Day 2 - Mysore - Ooty ( The party starts here )

Woke up to a rainy and lazy morning in mysore .




decided that we'd head to the zoo ... at that time I got a call from one of my friends saying that he also wants to go to Ooty , He met me at the zoo and we had a discussion about the plan ... He was hell bent on leaving as soon as we get out of the zoo and I was asking him to wait till noon when I had planned to ride out .
After we completed the zoo visit , we came out to the parking lot when my man thought that he used the parking ticket to wipe the crow poop off his shirt ... Now the attendant is not gonna let us take the bike out of there ... went and spoke to the zoo supervisor and he said that they'll release the bike only by 7pm that evening ... we were like ... But then we had all the documents to prove the bike's ownership , so they gave us a couple of forms to fill and submit the copies of the xerox ... As we were walkin towards a zerox shop , this guy realised that the ticket he used to wipe the poop was not the parking ticket but it was the zoo entry ticket ...
I was like arghhhh ... the parking ticket was in his pocket all the while , so while that was done with , we headed back to the guest house and made our plans ... And the brainstorming left him in this condition



after this we ran back to the city to find some sweets and we got that and then it was time to head to OOTY ... the route we were planning on was mysore - nanjangud - gundlupet - gudalur - ooty ...
Just as we we're leaving mysore , It began to rain ... so we stopped by the side and waited for the car to catch up , as my sis hates getting wet and she jumped back into the car ... and we continued on our way ... stopped for lunch at nanjangud , and then we just kept going through the rain or shine ... about 3kms before gundlupet we stopped at this coffee day



Crossed this , hit gundlupet and just kept going , by now it was pouring like mad and we were soaked to the bone ... not much rain protection . Finally reached Bandipur ,



Just riding through Bandipur was one heck of an awesome experience , the rain just made it even better although that meant we weren't going to see any wildlife , but the ride through there was beyond words for me ... crossed Bandipur and into mudhumalai tiger reserve and the ride just got better and the rain got worse , we still kept going , drenched to the bone , body shaking like a truck and chattering teeth , it did not matter to us ... we just kept at it and it was AWESOME . Finally stopped hallfway through mudhumalai forest for a pee break



Ooty was about 25km from here and just the thought of that kept us going ...

I like this trip log & why?

1. taking your SISTER alsong with you to a trip... FANTASTIC
2. She falling ASLEEP while you were riding was pretty scary but quite hilarious
3. The Zoo episode is HELL funny too btw, how the HELL did COW poop got to the shirt level???
4. The photographs are quite good & am able to see them while working in office

Please bring the rest of it

Hey thanks man , Yeah the sleeping sis at 120 was a scary one ... About the zoo episode , that was CROW poop bro . ... Pics are something I have to work on ... . Yeah still writing the remaining logs ...

.... and I was day dreaming about the angle the COW must have taken to..., you know?

LOL ... I can imagine

Very nice trip there bro-my sister also wants to come with me on some rides but could never make it. Will surely plan one in the future.
Put some more lively pictures!

Thanks man , I guess your R15 is more pillion friendly compared to my bike , which was a problem for her ... Pics , yeah I've got some coming up but I can't match the others on the same trip ... they are fantastic .

Was counting each kilometre that we covered . Came to a two way fork and stopped to ask for directions . We just asked Ooty and the cop pointed left ... Thats the way through masinagudi and not through gudalur ... ( we realised this later ) ...

From here after crossing a single lane bridge with the rain still relentless we carried on without any care in the world , just blasting past cars like they stood still , sometimes had enough time to just check out the drivers reactions ... , must say , It looked something like ... "my god , two lunatics on the road " , to " are you NUTS ? " , Had a BIG grin on my face inside the helmet all the way ...

The 36 hair pin bends we're the best I've taken ... It was so easy that we we're literally flying through it ... But then suddenly at the 12th hair pin , my second " oh shit " moment of the trip ....

Took the hairpin a bit fast and what I see in front brought the " you know what " straight up to the mouth ... An Ancient Ambassador was stuck unable to climb ... Well that wasn't the bad part . The bad part was it was coming back in reverse straight into me ... , Had just enough time to slot back into first gear and pull to the right with all i got , missed the car and boy , the relief I felt ... whew ! After this saw a few cars with the Smoke coming from the hoods ... Tavera , Chevy Beat , And I was happy I was on my bike ... , And finally over an hour later , we reached finger post which was 3 km from Ooty ... The rain still didn't give up and made it impossible to take out the camera to record this . stopped at a tea shop and just held on to the hot tea cup just to try and get some sensation back into the hands , I must mention that the clutch kept my left hand in somewhat working condition . The Throttle hand was senseless ... it was hard as i couldn't operate the throttle very easily , seriously recommend water proof gloves for this trip .

