 3 PM!

We straightaway headed for Calingute beach. After a bit research, found a decent accommodation. And then run to the sea !!! We hanged around on the beach and the sea and had a fabulous dinner in one of those shacks on the beach.

Calingute Beach, Goa

Carnival, Goa

It was carnival time in Goa. There were stages with huge speakers and all for entertainment. At late night we went back to our hotels and had relaxed shower. Then Sumit( Uff I am fed up of calling him sumit, I will call him Hathee from now on. Phew! much better now :D) said we should go to Panaji city. Receptionist at the hotel told us that no point going there after midnight. Everything will be closed. Then this great idea of going to the DCH fort! came from somewhere :D. The ride was awesome till Fort Aguada. (Yeah! I know I know DCH fort is not the fort Aguada. But we came to know about this the next day :D). We tried riding with our headlights off in the pitchdark but it was impossible ! It was so dark that we could not wven make out the shape of the fort and soon returned back. Time to hit the bed !

Day 3 (18th Feb 2007): (Goa - Goa - Goa - Karwar - Honnavar :D) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next day we explored Goa. Obviously not completely but the best we could do in one day. And yes we visited Chapora, the DCH fort also :D. We spent the day visiting various beaches like Anjuna, Vegator, etc. I am not even remembering the names now :D. We visited Fort Aguada as well as Fort Chapora. We spent some time lazying doing nothing at one of the shacks :).

Shades of Goa

We left Panaji in the evening. Actually some of us wanted to stay one more day but Hathee and Pandey were insistent that we should leave so that we reach Bangalore on Monday and report to office on Tuesday.

Very well, we thought of taking night halt at Honnavar. We had a light dinner on the way and I went ahead to reach Honnavar and book the rooms while others were still eating and settling bills. The solo ride from Karwar to Honnavar was amazing! I kept following a volvo which was doing 60-70 kmph. But it was difficult to follw the bus so I tailed behind a car which was constatly doing 90 kmph. It was much easier that way to ride during night. By 9 PM, I guess I reached Honnavar and got really good rooms. We slept off soon for an early day ride!

Day 4 (19th Feb 2007): (Honnavar - Jog Falls - Sagar - Shimoga - Tumkur - Bangalore)
---------------

We woke up at 6 AM and soon get going after having a quick breakfast. The idea was to reach Bangalore as soon as possible and rest. Our first stop was Jog Falls. Few pics and we left. We stopped for small chai session at Sagar. After that lunch at Shimoga. From Shimoga, Bangalore is about 300 km. We stopped for chai after about 120 km. Ashu did not stop there. We rode till Tumkur after that and called Ashu. He was entering Bangalore! We also continued riding and reached home by 6.

Near Jog Falls, Karnataka

This was by far the best trip I had! 1500 km in 4 days! But I have to go to Goa again and this time for a longer duration...

Summary:
-------------

Date:
15th Feb 2007 to 19th Feb 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
2. Ashutosh - RE Thunderbird
3. Saswata - Honda Unicorn
4. Sumit - Bajaj Avenger
5. Amit - Bajaj Pulsar 150

Route:

Forward
Bangalore - Neelmangla - Hassan - Belur - Chikamagalur - Sringeri - Manipal - Marwanthe - Someshwar - Murudeshwar - Karwar - Madgaon - Panaji

Return
Panaji - Honnavar - Jog Falls - Sagar - Shimoga - Tumkur - Bangalore

Total Distance Bangalore to Bangalore: 1500 KM

Night Stay:
1st Night: Hassan. Good Double bedroom for Rs 275/-
2nd Night: Murudeshwar. OK Double bedroom at lodge for Rs 200/-
3rd Night: Calingute Beach. Good Double bedroom for Rs 350/-
4th Night: Honnavar. Very nice Double bedroom for Rs 350/-

More pics can be seen here

Gokarna Ride

2007-02-05T12:48:00.001+05:30

A cool breeze was blowing. I could hear birds chirping and water splashing. I could not figure out what is happening and pulled my blanket a little more. It was so comfy. I opened my eyes a little. The ceiling was too low. Glanced at my watch, it was 6:30 AM. How the hell I got up so early without alarm. One more splash of water nearby. Suddenly I came back to senses to realize I am sleeping in a tent, the tent which we pitched last night on Om Beach.

"Let's go to Waynad and do camping! Long weekend in January". I proposed a plan to Ashu. Within few days I came to know that many people are interested. Wonderful! :)

Come January and we found that there is no holiday on 15th Jan in most of the companies. That leaves us two again. Hmmmm interesting. The plan was to camp near a lake in Waynad. "Suna hai jungle mein bhediye (Wolves) bhi hain. kewal do logon ka lake ke paas camp karna safe nahin hoga". I pondered on Ashu's thoughts for some time and we decided that we chould change our camping destination because only two of us are going.

Ashu wanted to go to Kodaikanal but I was adamant on camping. I could not wait any longer to use my tent! We decided upon Pondicherry. Next day we changed plans and were sure that we'll be leaving for Kemmangundi/Baba Budayangiri next morning. Some trekking and then camping. Suddenly in the afternoon, a very old plan to visit Gokarna struck in our minds. By evening, we were ready with the route plan. I asked Himanshu and Saswata if they want to join. Both declined. So we were all set for morning to leave to Gokarna. In the night, Saswata called me up to inform that he is also in.

Day 1:
-------
Plan was to meet at MG-Brigade Road crossing at 5 AM. Ashu woke up at 5 ! We got delayed and three bikes, my Bajaj Avenger, Ashu's RE Thunderbird and Saswata's Honda Unicorn left Bangalore at around 6:30 AM.

