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. It was interesting to note that all three of the monks were from very different places, one was from Ladakh, while another from Himachal, and the third monk was from Nepal. Smiling faces from each of them as bid them farewell. I took another route on the way out from Bylakuppe, another route that I had not taken so far. This was faster in taking me to SH88, but it was not as scenic as the other route which passed through the various zones of the settlement and various other smaller monastic institutions. From here on it was smooth sailing as soon as I hit the highway, the road has been under constant improvement over the past year or so. It was a dry day so far and knew that there would be some amount of wet involved as well, but by what magnitude unknown to me. The maroons robe clad monks had faded away and had been replaced by the bustling town of Kushalnagar. Once past Kushalnagar the upward climb to the sleepy town of Madikeri begins, although this would usually be termed as 'ghat' but in my books its not even close. Just a few twists and turns and one ascends up to the town of Madikeri. I took a photo break just to capture the awesome roads in these 'ghats'. And another break to pull out the rain covers for both the camera bag and the tank bag.
As I entered Madikeri I remembered that like yesterday even today I had not had anything to eat. Since I was at the very center of 'Coffee Country' I just had to stop at the first shop I saw for a cup of piping hot Coorgi filter coffee. Whilst taking a break at the 'Bean Scene' cafe in Madikeri I discussed with my friend Veda on the possibilities of where I could head for the day.
, and I had a brief idea about the distance of my destination. So I picked out some key letters from the milestone to identify it as the one I need to go to and I'm all set. Sounds like a brilliant plan right?, but it all goes down the drain if you come across milestones with similar names. The route from Madikeri to Somwarpete is as beautiful as any of the routes in Kodagu. You will be transported through dense forests, large coffee estates and small villages as one travels through the roads. The road conditions are fairly ok, one just needs to be wary of the oddball pothole that can spring up on you. I must remind you that I was 'still' running my bike's new bore and the speed had to kept in a constant check. There are times when one is descending down and at times you need to ascend up, this up and down track usually indicates that you are traversing across the hill side. And since these fairly medium sized hills the variation in climate as one reaches one face of the hill may be totally different from the side that they just left behind. I was constantly alternating between mildly rainy, very little rain and completely dry stretches of road. Rains make this place beautiful, but at the same time it makes it very difficult to capture this beauty in one's lens for fear of getting the camera wet!
I had to reach a town called Kodilpet. My usual style of riding means riding non-stop to my destination once the 'riding rhythm' has been set and by now my rhythm was pretty much set and the almost incessant rains meant I just kept going and going. I made a few feeble attempts at capturing what I saw along the way by the rains were just pain for photography, not for riding though.
I had two options in front of me, either take the known and very good route which is about 110 kms in total or take a shorter but completely unknown route which was about 60 Kms in total. Given that it was already 5PM I decided not push my luck any further and opted for the shorter route, I thought to myself how bad could it be. The rains by now had picked up intensity and did not stop even for a moment. As I went passed Sakleshpur I kept looking for a board that indicated the left turn I need to take, but none of that came. I saw one broken board lying on the ground and thought this could be it. As I took the turn I saw a narrow completely broken road, just to confirm I asked an Auto-rickshaw guy if this was really the road. He said yes, and when I asked him what was the distance he replied 50 Kms. Okay I thought to myself lets see how this goes. As I started on this stretch I realized two things, once I take this route there will be no turning back and if I do get stuck anywhere there is practically no place to stop. The rains had filled the moons sized craters on this road with water and made it very difficult to judge their depth. I had to slow down to a snails pace of about 30 Kmph to avoid any of the potholes. Thoughts of turning back kept hitting my mind, and I told myself 'There are no wrong turns, just keep going'. After about 2 kilometers of torture the road finally smoothed up and breathed a huge sigh of relief. But happiness was short lived, very very short lived. As I reached a village the road forked into two and one road was pothole ridden and well the other one lesser said the better, there was no road at all. I asked a village for directions to Chikamagalur and he pointed me towards the direction where no road existed. I told my self the same thing again, 'There are no wrong turns, just keep going'. There was a bus that was moving along the trail as if it were smooth tarmac, I felt pity for the occupants who would have been treated the most unwanted massage of their lives. I could not keep pace with the bus and fell behind, the heavy rains were not helping either. Finally yet another fork arrived on the road, this time one was smooth tarmac and the other was just the same stony path from the stone age. I could see in the distance the bus pottering over the stony road. I stopped at the fork wanting ask any passing villager for correct directions, but not a soul came even the bus had disappeared in the distance. I waited and waited in the rains for a soul to pass by, I must have waited for five minutes but it seemed like an eternity that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. My gut feeling told me that I need to head down the broken road, 'road' if you may call it that to reach Chikmagalur, so I just started the bike and gunned to throttle in an attempt to storm down this road but that wouldn't be so I would have to take a different approach.
So I just resigned myself to continue down this broken road, my speeds were limited to anything from 10-20 Kmph. But on some stretches I could go a bit faster, I even managed to overtake the bus guy giving its occupants a jarring ride. Since it was raining pretty hard and it was evening time it was getting darker, and as I continued along this route the forest got denser and denser. Not much like those in the Kodagu district, but more in the form of extremely tall trees filled on both sides of the road. Actually it was plantations of some sort lining up both sides of the road, and to add to all this after passing the bus I did not see a single soul on this stretch, not even a village came by. I just saw some roads leading to gates of some plantation estates which looked even more eerie than the road that I was on. This drama of me fighting with the road must have continued for some 15 odd Kms after which I got a gift from god, tarmac re-appeared . Finally the ordeal was over, I had previously stray thoughts about staying the night out in the open under a tree or asking some plantation owner if I could stay there for the night. But now since the tarmac started I had hope, and along with tarmac came civilization. I must have been doing pretty decent speeds on the road when I heard a honk from behind me, turns out one of the jeeps from the plantations wanted to overtake me. I knew better, I just moved aside and let them pass as they know this road at the back of their hands. As it passed me I saw written behind it was 'Banana Express', I tried in vain to keep up with Banana express as the left me biting their dust and water.
. Now when do i get to hop onto your ST7 ehh? 
. A lot of replacements were going on- clutch plates etc. So it was meant for this haah.
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