Month: May 2014

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The Ghat ride – The ride through the Western Ghats and Western Coasts ;)

These pages are on account of the first step I took towards the accomplishment of my dream, the dream of visiting the nooks and corners of this country on a bike. A souvenir of the first longest solo ride I executed. The 1200 Km (approx.) ride included parts of Western Ghats like Nilgiris, Palghat gap, and Idukki, and the beautiful backwaters of Alappey.

To Ooty

Ooty is at around 150Kms from my hometown and wasn’t a tiring ride. People coming from northern sides of Kerala should reach Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad district before deviating to the Ooty highway. The NH 212 will have diversions after Bathery town towards Mysore on the left and Ooty on the right. There are no diversions till Gudalur once you have taken this road from Bathery.

Early morning is the best time to ride this road and I travelled this road around 7am. With considerably less number of vehicles and mild fog at this time, the curvy roads will greet you with an awesome ride. Even though you won’t be able to enjoy much of the forest roads (as one might expect while crossing the border through Wayand), the natural beauty of the villages are incredible. Soon after entering Tamil Nadu, you will find beautiful tea estates on both sides and this is one awesome road to go for picnic drives.

Gudalur is a small town with shops and lodges and you can consider having breakfast from around Gudalur because trying to find a place to eat in Ooty is not good idea (Ooty is highly crowded with tourists and restaurants will also experience the same rush. Besides, roaming around inside Ooty on vehicles, in search of restaurants will be the worst thing to do). I had had my breakfast from Wayanad itself and I didn’t stop in Gudalur for that reason. Ascend towards Ooty begins right after Gudalur town but the fun of the hairpin roads are spoiled by the potholes on the roads. The Gudalur road is badly maintained and is very uneven. However, you can enjoy the beauty of the Eucalyptus trees on either sides of the road and the striped sunlight coming through the woods is a beautiful scene to remember.


Needle rock viewpoint

The first thing to see before entering Ooty is the needle rock viewpoint which is located at around 40Kms before Ooty on the Gudalur – Ooty main road. The view point is around 700mts far from the main road and you have to reach there by walking. The viewpoint is controlled and maintained by tourism department and entry is through paid tickets at Rs.5. One shouldn’t miss the breathtaking view from the viewpoint during an Ooty trip.

That is needle rock view point at the distance

Pykara lake

Pykara Lake is right before you enter Ooty town and is another beautiful experience that you shouldn’t miss. There is boating facility and you can roam around the reservoir area in different types of boats.

Pedal Boat prices

2 seater – Rs.60
6 seater – Rs.325
8 seater – Rs.400
Power boat price – around 600 for a half an hour trip

St. Stephens church



This is almost a two hundred years old historical church located on a beautiful spot. The church and the nearby cemetery is of great archaeological importance and is worth a visit if you are interested in historical buildings. The view of Ooty town from the church is also wonderful.

I was on a fast run to complete the first phase of my ride and couldn’t spend much time in this heavenly place and I truly wish if I could stay there for some time. However, the best part of Ooty was that I got to meet Kiran Vasudev and eat a chicken burger at his favourite cafe. The trip wouldn’t be so much fun if I hadn’t met you bro 🙂 . It was KV who suggested the Kotagiri – Metupalayam road to Coimbatore and I truly owe him for that suggestion. This was the best part of my ride and I truly enjoyed the curvy roads to the maximum. Be a bit alert and cautious about oncoming vehicles and you can throttle up on the curves with full confidence if you do so.

Here is a picture of the only memento I collected during the entire trip. to you KV 🙂
 
 

A few more pictures

Nothing like the early morning rides through Wayanad

 

I lost the picture of the initial reading this was taken after around 60 or 70Kms
Tea shop inside the forest
Ooty here I come 😉

This grassland is a beautiful place and you can have a mind-blowing experience if you are on fourwheeler. This is near Pykara lake.