Route was pretty simple. Follow NH-4 till Tumkur. Take NH-206 from there till Honnavar and then NH-17 till Gokarna cross. Gokarna is just 11 km from there.

Traffic was less in early hours and soon we were cruising comfortably at 80 kmph on NH-4. After sunrise, suddenly it became very cold. Tumkur is around 80 km from Bangalore and we were there before 8. We did not stop there and continued on NH-206. Saswata's bike hit reserve few km before Tumkur but he did not fillup. "Mujhko check karna hai ki reserve mein kitna petrol hota hai. teen litre to hoga hi". Soon his bike sputtered and stopped with no petrol bunk in a 10 km radius. We stopped there and had some tea. Ashu poured a cup of petrol from his bike into the Unicorn and we made up to the next petrol bunk. Had our breakfast there and returned back to the road.

After that we kept on riding till Shimoga passing Gubbi, Tiptur, Kadur and Tarikere. Tiptur is somewhat a big town in between. The roads were very good except a small bad stretch where road repairing was going on. There is a city called Bhadravati also enroute which you can bypass by taking a left turn just before entering. We stopped near a lake on the way to click some snaps.

We reached Shimoga by 12:30 PM. It was hot. We removed our sweaters which saved us in the morning from freezing cold. We decided that we shall take lunch in Sagar. Another 80 km from Shimoga. The Shimoga-Sagar route is also a MUST-DO for every biker. Quite, serene, no traffic, jungle on both the sides and slopes/curves at some places. What else can one ask for? We stopped once in between for leak and having some biscuits and water. We were in Sagar by 2:30.

We had lunch - 5 paper masala dosas :) and headed to Jog Falls at around 3 PM. Jog Falls is just 25-30 km from Sagar and as usual roads are beautiful. Jog Falls are the highest falls in India. Falling from a height of 253m, the river sharavati splits into 4 falls. Raja, Roarer, Rocket and Rani falls. It takes around 3 hours to go down the fall and come back again to the road. So we dropped that plan. Clicked few snaps and left for Honnavar. Honnavar is around 50 km from there. By 5:15 PM, we were in Honnavar.

If we look at the map, we moved in north-west direction from Bangalore and hit the Arabian sea and then move along the coast to Gokarna. The place where we hit the sea is Honnavar. From here, we have to take right turn into NH-17. We refuelled our bikes here and raced towards Gokarna which is around 50 odd km from here. We did not want to miss the sunset over the Arabian Sea.

Map Courtsey mapsofindia.com

Soon we reached the Gokarna Cross on NH-17. Took a left there and again just before entering Gokarna city, took a left to Om Beach. Witnessed the most beautiful sunset I ever saw from a viewpoint 1-2 km before Om Beach.

We entered the beach after dark. Asked a policeman about the camping. He warned us to keep an eye on the luggage against theft. The beach was full of foreigners. We pitched our tent near a small shack and chilled around. Had some nice KingFish Sizzler for dinner and dozed off in the tent. Nice :)

Day 2:
------
We woke up with the first ray of light. We had already dropped the plan of riding on day 2. Removed the tent and rented a hut on the beach. We had to leave early next day so we thought of renting a hut because folding a tent in dark is not very easy. Also we need some place to get fresh and all.

By 8 AM, we were ready for a trek to Paradise beach. We left our luggage in the hut and left. After climbing the hill, we could clearly see the "Omkar" shape of the beach which gave it the name - Om Beach.
We trekked through beautiful landscapes and reached Half-Moon beach. Had breakfast there and jumped into the water. That was as good as a private beach. No one else was there. We enjoyed there for some time and then left for paradise.

One thing about the beaches in Gokarna is that you can forget everything in life and just chill. It is so serene and quite that you will forget everything. Reason might be that it is not yet that famous. We could hardly see any Indian on those beaches.

Paradise beach, as the name suggests was paradise :). We had a lazy lunch (delicious fish and biryani :) ) and a nap there. We again trekked back to Om Beach though there was an option of boating till Om Beach.

We picked our bikes and moved to see Gokarna city and Gokarna Beach. We returned soon to the same sunset point to capture it in our cameras. I guess we did that pretty decently :).

After dark we lied down on the beach with clear sky full of stars and waves caressing our feet. Now that's what I call a holiday :).

Day 3:
------
Stupid Alarm! 5:00 AM. I hit snooze and back to sleep.

5:10 AM: Again the same irritating sound. What the hell! I woke up. Ashu also started knocking the door. We were ready to leave at 6' O clock. It was still dark and we started moving towards our bikes. We were all sweating and huffing and puffing by the time we reached our bikes. We had a lot of luggage (tents, sleeping bags, etc) and the place where bikes are parked was real far. ANyways we were on the road by 6:45 AM.

Saswata filled up at a petrol bunk at Gokarna Cross. Our first stop was at Honnavar for breakfast. After breakfast, we did not stop before Sagar.
We planned to reach bangalore before dark so we get enough time to rest. Hence, we rode non stop till Shimoga where we had a chai break. After that we planned to reach Tumkur by 3-3:30 PM to have lunch. Our plan was to go non stop till Tumkur that was around 200 KM from Shimoga.
On the way, Saswata's bike encountered a problem of rear wheel wobbling. This slowed down us considerably. We were not moving as fast as we planned because his bike was becoming unstable. We could not find any Honda service center on the way so kept going. We reached Tumkur at 4' O clock. Not bad :). Had nice chicken biryani for lunch. Tumkur-Bangalore was breeze on a 4-lane NH-4.

Traffic was bad after Neelmangla. Everone was staring at us and at the huge load of luggage tied to the bike.

After negotiating with the traffic, I parked my bike at my home at around 6:15 PM.

