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Day 1
I had been planning a winter ride from the past couple of months. The original plan was to ride to rajasthan, but as usual that got canceled at the last minute. However, I really needed to ride somewhere to keep myself from going crazy, so i decided to ride anyway. Luckily i got to know that a friend of mine was planning a trip to coorg along the same dates. The only problem was he was at banglore, which meant i would have to ride solo from mumbai to banglore and back. Since I was determined to ride somewhere, i went on with the plan. I got the bike serviced, packed my bags on sunday night, and was ready to leave on monday evening. My official leave started on tuesday, so i had to go to office on monday morning. After spending some time in the office listening to colleagues tell me in crazy to ride alone to banglore, i bid them goodbye and started my journey.
I left home at 4pm and reached panvel by 5pm since there was hardly any traffic. I wasn't tired yet, so i rode on to lonavala where i took the first break at hotel kamat for some snacks and filter coffee. It was 6pm now and the sun had set, so it was time for the headlights to guide me through the dark highway. There was the usual traffic till pune, but it cleared up after that. As the darkness set in, it started getting cold too, but i was prepared with the warm liner of my jacket. I soon reached the start of Khambatki ghat and made my way up with the full moon doing its best to help me see around the corners. It was around 8:30 pm now, so i was also on the lookout for a decent place to eat. I found one brightly lit place with a lot of cars parked outside, so I stopped there for dinner and ordered a chicken fried rice. After dinner i rode the last 30 kms to satara and got a nice room with a double bed at hotel smile. It was 15 degrees outside, but the room was warm since all windows were closed.
Some pictures of the room
Total distance covered : 280km
Day 2
I had set the alarm for 8am, but room service woke me up at 7:30 to inform that hot water is available. It was a very cold morning so getting out from under the blanket was next to impossible. It took me a while to get out of bed, but after i did, the steaming hot shower helped get rid of all the cold. It was already 9am by the time i left the hotel, so i planned to ride upto kolhapur and stop at mcdonalds for brunch. The morning was sunny, but cold and misty at the same time.
The red light on my console reminded me that i had to stop for fuel. I found a petrol pump just before kolhapur and filled her up with 500rs of fuel. Mc Donalds was a little ahead, and i reached there by 10:45am and ordered for a burger and coffee. It was almost noon and i had just covered 100kms, so i decided to pick up the pace and ride nonstop for the next few hours. After 3 hours of non stop riding, i managed to cover a decent distance so i stopped at hubli for a quick lunch and to give the bike some rest from the non stop riding. The one drawback about riding solo was that i was never able to finish all the food, wherever i stopped. I got full after having half a plate of veg hundi, so i left the rest and continued towards banglore at 2:30pm. The road from hubli to chitradurga is in a horrible condition. most of it is under construction so there are many diversions and speed breakers in the middle of the highway. to make matters worse, my low fuel indicator was on again, and the bike was about to go into reserve. I was looking for a petrol pump, but there were none since the route was still under construction. Luckily i found a reliance pump after 20km, but they said they had some technical problems and i would need to wait another 20 mins. The next pump was 15km ahead, and i had hardly any fuel left so i didn't want to risk it. I waited at hotel kamat, which is located inside the premises and had a cup of tea while they sorted out their problem.
It was 4:30pm now, and banglore was still 300 km away, there was no way i could make it in daylight so I changed visors and attached the clear one for the night ride ahead. I thought it would be smooth sailing from here to banglore, but i was wrong again. I got confused at one of the diversions that bypasses some town, and i accidently entered the town. I was now faced with narrow roads, cattle, traffic, and lots of people. The town seemed never ending, and those bad roads continued for the next 30kms. I tried asking people for directions, but no one could speak in hindi, and i couldnt speak their language, so we were forced to communicate in broken english and hand signals. It was a funny sight. I was relieved when the road joined back to the main highway. The milestones now said banglore 235km, and it was already 5:30pm. I pretty much rode non stop from here with one short break around 6pm.