The last view of Ooty before entering the Kotagiri road



Doddabetta – Kotagiri – Metupalayam – Coimbatore – Palghat

The weather change when you reach the plains is intolerable and it is better to keep riding until your body get accustomed to the heat. There are road side fruit salad sellers on the Metupalayam – Coimbatore road and the tender coconut water and watermelon from those guys is indeed refreshing. There is nothing much to talk about the desert like places I saw for the rest of the ride. The ride from Coimbatore to Palghat is really boring due to the congestion and construction works going on in the road.

Kava, Malampuzha

If you are someone who likes to get your toy little dirty, you should definitely go to Kava. This is a plain grassland beside the Malampuzha reservoir with tightly packed sand. This plain is free of stones and you can do off-road adventures on the tightly packed sand with full confidence. Apart from that, you can have a short photo session as well in this place.

The next best thing in Palghat is Fabid’s mom’s cooking magic and I am sorry for those people who won’t get to enjoy it 😉 . I was done with the first day’s ride and slept at Fabid’s place.

Palghat – Alappey

I wasn’t alone on the second day of the ride and Fabid, Suraj and Edwin had joined on the second day (still a solo ride for me because those three were on car and I was on my bike :p ). Let me get straight into the Alappey business because there is nothing exciting about the second day’s ride.

We had made arrangements for a houseboat trip and, let me tell you, it was AWESOMEEE. The title ‘Venice of the east’ is perfect for Alappey and it was a totally new experience for us for the next two days. A lifestyle that is truly developed around waters is something that we had never experienced before. Let the pictures do the speaking.

That is our gang inside the house boat
Water transport is one of the major means of transport in Alappey
So you said you have a car infront of your house ha? That’s cute, we have boats parked in front 🙂
The dining area inside the boat
The corridor inside the boat
Lunch (included in the package)
It rained and it was beautiful
The bedroom inside the house boat

Houseboats are available at different rates depending on the number of rooms and number of people. Standard hiring prices of house boats per day based on number of rooms are as follows(including food):

Single room- 6000 – 8000
Double room – 9000 – 12000
Triple room – 13000 – 16000
There is even a ten bed room house boat available at the rental charge of one lakh per day.

The boats are well maintained and clean. Each bedroom has air conditioners and attached toilets.
Another beautiful place to visit in Alappey is the Marari beach. This is a clean and beautiful beach but not very safe for swimming.

Aleppey was the last major stop in my ride and I was heading to my grandparent’s place in Idukki. I will share the experiences in Idukki in detail on a different post.

This was my route

 

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Madikeri – the memoir of a glorious past

If you are looking for a place that can help you to forget everything and be yourself for some time, Madikeri is the right place to go. I am saying this from one of the most beautiful riding experiences of my life. We had been planning a trip to Madikeri for a very long time and finally we fixed the date and time well in advance. There were around 12 people and 7 or 8 bikes when we planned it and only 3 bikes and four of us actually went for the trip. However, whoever didn’t turn up for the ride just missed something so amazing.
Madikeri is at around 250 Kms from Bangalore and Mysore is about at the middle of route and gives you a flexibility of roaming around the historic city as well. However, we didn’t spend much time at Mysore except for the breakfast. This place called ‘Ramya hotel’ serves awesome dosas and we went there particularly to try it. The hotel is on Hunsur main road but it is a bit difficult to find them but the search is totally worth it.
We headed straight towards Madikeri and our next target was Kushalnagar, the Tibetan settlement in India. The Hunsur highway is a beautiful, well maintained two lane road and won’t disappoint you. If you carefully look out for the humps in between, trust me, the ride will be freaking awesome on this road. If you are riding in a group, you can try a safe racing also because the road is wide and has a great visibility range and is safe for fast rides.
There are numerous locations on the road that are perfect for photo sessions and memorable pictures are guaranteed while riding on this road.
Kushalnagar is a beautiful and peaceful place filled with Tibetan refugees. As Indians, we can feel little proud that our country has become the reason for survival of a few people at least. The settlement definitely showed the ray of hope to those people who were stuck in the middle of nowhere at some point of time. Let the blessings of such virtues fall over the coming generations of our country. The major attraction of Kushalnagar is the golden temple and the glorious temple stands high with all the elegance. There are so many beautiful handicraft products for you to buy as well.
We headed towards Madikeri after giving a short visit to the golden temple. I can credit the calmness of Kushalnagar to the Tibetan monasteries but I am really confused about the reason behind the soothing atmosphere of Madikeri. We didn’t feel the roughness, nuisance or frustration of a town in this place and the feeling was really soothing. To add more flavour to our visit, mild drizzling started and you shouldn’t miss drinking the Coorg coffee in such weather.
I really regret not knowing the name of an awesome hill that we went accidently. We were looking for a place that we saw on map and in between we lost our way. However we decided to explore further and we found an ascending road. We rode till the road ended and it was a great experience. The road was little rough and gave the feeling of riding in off road conditions. Despite the engines getting heated up, we revved till the top and the view was mesmerizing.
Places like Raja’s seat, abbey falls, and Madikeri fort are quite around Madikeri town and these places are most suitable for a quick tour. You have grand things to do in Madikeri if interested such as river rafting, quad biking, elephant safari etc. We went for a short trip and didn’t have time for everything. After all we went to have fun riding and for that purpose the ride was an incredible one.
View from Rajas’s seat madikeri 
Abbey falls Madikeri
Madikeri fort ruins
Madikeri fort compound
Golden temple Madikeri
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Hogenakkal falls – Niagra of India