I will always remember this trip. It was planned just the day before and was one of the most memorable trips. And for the first time, the roads were so good right from the start point to the finish!

Summary:
------------

Date:
13th Jan 2007 to 15th Jan 2007

Riders:
1. Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
2. Ashutosh - RE Thunderbird
3. Saswata - Honda Unicorn

Route:
Bangalore - Neelmangla - Tumkur - Gubbi - Tiptur - Kadur - Tarikere - Shimoga - Sagar - Jog Falls - Honnavar - Kumta - Gokarna

Here, Bangalore to Tumkur is NH-4, Tumkur to Honnavar is NH-206 and Honnavar to Kumta is NH-17. Gokarna is 11 KM off route from NH-17

Distance from Bangalore to Gokarna: 501 KM

Night Stay:
1st Night: Camping at Om Beach
2nd Night: Hut at Om Beach for Rs 100/- per hut. One hut can accomodate 3 people. The hut has bare minimum facilities with makeshift toilets and bathrooms.

Places to visit enroute: Jog Falls

More pics can be seen here

Ride to Munnar

2007-02-01T20:25:00.000+05:30

Ride to Munnar !! At last mission accomplished !!! :D

Quick Facts first:

Date:

23rd Dec 2006 to 25th Dec 2006

Riders:

Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
Ashutosh - RE Thunderbird
Kamlesh - RE Thunderbird
Gurinder - RE Thunderbird
Kartik - RE Thunderbird
Manas - Bajaj Avenger
Arnab - Bajaj Pulsar 150
Vasanth - HH Karizma
Parwez - HH Karizma
Shivank (with pillion his brother) - Bajaj Pulsar 150
Saswata - Honda Unicorn
Himanshu (with pillion Mukesh) - TVS Apache

Route taken:

Bangalore - Hosur - Rayalkottai - Palakkodu - Pennagaram - Perumbalai - Mechcheri - Mettur - Bhavani - Perundarai - Vijaymangalam - Tiruppur - Palladam - Udamalpettai - Chinnar forest - Mariyoor - Munnar

Total around 450 KM.

Stay: Deluxe Dorm at Las Palmas Resort, Devikulum Road, Munnar

The beauty of this small place in Kerala called Munnar cannot be described in words! This being the longest and the last ride for the year was very special to me.

Plan was pretty simple. Start early morning on 23rd. Reach Munnar by evening. Roam around in Munnar on 24th and return back on 25th. Also, we planned to take unconventional route by going through shortcuts avoiding badly shaped National Highways.

This time it was a large group. 15 people including 2 pillions. Three of them were from Hyderabad and were on a long trip of South India.

Apart from 3-4 people, rest of us met at the designated spot,Hosur Road at 5:00 AM. We had planned for covering maximum distance in the early hours but fate had something else for us in store.

We had to take a right turn to Rayalkottai just before Hosur. The turn was very easy to miss. So we waited there for everyone to reach. Some of fellow riders crossed us zooming full speed towards Hosur. Finally I, Ashu and Kamlesh stayed at the turn and told rest all to proceed promising that we will catch up with them soon. After some time Arnab arrived and we thought of leaving too. We had already wasted more than 2 hours and were still practically in the sub-urbs of Bangalore.

Kamlesh asked for direction after a while and we found that "obviously we have to follow the straight road" actually is not the best way to reach Rayalkottai ! One autowala told us to take a U-turn and then take two right turns to reach a nice highway. Unlike the first group, we followed this path and were soon cruising at 80-90 kmph. We were some 15 km before Rayalkottai when Kamlesh recieved a phone call. One of the riders, Manas met an accident on the other "bad" road. He lost control over a speedbreaker and fell down. Dislocation of collar bone! Kamlesh, Vasanth and Shashi opted out from the ride and carried Manas back to Bangalore. Rest of us planned to meet up at Pennagaram.

We waited for around an hour at Pennagram till other group coming through the bad road reached. We had a breakfast there at around 11 AM. So now we were 7 bikes plus one more bike few tens of km ahead us.

We quickly sped to reach Bhavani, a decently populated town to have our lunch. There was a small section of ghat road also in between near Perumbalai and Mechcheri. We also crossed Mettur which has a cool dam. We were having veg fried rice and Gobhi Manchurian at around 2 PM.

Near Mettur Dam

Next big stop in between was Tiruppur. We never imagined that Tiruppur could be so big!!! It took us around an hour to cross this city full of Bangalore-like traffic and one ways! We did not stop here instead took a break in Palladam where few of us filled petrol.

Our next stretch of Palladam to Udamalpettai was too good. "Makkhan Road" :) as we call it. No traffic and both sides lots of wind mills. This area is generally very windy with wind speed reachig 60kmph easily ! but luckily or unluckily, it was quite quiet that day. We covered this section too quickly.

Now we had to cross the most awaited Chinnar forest. It was already twilight and we were sure that we have to pass the forest and do the climbing on hill roads in night and everyone was game for it! :) We met Shivank's bike also waiting before the jungle.

We were expecting a lot of interference from wildlife during night. But again fortunately or unfortunately, we spotted only few rabbits and mongeese.We entered Munnar at around 11:30 PM after crossing Chinnar and Mariyoor. Our stomachs were rumbling and grumbling so but obviously first thing was search for a decent (not a very high priority though) place to eat. And surprisingly there were too many places open at that hour for a hill station. After filling our tummies, we asked directions for our hotel, oh by the way we booked the hotel in advance from Bangalore :). We came to know that we have to ride yet another 10 km on those winding roads to reach the hotel. We ripped that distance quickly and checked in and dozed off. Oh, did I tell you that Gurinder broke his clutch cable on the way? Well we'll see that tomorrow. Right now zzzzzZZZZ !!!

