Day 2 - Kanyakumari - Manapad - Ramanathapuram

After the long journey we had yesterday the nights sleep was much needed for us. Today's plan was to get up early for sunrise and head to my uncles place en route to Ramanathapuram.

This is the route we took for this day. Map

When we got up at 5 30 am we were surprised to see the cloudy and dark sky outside. We would miss the sunrise with this kind of a climate but we were happy to see this climate after the hard day under sun the previous day.

Since we would miss the sunrise, we wanted to have a sight of the Vivekananda Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue at least before we leave from KK.

We went near the ferry boat jetty and with my grandpa's influence got to the furthest point where we can get as close to the Statue and memorial by land.

Few pics of the sight,
Then we went to the place where the 3 seas - Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea meet.

It was an amazing sight to watch the waves coming in from different direction.

When we headed back to our home to get our stuffs it started to rain. Much needed for us . We got home , got the stuffs loaded on the bikes and off towards Ramnad for the nights halt. En route Me and Gughan were heading to my uncles place and Sudan headed to his relatives house. We decided to re group on the outskirts of Thoothukudi.


It was a heavy downpour. Gughan and I were completely drenched from head to toe. Though this was a summer season, I had my rain gears in the saddle bag. It came handy in covering the luggage.


Reached my uncles place for a heavy breakfast and drying up the clothes. Spent a good 2 hours at his place. Meanwhile Sudan went to meet his folks.

Rains stopped and it was back to the sunny day. Saddled up again and headed towards a small coastal town called Manapad en route to Thoothukudi.


Never expected this place to have this much importance. The importance was that this pic was taken at the same place, in fact the same day we were around.

Shooting of Mani sir's next film "Kadal" was in progress and this was a set prepared for the film.


After this point my uncle headed back to his place. We proceeded towards Thoothukudi to meet Sudan and then ride to Ramnad.


Roads from here were good decent state highways with less traffic. Reached he meeting point in sometime and waited for Sudan to arrive. It was around 4 pm and had lunch at a hotel called Pandian which was with this Reliance outlet.


Sudan arrived by the time we were having our food. Took an hour rest here. We were informed that there is a cyclonic depression formed in the sea near this place and would expect rains for the next couple of days in the places we are going to head towards.

Never expected rains in this part of the state at this time of the year. We have got lucky


Ramnad was around 200 kms from the Reliance pump where we were resting. And it was all two laned , median less state highways.


Reached Ramnad by 7 30 PM and called justdial for the best hotel in the town for out night stay. Found this hotel Hotel Garish Park, Ramnad and booked the ac room for us.

After a heavy dinner and a photo seeing session, we dozed off for the night.

I was wondering what is this place Ramnad & visited the links you provided for the hotel only to realize its Ramanathapuram; Lol!!!

Looks like an expensive place

Edit - Looks like Ramanathapuram is a.k.a Ramnad by Google

Yes Ganesh me too had the same confusion. At that town every sign board said Ramanathapuram. But google says Ramnad. Locals call it by both the names

Wow! Must be nice to see the 3 seas meet.
Hooked to this thread.


Regards,
Nagesh

I saw an Infosys bag there are you working in Infosys?

Yes Nagesh, it was an nice sight indeed.

I was with Infosys until last December

Day 3 - Ramanathapuram - Rameshwaram - Dhanushkodi - Ramanathapuram - Pattukottai

We woke up to a rainy morning. We got up from the cozy beds and got ready and were ready for the ride to Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi. The plan was to visit these two places and return back to the hotel room pack our luggage and head towards a town called Pattukottai. Pattukottai is just a place for our night halt en route to Point Calimere and nothing famous about it.

Link to map

We were ready to ride by 7 24 am .

Our rides getting a free wash



Stopped for a morning tea to refresh ourselves up fro the lazy morning. Faced a heavy downpur for 5 minutes en route but that was it! We got completely wet and got dried up in the next half an hour that's the intensity of summer in here!

Few kms before Rameshwaram spotted this beautiful place for a photoshoot. Thanks to Sudan for spotting this place



Thanks to a school kid for this pic of three of us with our rides with the Bay of Bengal in the BG




In a few meters we came accross the famous Pamban Bridge. The sight was a stunning one! With the sea below , train track one one side and the road bridge at one side. The pics will not do justice to the place.


Reached Rameshwaram and it was not as crowded as I expected. Stopped at the first hotel for a quick breakfast. Proceeded to the temple and parked our bikes at the exclusive car parking at the cost of Rs40 per bike! We all love our bikes


The Temple was very unclean . I am very sad to say that . Government and temple authorities should put in efforts to maintain the sacred place in our country much better! After the entire dharshan of the temple we were back on the saddle and proceeded towards Dhanushkodi. Visiting this abandoned town was in my mind for long. When we started from Rameshwaram it was around 12 noon and the heat was dehydrating us. Dhanushkodi was some 30 kms from Rameshwaram and the route is very scenic with the Sea at both sides. Wind was not letting us ride in a straight line . We were swaying our way through those roads.