The sun set soon and the headlights were doing their job. There were some patches of the road that were very slippery, i could feel the rear sliding when i rode over them, so i decided to keep the speed at 70 and look out for those oily patches. As i got near banglore city, i could see signs of civlization. The roads now had streetlights and were well marked. I reached banglore at 8:30pm and the one thing that struck me was how well planned the city was. I liked the concept of the ring road. The ring road was also the first road where i have paid toll for the bike. The toll amount was 18rs for the mysore road exit. After reaching mysore road, i faced my next challenge of finding a decent place to stay for the night. Sandeep was supposed to meet me in the night, so i had to get a room for two. I tried asking locals in broken english and hand signals, and i got to know about this hotel where i got a room for two for 1300. The price was a little steep, but since there were no other lodges in the vicinity, i had no option but to take it. I had a dinner of veg fried rice and baby corn chilly at the hotel, once again i had to leave half of it since it was too much for one person. Sandeep realized that he forgot the bike papers, so he had to go back to get them, and then he got lost on the way to the hotel. After co-ordinatiing on phone and waiting outside by the highway for him, he finally found the place at 2am.
total distance covered - 800km
Day 3
We had planned to leave early morning, but because of the delays the previous night, I slept till 9am, and left at 10. We just had 250km to cover today, so there was no hurry. We took a lot of breaks along the banglore-mysore highway, for various reasons. Sandeep was searching for some specific brand of smokes, so he kept stopping at every stall. The banglore mysore highway is just like any other 4 lane highway, with not much to see on it. After covering 120km on that highway, we had to take the right turn to coorg. The roads from here got more interesting and a little more scenic than the mysore highway.
I spotted the entrance to ranganathittu bird sanctuary so I decided to check it out. We paid an entry fee of 25rs per person, 25 per camera, and 15 per bike. The bird sanctuary was more like a park, with trails going towards different sections.
There wasn't a single bird in sight, so i clicked just one picture of the fake birds they put up for decoration
we asked one of the locals there if there are any birds visible, but he laughed and pointed out to the couples sitting on the park benches. With nothing else to see there, we left after having a cold-drink at the canteen. We continued towards coorg at around 2pm, and took a lot of breaks along the highway.
The last 50kms is where the fun starts. the road gets curvy and passes through the hills, with greenery all around and lots of wild flowers growing along the roadside.
We reached coorg at 4:30pm and started searching for a place to stay. there were a couple of home-stays available at coorg itself, but those were more like staying at someones house with one room for yourself. I wasn't too keen on it, since there would have been too many things to worry about, like the others getting disturbed if we made too much noise, or got back home late. A friend had told me that there are lots of hotels at the city of madikeri, so thats where we headed next. Madikeri was like any typical hill station town. the roads were narrow and hilly, and it was congested. there were lots of hotels available, but none of them had a safe parking space. most of them required us to park on the road, which Sandeep didn't want to do, since it wasn't his bike. While searching for lodges, i noticed the sun setting so i stopped to click it.
There was a tourist information shop nearby, so we inquired about lodging, and they arranged for our stay at a nice bungalow. The place was huge, with 2 floors, and 5 bedrooms, and we had the entire place to ourself. The owner settled for 1700 for 2 days. At that price, it was a steal. The only problem was that it was away from the town, on the top of a hill in an isolated area. To be honest, it looked a little spooky. I'll let the pics do the talking.
But, the view from up there was astounding. The entire city of madikeri was visible down below. After dumping all our luggage there and freshening up, we headed out to the city for dinner. On the way back we picked up a bottle of vodka and enjoyed it sitting outside the bungalow, in the cold, looking at the city below.
Total distance covered: 280km
Day 4
As usual, day 4 also began at 9am. The night was cold, and the view outside the next morning was mesmerizing. the hills were covered in a shroud of mist.
The plan for today was to visit as many places as possible, but first we stopped for breakfast at a nearby hotel. The first place on our list was abbey falls. The road to abbey falls is narrow and passes through the interiors of coorg. We stopped on the way for a couple of pictures
Once at the falls, you can hear the roar of the water, but you need to walk in for a few minutes to see the actual falls.
We spent around an hour at the falls, and then started back. The next place on our list was mandalpatti. There were many wildflowers along the way, and since i had the new macro lens, i couldn't help but stop to click them.
The signboards now said that mandalpatti was 20km away, but those 20kms were barely motor-able. It was an extremely narrow road with many stretches that had only pebbles and rocks. The bikes were in 1st gear most of the time, and getting there took almost an hour. I stopped at a couple of places to click a few pictures of the road conditions. I had changed the camera settings to click some of the macros and forgot to change them back, so some of the pics have come out overexposed.