We woke up leisurely at around 7-8 AM to find some people already left for sunrise. Our first job was to get Gurinder's bike fixed. We found a repair shop(? or was it just a roadside stall) which handles bullets. That repairman made sure that we do not leave from that place before lunchtime! It took more than 4 hours to him to change a clutch cable. Gurinder had to get his footrest also welded. He broke it last night few km before Munnar when his bike skidded on wet road.

After a nice Rajasthani Thali, we left for Medupatty and Top Station. Now, we saw the real beauty of Munnar. Majestic lush green tea estates everywhere. We missed these views last day because we entered Munnar after dark. The ride to Top Station which is around 35 km from Munnar was awesome. We clicked a lot of photos with Tea Estates in background. Stopped at Medupatty Dam to admire the beauty and again clicking some snaps.

At Medupatty Dam

As we neared Top Station, fog started building. By the time we reached Top Station, we could not see more than 10 feet ahead. Top Station basically has a good view point which we could not see due to dense fog.

Fog Closing In

At Top Station

Riding in Fog

The return from Top Station was a breeze. We stopped on the way to buy some roasted cashews and home made chocolates.

Return from Top Station

It was dark by the time we reached Munnar. We had our dinner and since it was Christmas Eve, we visited nearby Church also. My first visit to a church. It feels good :)

Again, a rip of 10 km to our hotel. We met Parwez and Vasanth there. They left Bangalore late after getting Manas treated and made it to Munnar on 24th. Had some chitchat and zzzzzZZZZZ.

Merry Christmas! It's 25th of december. I remembered I was in Madikeri last year on this day. That was my first 500+ km bike trip. We got ready and checked out of hotel by 8:00 AM. Arnab, Vasanth, Parvez, Shivank and his brother moved ahead for their Kerala Trip. Me, Ashu, Gurinder, Kartik, Saswata and Himanshu(with pillion Mukesh) took the road to Bangalore.

The return route was same. Although we admired and appreciated it in daylight. We had our lunch (kerala parotta) at Udmalpettai and dinner(chicken rice) at some "thela" near Pennagram. I reached home at around 9:00 PM. My longest ride till that day! But I still regret the reading on my Odometer. 994.7 KM. I missed the 1000 mark by mere 5.3 KM.

No worries. There is always a next time :)

You can see more pics here and here.

Bangalore-Mangalore: The FISH-y Trip: Day 2 (final day)

2006-12-14T18:33:00.001+05:30

Continued from the last post (Day 1)...

Sunday, 11th Dec, 2006:

Plan to wake up was 6:00 AM so that we could visit Naveen’s college at Surathkal. But all of us were very tired especially Ashu, who drove more than 400 km last day. So we chose to keep on sleeping. We woke up and got ready at 8:00 AM. The Fish-y trip continues :)

Tried contacting Shetty but in vain. His phone was not reachable and the landline at his place was dead. So all five of us hopped into Naveen’s car and left for Malpe Beach, Udupi. Again, Ashu was driving. Malpe is mere 6 km from Manipal. It is a small fishermen’s village hence as expected the air on the way to the beach was full of fishy smell. Gopal and Pandey both being pure vegetarians were having hard time keeping away from passing out :). Soon we could see the Arabian Sea. Beautiful blue sea! This was the first time I visited west coast of India.

We could see many fishing boats on the horizon coming back with night long catch. Also, the sea was dotted with many small islands and Naveen told us that we will be visiting one of them.

We kept ourselves from jumping into the water because of lack of time. We thought that we will enter the water only on the island’s beach thus saving some precious time. Remember, tomorrow is Monday :(

We tried contacting Shetty yet again but again “This number is not reachable!” We moved to the place from where we had to take the boat to island. We parked our car and had a quick breakfast. Idli, Dosa, Veg Pulao and KesariBath. We entered the gate to the area where boats are parked. Parked our car and proceeded towards the ticket counter. Again an unsuccessful try to call Shetty.

The ticket to St. Mary’s Island costs Rs.70/- per head. We boarded the boat at around 10:00 AM cursing Shetty for not coming on time. Actually we were a bit worried also because he left quite late last night and there was no news from him since then. Finally Shetty called few seconds after we boarded the boat. He was on the way. We told him to catch the next boat to the island.

The journey till St. Mary’s was amazing. The water was dotted with rocky islands and fishing boats. We were wondering which amongst them is the St. Mary’s Island.

After some time it became clear and we could see our destination. A serene island lined up with coconut trees, rocks and small beach. Wow! My first visit to an island!

We had to change the boat in between as the big boat cannot go till the coast so we boarded a smaller boat on the way! It took around 40 minutes to reach the place.

We just wanted to jump into the water. Naveen took us to farther end of the island where the rush of people won’t be there. And soon we were lying in the shallow water.

One thing that amazed me there was that there was no sand on the beach. The beach was full of sea shells. Quite interesting. Isn’t it? :)

By noon we were out of the water. There was a stall selling frsh fried fishesJ. We had Anjil and Bangra fishes there. By this time Shetty aslso arrived. Shetty, Gopal and Pandey roamed around the island and I, Ashu and Naveen devoured the fishes. :)

We took the 1:10 PM boat back to Malpe. Our initial plan was to leave Udupi by 1:00 PM but we were very late. By the time we reached hotel, washed and checked out, it was already 3:00 PM and our stomachs were grumbling of hunger.

Again, to continue our Fish-y trip, we dropped Gopal and Pandey in a veg restaurant and proceeded to Hotel Fishland. Again our host was there smiling as usual and hurrying into the kitchen to give special instructions for cooking. Shetty was amused to see that he did not bring any menu. We told him about our last visit.

