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Blink!! Blink!! as I opened my eyes I see can hear a whirring at its fastest speed and I am tucked under two heavy blankets. What the hell is wrong with me, I think to myself. As my drowsy stupor fades, I see a mess strewn across the room and all of yesterday's ride trailing the 'Banana Express' comes back to mind. All what I was wearing was dripping wet when I walked in yesterday, and after getting out of bed when I check the stuff, realized that most of the stuff had "mostly" dried barring the True Wanderer jeans and my riding jacket, they were still a little wet even now after being under a fan for over 12 hours!


I spent the next few hours trying to catch up blogging about the previous day's ride, a very time consuming exercise. Which meant, even today I start almost as late as the previous day. The hotel where I put up did not have any restaurant of any sort, so a cup of coffee was the best they could offer. I asked them if there was any where along the route I was planning, they replied in affirmative. So I just packed up and left, on the way I did not spot a single place to eat so I thought to myself, that I'd eat once I've completed the short haul trip that I had lined up for now. As I headed out of Chikmagalur, a board read 'You are entering an oxygen rich zone, please do no pollute', if only such boards had any effect on the people of my country.

The plan for now was to head to the Baba Budangiri hills which form an impressive backdrop for Chikmagalur town. There are two peaks in this mountain range, Mullyangiri and Baba Budangiri, it is said that both these mountains form the shape of a crescent moon. I could not see any of this much talked about crescent stuff as the entire top of the hill was covered in clouds. I reached a forest check post where the police person was asking me if I was carring any alcohol, I replied that I don't even have water forget alcohol. He let out a small smile and let me pass through. Once past the gate I could see huge estates on both sides of the road, and what a smooth piece of tarmac that I let my right hand a little slack and let it roll up the throttle to decent speeds. Within a few kilometers the turn off for Mulliyangiri and Kemmangundi approaches, I took the one to Mulliyangiri as I had other plans for today and Kemmangundi owing to the distance would screws the said plans. The twisty roads now were a proper 'ghat' type of twisty road and Boy! it was fun. I did not click any pictures whilst climbing up as I thought I'd get more pictures on the way down. The road gets narrower and narrower and the beautiful landscape opening up in front of me just got better and better, my friend Veda had insisted that I visit this place since I had come all the way to Chikmagalur and with the scenery unfolding in front of me I had nothing but praises for insistence. Beyond a certain distance you quite literally IN the clouds, the sight of which made me chuckle once again as I said a mental thank you to him. By now I was quite literally in the clouds and visibility was down to couple of feet ahead of me. As I reached the top I could see a huge rush of people running amok, I took my bike off the road and onto some rocks perched a little higher than the road.

I got off my bike and as I took out the camera to start clicking pictures a few people were giving me odd stares wondering what I upto in this crazy outfit. A group of about 5-6 people were walking down the path where I'd taken up my bike and were a little curious, so one of them came asking me what lens was I using on my camera and the general series of questions such as 'where/why/what'. I explained to them the concept of Wrangler True Wanderers and how I was on a exciting 7 day ride wearing only one pair of jeans. They seemed more interested in the 'wearing one pair of jeans for 7 days' part more than anything else. So after we had spoken I got them to click a few pics of me. They wished me luck and were off. After clicking a picture or two another group of about 15 people landed up there who again gave me the 'who is this alien?' look. They all gathered around some rocks to get a group pic, and one of them walked up to me to ask if I could take a picture of them. He had a cell phone camera in hand, so I offered to take pictures from my SLR instead, with the promise that I'd mail them the picture that very night. After I clicked their picture, they all surrounded me and asked me the same who/what/where questions and after giving them all the story about True Wanderers they promised to get me the whole of Wipro's votes


Mulliyangiri is the highest peak in Karnataka at about 1930 meters above sea level. I had not gone more than a few meters beyond the parking lot and I was definitely not at the very topmost part as that would involved me leaving behind all my luggage and walking up some distance. My GPS read out 1850 meters at the point I was standing on and it was good enough for me as this was the highest any motorized two wheels could go in the state of Karnataka. The wind was starting to pick up and it was strong enough to almost blow away my Wrangler flag, so I packed up and started descending down the twisty and extremely narrow route. I took a couple of pictures on my way down as the clouds played hide and seek with me, at times on some faces of the mountain I would extremely dense clouds and sometimes on the other sides I would have completely clear skies. So far it had not rained much either, so I was getting drier by the minute. A slight drizzle would set in at times, but nothing more than that.

With the phase 1 of running the bike complete I was able to push the bike's performance envelope a little bit more and have much needed fun on the twisties on my way down. I tried my best to recollect some of the names of the homestay's on the way so I could come back a later time to explore this area in greater details but no such thing happened, forgot all the names I saw and absorbed so much in a day that it was almost impossible to recollect the finer details. I made my way quickly across Chikmagalur town to the other side as I wanted to do some deep diving into lush green forests. I filled fuel on the outskirts of town, by now the sky's were overcast in an ominous shade of grey. Not that I have any issues with riding rain, I love it. On day one I was saying 'Lil Johnny wants some rain to play' so I guess this was my wishes getting answered.

