Or in case you haven't been through Bandipur then:

Bangalore - Magadi - Kunigal - Hassan - Belur/Halebidu (drive south) - Mysore - Gundulpet - SultanBathery - Kalpetta - Calicut ..

Quality time guaranteed

good luck for the trip saw your machine on the other thread its simply awesome congrats bro

I am really overwhelmed with the amount of suggestions & tips to my queries and a continued thanks to all. My apologies for the delayed response as i had to catch up with a long flight, fasting in between and limited net access.


Thanks Adil. I will guide you on all the formalities later. And yes, its really high time we got out of the desert & did some serious riding. Have a great time in Bahrain. I shall get back to you on the Bahrain Bike week arrangements for your next trip.

Thanks Srikeerthi. Actually the delay in bike arrival has pushed my schedule to the wall, so I am sticking to Blr-Hassan-Sakleshpur-Mglr. Besides I was told the CMTI-nelamangala flyover will open this week so that will save me some time.

Thanks Ranjith. I have to now make a bi-lingual number plate from blr or could get stopped by cops everywhere asking why the plate is in 'urdu' (they wont know it is Arabic & not urdu)

Thanks HydroXide. Actually I am a born-bread bangalorean, but roots are from Calicut so I am familiar with this spectacular route from mysore onwards like the palm of my hand. But I am forced to miss it since I wanted to do a complete north-south trip of kerala so I preferred entering from mangalore.

Thanks raja-roadster. I want to utilize the potential of such a bike in an ideal location- Incredible India

@ Aargee. Was looking forward to hear from you man as I wanted to establish contact with chennai xbhp. You are bang on time. Thanks


Yes, thats the exact plan

After my overnight halt in Aluva I will follow this above route & want to spend time in/around munnar hills.


Although I want to, not much of a choice as I explained earlier about the bike shipment arrival delay.


I will halt over for a night each in Madurai & Pondicherry. What is worth seeing there in 3-4 hours? Kindly advise.


Probably with good scenery I will select MC road and maybe my 19inch front wheel may help me with the uneven tarmac

I skipped the plan for Kumarakom as wife is not on this trip with me. So i shall head from munnar to Tvm directly

Definitely looking forward to may be a g2g in Chennai to meet all you wonderful guys. Not very familiar with chennai, but will be staying in Adayar with my brother

Honoured Sir. My pleasure helping the community as much as possible.

If I understood right, after Hassan, you're riding down to Kochi right? Then you might probably want to stay at Ernakulam rather than Aluva, PROVIDED, you're taking a hotel accomodation. EKM has few places to roam around.

Fine.

Yes, quite few. Visit the famous Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai & host of other temples. Also do taste the local cuisine - Madurai idlies; it will change your perception of idlies forever.

Pondi - consider spending a day there; Beach, Museum, multi cuisine food, Gokilambal Thirukameswarar temple, Aurobindo Ashram & Auroville; on your way back to Chennai, you may want to make a halt at Mahabalipuram, if you haven't visited yet.

Yes, that will more than sufficient; do not forget to visit Kalady; If possible, visit the Niagara of India at Chalkudy - Athirapally falls 15 Kms from Chalakudi off NH47.

If I'm not adding too much ambitious, you need to be riding via Pollachi-Vaalparai route which is absolutely scenic; has also got Sholayar dam.

When are you making this trip? I know there's a route without touching Kothamangalam-Muvattupuzha which will be Munnar-Adimali-TDPA-Pala-Kottayam (via MC road)-Kollam-TVM, hiowever, I need to confirm this. So let me know when I should get back to you. Anyway, if you plan touching Kothamangalam-Muvattupuzha, plan a halt over there, my folks will be happy to help you.

Sure; we're looking forward to Welcome you too

Originally posted by Haroon View Post

Not very familiar with chennai, but will be staying in Adayar with my brother

Will take care of you No worries

Went through at leisure

I guess you're following this route...
Bangalore-Hassan-Mangalore-Kasaragod-Calicut-Kodungalur-Alwaye-Munnar-Cochin- Trivandrum-Kanyakumari - Thirunelveli - Tuticorin - Rameshwaram - Madurai - Villupuram - Pondicherry - East Coast Road - Chennai - Bangalore

If that's the case, consider changing the above route marked in bold to
Kodungalur-Alwaye-Kochi-Munnar-Trivandrum to take the MC road. In pictorial terms, you're currently following the ones marked in RED & the suggestion is to take the one marked in BLUE



Since you're taking the Mangalore to Kasargod route, are you stopping at Mahe beach?