We started off with fried masala prawns. Delicious! Then we were served with some delicious fish kebabs. The kebabs melted as soon as we put them in our mouth. One of the tastiest things I ever had! He didn’t tell us the name of fish. Later he told that it was baby Shark! After that we had Indian Salmon, one of the costliest fishes. I also tasted Neeru Dosa for the first time. Neeru dosa with prawn curry was amazing! Our tummies were full by 4:00 PM and this huge meal for four cost us only Rs 450/-! We are planning to go there once again :).

We left the place at around 4:10 PM. This time we did not want to climb the steep slope to Agumbe and the bad 20 km stretch between Aldur and Chikamanglur so we took different route. We moved to Karkala which would have been around 40 odd km from Manipal. Karkala is also well known on archeological map of India but we skipped because of lack of time and proceeded to Moodabidri which is around 16 km from Karkala. From there 60 km good stretch till Belathangdi. Next place enroute was Mudigere around 40 km from Belathangdi.

There was very nice ghat road in between and Ashu was amazing at negotiating the curves without a power steering. It reminded me of the expertise which generally experienced drivers for hilly routes in Uttaranchal have. Everyone was impressed by him.

As soon as ghat section ended, we saw the worst road. You see it was not one of the worst roads but it was THE WORST road, I ever saw. We moved at a speed of 5 km/h and Shetty was far behind us. This will give you the idea what kind of road it was. Covering some 15 odd km on this road ate up a lot of time and it was well past darkness.

Finally we reached Mudigere. From there the road Belur was good. Nice estates (Could not identify whether tea or coffee in the darkness) on both sides of the road. Soon we were in Belur. Shetty filled his fuel tank and we moved towards Hassan. The highway which we took was fabulous. Soon Shetty was above 100 and out of sight. We reached Hassan at around 11 PM. We had dinner in a highway dhaba just after crossing Hassan. I guess the name was Gangotri Dhaba. The suggestion here is that do not eat there! It’s not good.

Oh, I forgot to tell that on return journey there were three people per car. From here, I went to the back seat of the car and Naveen came to the front and I had a nice sleep J. We came to know that Shetty was napping while driving so they stopped on the way to refresh. We reached Bangalore at around 3:15 AM while Shetty’s car arrived at around 4:40 AM. I had to sleep at Naveen’s place and Bhadra dropped me at my place in the morning enroute office.

The trip was fabulous with just my bike missing! We have to go there again on bikes. Highways, Hills, Sea Beach, Island, everything was there like a masala hindi movie! :)

Will be back soon with another trip. Till then Hasta La Vista !!!

Fast Facts:

Forward Journey Route:

Bangalore ----30---> Neelmangla ----150---> Hassan ----40---> Halebeedu ----17---> Belur ---24---> Chikamanglur ----89---> Sringeri ----56---> Agumbe ----56---> Manipal ----3 ---> Udupi

Hotels are easily available at Manipal. Great seafood at Hotel Fishland, Manipal.

Must visit: St. Mary’s Island from Udupi.

Return Journey Route:

Udupi ----3---> Manipal ----40---> Karkala ----16---> Moodabidri ----60---> Belathangdi ----36---> Mudigere ----32---> Belur ----34---> Hassan ----150---> Neelmangla ----30 ---> Bangalore

Will upload all the pics from the trip soon.

Bangalore-Mangalore: The FISH-y Trip: Day 1

2006-12-13T16:06:00.000+05:30

Continued from the last post (The Making)...

Saturday, 10^th Dec 2006:

The plan was to meet at Citibank, MG Road at 4:00 AM sharp. Citibank at MG Road is one of the most popular places from where we start our trips J. There were some logistic problems in gathering there at an odd hour due to only 2 vehicles. So, the plan was slightly modified.

02:54 AM: My alarm rang. For the first time I pressed Stop instead of Snooze! Called Gopal and told him to reach my place by 3:30 AM.

02:56 AM: Called Ashutosh and told him to be ready. He was already awake :)

02:57 AM: Called Naveen. He was on a night out! Very nice, I complemented :)

03:35 AM: Gopal reached my place. I hopped on his bike and left for Naveen’s place in Koramangla.

04:00 AM: Naveen’s place. Jumped into the car and left for MG Road.

04:15 AM: Shetty reached MG Road after picking up his cousin and Pandey.

04:17 AM: We reached MG Road and moved towards Cooke’s Town to pick Ashu.

04:30 AM: All seven on board and we were leaving Bangalore.

Naveen and Shetty were driving.
For Naveen, his car is just like his old splendour without indicators and headlight. He doesn’t bother to use either indicators or dipper. He coolly drove till Neelmangla inspite of critically acclaimed remarks from three passengers to follow traffic rules. Road till Neelmangla was good four lane highway. We reached Neelmangla at around 5:30 AM and stopped for Chai session. Neelmangla is around 30 km from Bangalore and we have to take a left turn from there to Hassan. No offences for Naveen, but unanimous decision was taken and Ashu overtook as driver from there. :D. Poor Ashu didn't know at that time how much he had to drive .

Our next stop was Hassan which is around 150 km from Neelmangla. This road is a two lane highway. Road is very good but one has be extra cautious for incoming traffic while overtaking as there is no divider. We saw sunrise on the way.

Shetty zoomed passed 100 kmph and was soon out of sight. We did not have the privilege of that as Naveen’s car was making all sort of noises on crossing 100.

Shetty reached Hassan at around 7:30 AM. We followed and reached at around 7:50 AM. We took few wrong turns and instead of going via bypass, we entered the city. There was some confusion in locating Shetty in the city which ate up a good 45 minutes. Finally we met near the main Bus Stand and left for our first sightseeing enroute, Halebeedu.