After tanking up and tackling a minor traffic jam, yes you read that right a jam even in a small town as this. I had been down this road about two years back and I wanted to experience something like that, but this time it was going to all alone not like last time when I had 3 other bikers accompanying me. The forests officially start a considerate distance away from Chikmagalur, but even at the outskirts the green cover is almost forest like. The road surface was no longer as smooth as I had seen earlier this morning during the ascent to Mulliyangiri, but this kind of road was right up my alley, it involved being alert and avoiding any oddball pothole that the roads suddenly throws up at you, all whilst you are going a sufficiently high speeds. As I progressed ahead the forest cover got denser and lot more wilder. The estates on the outskirts of Chikmagalur had long gone and now it was just pure wilderness all around me. I had initially thought about heading up all the way up north through the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary which apparently has tigers and leopards as well. About 3 years back I had been on a safari into the 'Tiger' reserve part of Bhadra, and all I saw was deer and a few monkeys. So I was pretty sure I wouldn't be spotting any wild fauna, flora yes but definitely not fauna. The rains by now had become a soap opera, they would come and go at their own free will put a little drama into things and be gone before you know it. But this is after all the Malnad region and even the rains for a short period are enough to make you completely wet. I took a solitary break in the Bhadra reserve to catch a little breather as I had been riding nonstop for long time.


The intensity of the beauty of this region cannot be captured in words that I write, neither can I capture it behind a lens, it is something that one needs to experience it for themselves. As I got deeper and deeper into the forest the number of vehicles on the road thinned down and beyond a certain point even the villages stopped appearing, all together indicating that arrival of forest. And it was just around this time that the skies open the flood gates to let the water come down on an already wet planet earth. The rains, the beautiful lush green forest and spectacularly curvy roads had made me forget everything and I just had the time of my life riding without a stop, I missed a lot of great photography opportunities, but the pure joy of riding in this very setting just kept me going and going. As I reached a small town called Balehonnur somewhere in the middle of Bhadra on reaching this town there were two roads, one which went up north to where I intended to head to, another headed south but to a 'fun' place called Kalasa. More on Kalasa later, now I remember seeing the map to find and very small road on the map connecting these place and it seemed more like a village back road on the map. What the heck? I don't have anything loose

As I took a left on this route the first impression was pretty bad as it was immediately visible that the road is pretty bad and I did not want to go through such a sorry state of road for another 35 odd kilometers. But I persisted with my 'no wrong turns' funda and ambled down this road. Within a few hundred meters the road improved, and this would actually be an understatement. I was way better than the Aldur-Balehonnur stretch that I was doing, only difference being that the road was very narrow. The route started with the Bhadra river flowing right next to it and so far things were looking up. The setting was perfect for another round of crazy non-stop riding, this continued all the way till I reached the middle of this route to a village called Magundi. It had been a long time and I took a break at a small tea stall for a much needed chai break.



All he had was parle-G biscuits, I realized now that in my enjoyment of riding I had completely forgotten about breakfast and lunch so far, and this cup of tea and biscuits was the first thing I was eating after my morning coffee. Call me crazy, call me stupid or call me passionate, but once the riding rhythm is set food and drink become immaterial and the ride takes precedence over everything. Whilst I was having my cuppa, a curious auto driver siting a little distance away decides that curiosity does not kill the cat and he started mumbling something in Kannada, to my surprise when I told him that I dint understand what he said, he replied back in hindi. He was interested to know about my riding gear and why did travel so far. After a brief concentration with this auto guy I packed up and headed to leave. By now the rains had started to pick up intensity and slowly but steadily the non-stop mode was about to get triggered I stopped here as the sounds of the forest seemed to even overcome the drone of my bike's engine. I killed the engine just to hear the sounds of the forest here, but somehow the sound died out with my engine's sound. As I started my bike the rains came with a fresh vigor and hit so hard that I actually thought I was going to get washed away.


At the start of this stretch of road from Balehonnur, the Bhadra river had made its first appearance, but the it had vanished away. Now it was slowly making its presence felt as I could see it little bit of it as I rode on. Finally after some amount of riding an opening appeared showing as of the river as possible. Finally I came up a bridge that went over the river Bhadra just before touching Kalasa.
My plan was to take a route inside Kudremukh that I had never taken before, one that heads up north. Now there's a catch as you are taken through this exhilarating ride deep inside the Kudremukh national park. One gets a time stamped ticket at one entry point and has exactly 1.5 hours to cover approximately 40 Kms through one of the most scenic stretches of road around here, this is downright cruel as it does not give enough time to capture the beauty of this place. I received my pass with 4.45PM as the time stamp, I was prepared to pay the fine if I exceeded the time limit to cross onto the other side. Once inside Kudremukh you will see many lesser used roads leading deep into the safari trails of the forest, they seemed tempting to take but I knew better than to go poking around an already troubled region.


The Tunga and Bhadra rivers flow around this National park and it will be apparent as you pass through many bridges ranging from big to small on this stretch of road, also since the altitude in this forest varies from as low as 100 mtrs, to as high as 1830 mtrs the road twists through a series of ups and downs making for an awesome ride. The rains had so far been limited to occasional patches of light showers, infact I even got a little bit of sunshine on my way inside the forest.
From my previous jaunt down this stretch I remember having some butter smooth tarmac, but it has all changed now. The roads are no longer what they used to be, there a couple of patches of broken tarmac which unsettle the bike as you approach it at higher than required speed. There are roads inside Kudremukh that diverge into the various living quarters of the KIOCL (Kudremukh Iron Ore Company) and offices inside the park. Given the setting of a dark cloudy sky and these buildings in various states of disrepair almost looking abandoned, gave this place an ominous look which looked like a perfect setting for a Hollywood horror flick. Through these roads you can sometimes get a glimpse of an even more creepy iron ore plant far off in the distance. And sometimes you see one of the previous used rails/pipes (I am not sure!) to transport probably iron to and from the plant.