A little ahead on that road, we got the first glimpse of what the view from the top looks like
Most of the other vehicles stopped at this point, but i noticed that the road continued further uphill and i was curious to check it out, so i rode further and stopped at a few points for pictures.
The condition of the roads got worse from here, and even riding 100meters was tiring
I still rode further and seen a lonely parking lot. that was the actual viewpoint, but it was not possible to go till the top because of the road conditions, so i turned back. On the way back, we spotted another trail going uphill so i decided to give that a shot. It looked easy from below, but half way up i realized how steep it actually was.
Half way up, my bike got stuck in a ditch and it wouldn't climb up. The rear wheel would just spin and dig further into the mud. Sandeep was waiting down below, so i signalled him to come up to help me get the bike out. I tried yelling at him to not get his bike up, but he didn't hear me and he rode up as well. We finally managed to turn by bike around and i took one last picture before riding downhill.
Once we got down that hill, we took a break for some time and clicked a few more pictures of the surroundings
It was 2:30pm now and we were hungry, so we decided to head back to the city to get some lunch. The return was quick and we reached the city in half n hour, since most of it was downhill. The offroading session and the afternoon heat made me really hungry, so i ordered a chicken biryani for myself. The heavy lunch gave me back my lost energy, and we were ready to check out the rest of the places. We now decided to ride to one of the coffee estates. On asking some of the people around, they suggested that we visit the Sandalkad coffee estate. There was no one around the estate, so all we could do was ride along the roads between the coffee plantations. The narrow roads passing through coffee plantations were a pleasure to ride on. There was not much to see there, so i just clicked a few pictures and we left the place.
While returning from the coffee estates, we stopped by one of the coffee shops, and I must say, it was the best filter coffee i have ever had
Sandeep then wanted to visit a nearby temple, so i accompanied him. At the temple, I overheard people talking about a sunset point at rajas seat, so that's where we headed next. It was already past sunset when we reached there, so i didn't get the setting sun, but i still got a few decent pictures.
This marked the end of our sightseeing for day 4. we then headed back to the hotel room, freshened up, and went back out for dinner. The rest of the night was spent at the house. The sky was clear so I tried taking some shots of the stars in the night sky from the first floor balcony, and i was lucky enough to capture a shooting star.
Just when we thought the day was over, things started to get interesting. As i mentioned in <a href="http://wp.me/puMMS-67">Day 3 log</a>, the house we were staying at was a pretty spooky place. On this particular night, the caretaker didn't show up, and his phone was unreachable. While we were sitting in the hall, we heared a noise coming from the other room. At first we dismissed it, but then we heard another noise after 10 minutes. It sounded like someone was hitting a metal pipe. We switched on all the lights in the house and checked every room, but didn't find anything, so we switched on the TV just so that there was some noise to drown out the weird sounds. A little later, when it was time to sleep, we went to the first floor bedroom to get some extra blankets since it was a cold night. It was then that we noticed one of the bedroom doors was opened. We distinctly remember closing all the doors earlier in the day, so it was odd that this one door was opened. Assuming we must have forgotten to close it before, we closed it then. Sandeep then suggested we get some more blankets just in-case, so we went upstairs again. This time when we tried opening the bedroom door, it wouldn't open, and it seemed to be locked from the inside. That sort of sent a chill down our spine. we left the lights on in all the rooms that night before sleeping. Thankfully there were no other weird occurrences during the rest of the night.
Day 5
The plan for today was to visit the golden temple which falls on the way back to mysore, and then reach banglore by noon so that i can get a head start on the return trip. I set the alarm for 6am so that we stick to the schedule for today. Once again, the day started with a picture of the sunrise from the balcony.
The caretaker who was unreachable the previous night, called us back in the morning and came to collect the money before we left. we left the place by 7:30 am and started towards the mysore highway, after breakfast at the regular hotel. I didn't click many pics on the way today, since i was focused on reaching banglore early. We soon reached the golden temple and spent a couple of hours there clicking pictures of the different temples inside. The golden temple is actually a monastery. The vibrant colors and intricate artwork was really worth seeing.