Halebeedu is a small town around 40 km from Hassan with an ancient carved temple. The place is prominent in the archeological map of India. We had our breakfast there, masala dosas, idlis and chai.
The temple was magnificent and was a real feast for eyes. After a long long time, I was visiting a place of mythological and archeological importance. I guess the last one visited by me was Sarnath in 1999.

Halebeedu is the kind of place where you can spend a long time talking to local guide, identifying all the details of the place and the carvings. But because of a tight schedule, we could not hire a guide and quickly roamed around and clicked some snaps.

There was a huge rush in Halebeedu because of two groups from some school visiting. We thought of leaving quickly to reach our next destination, Belur before the huge groups. It was very obvious that they too would be visiting the place.

Drive till Belur was scenic with narrow but nice road. We reached Belur soon as it was only 17 km from Halebeedu.

Belur again was quite similar to Halebeedu with another nicely hand carved temple.

Here also we quickly took snaps, roamed around and zoomed to next target, Chikamanglur.

Chikamanglur is 30 odd km away from Belur. Road was again narrow but good with a beautiful view of Western Ghats. We found few good lakes in between and took snaps from car itself.

Soon we were in Chikamanglur city. We followed Shetty into a one-way and were busted by a traffic policeman! Shetty however managed to get away but the policeman noted down his number. Conversation was difficult with the policeman and we called Shetty. Shetty came back and negotiated with the policeman in Kannada. The matter was resolved with 100 bucks.

Now we had to cover one of the most heard about routes. Chikamanglur to Sringeri. This route is considered to be biker’s paradise. One of the most scenic routes in South India. Sringeri is 89 km from Chikamanglur. We left Chikamanglur at around 12 PM. The road was bad real bad. Although the landscapes around us were good but the road was pathetic. We were thinking how to cover arduous 89 km on such a road! But to our pleasant surprise, that bad patch lasted only around 20 km till a place called Aldur. From there it was like a butter coated road till Sringeri. We stopped at a few places in between to take photographs. The route was really very very scenic.

We had our lunch on entering Sringeri. After that we visited Shankaracharya Math in Sringeri. It was again an old carved temple with nice serene premises. We fed some catfishes in the lake within the compound.

There is a nice waterfall also near Sringeri but we had to drop the idea to visit as it was getting late and Udupi was still far.

From Sringeri we left for Agumbe. Agumbe is the last point uphill on this route. From there we had to start our descent from Western Ghats. Agumbe is famous for its beautiful sunset view also. We reached Agumbe at around 5:30 PM. It was still around 40-45 mins for sunset and already there was a huge crowd at the view point. Seeing the steep descending road from there, we thought of forgetting sunset view as it will be really difficult to cross Ghat section after dark. So we left immediately after clicking some snaps.

Our next stop was Udupi. Or may be not. On the way, Shetty had a Flat Tire !!! It was already dark and changing the tire in the forest in dark took an hour ! We were back on road at around 7:15 PM.

We reached Manipal at around 8:15 PM. We decided to stay there only for night. Udupi is just 6 km from there. Shetty and his cousin went to their home and five of us hired a hotel in Manipal.

Manipal is a small town famous for its medical college and engineering institute. The crowd in Manipal seemed more metrosexual than in Bangalore ! We had a tank up in Manipal and had a nice bath. And from here, starts our Fish-y trip. :)

I had seen a signboard of a place called Hotel Fishland on our way just 200 m before our hotel. I being a seafood fan suggested the place. Gopal and Pandey had to go to a veg restaurant for dinner. Rest three of us (myself, Ashu and Naveen) proceeded to Fishland J Ah, what a tasty fishes! The owner of Fishland was too enthusiastic to make us taste his choice of fishes. We gathered a lot of funda also about fishes. We had Melu (Average size of fish is 2 m!), Baracuda (Only fish with green bone) and all time favourite prawns. The preparation was too good. We finished the meal with Rice and Fish curry. Yummy! :)

At 11:30 PM, we were dozing on our beds.

...to be continued to conclusion...

Bangalore-Mangalore Trip: The Making

2006-12-12T10:42:00.000+05:30

People do not like long posts. Hence, I am writing this travelogue in three parts. Here is the first one, The Making... :)

Did you ever have a backlog in any subject in college? If yes, then you can understand the joy of clearing one.

I had three backlogs. Ooty, Mangalore(Udupi) and Munnar. I missed these three trips due to several reasons in the past and it is difficult to persuade everyone for going again on the same trip. I completed the first backlog last weekend by visiting Ooty with Ashu.

This was another pleasant weekend which took away second backlog i.e. Mangalore/Udupi.

This was the first time I traveled in a car for such trip. The trip was joyous but not as satisfactory as a bike ride would have been. I will try to capture whole route and incidents here but I won’t be able to do that as successfully as in the case of Ooty trip; the reason being I was not riding this time and sadly, I don’t know how to drive a car. :(

We (I and Ashu) had planned for this trip last weekend during the Ooty Ride. We were again ready to go on two bikes riding solo. As the week passed, many people added to the trip most enthusiastic being Shetty who wanted to go in his new car, Maruti Suzuki Alto LXi. It was easy to get people for a road trip in car.

When Naveen joined in with his car again an Alto but LX edition (without power steering), we had two cars and two bikes (Mine and Ashu’s). Shetty kept on pouring with all the technical details (like route maps, alternative routes, places to visit enroute, etc) whole week. Just one day before the trip, we got the final number of participants and I and Ashu had to shift to cars for the economy of the trip.

Finally seven people in two cars left Bangalore. I, Ashu, Naveen and Gopal in Naveen’s Alto and Shetty, his cousin and Prashant Pandey in the other one.