Can you accomodate Wayanad on your way from Kasargode? The route would be then, Mangalore - Kasargode - Wayanad - Thrissur - Kochi - Munnar - Kottayam. Not sure what's if Google is confused as its unable to sketch the road. Here's the rough idea...


This might be even too much & you're welcome to skip; but just wanted to make you aware of the places close by that you may not want to miss.


Since you're touching Tirunelveli, if you're interested, you may want to check out the Tiger reserve there.

Also, as per Ananth's suggestion, you may want to check if you'll be able to include Rameshwaram in the trip. I'm no expert as I haven't done this route. From what I heard, the roads are pretty good & you'll find less traffic and considering this fact you MAY be able to make to Rameshwaram too, but, I'm not sure though.

Could you make a quick fast detour to Delhi? It won't take long you see! Then we can go to the hills together for a quick sojourn!

@Haroon: Please confirm about the flyover, AFAIK two wheelers were not to be allowed on it.

Been on the road & hence the delay.

Biking brotherhood zindabad

Not staying in Kochi, as I am staying at my cousins place in Aluva (means I save on one nights hotel expenses)

Meenakshi Temple is on my list and may visit Aravind Eye hospital for something to do about Blindness Prevention Program im am associated with. Madurai idli will be added to my must-do list.

Pondi - consider spending a day there; Beach, Museum, multi cuisine food, Gokilambal Thirukameswarar temple, Aurobindo Ashram & Auroville; on your way back to Chennai, you may want to make a halt at Mahabalipuram, if you haven't visited yet.[/QUOTE]

Depart Madurai early morning & want to arrive by noon in Pondi, so I can make a run around the city and taste the local cuisine etc

OK, will try & touch Kalady. Going the TN route may be too long.

Many thanks for the offer Aargee, but due to shortage of time I will take the Munnar-Adimali-Kottayam-TVM route with halt over in TVM. I plan to start the ride about 17 Sep pending arrival of bike.

Thanks & eager to meet you all.

Hey Ken thats a long detour.... North India is hopefully for another trip. Himalayas & beyond

Thanks Srikeerthi for bringing that up. I will check that out soon.

Haroon bhai, perhaps we can have a sticky post with information on the carnat de passage process and other things needed, along with the costs involved in the transport. The euro-trail and after that, this! Phew, I am confused whether to follow your trail now or wait till I get to a riper age .

PS: Meeting with Adil bhai this weekend!

mmm...

Harron bhai, even if binoy informed me abt this thread beene some days, i could nt check it as I was busy. Now when I checked it I feel that I am terribly late and the thread is in high end with great inputs. And after seeing all the posts its understood that great argee have given enough and valuable inputs. The last post by argee is a great suggession. Taking Munnar road from alwaye and coming back again to cochin from munnar is quite unnecessary and will be a useless. So just go to cochin from Alwaye. Simply as argee told. Kasargod-kozhikode-kodungllur-alwaye-cochin-moovattupuzha-adimali-munnar-adimali-thodupuzha-(or kattappana-vagamon)pala-kottayam-changanassery-thiruvananthapuram and so on... Hope you ll be visiting Bakel fort of Kasargod. And hope you know Muzhuppilangad drive in beach near kannur which is a 5 km lengthy drive in beach.

We feel honoured to see a bmw in one of our upcoming g2g....if my bike is ready, I hope I will be able to ride with you for some areas in Idukki...
BTW When ll you be starting?

Thanks Praveen. Yeah, Binoy had mentioned about you. Its never too late and any information I get is welcome Praveen. The route aargee gave and what you are reconfirming is what I have finalized. Yes, I do plan to visit Bekal fort and I have an informal group in Kasaragod accompanying me to the spots there. Thanks for the suggestion on Kannur. Will check that out as well.

Sure will be fun to do some local riding together.

Sure Sunil. I will put up a detailed post on the Carnet subject, once I am over with the trip.

As for euro tour followed by this, its not that I am a 'man in a hurry', but just that you have to get out & do it at some point. With marriage, kids and all kinds of commitments, our biking (and many other) fantasies get pushed out the window. So better late than never

@haroon bhai

eid mubarak i guess ur bike is landin tomm in cochin thats cant wit for u to start ur tour

@diffuser

plzzz dont call me bhai im wayyyyyy younger maybe even younger than u!!!!! and cant wait to do some riding in bahrain