Sandeep needed to buy some souvenirs for his family, so he spent some more time shopping, and it was more or less a nonstop ride from there to banglore, except for one quick lunch halt. We bid goodbye near banglore and i took the nice road towards the mumbai highway. I had around 3 hours of daylight left, so i wanted to cover as much distance as possible. the patch from chitradurga to hubli was in a pretty bad shape, so i was hoping to cover that in daylight too. Unfortunately, it was dark by the time i reached chitradurga. This particular patch has a lot of diversions and unmarked speedbreakers, which are difficult to see in the dark.
As i was cruising along that highway, on a patch that seemed pretty smooth, I suddenly seen a huge unmarked speedbreaker in front of me, and what i feared the most happened. The bike flew over it, and i lost control. May be i was just plain lucky, or the riding gear did a very good job, but i walked away from that crash without a single scratch. The riding gear took most of the impact, and that was evident after checking the condition of the jacket and helmet.
The villagers were shocked to see me walk away from a crash like that. I quickly inspected the bike, and luckily the damages werent much. It just had a bent handlebar, a bent brake lever, and scratches at a couple of places, but it was still rideable. I then checked the camera, that was intact too, so i moved on and stopped at the next hotel where i had dinner and inspected the damages under the light. I didn't want to ride on that bad patch in the dark anymore, so i asked around and found a lodge at the next town, and called it a night.
Distance covered - 580km
Day 6
Today's plan was to reach home as soon as possible. I left at 7:30 am and rode nonstop from haveri to kolhapur, covering a distance of 280km before halting at mcdonalds for breakfast at 10:30. After having the usual burger and coffee, I continued riding at around 11 and took the next halt at pune, where i reached at 2pm. It was 2:30pm by the time i left pune, I was way ahead of my planned schedule, so i slowed down a bit and cruised leisurely down lonavala ghat, and i reached home at 5:30pm.
This trip was my longest solo ride, and my longest ride as well. A popular quote says "Everyone crashes. Some get back on, Some don't". The crash thought me that its better to ride in daylight, especially while riding solo on unfamiliar roads. And more importantly, it thought me the importance of investing in good riding gear.
Distance covered: 700km
I had been planning a winter ride from the past couple of months. The original plan was to ride to rajasthan, but as usual that got canceled at the last minute. However, I really needed to ride somewhere to keep myself from going crazy, so i decided to ride anyway. Luckily i got to know that a friend of mine was planning a trip to coorg along the same dates. The only problem was he was at banglore, which meant i would have to ride solo from mumbai to banglore and back. Since I was determined to ride somewhere, i went on with the plan. I got the bike serviced, packed my bags on sunday night, and was ready to leave on monday evening. My official leave started on tuesday, so i had to go to office on monday morning. After spending some time in the office listening to colleagues tell me in crazy to ride alone to banglore, i bid them goodbye and started my journey.
I left home at 4pm and reached panvel by 5pm since there was hardly any traffic. I wasn't tired yet, so i rode on to lonavala where i took the first break at hotel kamat for some snacks and filter coffee. It was 6pm now and the sun had set, so it was time for the headlights to guide me through the dark highway. There was the usual traffic till pune, but it cleared up after that. As the darkness set in, it started getting cold too, but i was prepared with the warm liner of my jacket. I soon reached the start of Khambatki ghat and made my way up with the full moon doing its best to help me see around the corners. It was around 8:30 pm now, so i was also on the lookout for a decent place to eat. I found one brightly lit place with a lot of cars parked outside, so I stopped there for dinner and ordered a chicken fried rice. After dinner i rode the last 30 kms to satara and got a nice room with a double bed at hotel smile. It was 15 degrees outside, but the room was warm since all windows were closed.
Some pictures of the room
Total distance covered : 280km
Day 2
I had set the alarm for 8am, but room service woke me up at 7:30 to inform that hot water is available. It was a very cold morning so getting out from under the blanket was next to impossible. It took me a while to get out of bed, but after i did, the steaming hot shower helped get rid of all the cold. It was already 9am by the time i left the hotel, so i planned to ride upto kolhapur and stop at mcdonalds for brunch. The morning was sunny, but cold and misty at the same time.
