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Reaching the heart of Ooty, we decided to stop near HIggins and Bothams for a tea/smoke break, we also had a small photoshoot. The ride up was fun. We had reached in merely 40 minutes. The climate was good. The sun was coming up. There werent much people on the streets, just a few joggers, and a few milkmans in their scooters, and stray dogs before every tea shop that we saw. It was pleasant overall.
As we had only filled half tanks in Coimbatore, we decided to tank up. Passing by Stephen's Church, we reached Hill Bunk and tanked up. After a small discussion about which route to take, we chose the Kallaty route because of 2 reasons, one being a shorter than the Gudalur course and the other for the love of the 36 hairpin bends. As soon as all the bikes had their stomachs filled, we rode again still maintaining the same single line formation. After reaching the checkpost, we took the ascent and headed towards Kallaty. Josh and myself being familiar of the roads cautioned everybody to be extra careful and to ride switching between 2nd and 3rd since these bends were very steep and very small. Even a small miscalculation in taking those bends while going down could end up in disaster. We all signaled that we were good to go. We took each bend smoothly with the aid of Josh signalling when approaching a hairpin bend. We were maintaining speeds of 15 to 20 max when a bit flat. When we had crossed some 6 or 7 bends, there were a few people walking down the road. We slowed down our bikes. That was when a guy who was totally covered up in a blanket from head to toe decided to cross the road. As the guy was on the extreme left of the road at that moment, Aravinth decided to cross him taking a right, but that guy just ran across mad without seeing the bikes approaching. I mean his face was totally covered, one could barely see his eyes through the small gap in the blanket. It was in A perfect synchrony that both Aravinth and the bloke converged to the extreme right of the road and then BHAM... At speeds of less than 10, the Fz's crash gaurd hit the guy's leg. The guy's blanket got caught in the handle bar and his dhoti in the crash gaurd. It wasnt the injury that was awful but the guy had an embarrassing state of nakedness. He was rolling down the slope naked. Ram and Mahesh soon stopped their bikes and went to the rescue. Soon they took the dhoti and covered up the shivering guy squealing in pain. After a few localities gathered around and started blaming Aravinth, RAm and myself started explaining them of the accident. Mahesh soon went to a nearby shop to get water. The localites informed us that the guy was actually a mentally challenged person. We offered to take him to the hospital if the need be, but the guy told us that he was doing fine and just had some minor scratches. We all sorted out the issue and offered even money to buy some pain killers or some dettol and bandage but the neighborhood people and the guy himself refused it all and said that we were good to go.. But still, we all had a feeling of guilt, and I offered him a ride to his home which was about 100 mts away. I then made him sit on the bike and as I was turning the bike around, Josh, who had already gone ahead made his way back because we were all missing on his rear view mirror. Josh came very swiftly and enquired so as to what happened. We explained him of the situation but due to the mounted tension of a guy being hit and a crowd of 30 people or so, he unintentionally was under the wrong impression that these people were trying to pull out money. A guy heard these words and started arguing that it was a hit and run incident. Following his words, the whole crowd were against us. The injured guy himself suddenly out of no where started screaming that his back was hurting and that several bones were fractured and started rolling on the ground. Being a localite myself, I explained that these were my friends and we are going on a ride, etc., and that my house is nearby, and that we were not trying to run away, and stressed the point that we in fact were the ones to ask if he would like to the hospital. After about half an hour of chaos and commotion, we agreed upon to take him to the hospital.
A Sumo driver took advantage of the situation and said that he would take his Sumo to the hospital and told us to pay about 500 rupees as a renting charge for the Sumo. Pissed off with the situation, JOsh and Ram agreed that they would accompany the guy and a few of his relatives to the hospital whilst myself and the others agreed to stay here in the spot.
En route to Ooty Government Hospital, the guy and his sister had created a huge drama inspite of Josh's assurance that he would look after the hospital expenses and if there were any serious injuries, we would not hesitate to take him to the biggest hospital in Coimbatore, but these words never even were heard by the duo. Back at the scene, people started asking questions about our whereabouts and the ride. I explained that this is my hometown, and we are in no way posing a threat intentionally or unintentionally to anyone. They even asked me if I knew a girl called "Jayanthi" who studied Maths in my college. I had no clue whatsoever about whom they were speaking, but just to manage the situation, I acknowledged that I knew her and told them that she was my junior. Soon, I could see their faces glow with happiness. Everbody gathetered around us and to our astonishment, they were treating us like family. They cautioned about the bends and the unexpected wildlife in the roads. Soon, tea was ordered in the tea shop, some people were even offering us even breakfast.. Wow, this indeed was home.