Called up the people in the car and they we're stuck as even their car had heated up ... , so we decided to move to the Main bus stand ... , On the way to the bus stand , I made one really stupid mistake ... and this was thanks to the right hand being senseless ... I saw a ditch on the road and I hit the rear brake instead of the disc ... and voila ... Feeling the bike go sideways on the ghats when you can see the edge and the other road below you is a really nice experience ... Wide tyre saved my ass and managed to pull it back in a straight line ... reached the bus stand to get more wierd looks ... By now we were used to it ... called up the people at home to inform them we reached in one piece ( they had serious doubts about me making it ) ... And we just stood there , it was 5:30pm ... it was Cold , It was Raining like there is no tomorrow ... and we just stood there in the bus stop , My friend was waiting for his "friend" ... the main reason why he came to Ooty ... And she was in coonoor ... an hour away , and I had nowhere to go but wait ...

Had some really good masala tea in the bus stop ... it was really good , and most importantly it was HOT ... I still couldn't feel much of my right hand ... so I had two of those tea's ... , Finally got a call from the people giving me directions to Hotel ... And they confused me saying it's before ooty . like the place where we stopped first for tea ... And we we're still waiting for this " friend" ... It was starting to get dark and i was getting edgy , I didn't like the prospect of getting back on the bike , in the dark and the rain ... I was frozen to the bone as well ... But somehow left my friend alone to finish his business and I thought I might as well try and find out that guest house ... And man this was bad , I was sent on a complete hunt for it , I went back to finger post and they said you gotta go back to the bus stop , went around there , mainly in circles till one guy finally gave me the right directions ... Followed it to the T and it lead me to a Pitch dark place with no people around , It was just me and the headlight ... I dunno how i saw it , but there was a small board showing the guest house and my god another huge sense of relief ... went in , found the family already all settled in ... I was completely numb from the cold , my hands had no feeling and the standing water inside the shoes froze my legs up too ... even boiling hot water had absolutely no feeling ...
Finally just sat on the couch after drying up ...

and thought " GOD almighty , this is the BEST ride ever , and it was just completely worth the state i found myself in "

No pics here as the entire stretch was done in very very very heavy rain ...

Nice log..but how did the cars heat up more than the bike?? They have much better cooling systems I'm sure..

The thing about the hair pins is they go up and then further UP ... the gradient is steep as hell ... Cars have to run only on 1st gear ... Both me and my buddy on the bullet kind of did it on 2nd and 3rd gears ... so our bikes never heated up ...

Hey did you wear a textile glove or a leather one
what are the main advantages of wearing a glove other than protection does it offer more grip Dry and Rain

leather glove ... It does help grip a little ... But is not advised in rainy conditions ... A water-proof glove will be better to keep the hands dry , my hands were going numb affecting the throttle hand more ...

That night was literally painful for me … Woke up at 2:40AM with severe cramps in the shoulder region … couldn’t lie down because of it , Imagine being sleepy as hell but can’t due to pain … Like I said , Nightmare … so I just waited in the half-sleepy state till 6 … Went out and it I could see what I had missed coming in late in the night … The place had a beautiful park that just stretched out from our doorstep . It was the Horticulture Department Guest house after all … .

The view just outside our door


water drops on a petal


Me and my friend just went for a walk through there … Just re-living the entire experience of the previous day … and our plans for the coming day . Must say we didn’t make any noteworthy plan .
Well sometimes the best things happen unplanned right ?
So we decided to first go to the tea and chocolate factory and then make further plans there … We headed out to the tea factory , It was pretty close to where we stayed about 5km I suppose … Had a good look at the manufacturing technicalities of tea and had a complimentary cup of tea to boot … Although it wasn’t as good as the one I had at the Bus stop the previous day …
Left the rest of my family to haggle over the amount of tea to buy and just ventured out to find a nice little bench on the outside offering a nice view …





They came out a little time later with a handful of tea packets and some chocolates as well … , So now the plan of action was to head up to doddabetta … Had a camera mount on the bike but the rain prevented me from using it … So just took a video from my mobile cam (720p HD recording )

https://www.facebook.com/video/video...=2308149192980

You can actually hear the bike struggling on the incline with the pillion … Had a real tough time with the 15T setup here ,
Huffed and puffed my way to the top and guess what , for a moment I was wondering where did I land up ? why you ask ? We’re at the top of a hill and hey ! guess what , TRAFFIC JAM !!! , well had to sneak through vans , trucks and cars and find a little space to park my machine and then it was a climb to the top … reached there and we could literally see nothing , completely surrounded by mist and cloud … It was just amazing and cold as ice . Just as the word ice entered my head another thought entered my head , why not try ice-cream now … Bought ice-creams with people giving us more weird looks , man what’s with these people , but hey ! I was completely used to it . had a look around ( not much we could see ) and the bought some skull caps and gloves just to try and keep us warm … took a slightly longer but less crowded way back down to the parking area . Had a bit of a tussle to get the bike out . Finally managed to get going , I didn’t have to even turn it ON , the bike was free wheeling so easily down the slope , I only needed the brake to control the speed , all was going well until ….

until ?
let me guess until the sprocket holder came off and there was tension and delay

stay tuned and let the drama unfold