I passed over a small bridge that gave me complete view of the mining plant to one side and an amazing view on other end. Beyond this section there comes a small dam built by KIOCL on the Bhadra river, it is said that it was built to dump the red slurry from the mines which in turn creates havoc with nature. Photography is prevented on top of the dam, as I was shooed away last time by a guard over the entrance of the dam. I did not dare try any antics this time either, I just got a shot of the dam and was off.


At this point it started to pour heavily, I hastily pulled the rain cover onto the camera bag a rode on. And this was when I was just thanking the weather gods for not giving my heavy rain so I can photograph this stretch in piece. I felt that if there really is a weather god, he was at times playing pranks with me and at times being genuinely good. There was on specific stretch where I wanted to take a picture as the last time I passed through it, I wished to my self I had a camera with a wider lens, partly this time my wish had come true, but whatever the scenery was to be seen was held captive behind the clouds as the rolled across the mountains covering them completely. Nevertheless, I tried my best to get as much of it as possible. But as soon as I as had gone about a kilometer or so ahead I found that it is just not possible to not stop to get pictures and I stopped to get some picture of a small waterfall falling behind a bridge.








By now it had quite literally started pouring and I decided to just enjoy the ride, whilst a small rumble in my stomach reminded me that my body needs more just ParleG for food to survive in the day. I thought that I'd stop to grab a bite once I complete Kudremukh, but in my hurry to get across the to the other side and the general enjoyment of the riding in the rains on one the most awesome stretches of road I missed taking the turn at the route through which I had not been before. There was another spot where I just had to stop despite the rains.


For the times when its raining like it was raining here, I use my trusty yet expendable 5 year old point & shoot cam as the SLR was to expensive a piece of equipment to be donated to the rains. As I continued down this road the rains intensified as now I was on the sea facing side of the mountain, the coastline was still a good 60-70 Kms away but it was enough to make his patch of road extremely rainy. I had decided not to stop anywhere till the exit, but could not resist stopping to get pics of the rain that I was riding through.



Route : Chikmagalur-Mulliyangiri-Chikmagalur-Balehonnur-Magundi-Kudremukh-Karkala-Kudremukh-Sringeri
Map : Click!

THANKS a LOT everyone



Goa sounds like a fun destination, but then I won't be doing as much riding then

Actually the bike was there much before the TW thing happened, it was long due for an overhaul. Somehow landed up doing running-in on this trip.

Amey, the Sirac is too good for all conditions. Its the Zapper FX front tyre that I was having issues with.

beautifully written and AWESOME photos..cool.

Thanks Nikhil! Glad you liked it

amazing amazing pics... which camera u use????

You call this run-in ride is it ???????

Amey, the Sirac is too good for all conditions. Its the Zapper FX front tyre that I was having issues with.[/QUOTE]

Thanx 4 the reply praful....U have got awsume pics & u r very much lucky to visit such a beautiful places in such a season. All the best for your tour further. Will change rear with sirac soon. Can you tell me which will be the front tyre suitable with sirac. Or our stock 1 is ok.?

@Praful - first of all best of luck with the remaining ride, may you have twice the fun compared to what you have so far

Now abt what you have had so far, Amazing pics like always. haven't been able to go through whole of your write up, but @ few pics I had to stop and read. Abt the route you took via coorg to Somwarpet seems good. But the route via harangi dam and so on to Elneerugundi and so on is even better . Through the coorg with motorable roads.

The roads through the Kudremukh national forest is probably the best I Have come across and now with few rains.... Oooohhoooo I am sure it would have been heavenly and no pics can do justice for that experience and the amount of fun one can have. Last time we went there, we did those 20 od kms twice just to Have fun (or we forgot a place to visit or something anyways it was Awesome!)

Didnt know the route to Mullenagiri is that good... may be next time in the vicinity will make it to that place for sure. Anyhow wishing you win the ST7 and do more biking with that (thought it might not good for your pocket compared to ur DTS-fi )

I guess if you have Hassan on your route map , do try Hassan-Mysore just for that much more fun as it would sure be one memorable route.

Anyhow have fun and ride safe !
May the best-rider Win! Vote is yours !

NOTE: If you like what you read and see, please follow this link --> Search for the True Wanderers - Preview Winner to vote for my Wrangler True Wanderers Travelogue. Click on the stars on the top of the page to cast your vote



Whenever I would toss and turn at night mildly awoken from my slumber I could hear the rain beating down in roofs of the houses around the hotel, the same scene was being played even when I finally woke up in the morning. As much as I love riding in the rain, but after 2 days of showering in the rains, I felt the need for a little drier days. I hope the guys at Wrangler don't expect these jeans to be weathered out, as I am washing them daily in the bucket loads of rains here in the Malnad region. They are daily dripping wet and hung to dry, speaking of which today, most of my stuff *hasn't* dried. So that means I ride with wet jeans, a wet jacket and slightly wet shoes. The shoes dry up more as I stuff them with newspaper every night, a trick I learnt during my trip to Ladakh.

I usually am not a temple person, don't mistake me for an atheist, I'm more of an agnostic. But that does not stop me from marveling at the various architectural mysteries surrounding these temples. Being in a temple town of Sringeri I specifically wanted to visit the Vidyashankara temple for its twelve pillars depicting the twelve signs of the zodiac, also the fishes along the banks of the river Tunga are something not to be missed. The sheer density of the fishes seen along the banks is very unique. But, sadly for the heavy rains and still wet jeans I could see neither of these places. I will definitely be back here post the monsoons to cover what I missed now.
It was not that I was not prepared for rains, but I was really not aware of the intensity with which rain hits these parts. I was after just 26 Kms away from the Cherrapunji of the South, Agumbe. Being in such proximity to the second most rainiest place in India meant that it would not be spared! In the morning when I went down for a general health check of my bike, one of the hotel guys got talking in whatever broken English he could manage. He asked me since I am in 'software' why don't I go abroad. I answered in a short sentence, "I love my India"! His eyes lit up, and he got on to telling how he would advise all his friends who are abroad to come back to 'Mother India'. He even went on to mention some friends that he has in Russia (don't ask me how!) who always talk about Mother India.