Back at Ooty, the Sumo that JOsh and the others went bumped into a tempo in a signal, and again a fight broke out between both the drivers. Our Sumo guy had to shell out 1000 Rs for the tempo and he himself had a big dent on his brand new Sumo. Josh and Ram had broke out into an instantaneous burst of laughter while the Sumo was banging his head with his hand. Meanwhile, the victim of our accident and his sister totally confused about the situation demanded 5000 rs instead of taking to the hospital. Knowing their plan trying to pluck from them, Josh assured that he will not give money but would do any treatment in the hospital. As soon as they reached the hospital, Ram and JOsh went inside the doctor's cabin to inform that these people were playing a drama to grab money. Promptly, the doctor saw that he had only a few bruises from the tarmac, prescribed him some pain killers and said that he was fine. The duo had nothing to speak but to silently climb embarrased that their plan did not work out. Then, I received a call from Josh. Josh suggested that I take the lead and ride slowly till Bandipur checkpost, and that they would catch up. Having bid farwell to all those kind hearted people, we started our descent. We stopped for a smoke break once we hit the flat roads. As we were talking, Ini spotted a bear, a huge bear indeed, but soon it vanished into the bushes before we could even open the camera pouch. Scared of seeing such a huge bear, we decided to make a move. We rode in 40s and 50s swaying from side to side just to while away time. Again, we stopped on an empty stretch of road, and ventured into the forest where we spotted many deers grazing. By this time, again received a call from Josh stating that they were in the accident spot and they will leave in another minute or two. We too started our way towards the checkpost.
On the way, we spotted a bakery, where we again stopped for a smoke break. Having not slept the day before, I instantly fell asleep on the table. After may be close to an hour, Josh and Ram arrived. We decided to have lunch. We had our stomachs filled to the max with parathas and some omlettes.
The post lunch session was fast after having gained a lot of energy from the wholesome lunch. We started riding fast, crossed the Bandipur forest while spotting some elephants too, but we never stopped for any photoshoots keeping in mind that sakthi and subbu are on their way...
After riding through Gundalpet and we reached Begur. The roads were at its worst. There were speedbreakers that could easily disrupt one's vertebrae. Really. Six continuous speedbreaks in a row, our bike was like riding on a dirt track.. We crossed around 25 of those speed breakers. Each had to stand on the footpegs in order to save our backs. but somehow we managed to cross all of them and reach on to a road not so filled with them. We rested at a petrol bunk....Being frustrated with the monstrous speedbreakers, we did not even feel like parking the bikes in a row. we just parked it amok..
Next post, the guys from Bangalore and their story.
As we had only filled half tanks in Coimbatore, we decided to tank up. Passing by Stephen's Church, we reached Hill Bunk and tanked up. After a small discussion about which route to take, we chose the Kallaty route because of 2 reasons, one being a shorter than the Gudalur course and the other for the love of the 36 hairpin bends. As soon as all the bikes had their stomachs filled, we rode again still maintaining the same single line formation. After reaching the checkpost, we took the ascent and headed towards Kallaty. Josh and myself being familiar of the roads cautioned everybody to be extra careful and to ride switching between 2nd and 3rd since these bends were very steep and very small. Even a small miscalculation in taking those bends while going down could end up in disaster. We all signaled that we were good to go. We took each bend smoothly with the aid of Josh signalling when approaching a hairpin bend. We were maintaining speeds of 15 to 20 max when a bit flat. When we had crossed some 6 or 7 bends, there were a few people walking down the road. We slowed down our bikes. That was when a guy who was totally covered up in a blanket from head to toe decided to cross the road. As the guy was on the extreme left of the road at that moment, Aravinth decided to cross him taking a right, but that guy just ran across mad without seeing the bikes approaching. I mean his face was totally covered, one could barely see his eyes through the small gap in the blanket. It was in A perfect synchrony that both Aravinth and the bloke converged to the extreme right of the road and then BHAM... At speeds of less than 10, the Fz's crash gaurd hit the guy's leg. The guy's blanket got caught in the handle bar and his dhoti in the crash gaurd. It wasnt the injury that was awful but the guy had an embarrassing state of nakedness. He was rolling down the slope naked. Ram and Mahesh soon stopped their bikes and went to the rescue. Soon they took the dhoti and covered up the shivering guy squealing in pain. After a few localities gathered around and started blaming Aravinth, RAm and myself started explaining them of the accident. Mahesh soon went to a nearby shop to get water. The localites informed us that the guy was actually a mentally challenged person. We offered to take him to the hospital if the need be, but the guy told us that he was doing fine and just had some minor scratches. We all sorted out the issue and offered even money to buy some pain killers or some dettol and bandage but the neighborhood people and the guy himself refused it all and said that we were good to go.. But still, we all had a feeling of guilt, and I offered him a ride to his home which was about 100 mts away. I then made him sit on the bike and as I was turning the bike around, Josh, who had already gone ahead made his way back because we were all missing on his rear view mirror. Josh came very swiftly and enquired so as to what happened. We explained him of the situation but due to the mounted tension of a guy being hit and a crowd of 30 people or so, he unintentionally was under the wrong impression that these people were trying to pull out money. A guy heard these words and started arguing that it was a hit and run incident. Following his words, the whole crowd were against us. The injured guy himself suddenly out of no where started screaming that his back was hurting and that several bones were fractured and started rolling on the ground. Being a localite myself, I explained that these were my friends and we are going on a ride, etc., and that my house is nearby, and that we were not trying to run away, and stressed the point that we in fact were the ones to ask if he would like to the hospital. After about half an hour of chaos and commotion, we agreed upon to take him to the hospital.
