thegame0012

We bikers don't prefer cars most of the time, at least not me. But we all like adventure and its almost certain that if we step into the unchartered territory of 4 wheeler in long drive, chance of unexpected things and fun is certainly possible. 5 like minded friends, 1400 cc of pure fun - FIGO, 1500 kms of road and unlimited fun , The ‘Rich’ city of Ruins – Hampi. Travelogue to follow

PS: Though its not a bike ride, it will be interesting to see how 5 bikers react inside a cage ride - more to come !!!

teaser for now

Deserted Roads for many Kilometers.



Why road suddenly vanished once we were crossing the border of AP to karnataka ? Strange



Greenery all around !!!



Sun set some where near Bellary - sweet !!!

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Nishant Kumar

Ride, eat, sleep...repeat.

TVS Apache 150 (Sold) | Bajaj Avenger 200 (Sold) | Yamaha R15 (Current)

Tour : Point Calimere | ECR ride for Breakfast | The 'Rich' city of Ruins - Hampi | Kuttralam Ride

sunilg

Moving the travelogue to "off-topic" section as the travelogue section is strictly for travelogues on the bikes.

But looking forward to read your travelogue in the cage.

Approved.

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(Been There Done That) x 3.25

Join xBhp On

thegame0012

thanks Sunilg for quick approval.

__________________
Nishant Kumar

Ride, eat, sleep...repeat.

TVS Apache 150 (Sold) | Bajaj Avenger 200 (Sold) | Yamaha R15 (Current)

Tour : Point Calimere | ECR ride for Breakfast | The 'Rich' city of Ruins - Hampi | Kuttralam Ride

Rahul.Gvli

Nice one...

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The best alarm clock is sunshine on chrome...!!
The only good view of a thunderstorm is in your rearview mirror...!!

thegame0012

Mom - ‘Yes Monu, you need to travel this weekend to Torangulu, near Bellary and meet that guy.’
Me - ‘This weekend ? Let me check the tickets in Bus/train. (After 15 mins) there is no tickets available for next 2 weeks either in train and there is no flights too!!!’
Mom – ‘you figure out how you going , by car, by bike or by Plane, but its your duty to get this settled by this weekend.’
Me – ‘what you said – can I go by Bike?’
Mom – ‘Yes, you travel in bike for your pleasure, don’t you? Can’t you do this for family benefit?
Me – ‘yeah, I’m going – Grin!!!


It was an early morning conversation I had with my Mom. She wants me to travel to an Industrial city called Torangulu near Bellary – Karnataka to get some family deal done with a Guy who works there. It was important and need to be done asap. Now once I got permission to travel by Bike, I started doing some search on Google map about distance, location, roads and of course – some good places to see nearby. I checked and found that there is place called Hampi, 35 kms from Torangulu. I heard about this place but never what it’s all about. Did a quick search on wiki and found about it. It should be fun I thought and started gathering resources for trip.


Firstly, I applied leave for Friday and got it approved without any issues. Now next thing was to gather the stuffs which will help me to make the travel of 1300 kms bit more easy and fun. Pinged Ananth and asked if I can pick his GPS for the travel. He said I can pick up anytime but need to use new batteries as its old batteries are dead. Now I wanted to check if someone else from Chennai Group may be interested to join me for the trip so I called Ananth again if he wanted to join me for the ride, he don’t want to flush a lot of money via Ninja’s hungry engine so asked me if I’m travelling by car, he can join me. I cancelled my bike plan and decided to take my car. Asked Steve and Dinesh and fortunately, they were ready to join for the trip in no time. Sriram called me up asking what I’m upto and once explained, he also showed interest to tag along. Yes off course, we have 1 seat free. So it was 5 of us who were good with long bike rides but had no experience with Cars. It will be fun for sure but it will be interesting to see how bikers behave while travelling long distance in cool and comfortable car.

So final plan was set by me.
04:00 AM – Start from home and pick every one of fellow travelers from their home.
05:30 AM – Leave Chennai and head towards Chitoor.
08:00 AM – reach Chitoor and have breakfast.
11:00 PM – Reach Ananthpur.
14:30 PM – reach Bellary
16:00 PM – reach Hampi



Route map



It was a rough plan as none of us have travelled in that route before and most of the time calculation was done by asking other people who travelled on that route already. I asked everyone to pack their bags and be ready on Friday morning.

I tried hard to sleep early on Thursday night but slept sometime around 11:30 PM. Woke up at 03:45 AM and called Dinesh. He was awake and told he will be ready by 04:15. I started from my house at 04:25 and went straight to Dinesh house to pick him up. After that it was Besent nagar for Steve, T nagar for Sriram and at last at Ananth’s place near Ashok Nagar. After picking up every one, we hit the Highway. It was chill morning and everyone was fresh and wide awake.



Waiting outside Sriram's House




At Ananth's house





As planned, we were able to leave Chennai by 05:30 AM and were on highway cruising at 120 kmph. By 07:00 we were at Ranipet and sipping TEA at road side.



Steve searching for some snacks which will go good with Tea




Tea break at Chitoor




It was all 2 lane road from there onwards, which means, slower speed and more concentration for an armature driver like me. We reached Chitoor around 08:15 AM and had some nice Idlies for breakfast which was really filling and gave enough energy to tackle the problems which will be coming face to face later in our trip for which we never thought of when planning for the trip.