As I saddled up my bike in preparation to leave, the whole hotel staff i.e. 4 people had come to see me off. I guess they thought I wouldn't go considering how hard it was raining. For a change today I decided to use some rain gear, and used only my rain coats jacket. The True Wanderer jeans would have to rough it out even today. Once saddled up I shook hands with everyone one and bid them farewell, its a pity I couldn't get pictures of the smiling faces of the people who had probably the most expensive hotel on this trip so far, despite it being the smallest place on the trip so far. As I started out today I could feel the rain hitting hard from all directions and within a minute everything that could get wet, got wet! What a way to start the day I thought to myself. Even today I was heading up North along NH13, the same highway which brought me to Sringeri yesterday evening from the innards of Kudremukh. Surprisingly as I got a away from Sringeri and consequently, Agumbe the rains lightened and finally vanished. Seems like as though it was raining, No! pouring cats and dogs in a 30 Kms radius around Agumbe


'Kuppali Venkatappagowda Puttappa' might not ring a bell, but this is Jnanpith awardee and widely revered as Rashtrakavi is more popularly remembered as 'Kuvempu'. This fact was mentioned as the home where he grew up was in a village called Kuppali, just a few kilometers ahead of Koppa. His ancestral home has now been turned into a museum for the public to see and a monument has been erected in his honor at the Kavishaila. I sat down here for a while, in the rain. The atmosphere was peaceful beyond anything I've imagined, as I sat there in the rain with a blank mind it helped me concentrate and come to terms with a lot of thoughts running around in circles in my head.



As I walked out of the Kavishaila, I saw a small trail that lead down to the ancestral home. My friend Veda, who'd told me about this place said that its a short 2 minute walk down to the house. Trusting my friend's judgement of time, speed & distance I walked down the path leaving behind most of my luggage on the bike and just carrying the essentials like my cameras and wallet and most importantly bike keys. Yes! everything else was more or less expendable


I was back on NH13 heading up further North towards Tirthahalli, which is again as close as Sringeri to Agumbe and the increasing intensity of the rains as I got closer and closer to Tirthahalli showed that. When in Malnad, you are IN Malnad. The beauty of this region lies in its amalgamation of the greenery, the hills, the narrow twisty roads and most importantly the climate. I was just loving the twisty, winding roads which sometimes would go, and sometimes down. From the point of view of this blog there is not much I can write about this as I have said this before and will say it now again, the beauty and intensity of the Malnad just cannot be captured in a lens or put down into words, it just has to be experienced. What I was experiencing for the past few days getting drenched to the core, was something that I can just summarize and put it in one word... 'Fun'! Yes, it was absolute, unadulterated FUN!

By this time I had forgotten what a 'normal' life is, I had forgotten all about the deadlines, pressures of my job! I forgotten completely what my life was like in the city. For now it was just me, my red devil and open road. And not to be forgotten the rains as well. I had been transformed completely into what I can only call as 'Wanderer'. As I approached Tirthahalli, I met with absolute chaos due to a traffic jam on the narrow roads of a small town, I was looking for a turn to get off the highway onto a more suitable state highway away from this madness, about 2 years back I had taken a route that lead me straight to Tirthahalli and had trouble finding that route now. Asked around the locals for a bit of guidance and finally I was back on track. In India, I think the best GPS is the 'Boss GPS' . Its works simply by asking 'Boss, where is _______?' This can be used in language and is uniformly understood by everyone. About two years back when I had taken this highway on yet another LoneWolfRide, I had a completely back breaking experience due to the sorry state of roads. Now two years down the line, I was a bit a older, riding the same bike but this time with a stiffer suspension, which all in all are a sure fire recipe for disaster. I was skeptical if I could even do this, or would I have to actually take it really slow probably spend the night on the road somewhere. This is a small state highway that takes you from Tirthahalli to Nagara, Nittur and finally lands you on Kollur. My direction was somewhere in the middle of all this onto a place where no such road existed, call me out of my mind or whatever but yes I had plans of making the back breaker of road into something even worse. My plan was to scale Kodachadri, which is regarded as amongst one of the tougher off road climbs around. I had done it twice earlier, once completely solo and for me both the times it was a piece of cake. But that was two years back and both times the monsoons had not been lashing so hard.


As I took the the turn towards Nagara, I immediately recognized my old foe the back breaker of a road. It had not changed one bit, I braced myself and readied myself for the onslaught of the brutality. But to my utter surprise the road became as smooth as a baby's bum after about 4-5 Kms of the initial madness. I yelled a loud Hurrah! But such joys are only short lived, within about 10 odd kilometers the road vanished again and I was yet again face to face with the pockmarked road from hell. But apart from the utterly horrible road surface, the road actually takes you through a dense forest and you usually don't encounter anyone along the route. I remember the first time I actually had taken this route, it was in peak summers and taking a break on this route proved to be scary as there was no one in sight for kilometers on end and the thick undergrowth on both sides of the road made the fear of the unknown come to the fore.