Note: Four people cannot sit in the car with Prashant Pandey because of sheer magnitude of his body in Y-axis! He is over 6’ and needs so much leg space that practically no one can sit in the back seat behind him :)

to be continued...

Bangalore - Ooty : The Ride

2006-12-05T11:17:00.000+05:30

Day 1 ( Friday, 1st Dec 2006)

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Continued from the last post...

2:00 PM:
Where there is a will there is a way :). Takel and Rapi planned to go to Iruppu Falls via Mysore. So we had company till Mysore. Some discussions and negotiations with them and we decided that we will go till Mysore together and then the final destination will be decided there.

6:00 PM: Off from office. Dying to use my new Cramster Stallion saddle bag :).

6:25 PM: Packing useless stuff in the saddle bag just to make it look full stuffed and alsobetter fit on the bike :)

6:35 PM: Off to MG Road. Plan was to meet at the Symphony Theatre at 7:00 PM.

7:00 PM: Weekend rush :(

7:15 PM : weekend rush :((

7:30 PM : finally Symphony !!!

So finally we were 5 people to leave bangalore on 4 bikes : My Avenger, Ashu's TB, Rapi's Karizma and Takel's P180. Rapi had a pillion, Ashok.

We managed to get out of city by 8:30 PM. Full tank at Shell's petrol bunk just before leaving city. I always feel adrenaline rush when I go for a full tank. It always means a good trip ahead.

It was almost dark. Takel proposed that we should follow some truck at a speed of 50 kmph. Then came the figure of 60 and finally everyone agreed on 70 for SH-17 (Bangalore-Mysore fundoo highway). Ultimately, everyone rode at 80.

I was so happy being back on highway after a long break. It was around 5 km from the Shell petrol pump that I felt some disbalancing in the bike. I stopped and found a flat rear tyre. Shit !!! Mine was the fourth bike so no one was behind me. Tried calling all three of them but no one picked up the phone. Guess they were too busy with the highway to hear their phones ringing ! At last Takel called after 5 mins. Ashu came back and we examined the tyre. As expected the culprit was a nail. We tried to take it out but in vain. Then for the first time in life I rode the bike sitting on the fuel tank!! I rode for 2 kms and found a pancher shop (yes it is always PANCHER and not puncture on these highway shacky shops).

10:10 PM : Back on the road ! Reached Kamat after around 20 km ride and found Rapi, Takel and Ashok devouring on oil filled puris, rice and sambhar cursing the person who told them that Kamat is the best place to eat on highways !!!! We also had some puris and were back on road after around half an hour.

2 chai stops in between and we reached Mysore at around 1 AM.

Unlike Bangalore, Mysore looked very different. Different in positive side with wide roads and cleanliness.

We stayed at Takel's friend's place.

Day 2 ( Saturday, 2nd Dec 2006)
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We woke up at 7. At 8:45 AM, we all were at Green Leaf Restaurant having our breakfast and discussing further plans. No one was willing to change his/her (Disclaimer: Keyword :her" is added for making this blog as diplomatic as possible. This is purely fictional and I am sure there is no resemblence with anyone dead or alive) plan so finally me and Ashu broke off for Ooty and other people to Iruppu Falls.

The first stretch of Mysore - Gundlupet was awesome. Beautiful highway and we kept a steady 70 on that. Only 1 stop in between for loo and we covered Mysore-Gundlupet 60 km stretch in an hour.

Bandipur National Forest starts at around 20 km from Gundlupet. This stretch of road was mix of good, patchy and broken road. We had the first view of Nilgiris before entering Bandipur. I had heard so much about in Bandipur in the past that I couldn't wait to enter the forest. Anecdotes from so many people about their encounters with wild elephants, deers were pulling me towards Bandipur.

There was a small shop and few cottages, guest house in the Reserve Forest. We bought some Chips, namkeens, chewing gums and water. Saw some pet elephants crossing the roads. Clicked few snaps and went off to Gudalur, our next landmark.

The road in Bandipur was mostly very good except for few bad patches. We crossed the state border and entered Mudumalai WildLife Sanctuary, Tamilnadu. I was surprised that police did not stop us at state border for inspecting bike papers, driving license etc and of course to search our bags for illeagal transport of liquor. In Mudumalai Sanctuary, there is a diversion. One road leading straight to Ooty with 36 hair pin bends and the other going to Ooty via Gudalur and Pykara. We took latter which is double the former one and thought of returning back via the short cut with 36 hair pin bends.

We stopped for a chai at a small stall and Ashu reminded me that these are the same jungles which were famous for Veeru dada aka Veerappan !

We reached Gudalur at Noon time which is around 55 km from Gundlupet. Now Ooty was just 40 km with Pykara enroute. But this was the most difficult part. The road was completely washed away because of recent rains. We took a coffee break near tea plantations.

Before hitting Pykara, we saw a very beautiful unnamed lake amidst lush green hills. We named it Switzerland :D as it was no way less beautiful in any aspect except for some special effects of snow and YashRaj Film's shooting. Clicked few snaps and inched towards Pykara on very very bad roads.

Pykara lake and falls are not very big but the location and beautiful blue colour of water was amazing. Few more snaps, 2 packets of fresh cherry, one water bottle and we were again on road. Next stop was Ooty.

Ooty is a small town in Nilgiris and is famous for green hills full of tea plantations and Mithun Da's hotels :). We reached Ooty at around 3:00 PM. Since it was an off season, there was no problem finding a hotel to stay. We got a decent hotel room with two beds, TV and hot water supply for 300 bucks. Took a bath, saw final two overs of India-SA twenty-20 and went in search of good food. After breakfast we had only few chips and cherries and it was already 4:30 PM. We roamed in the town on Ashu's bike and found Tandoori Mahal. Had lots and lots of food. It was already 6 PM so we could not go to Dodabetta or Botanical Garden. Roamed around in the town, had some really delicious home made chocolates and returned to the hotel.