That Red chutenny was HOT as hell - welcome to Andhra




That Hotness didn't stop us to eat fully - very decent food for very optimum price !!!




A small talk after the food



A break some where after Ananthpur



One of the last greenery patch we have seen that day.






It was nice drive and scenic view at both side of the roads. But suddenly things changed upside down. We slowly entered more dry lands and open roads with less traffic and more deserted land at both the sides.
Some coconut water to cool ourself down - that was some hot climate at that time of year - wooohhh !!!



We drove many Kilometers before spotting a living being say a man or a Dog. Climates changed from bad to worse and Dryness of the road and of the air increased tremendously.
Now we entered Anantpur and it was total mayhem as what we can expect from a small Town. There was some road jamming was taking place by local farmers and we have to take a detour from streets, thanks to Dinesh we didn’t struggle a lot in communication department.


Road JAM - it was such a pain to take a detour - thanks to Dinesh who brought us out of the town limits by his mother tongue influence




We all wanted to have some lunch but we were not so hungry, so we planned to push and then take food straight at Hampi around 05:00 PM which proved to be the worst decision of ours in that whole trip. We left Anantpur around 02:00 PM after having a small TEA and Omelet break and pushed towards Bellary. It was another 100 kms and road was very deserted and climate was hot and dry.




That Omlete tasted much better then it looks - seriously




12k Done - not bad !!!




Road was 2 lane but it was smooth and fun to drive, we were maintaining a good average of 80 kmph throughout. Suddenly there was a place when road take a dip and we see ourself standing at the top of a hill. We could see 100 sq miles of area with naked eyes. We got down and planned to get some photographs taken. Red soil, red hot Sun and Green car looks like a nice combo for the photography and Steve and Ananth started clicking some snaps – some came out well, other came out brilliant. It was a 45 mins break and it was totally worth.


One of the best view we had that day - awesome !!!














sriram with Green Figo surrounded by Red Soil




Red Soil all around




This is what happened when we entered Karantaka from AP - road suddenly disappeared



Now the bad part starts. We were our way to Bellary and road conditions was getting worst and so does our speed. Figo is a good hatchback but with load of 5 grown man and boot full of luggage, it was scrapping its belly on almost all the speed breakers and pot holes. We decided to drive slow as light was slowly getting low and we were entering high traffic zone.


Steve and Ananth in action




Don't miss the road abrubtly ending at the border



Bellary was a just like any other small town with un ending traffic and honks. We crossed the town after topping up with diesel and started our last and most difficult part of whole journey which was of 70 Kms.
Sunset some where near Bellary




Industrial City of Torangullu



From Bellary to Torangulu, it was completely 2 lane road and it was filled with maniac lorry drivers and restless bus drivers. Being very conscious , there was 2 narrow escapes which could have been fatal. Once we were nearing Torangulu, the city made by Jindal Steel works, things were not looking good. Roads were filled with Mining Lorries which are running on those roads like F1 cars. Speedy Lorries in high beam + Roads full of pot holes + un countable Speed breakers and all this after 13 hours of driving and 550 kms. Slowly we crossed the industrial city after almost 2 hours and joined a decent road to Hospet which will take us to Hampi. I was completely exhausted after riding nonstop in mayhem traffic for last 3 hours; I was feeling like parking the car at side and take a nap but Hampi was just 30 kms from there. I could see only Lorries on that road and no other vehicle came face to face for kms. I saw a Lorry driver driving in decent speed stopping properly at all the speed breakers. I started following him keeping a good distance in between and came to the place where we have to take a left from main road to Hampi. It was 12 kms of spooky ride as there was not a single animal, man or night birds were visible. Roads were narrow but good. It took us 20 mins to cover that dark side of the road patch to join the civilization at Hampi. We quickly found a guest house and dumped our belongings and came out for food. We were told to go to Mango Tree for the food but we were too tired to travel any further. We ordered some food at local restaurant and was provided food which was nowhere near to the worst food experience I had in long time. We somehow ate some of those stuffs and returned back to the rooms.


Please avoid eating at this place at any cost - its a request




having food - good or bad



We were too tired and were planning to sleep but nice climate and whole day of travel left us with lot to discuss. Talk went on for next day plans and things we could have avoided on our way to Hampi. Few lesson learnt and we all went to sleep ready to explore Hampi next day.

Day 2 to continue ...

__________________
Nishant Kumar

Ride, eat, sleep...repeat.

TVS Apache 150 (Sold) | Bajaj Avenger 200 (Sold) | Yamaha R15 (Current)

Tour : Point Calimere | ECR ride for Breakfast | The 'Rich' city of Ruins - Hampi | Kuttralam Ride

aargee

Quite interesting to read TG0012; I'm waiting for part 2 eagerly.

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Patience pays...The Vulture's virtue is patience and the bird always get it's food - Wise man saying

This is not a bakery. I don't sugar coat anything. If you ask for my opinion...then that's what you'll get. Don't be mad when it's not what you want to hear

I.S.Avinash

Wow Awesome Trip long waiting for Day 2 to continue

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Being a biker. Is it easier said than done? What makes a biker?Anyone who rides for the love of it..!!

Jerrin

Nice pics.

bikerfas

Good to see the Log buddy !! Keep it coming

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