anujgupta777

Just completed a 4 day ride from Bangalore to Allepy (Kerala). To say it was fun would be an understatement. It was my longest ride and it was as exciting as it can get.
It was my first ride in down south after being posted in Bangalore by my company. I was dying to go on a bike trip but was looking for the company. One fine day I received the call from Anup saying that lets go to Kerala on bike and I jumped at the opportunity.
The bikes were: Pulsar 200, Pulsar 150 and Discover.
Riders: Anuj (me), Anup, Ketan Amola, Puneet Babail.
Day 0 : We started out preparations with buying certain stuff. I bought a Cramster tank bag. We bought Bungee cord for tying luggage and Helmet for the fourth guy. We then charted out a rough map in our mind and on the Friday morning started our journey.
The itinerary we planned was
Day 1: 3:30 am - Bangalore – Mysore – Bandipur – Ooty – Coimbtore -350 km

Day 2: 6:00 am – Coimbatore to Allepy – 260 km…. reach by 1:PM

Day 3: Allepy to Munnar : 200 km :

Day 4: 5:00 AM Munnar – Coimbtore – Salem – Bangalore…. – Abt 500 km


Day 1:
Bangalore – Mysore – Bandipur- ooty – Coimbtore ( 360 km)
We planned to start early in the morning to reach Bandipur as early in the morning as possible so as to maximize our chance of spotting wildlife but as luck would have it, my alarm fail to ring and we woke up at 4:45 only to leave at 5:30. We clicked some photographs, set our trip meters to zero and left at 5:30.
Bangalore Mysore highway was one of the smoothest surface we travelled on and it we easily touched 100 without much of an effort. Only later did we realize that we are not going to get this kind of road again till 4th day.
We then took a break in highway McDonalds for a cup of coffee and burger where we accidently bumped into our college mate who was on his way to an official trip to Mysore. We just caught up on old times and moved ahead.
We took the bypass from Mysore and then took another tea break to admire the road and the surroundings. And this was not the first time in our trip that as soon as we stopped to appreciate the road the ensuing road would be as bumpy and rough as possible. We were soon in one of the worst stretches of road which was getting worse and worse till there was no sign of road and we were riding on mud and gravel. It was difficult to believe that this stretch leads to one of the most popular tourist destination Ooty.
As soon as we hit Bandipur, the roads improved probably because it was a popular tourist destination in itself. Some of the sign boards were really interesting: One was “ Right of way is reserved for animals”. And when we pass through the jungle, we realize that that’s the way it should be because we have poached on to their territory. It’s a beautiful jungle and you can see hoards of spotted deer. We even saw a bison and for the first time in my life I saw a wild elephant in its natural habitat. We were really thrilled though scared a bit and maintained our distance to click the photographs. After giving some rest to our asses and back we moved on to Ooty


There are two ways to reach Ooty. One is a smooth 60 km ride which rises gradually to Ooty and other is a 30 km road full of sharp and steep hair pin turns. It was the first time we found that bike riding is not that easy at it seems. It was drizzling and roads were wet and as I was riding Discover, it started to skid a little. I had to go as slow as I can on a steep turn with one leg near the ground just to give support in case it is needed. But the whole experience was worth it and it made our lunch even more tastier in Ooty.
We left Ooty at about 2:30 and reached Coimbtore after an uneventful ride and took up a hotel near Bus stand for 500 bucks. We all wanted to have a good dinner and someone came up with an idea of Pizza. And to my surprise, the just dial service came to our rescue. We called them to get the Dominos number of Coimbtore. Luckily our hotel was in the delivery radar of Dominos and after flat 45 minutes we were eating Dominos pizza. Actually they got it within promised time of 30 mins. The first 15 minutes went in I trying to understand his language and him trying to understand mine.
We had some booze and slept of after long day.
More to come soon………

Aryan

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moeed

Nice ride there! Please share some photos and bring on the rest of the log.

Nio

No destination!
That sounds crazy! You should have had lots of fun.. Nice log there but expecting more pics to accompany the next part of log.. Waiting to see some kewl green pics from Munnar

chicane1879

This is interesting..Waiting for the pics!!

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anujgupta777

Actually we dropped our Munnar plans. Thats why I wrote that was the planned iteinary.....

anujgupta777

Day 2:
Coimbtore – Pallakad – Kochi – Allepy (250 km)
We had initially thought that we will change the schedule a bit and go Munnar first and then Allepy, but after first day of hiking in Ooty, we again came back to original plan thinking that this way we will have a break between climbing up the mountain. But later on it got shelved al together as it was getting too hectic and we were tired a bit.
We left Coimbatore at 6 in the morning and within half an hour we crossed over to Kerala. Kerala is so distinct in itself that its so easy to identify that we have entered in Kerala. I wish I would have been a better writer so that I would do justice to explaining its beauty. Words just fail me. Most of the views come directly from the artificial postcards and here I realize that even artificially enhanced postcards come nowhere near to the true beauty that Kerala offers. We stopped to admire the sheer beauty and clicked some photographs.
We crossed Pallakad in some time. One has to take left from Palakkad to go to Kochi but there is no signboard or any indication indicating to go left for such an important destination. I carried on straight for few 100 meters but my intuition was telling me that we had to turn left at that point. I asked someone and ya I was right. We indeed had to turn left.
This road we travelled on, NH 47 is the part of north south corridor of highway projects which started in Vajpayee regime. Work was being done to convert it from a 2 lane to a 4 lane highway and the patches where the work was complete were heaven to drive on. But the sad part was it ended at Kochi and the next 60 kms to Allepy was everything you do not expect on a highway. It had people, bullock carts criss crossing every now and then, had quite a few red lights. Some how it seemed that the entire Kerala was situated on both sides of that highway.
After negotiating that we finally landed in Allepy, took up the houseboat for 3500 bucks and let ourselves get lost to wilderness. Only a guy who has been to Allepy can imagine how beautiful it is. This was my second trip to Kerala and it seemed that it has grown to become even more amazing.
We ended the day with movie, booze and few games of cards. For all those who are interested, hard drinks are damn expensive in Kerala. Smirnoff was about 900 bucks, almost double than that of Tamil Nadu. We were left with no option.

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