A Sumo driver took advantage of the situation and said that he would take his Sumo to the hospital and told us to pay about 500 rupees as a renting charge for the Sumo. Pissed off with the situation, JOsh and Ram agreed that they would accompany the guy and a few of his relatives to the hospital whilst myself and the others agreed to stay here in the spot.
En route to Ooty Government Hospital, the guy and his sister had created a huge drama inspite of Josh's assurance that he would look after the hospital expenses and if there were any serious injuries, we would not hesitate to take him to the biggest hospital in Coimbatore, but these words never even were heard by the duo. Back at the scene, people started asking questions about our whereabouts and the ride. I explained that this is my hometown, and we are in no way posing a threat intentionally or unintentionally to anyone. They even asked me if I knew a girl called "Jayanthi" who studied Maths in my college. I had no clue whatsoever about whom they were speaking, but just to manage the situation, I acknowledged that I knew her and told them that she was my junior. Soon, I could see their faces glow with happiness. Everbody gathetered around us and to our astonishment, they were treating us like family. They cautioned about the bends and the unexpected wildlife in the roads. Soon, tea was ordered in the tea shop, some people were even offering us even breakfast.. Wow, this indeed was home.
Back at Ooty, the Sumo that JOsh and the others went bumped into a tempo in a signal, and again a fight broke out between both the drivers. Our Sumo guy had to shell out 1000 Rs for the tempo and he himself had a big dent on his brand new Sumo. Josh and Ram had broke out into an instantaneous burst of laughter while the Sumo was banging his head with his hand. Meanwhile, the victim of our accident and his sister totally confused about the situation demanded 5000 rs instead of taking to the hospital. Knowing their plan trying to pluck from them, Josh assured that he will not give money but would do any treatment in the hospital. As soon as they reached the hospital, Ram and JOsh went inside the doctor's cabin to inform that these people were playing a drama to grab money. Promptly, the doctor saw that he had only a few bruises from the tarmac, prescribed him some pain killers and said that he was fine. The duo had nothing to speak but to silently climb embarrased that their plan did not work out. Then, I received a call from Josh. Josh suggested that I take the lead and ride slowly till Bandipur checkpost, and that they would catch up. Having bid farwell to all those kind hearted people, we started our descent. We stopped for a smoke break once we hit the flat roads. As we were talking, Ini spotted a bear, a huge bear indeed, but soon it vanished into the bushes before we could even open the camera pouch. Scared of seeing such a huge bear, we decided to make a move. We rode in 40s and 50s swaying from side to side just to while away time. Again, we stopped on an empty stretch of road, and ventured into the forest where we spotted many deers grazing. By this time, again received a call from Josh stating that they were in the accident spot and they will leave in another minute or two. We too started our way towards the checkpost.
On the way, we spotted a bakery, where we again stopped for a smoke break. Having not slept the day before, I instantly fell asleep on the table. After may be close to an hour, Josh and Ram arrived. We decided to have lunch. We had our stomachs filled to the max with parathas and some omlettes.
The post lunch session was fast after having gained a lot of energy from the wholesome lunch. We started riding fast, crossed the Bandipur forest while spotting some elephants too, but we never stopped for any photoshoots keeping in mind that sakthi and subbu are on their way...
After riding through Gundalpet and we reached Begur. The roads were at its worst. There were speedbreakers that could easily disrupt one's vertebrae. Really. Six continuous speedbreaks in a row, our bike was like riding on a dirt track.. We crossed around 25 of those speed breakers. Each had to stand on the footpegs in order to save our backs. but somehow we managed to cross all of them and reach on to a road not so filled with them. We rested at a petrol bunk....Being frustrated with the monstrous speedbreakers, we did not even feel like parking the bikes in a row. we just parked it amok..
Next post, the guys from Bangalore and their story.
After a sumptuous dinner and a slight hit of tonic, we were soon asleep...
and the pics are just awesome 
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