The red light on my console reminded me that i had to stop for fuel. I found a petrol pump just before kolhapur and filled her up with 500rs of fuel. Mc Donalds was a little ahead, and i reached there by 10:45am and ordered for a burger and coffee. It was almost noon and i had just covered 100kms, so i decided to pick up the pace and ride nonstop for the next few hours. After 3 hours of non stop riding, i managed to cover a decent distance so i stopped at hubli for a quick lunch and to give the bike some rest from the non stop riding. The one drawback about riding solo was that i was never able to finish all the food, wherever i stopped. I got full after having half a plate of veg hundi, so i left the rest and continued towards banglore at 2:30pm. The road from hubli to chitradurga is in a horrible condition. most of it is under construction so there are many diversions and speed breakers in the middle of the highway. to make matters worse, my low fuel indicator was on again, and the bike was about to go into reserve. I was looking for a petrol pump, but there were none since the route was still under construction. Luckily i found a reliance pump after 20km, but they said they had some technical problems and i would need to wait another 20 mins. The next pump was 15km ahead, and i had hardly any fuel left so i didn't want to risk it. I waited at hotel kamat, which is located inside the premises and had a cup of tea while they sorted out their problem.
It was 4:30pm now, and banglore was still 300 km away, there was no way i could make it in daylight so I changed visors and attached the clear one for the night ride ahead. I thought it would be smooth sailing from here to banglore, but i was wrong again. I got confused at one of the diversions that bypasses some town, and i accidently entered the town. I was now faced with narrow roads, cattle, traffic, and lots of people. The town seemed never ending, and those bad roads continued for the next 30kms. I tried asking people for directions, but no one could speak in hindi, and i couldnt speak their language, so we were forced to communicate in broken english and hand signals. It was a funny sight. I was relieved when the road joined back to the main highway. The milestones now said banglore 235km, and it was already 5:30pm. I pretty much rode non stop from here with one short break around 6pm.
The sun set soon and the headlights were doing their job. There were some patches of the road that were very slippery, i could feel the rear sliding when i rode over them, so i decided to keep the speed at 70 and look out for those oily patches. As i got near banglore city, i could see signs of civlization. The roads now had streetlights and were well marked. I reached banglore at 8:30pm and the one thing that struck me was how well planned the city was. I liked the concept of the ring road. The ring road was also the first road where i have paid toll for the bike. The toll amount was 18rs for the mysore road exit. After reaching mysore road, i faced my next challenge of finding a decent place to stay for the night. Sandeep was supposed to meet me in the night, so i had to get a room for two. I tried asking locals in broken english and hand signals, and i got to know about this hotel where i got a room for two for 1300. The price was a little steep, but since there were no other lodges in the vicinity, i had no option but to take it. I had a dinner of veg fried rice and baby corn chilly at the hotel, once again i had to leave half of it since it was too much for one person. Sandeep realized that he forgot the bike papers, so he had to go back to get them, and then he got lost on the way to the hotel. After co-ordinatiing on phone and waiting outside by the highway for him, he finally found the place at 2am.
total distance covered - 800km
Day 3
We had planned to leave early morning, but because of the delays the previous night, I slept till 9am, and left at 10. We just had 250km to cover today, so there was no hurry. We took a lot of breaks along the banglore-mysore highway, for various reasons. Sandeep was searching for some specific brand of smokes, so he kept stopping at every stall. The banglore mysore highway is just like any other 4 lane highway, with not much to see on it. After covering 120km on that highway, we had to take the right turn to coorg. The roads from here got more interesting and a little more scenic than the mysore highway.
I spotted the entrance to ranganathittu bird sanctuary so I decided to check it out. We paid an entry fee of 25rs per person, 25 per camera, and 15 per bike. The bird sanctuary was more like a park, with trails going towards different sections.
There wasn't a single bird in sight, so i clicked just one picture of the fake birds they put up for decoration
we asked one of the locals there if there are any birds visible, but he laughed and pointed out to the couples sitting on the park benches. With nothing else to see there, we left after having a cold-drink at the canteen. We continued towards coorg at around 2pm, and took a lot of breaks along the highway.
The last 50kms is where the fun starts. the road gets curvy and passes through the hills, with greenery all around and lots of wild flowers growing along the roadside.