Within this road there were some Y forks and direction changes which had me slightly disoriented as this was the first time I was doing it in this direction. I decided to stick my funda of 'No Wrong Turns' and just kept going relying on gut instinct. As I was ploughing through this road and had great expectations for what was coming up, a thought came across my mind. This is not something just related to bikers, but can be applicable in Life as well, "There are people do small things and make it look big, and then there are people who do big things and make it look small". Something to ponder over, might not be too out of context in this contest too I will not get into the nitty gritty details of how and why I had this thought, lets just leave it at that for now. After being on this road for almost 20+ kilometers with the sneaky feeling that I was not heading towards Kodachadri, I came across a very familiar S-bend something that is till now etched in my memory from my previous trips on this route. I took a break here as it was relatively more open and hence felt a little more safer as well.


As I started my bike I noticed three things, one was that the speedometer just reset it self and the entire display unit lit up, the second was the bike was idling weirdly and lastly the bike refused to start in gear. I looked at the speedo cable and saw that it was being tugged from the outside so I assumed that maybe the connector was loose so I tried locating the source connecter to see if any wires had been pulled out or the connector was out of place. But everything looked perfect, I had no way of examining the idling issue so for now I just started riding. Although one really does not need to see the speed, even more so in these narrow forest roads. But when something is malfunctioning it does feel as though a part of you is not working right. This had a direct effect on my riding style, I was no longer riding the way I rode just because every time I glanced at the speedo it read out '0'. And to top it all the idling issue was turning out to be a major issue when I wanted to slow down, as the bike wouldn't slow down as much as I wanted it too. Problems aside it was still a fun ride!

The final few kilometers towards Kodachadri is beautiful, with the asphalt done up with proper white lines and perfectly tarred for a large part of the distance. There's a small dam that one must pass over before reaching the final base camp for the climb to Kodachadri.


As I hit the end of the road I decided to take a pit stop before I start the arduous climb up Kodachadri. This place is actually a trekker's paradise with multiple routes to reach to the top. Situated in the middle of the Mookambika national park and home to many endangered species. I was actually heading to Kodachadri via the 'jeep route'. For people who do not wish to trek the complete distance, there is broken down route suitable only for four wheel drive jeeps that takes people most of the way up. The jeeps are driven by the expert local drivers, and so far I have never seen anyone other vehicle doing the climb of Kodachadri. Except bike's of course, but its only recommended for the adventurously inclined. So far in my past two climbs up to Kodachadri I've not had any issues, infact so far I've found it to be largely overrated as a 'tough' climb. But today is a different day. I sat down in one of the small tea stalls sipping on some chai and my now staple diet of Parle G biscuits, the owner who knew only Kannada and could barely understand what he said. When he asked what was I doing here, I pointed down to the trail and told him Kodachadri, his next question looking back to the road from where I came was how many people were there with me, when I replied that I was the only one. His eyes widened and started saying something very rapidly in Kannada and all I could make out was that he was trying his level best to convince me to not do this, the only word that I could really understand and something he used more than a few times was 'circus'. I really had no clue as to what was the connection to the circus and Kodachadri, after spending amount of time refreshing I geared up to leave whilst the owner of the tea shop still trying his level best to dissuade me from going up. A just came fresh from the top and the tea stall owner told the jeep driver in hindi about the 'circus'. The jeep driver explained to me that its really slippery up there even jeeps are having a tough time climbing up to the top. I told him that I've done this before and know what I am getting into, he asked me how long back did I do this to which I replied that it was two years back. He said things are different now, its a lot more tougher! I calmly explained to him that I am not doing this for any heroics, I will turn back from where I feel I cannot climb any more. Dejected he relayed the back the same to the tea stall owner.

As I started and reached the part where the road ends and the 'off road' trail begins with a steep descent I could actually see what they meant and how tough it was. For a brief fleeting moment I even contemplated giving up and turning back. But when the going gets tough, the tough get going with this thought in mind I released the brakes and let eased myself onto the path. It was a little tough but still doable as soon as I got down I was again in slush that was soft oozy mud, with the kind of front tyre I had it was immediately apparent that is not going to be an easy task as these just don't grip well enough in these situations. As I moved deeper into the forest the roads kept changing from very slushy to very very slushy. There was a particularly steep ascent I could feel both front and rear tyre giving up and sliding the bike down. The clayey nature of the soil was the sole reason for the slipperiness, and this when my bike stalled and shut down as it came to a halt. This was the second moment when I felt I should not be doing this, but it was just too early to call quits. I started the bike, looked for alternative tracks and just slowly and steadily made my way up the incline. The smaller victories lead to the larger outcome is what I told myself, but there was one foolishness that I had committed. I could have actually left my saddle bags at the tea stall owner and done this climb. The lighter weight would have made it a lot easier to climb up and also would have stopped the rear tyre from sinking into the mud. I decided that I'll click pictures on the way down so that I can enjoy the scenery whilst I'm going up as I am more comfortable going up than coming down. As I inched forward there were parts where the climb would be relatively easy, but at times it would be worse than where I had gotten stuck earlier. A couple of times the engine again stalled at places where grip was just not possible get enough grip. I thought to myself, that maybe the jeep guy was right. It did feel tougher this time, but I thanked god for not raining as in if it rained things could just go from bad to worse. After struggling and finally when I almost reached the top I could see what the jeep guy was talking about, the final kilometer or was complete knee deep slush. There is fine line between being brave and being stupid, this was where I drew the line. I did not want to be stuck in this kind of slush as I was dead sure that I'd get stuck, and stuck really badly if I pushed forward into this. Took a U-turn and turned back to head down, the moment I did this it started raining. With in the next few minutes the rains had transformed the trail into a path for the water streams to be formed and rush down the mountain path. It is difficult to go down as it is, the heavy rains just push the notch of 'toughness' to another level. With the rains lashing out hard, my plans of taking pictures went down the drain. I did manage to take few from the P&S just so you can get a feel of the path. During the descent, there was a particularly tough hairpin bend that took me a lot of calculations to climb up, going down meant a lot of work with gravity in play. I did the biggest mistake here of letting gravity do the work of getting my down rather me doing a controlled maneuver. The moment I let go of the brakes the bike picked up a little speed more than needed to negotiate the hairpin, now the trick is let the rear wheel lock a little so it slides into the turn and you have effectively turned the bike. But something was different this time, the rear wheel did lock but it never turned it just kept going straight, right towards the cliff into the forest I tried using the front braked but even the front wheel was locking up and refusing to provide any traction. I quickly let the clutch go and wheels got power again, that's both good and bad. Bad because now the edge was coming a lot quicker, and good because now there was traction in the rear wheel again. In the nick of time the rear tyre caught some gravel and stopped skidding and the bike came to halt inches away from the precipice. I thought to myself phew! I shouldn't be alive!. All this happened in a matter of 3-4 seconds, after the bike came to an halt I murmured a small prayer and continued heading down than delving into this more deeply. the lesser you think about this the lesser your judgement will be clouded.