The Hogenakkal ride still remains one of my favourite trips so far. It wasn’t the beauty of the places that won my love in this trip but the beauty of the roads. We didn’t take the expressway (we will never consider four lane roads if we have alternative two lane roads to any place because riding is not fun on expressways) and instead we took the Kanakapura road for experimenting. We didn’t have to regret the choice and it turned out as one of the best riding decisions to choose the curvy beauty road for our trip. I have got nothing much to speak about the place we visited because we were so overwhelmed by the road and the ride. So let me brag about the riding experience 😉 .

There are a few diversions before you enter the Hogenakkal road and I warn you that the roads are not so great until then (not the quality, the roads are of real good quality with less or no potholes at all ). The Kanakapura road is little congested with considerable traffic, but the road is wide enough and won’t give you much of a headache. This road will give you a warm up with not so bad curves and the real game begins when you take the exit towards Hogenakkal road. You will be left with a very narrow pocket road with literally zero vehicles. The Road is of amazing quality and you can ride confidently through the deserted farm lands. There are not many villages in between and hardly any towns in between. We didn’t see any four wheelers in the entire stretch. With a Duke 200, NS200 and an R15, our blood started pumping up. We revved up through the curves and the ride till Hogenakkal was a mind-blowing experience that nothing can match. The best part of the ride was that there was mild drizzling throughout and while coming back it became a little more intense (which added more fun).

Attractions

  • The falls are really beautiful
  • You can go for a coracle boat trip if interested but you have to go during dry season for this
  • Massage services are nice if chosen carefully
Warnings

  • The road is too deserted. You can’t expect help in any case of emergency. Make sure that your bike is in good condition if you are planning to take this road (fill up the tanks, check the cables, curb your hunger etc.) or consider the expressway
  • Watch out for dogs and cattle on the road (not much of a trouble but for the safety sake, prevention is always better)
  • Since these are village roads, I can’t guarantee anything about the conditions because I am not sure about the maintenance of roads. When I travelled, it was in the best condition. Consider the opinion of people who travelled this road recently
  • Once you reach Hogenakkal falls, be careful about touts and frauds. There are high chances of scams. People offer you massage and stuff and the reliability and safety of these services are doubtful.Be very careful on the rocks because they are too slippery and don’t do adventures on the water because life is really precious :p
Let the pictures do the speaking 😉
 
 
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The nandi day

Just like anyone new to Bangalore, our trip stories also begin from Nandi hills. There is nothing such as a bad trip because any trip has got greatness in itself but the reason to choose the Nandi hills trip for the first blog post is that it was our first organized trip to anywhere. The ride to the ‘mist’ical hill was a properly executed one and was a kick-start to the chain of rides to the same place by other college-mates later. We are, indeed, proud that we gave birth to the riding legacy of CUFE.
 