We reached coorg at 4:30pm and started searching for a place to stay. there were a couple of home-stays available at coorg itself, but those were more like staying at someones house with one room for yourself. I wasn't too keen on it, since there would have been too many things to worry about, like the others getting disturbed if we made too much noise, or got back home late. A friend had told me that there are lots of hotels at the city of madikeri, so thats where we headed next. Madikeri was like any typical hill station town. the roads were narrow and hilly, and it was congested. there were lots of hotels available, but none of them had a safe parking space. most of them required us to park on the road, which Sandeep didn't want to do, since it wasn't his bike. While searching for lodges, i noticed the sun setting so i stopped to click it.
There was a tourist information shop nearby, so we inquired about lodging, and they arranged for our stay at a nice bungalow. The place was huge, with 2 floors, and 5 bedrooms, and we had the entire place to ourself. The owner settled for 1700 for 2 days. At that price, it was a steal. The only problem was that it was away from the town, on the top of a hill in an isolated area. To be honest, it looked a little spooky. I'll let the pics do the talking.
But, the view from up there was astounding. The entire city of madikeri was visible down below. After dumping all our luggage there and freshening up, we headed out to the city for dinner. On the way back we picked up a bottle of vodka and enjoyed it sitting outside the bungalow, in the cold, looking at the city below.
Total distance covered: 280km
Day 4
As usual, day 4 also began at 9am. The night was cold, and the view outside the next morning was mesmerizing. the hills were covered in a shroud of mist.
The plan for today was to visit as many places as possible, but first we stopped for breakfast at a nearby hotel. The first place on our list was abbey falls. The road to abbey falls is narrow and passes through the interiors of coorg. We stopped on the way for a couple of pictures
Once at the falls, you can hear the roar of the water, but you need to walk in for a few minutes to see the actual falls.
We spent around an hour at the falls, and then started back. The next place on our list was mandalpatti. There were many wildflowers along the way, and since i had the new macro lens, i couldn't help but stop to click them.
The signboards now said that mandalpatti was 20km away, but those 20kms were barely motor-able. It was an extremely narrow road with many stretches that had only pebbles and rocks. The bikes were in 1st gear most of the time, and getting there took almost an hour. I stopped at a couple of places to click a few pictures of the road conditions. I had changed the camera settings to click some of the macros and forgot to change them back, so some of the pics have come out overexposed.
A little ahead on that road, we got the first glimpse of what the view from the top looks like
Most of the other vehicles stopped at this point, but i noticed that the road continued further uphill and i was curious to check it out, so i rode further and stopped at a few points for pictures.
The condition of the roads got worse from here, and even riding 100meters was tiring
I still rode further and seen a lonely parking lot. that was the actual viewpoint, but it was not possible to go till the top because of the road conditions, so i turned back. On the way back, we spotted another trail going uphill so i decided to give that a shot. It looked easy from below, but half way up i realized how steep it actually was.
Half way up, my bike got stuck in a ditch and it wouldn't climb up. The rear wheel would just spin and dig further into the mud. Sandeep was waiting down below, so i signalled him to come up to help me get the bike out. I tried yelling at him to not get his bike up, but he didn't hear me and he rode up as well. We finally managed to turn by bike around and i took one last picture before riding downhill.
Once we got down that hill, we took a break for some time and clicked a few more pictures of the surroundings
It was 2:30pm now and we were hungry, so we decided to head back to the city to get some lunch. The return was quick and we reached the city in half n hour, since most of it was downhill. The offroading session and the afternoon heat made me really hungry, so i ordered a chicken biryani for myself. The heavy lunch gave me back my lost energy, and we were ready to check out the rest of the places. We now decided to ride to one of the coffee estates. On asking some of the people around, they suggested that we visit the Sandalkad coffee estate. There was no one around the estate, so all we could do was ride along the roads between the coffee plantations. The narrow roads passing through coffee plantations were a pleasure to ride on. There was not much to see there, so i just clicked a few pictures and we left the place.
While returning from the coffee estates, we stopped by one of the coffee shops, and I must say, it was the best filter coffee i have ever had
Sandeep then wanted to visit a nearby temple, so i accompanied him. At the temple, I overheard people talking about a sunset point at rajas seat, so that's where we headed next. It was already past sunset when we reached there, so i didn't get the setting sun, but i still got a few decent pictures.