As go back to the base the tea stall guy came to me and asked how was it, I told him that I could not do the final 2-3 Kms of the climb, he was just glad that I was back in one piece. The entire episode of climbing up and down had taken little over an hour, now that the plan of staying at the top had to shelved I decided to push further up North. I headed to the village of Sampekatte from where I could reach the Linganmakki reservoir, since I had no functioning speedo meter the distances being shown in the milestones were of no use as I had no idea about the distances I was covering. In fact now the speedometer developed a mind of it own as it showed random speeds, it actually showed me that I was descending down Kodachadri at 105 Kmph :P

As I reached Linganmakki I could see that it was much drier than how I had seen it in August'2009. Actually my GPS put me right in middle of the reservoir even though I was standing on solid ground.


The idea was to actually go across the reservoir to the other side to Sagar using the ferry. As I reached there I could see a solitary car standing there waiting for the ferry to come, so I just parked besides it. I noticed that inside were a couple of men dressed in orange, they seemed to be religious men traveling somewhere. I asked them if they had any idea when the ferry would be coming, they replied in negative whilst giving me the standard 'alien' look. More so because I was dripping wet as I had faced yet another spell of rains on my way after Kodachadri, but thankfully here there were no rains.

They asked me where was I coming from and I told them about my ride and what was it all about and where all I had been, these materialistic actions in life I guess had no significance to them. I spoke to them asking about where they were going and where they had come from and general chit-chat to while away time as we waited for the ferry to come from the other side. They offered me generous amounts of 'muruku' to eat to pass away time. Eating something solid and other than the parle G biscuits was a welcome change.


After waiting nearly 40 minutes the ferry finally came in this time a small crowd had gathered as about 3 more vehicles came wanting to cross across the reservoir. And a slight drizzle had set in by now, looks like rain was following me around where ever I went.


From here I was to touch the town of Sagar, but first some more bad roads over dose, followed by some really awesome road leading all the way up to the town of Sagar.

I remember being passed by Santro who was in a hurry to reach somewhere and thus driving rashly, a few kilometers ahead I see a huge crowd gathered and on coming closer I saw that Mr. Santro actually hit a calf trying to cross the road. Serves him right to face the ire of villagers now. As soon as I touched NH206, the change from a State highway to a National highway was very easily visible, the NH was actually a lot more worse than the SH. Yea! weird, but true! Sagar and beyond looked a little drier in comparison to the places I was coming from. I was actually looking out for a date with Raja, Rani, Roarer and Rocket i.e. Jog Falls. But as I reached Jog I was disappointed to see the area completely covered in clouds and hardly any water so I just stopped atop the bridge that leads to Jog falls to click a few customary pictures and decided to proceed ahead.


No water in Jog, unable to climb Kodachadri. What to do next? Head further up North. I decided to go all the way up to Sirsi. It was already a few minutes of 6PM by now, so I had to rush rush rush along the way but I had my doubts if the road will be any good, but turns out the SH again is much better than NH. With no speedometer to bring me back to reality, I just kept going non-stop on the stretch between Jog-Sirsi, I took one break just to show you guys about the kind of roads between Jog and Sirsi.

Route : Sringeri-Kuppali-Tirthahalli-Kodachadri-Sampekatte-Across Linganmakki-Sagar-Jog Falls-Sirsi

Map : Click!

Wonderful log bro... do let me know when you do these routes again on the ST7, I'd love to do these places too...

Awesome writeup bro, i pray you win the ST7.

Awesome travellogue with some excellent snaps ...You must be enjoying to the core man !!!
I am going to North karnaraka next weekend..I hope the rain Gods will be kind to me

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The last 4 days were spent getting different degree's of wet, it was something that I had wanted and asked for as I started the ride as I love riding in the rain. But after 4 days being dripping wet every day, even I had more than my share of rain and wanted a little more dry days ahead. And for a change as I got up for the day I could see that things were looking up in that very direction today, for the first time I did not wake up to see my jeans still wet.
My bike had thrown up some weird issues with the speedo meter behaving with a mind of its own yesterday. Like when I was gingerly descending down Kodachadri, it showed me some 105 Kmph and another time there was a long straight down hill section where I must have been on the other side of the tonne mark it showed just some 30 Kmph. Though this was something that did not serve much of a functional purpose, it still marred by ability to know how much distance I had covered and at the same time it was a little too distracting to see the speedo throwing up some really weird numbers all the time. The previous night after a extended discussion with Mr. Venkat Shyam of AutoService, he diagnosed that it could probably be water in the connectors as the bike was parked in the rain whole night. I also had a doubt on another portion of my speedo cable which had severed a couple months back in a freak mishap in Ooty. The severed cable was rejoined, and had not shown any issues since!