 
The trip was even before I got my own bike and the team consisted of six bikes out of which two were rented (Impulse, apache), six riders and six pillions (666 a coincidence? 😉 :p ). As the planners of the trip, we (me and Fabid) were quite uncertain about lot of things because it was our first trip of that kind and we also didn’t know about the riding styles and attitudes of most of our friends. We were worried about the safety of everyone also but we had determined to enjoy the trip to the fullest. The trip proved to us that our worries were all unnecessary and it was concluded safe and sound.
Nandi
The explanation of the name of the hill will vary from people to people. Well, Nandi can be anything such as Nandi the bull, or the hill of yoga Nandishwara, Anandagiri the hill of happiness, or even the Boga Nandishwara temple because there are several theories related to the evolution of the name of this hill. Hold on to the theory that is most convincing for you and focus on the beauty and essence of this place rather. The history of the hill can be traced down to centuries back with the 1300-year-old Nandi temple being one of the attractions of the hill. There are numerous historical things to grab your attention in the hill if you are someone interested in history and archaeology but what caught me most was the mist, the fog and the breeze of the hill.
There will be nothing that can beat the experience of ascending the heights through the beautiful mist and fog on curvy roads. Nandi is indeed a place of delight for any rider and you have to make your trip during the early hours of the day if you want to enjoy the elegance of the hill to the fullest. I will definitely go to this place again.
The roads
The roads won’t be interesting until you exit from the Hyderabad expressway when you are coming from Bangalore side. But once you are in the two way traffic roads, the ride will get life. The curvy roads begin as you get close to the hills and the ascending roads are simply superb with perfectly balanced curves, hairpin bends, and straight stretches. One good thing about these roads is that nothing is in excess. Some places have too much of curves or too much of hairpin bends or straight stretches.
·         Going from Bangalore
–          Reach Hebbal circle
–          Turn towards Hyderabad express way ( towards left when you are coming from Yeshwantpur side, towards right when you are coming from Silk Board side, straight when you are coming from Golf course or city side).
–          You have to take one more left towards the state highway 104, from the express way. You will see direction boards on the express way for this.
–          Then it is just one straight road towards the hills
Things to see in Nandi
–          Sunrise if you are lucky enough (it won’t be visible every day due to fog and cloud and you have to reach very early)
–          The historical temple, the pond, fort, summer palace (not open to public but you can see outside of it), the cliff of death
–          The view from the view point will be a delight for your eyes and this is definitely something that you don’t want to miss
 
 
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THE BEGINNING

My inclination towards bikes, cars and any such machine was nothing more than that of any other boys of my age held. To be precise, I wasn’t a born motorist. But I think most of us are left with only a basic sparkle in our heart and the fire that grows within is entirely depends on how we fan that spark. It is just the same case with any other passion. Some of us remain faithful to our passions and convert the spark to an intense fire and such people become painters, singers, writers, dancers, travelers, and whatever they wanted to be in their life. I don’t know if I was faithful or selfish because I watered my interest in riding only because I enjoyed each and every moment being on my bike.
I owe to my brother for building the curiosity and enthusiasm, in me, to know more about the world of machines. I would have probably ended up as a lame middle class chicken kid who would have had nothing to boast of as his own, if you were not there showing me the roads to life chettai. Thanks to you for teaching me riding at a very young age of 12, thanks to you for buying me a bike when I was just 15, and thanks to you for helping me to make my dream, of owning a R15, come true. I remember being there at a Bajaj showroom with the money to book a pulsar 220 (with all due respect to the Pulsar, it is nothing less than a beast, but I was in love with Yamaha then, I am in love with Yamaha now and I will always be in love with Yamaha) and everything changed in a matter of time and in less than two months a brand new R15 was registered in my name. One of the happiest moments in my life. I will never forget that January 10th.
However, coming back to the point, the story starts way before this sexy black lady came to my life. The story starts with my license-less adventures on my Libero G5. Even though the trips were always in and around my hometown and the maximum diameter of tripping was limited to 70kms, it was fun roaming around always looking out for cops on the road. Most of the journeys were at midnight because there wouldn’t be routine ‘checking’ by cops anywhere on the roads. But the tripping story has not yet begun. It begins with the Nandi hills ride with my fellow hooligans on a rented Hero Impulse……