10:30 PM : Doze off !!

Day 3 ( Sunday, 3rd Dec 2006)
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We woke up at 7:00 AM. Waited till 7:30 AM for hot water supply to start. We were ready by 8:30 AM. Had hot coffee and checked out from the hotel. It was freezing cold and I didn't have gloves !!! Then came the saviour, a vendor selling low quality gloves for Rs 25/- each. Something is better than nothing so I bought a pair. We started off for Dodabetta after 15 mins. Yes it took almost 15 mins to remove dust off our bikes and start them in cold.

Dodabetta is the highest peak in South India with temperature touching zero in winters. Only 9 Kms from Ooty. Road was not good but twists and curves were too good and proved to be good warmup for us. There were some stunning views of the Nilgiris from the top. By 10:15 AM we were moving towards Coonoor.

Coonoor is a small place around 20 km south from Ooty famous for its beautiful tea estates. Also the famous "Chaiyya Chaiyya" toy train runs from Ooty to Coonoor. This was the first good road we encountered since Gudalur. Had chai and cake in Coonoor and were back in Ooty before noon.

Again had a tank up at BP petrol bunk :). Petrol is around Rs 2.50 cheaper in Ooty than in Bangalore. :). We planned to have a good meal before leaving Ooty but morning starts at 12 PM in hill stations. We got only bread-omlette as it was breakfast time.

We started our return journey at 12:15 PM. We planned to take the shorter route (with 36 hair pin bends) to Bandipur. This road bifurcates from the Ooty-Gudalur route at a place called Thalaikundah which is around 7 km from Ooty. The shortcut was one of most beautiful roads. Steep and smooth. We descented in just half an hour and Entered Mudumalai Sanctuary. This time we saw herds of deers in Bandipur.

We reached Gundlupet at 2:10 PM. Called Takel from there. They were also around 60 km away from Mysore.

We parked our bikes in front gate of Mysore Palace at 3:15 PM. Ooty to Mysore in 3 hours flat! We had some good bhelpuri there and reached Takel's friend's place at around 4:30 PM.

At around 5:15 PM, we set off for Bangalore. We took a wrong route which meets SH-17 in Srirangapatna. Although road was good but obviously not as good as SH-17. Rapi zoomed his karizma on SH-17 and was soon touching 100-110 kmph. I was following at around 80 kmph followed by Ashu and Takel. After around 40 km, Rapi had a flat tyre! We have been to all sorts of roads in this trip but both the flat tyres were encountered on the best road SH-17 !! Luckily we were only 200 metres from a Pancher :) shop.

We left the place at around 8:00 PM and stopped directly at the Chandigarh Punjabi Dhaba, 55 km before Bangalore. Nice food on desi style khaats (beds made by weaving rope on an iron frame). We set off to Bangalore after a good food.

Finally I parked my bike in my Apartment's parking at 11:00 PM. This was one of the most memorable trips I had. First time my bike saw a puncture and for the first time I saw so many different types of roads in a single trip.

Here is the route summary:

Bangalore-----152--------> Mysore ------59--------> Gundlupet -----20------> Bandipur -----31------> Gudalur -----40-----> Ooty -----20------> Coonoor

Coonoor ------20------> Ooty -----35-------> Bandipur -----20------> Gundlupet ----59------> Mysore -------152-------> Bangalore

More pictures of the trip can be seen here.

So, till next ride, ciao !!

Bangalore - Ooty Trip : Prologue

2006-12-04T16:44:00.000+05:30

T-4 days (Monday, 27th Nov 2006):
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Myself and Ashu have been planning a lot about weekend trips and many times these trips were cancelled due to professional commitments at SISO. (For the uninitiated: Samsung India Software Operations Pvt. Ltd., our workplace)

December being a lean month as far as work pressure is concerned, we thought of finishing off as many rides as possible. Mangalore and Ooty were topping the chart and were two of the long awaited rides. We proposed the Mangalore ride to our BangaloreBikers group. We came to know from discussions that followed that the roads are completely washed off due to heavy rains. The trip was cancelled!

Our retaliation was Ooty. I again proposed it in the group. I was ready for undesirable comments on the state of roads and Bandipur forest enroute but surprise and that too a pleasant one, people looked interested ! I am so happy :)

T-3 days (Tuesday, 28th Nov 2006):
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Vimal aka Takel and Atul (who Atul?? I mean Rapi :) ) declined. Finally 6 people ready for the ride. Me, Ashu, Kamlesh(Kam), Sid, Jayan(dada) and Parwez. All excited for weekend :)

T-1 day (Thursday, 30th Nov 2006):
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Me, Ashu and Sid bought spares for emergency situations like clutch cables, headlamp, spark plug, chain links, etc. Just 2 days left !!! :D

D-Day ( Friday, 1st Dec 2006):
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1030 HRS : Kam's status message on Gtalk : "Weekend Plans in trouble!" Shock !!!!
1200 HRS : Kam's Mail on group : "He can't go because of some URGENT work at office !!!" :O
1215 HRS : Sid's Mail on group : "He can't come because of fever !!!" Oh NO !!!
1300 HRS : I tried reaching Jayan and Parwez. As expected they too declined now !

Clank !!!! The dream of 6 bikes cruising on wavy roads winding around the Nilgiris overlooking lush green valleys shattered in a moment.

Now what ? Me and Ashu thought that we will go ahead !

to be continued...