After riding for 4 days in the wet, my leather riding gloves had bitten into my hand with very small minor cuts and bruises. This made working to fix this issue a very painful affair. I could not pry open the connector, but was carry a can of WD40 which amongst its 2000 listed uses is actually used as Water Displacement spray. I sprayed the WD40 all over the connector and removed the tapes on the severed part of the cable and sprayed there as well. As I left it to dry, I put the tapes back on the severed portion of the cable and prayed that it worked. I fired up the bike and took it in circles in the hotel yard, so far so good all seemed to work like normal.


After two days of non-stop rains and not that great food, I wanted a dry ride as much as possible and some good food. So I looked up the maps to find the nearest good food spot.



And from the looks of I was again heading to some unknown routes, but what was to come up ahead far beyond my imagination. The plan was the head due west in search of the Yana village where there are two huge, solid black crystalline rock formations. Legend has it that these two rock formations were blackened in a dance of a god gifted demon king who burned himself to death. But the formation of these rocks is still a mystery and its not very clear as to how they came to be. It is known these are in nature bascially stalactites and stalagmites, but how and why they came to here is still a mystery indeed.

As I got out of Siri I could see a Y fork in the road, one lead to Kumta, Gokarana and the other lead to Yana. The board said 37 Kms to Yana, that meant I'd have to travel 37 Kms inwards and then travel back 37 Kms back to get back to this high, I figured it was well worth as I had an relatively early start today. As I got off the National Highway and onto a road that's not even a state highway on the maps, the first thing I noticed was that the roads were way better than the NH. But this was a relatively narrower road, with villages coming and going initially which after a little while vanished as I plunged deeper into the forest. After I passed the 26 Kms mark from the Y fork I did not see a single soul as I went deeper and deeper into the forest. At times my mind would tell me to head back as I had no idea about the safety in such a place. I've heard stories about some of forests in the hills of these western ghats where 'plants' which are 'illegal' in nature are being grown and unassuming trekkers sometimes walk into these 'farms', who are held captive and then finally killed after being made to work at these farms. These farms are usually growing stuff required for Narcotics.

The final ten kilometeres was deathly desolate and I would not be lying if I told that I was mildly scared. The roads diverged into two, I could see that Yana was at the left and took it, after that it was 3 kilometers through the densest forest and a road so steep that I wondered how will manage the incline with all the luggage on board. With thoughts of bandits and what not criss-crossing across my mind I knew not what I should prepare myself for. But all such grandiose thoughts were put to rest by something as simple as a small little gate that stood between me and Yana. The had enclosed a rough broken path that lead right into the heart of the forest, either I could let this gate prove to be an hinderance to my wandering spirit, or I could just pass throught with or without my bike. Better sense prevailed, rather than just going back the last 37 odd Kms, I made a tough choice between leaving my bike and or riding it across. I could see monkeys jumping about in the tall tree above and this added to my dilemma, I chose instead to just take my camera, wallet and keys to the bike leaving rest of the stuff behind in hands of fate. It was choice I had to take as there was no way I could walk with all my luggage on me, the only really valuable item that I left behind apart from my bike was my laptop. As I walked down the path a realization struck, that some choices that we make might not seem right or wrong at the onset, but with the passage of time clarity strikes the clouds of the mind and I could clearly see that had I taken my bike down this path I would have had to endure some off roading tougher than yesterday's Kodachadri. I shot this video whilst walking down to Yana.


As I approached the Yana rock I was blown away the sheer size and majestic beauty of the rock, it was something unlike I had ever seen before and any of the pictures I had seen of this place just did not justify this. The abandonded looking houses on the inside which looked like they had been ransacked by I don't know what were really adding to creepiness of this place, how would you feel when you are astounded by beauty and at the same time scared? Here are a few pictures to show you more of the Yana rock.


After spending sometime clicking pictures and absorbing in the beauty of the place, I had felt it was enough of being scared and time to head to see if my bike and luggage was still there or it had been ravaged by the hordes of monkeys I saw jumping across on tops of the trees. It was a hard walking back up as the incline was steep and wearing the army boots did the least they could to help the cause, not having had breakfast din't help either. After panting my way up to place where my bike was parked, I could see from the distance it looked untouched. So far so good I told myself.



I check my bike for anything missing or even any sort of luggage being taken away from my bike, but looks like the Red Devil had the monkey petrified of its mean and imposing looks so they stayed away whilst I was gone. With my humble 5 year old P&S camera I've tried shoot a video of the last 2 Kms of the climb through the deep forest till it joins so called main road. Please ignore the speedo meter reading, after I started from Yana the problem of the speedometer showed its ugly side again. And yes that's me breathing hard inside the helmet, I still panting from the climb back up from Yana.


It had been almost over an hour and not a single soul to be seen so far, I am not sure if it was the rains that kept people away or was there any other more sinister reason for the desolation. As I reached the road from which I had turned into Yana, it was almost 34 Kms back to the main road that lead to Kumta, but as I saw to my left a board there proclaimed that Gokarna was 35 Kms from there. On the Map from the route that I came, Yana was "uncharted" and as per Google Maps there was no road that said that I could go to Gokarna from here.



I thought to myself, its 34 Kms to the Sirsi-Kumta road and from there another 80+ Kms to Gokarna, so it was 120 Kms Vs 35 Kms. I told myself How bad can it be man. Nothing had prepared me for what was in store for me ahead as took the left turn towards the said route, the first thing that happened was that tarmac vanished and was replaced by this...