This marked the end of our sightseeing for day 4. we then headed back to the hotel room, freshened up, and went back out for dinner. The rest of the night was spent at the house. The sky was clear so I tried taking some shots of the stars in the night sky from the first floor balcony, and i was lucky enough to capture a shooting star.
Just when we thought the day was over, things started to get interesting. As i mentioned in <a href="http://wp.me/puMMS-67">Day 3 log</a>, the house we were staying at was a pretty spooky place. On this particular night, the caretaker didn't show up, and his phone was unreachable. While we were sitting in the hall, we heared a noise coming from the other room. At first we dismissed it, but then we heard another noise after 10 minutes. It sounded like someone was hitting a metal pipe. We switched on all the lights in the house and checked every room, but didn't find anything, so we switched on the TV just so that there was some noise to drown out the weird sounds. A little later, when it was time to sleep, we went to the first floor bedroom to get some extra blankets since it was a cold night. It was then that we noticed one of the bedroom doors was opened. We distinctly remember closing all the doors earlier in the day, so it was odd that this one door was opened. Assuming we must have forgotten to close it before, we closed it then. Sandeep then suggested we get some more blankets just in-case, so we went upstairs again. This time when we tried opening the bedroom door, it wouldn't open, and it seemed to be locked from the inside. That sort of sent a chill down our spine. we left the lights on in all the rooms that night before sleeping. Thankfully there were no other weird occurrences during the rest of the night.
Day 5
The plan for today was to visit the golden temple which falls on the way back to mysore, and then reach banglore by noon so that i can get a head start on the return trip. I set the alarm for 6am so that we stick to the schedule for today. Once again, the day started with a picture of the sunrise from the balcony.
The caretaker who was unreachable the previous night, called us back in the morning and came to collect the money before we left. we left the place by 7:30 am and started towards the mysore highway, after breakfast at the regular hotel. I didn't click many pics on the way today, since i was focused on reaching banglore early. We soon reached the golden temple and spent a couple of hours there clicking pictures of the different temples inside. The golden temple is actually a monastery. The vibrant colors and intricate artwork was really worth seeing.
Sandeep needed to buy some souvenirs for his family, so he spent some more time shopping, and it was more or less a nonstop ride from there to banglore, except for one quick lunch halt. We bid goodbye near banglore and i took the nice road towards the mumbai highway. I had around 3 hours of daylight left, so i wanted to cover as much distance as possible. the patch from chitradurga to hubli was in a pretty bad shape, so i was hoping to cover that in daylight too. Unfortunately, it was dark by the time i reached chitradurga. This particular patch has a lot of diversions and unmarked speedbreakers, which are difficult to see in the dark.
As i was cruising along that highway, on a patch that seemed pretty smooth, I suddenly seen a huge unmarked speedbreaker in front of me, and what i feared the most happened. The bike flew over it, and i lost control. May be i was just plain lucky, or the riding gear did a very good job, but i walked away from that crash without a single scratch. The riding gear took most of the impact, and that was evident after checking the condition of the jacket and helmet.
The villagers were shocked to see me walk away from a crash like that. I quickly inspected the bike, and luckily the damages werent much. It just had a bent handlebar, a bent brake lever, and scratches at a couple of places, but it was still rideable. I then checked the camera, that was intact too, so i moved on and stopped at the next hotel where i had dinner and inspected the damages under the light. I didn't want to ride on that bad patch in the dark anymore, so i asked around and found a lodge at the next town, and called it a night.
Distance covered - 580km
Day 6
Today's plan was to reach home as soon as possible. I left at 7:30 am and rode nonstop from haveri to kolhapur, covering a distance of 280km before halting at mcdonalds for breakfast at 10:30. After having the usual burger and coffee, I continued riding at around 11 and took the next halt at pune, where i reached at 2pm. It was 2:30pm by the time i left pune, I was way ahead of my planned schedule, so i slowed down a bit and cruised leisurely down lonavala ghat, and i reached home at 5:30pm.
This trip was my longest solo ride, and my longest ride as well. A popular quote says "Everyone crashes. Some get back on, Some don't". The crash thought me that its better to ride in daylight, especially while riding solo on unfamiliar roads. And more importantly, it thought me the importance of investing in good riding gear.
Distance covered: 700km
Madkeri is on my to do list as well,probably sometime next month
also, great pictures! 
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