This I can manage despite the stupid front tyre that I was running and went ahead, so far not a single thought of turning back came to my mind it was after all 120 Vs 35. So far 35 was wining by leaps and bounds. As I took the next few turn I could see that this was not a road used, 'road' if you may call it that. There were just rocks that looked like this was road used in the 10th century for bullock carts, and so far the forest canopy was so dense that I could not really see where I was heading to, but from the way the "road" was twisting and turning I knew that I was descending down a mountain side. A few turns later even this said rocky path vanished and gave way to slush and rocks, it looked they were planning to build a road here. But after a kilometer of slowly nuding down this slushly path I had enough and had to take a break to regain some of my spent energy. I checked if I had any cellphone reception so I could check on the maps or call someone and find if this was really where I should be heading. But since I had entered Yana, I had no network even the famed BSNL was not working here.



My shoes and knee guards were browned up to my shins in wet mud. Not that I had any issues with this, but if I had to do this for the next 35 Kms I would probably spend the rest of the day just covering this, and that would be a win for 120 . I could say I was actually enjoying this stretch as my mind was occupied and I had no stray thoughts of bandits or any such thing flying across my head. I didn't have a precise idea of how much distance I had covered, but still after what seemed like about 2-3 Kms on stretch I had to take another break as the incline what I saw in front me was probably the steepest and slushiest of them all. I met my savior for the day here, a villager who was walking around the slopes came walking to me to understand what the hell was I upto. He knew a few words of English surprisingly and no Hindi at all. From whatever he said I could understand that the "road" was much better after the next 2 Kms or so. He said the board on top was wrong and Gokarna was actually 40 Kms from there, now that was one very particular about numbers villager I have come across. I thanked him and continued my slipping sliding journey down this trail.


As told by the villager the road did appear in sometime but not completely, from then on it alternated between broken road to the rocky path I had seen earlier and sometimes even slush appearing out of no where. The jungle canopy finally broke open and I could actually see that I was indeed on the mountain side descending down.


The rain filled clouds meant that it would rain as gazed towards them and no sooner as I had this thought, it started raining, no pouring actually. Spent the next few minutes trying to pull out the rain covers for the camera bag and my tank bag, and no sooner than I had done this the rain stopped. It was almost as if the rain gods were playing pranks with me. Here on the roads, if mean tarmac by road did exist, but they were not much better than the broken roads as I had seen earlier, it was actually more back breaking as the tarmac being there meant I was able to carry more speed and hence lesser time for stopping for potholes and such. The forest gradually was thinning down into just bamboo's lining the road side. I finally reached what looked like a forest check post, they people sitting at check post looked wide-eyed as though Katrina Kaif herself had walked right out of the jungles. It seemed as though I had joined a proper road now, the condition wasn't any better but still very much tolerable. Sunshine was a pleasant experience, I was bearing upon me after a very long time after my very brief encounter with sunshine on entering Chikmagalur, this was the very first time I could actually feel the warmth of sun. So much so that it started raining again, but this time it was not on the outside but rather on inside of my gear.


Saline air wafted through my nostril and I could just smell it that the sea was near. This sent down a rumble in my stomach making me dream about some nice piping hot fish curry and what other lip smacking foods the coastal side has to offer. As I was climbing up to a turn and I reach the top, the vista that opened up in front of me was incredible, I had reached. I could see civilization and the sea in the distance. My GPS put me on the green spot shown in the below image.


Beyond the salt pans I could see the see in the distance and with sunlight bearing upon me it was just an incredible moment as I stood there drying my sweat taking the sight and sounds along with the fresh air from the sea. I had just been through a road that is unmapped, uncharted and the experience was nothing short of exhilarating. I took a slightly longish break here before I made a dash towards Gokarna, a place I had never been to so far.


The rest of the day was spent relaxing and trying to catch up on blogging and since I was in a relatively bigger town I had to hunt for a belt. I had realized around day 2 that I had be own mistake picked up a bigger size of jeans, which had been wanting to slip off the very moment I got off the bike. Not a good thing to happen in the middle of a jungle or even a port town. I was not carrying any belt myself, so in the evening after a short nap I went out belt shopping. I finally located a shop and picked up a mean looking belt for 200 bux


I was also looking out for a hotel called Amrut somewhere in the main bazaar area, this place came with very high recommendations from my mom who's and avid foodie and had this piece of information from her foodie network. I finally located this place very near to the belt shop. And boy oh boy this place was good. Its a little on the expensive side for small town such as Karwar, but I could see from their bulletin board that it was visited by a couple of bollywood personalities and even featured in a few travel magazines. The food was no doubt good, sadly I was just carrying my phone and thus the low quality pictures but this would probably be the best meal in the entire trip so far.


After this heavenly Konkani delight for the taste buds, I went back to the hotel to slipped into the deepest and most peaceful state of slumber on the trip so far!!!
Route : Sirsi-Yana Rock-Uncharted Terrain-Gokarna-Karwar

Map : Click!

Wonderful posts Praful! You are having the time of your life. Enjoy and good luck.

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Off Roading
Great Food
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flatness seemed very weird now, after having spent the last 5 days twisting and turning through narrow forest roads through some really tricky mountain sections. Even the rains in the plains seemed really weird at first, unlike its counterpart in the Western Ghats the rains here were much light but much more widespread. In the Western Ghats, after a few kilometers you could be on another face of the mountain and it might not be raining there, but here in the plains I could see completely till the horizon and the rains were just flowing across as though someone would water their garden.









Route : Karwar-Yellapur-Hubli-Bagalkot
Map : Click!