There was a road that was going towards Kothandaraman temple. It was just awesome. It was pure bliss! With sea on both sides. It was like you were riding into the ocean!



Reached the checkpost for Dhanushkodi , this is the last piece where you will have roads. After this there are beach sand for 12 odd kms to reach the tip of Dhanushkodi from where Sri Lanka was just 29 kms!

Initial 50 meters and the last 10 meters of this 12 kms are tough. We have to ride through beach sand which will be knee high. Rest of the stretch in between will be a little hard sand where you will have traction. There is no proper path as water keeps shifting its location depending on the tides. We took a different track onward and a different one on the return. Bikes can manage and locals use the 4X4s or Mahindra vans for transport.

Some pics on the way.



We drunk all the water we had with us, the sun was sucking all the energy out of us and we were in middle of nowhere! But the feeling of riding to such a terrain was awesome!

Some craziness in me that was revealed


After these pics we proceeded towards a small fisherman village. Had a chat with the locals and came to know that on a calm night Lit towers in Sri Lanka would be visible from this point.


Doggie beating the heat its own way



After the chit chat session headed back towards the checkpost .




The sugarcane juice shop at this place was our savior of the day! Re hydrated ourselves and headed to Ramnad to our hotel. We covered the 45kms in half an hour it was a non-stop speed run. Had a heavy lunch and checked out our rooms and headed to Pattukottai which was 130 kms on the East Coast Road. Road condition was good though it was not having any dividers in between . Almost entire ride was in the night.

Brief stop to lubricate the chains after the rains in the morning and the deadly Dhanushkodi ride.


As usual entered the town and enquired for the costliest hotel in town and booked an A/C room for the night

Spoke with Ananth and came to know that the Point Calimere Sanctuary will open only at 10 am. This means more sleep for us

Awesum buddy. Wish to ride sumday to South India

Thanks man! Sure do!

Manoj.. its very good so far.. pls complete the rest of the blog.

Cooooooooooooooool ride buddy
Superb places, champ biker, AR Rahman, Maniratnam, awesome road with sea on either side (BEST OF THE LOT)...Just wow...
Please complete the log

Day 4 - Pattukotai - Point Calimere - Velankanni - Chidambaram

Map for day 4.

Knowing that the Sanctuary at Point Calimere will be open to public only 10 am we started late from Pattukotai after breakfast. Rode through the state highway to reach Vedaranyam and enquired for Point Calimere . Nobody had a clue of it! Then we realized the actual local name is Kodiyakkarai. From Vedaranyam Point Calimere is around 15 kms.


Beyond Vedaranyam till Point Calimere there are only Salt Pans on both sides . Reached Point Calimere and as Ananth described it has few huts , one government guest house , one TASMAC ( Govt operated liquor store ) , a bird sanctuary and a wildlife sanctuary.

Wildlife sancturay is on the left when coming from Vedaranyam and the bird sanctuary is on the right. Went to the Wildlife Sanctuary and was surprised to see nobody at the gate. Waited at the Forest officer's office for few minutes before the forest officer turned up. We realised that we were the first visitors to the sanctuary in many days!!!

Bikes were not allowed inside the Sancturay. Only option was to take a auto ride into the Sanctuay!!! Yes thats crazy! The Piaggio Ape share auto ( tumtums) are our vehicle for the safari inside the sanctuary! Probably the only kind in the entire world! The officer gave us a phone number and asked us to call the auto driver. After few minutes the auto appeared and it was driven by a kid!

After seeing all this we knew there is nothing in store for us at the Sanctuary. Took the hot ride in the afternoon inside the sanctuary. End of the Sanctuary is a sea shore. There is a light house and a couple of watch towers. The animals belonging to this sanctuary are deers, wild horses and jackals. Deers were spotted easily. We wanted to see the horses at the beach . This was the only reason we came here. When we reached the beach it was deserted. We could spot the foot marks of the horses but couldn't see them. Spent sometime at the shore clicking few pics.



It was a nice feeling to be the lone occupants of the sea shore . But it was a terrible time to be there. Evening would have been the perfect time to enjoy the spot.

On the return we spotted few horses. Clicked some pics and were back at the forest office.



Our next stop was Velankanni which was just 40 kms from there. Reached Velankanni and headed for a good restaurant for lunch. Spent more than an hour at the restaurant to relax in the AC with decent food. After that visited the Church and headed towards Chidambaram.



Again it was a night ride for us. Reached Chidambarm and booked a good room for the night. I went to catch up with my school mate who is a Doc at the Annamalai Univ. We had dinner at a famous eating spot at Chidambaram which was flooded with the students from the univ. We waited for a good 45 minutes. But the wait was completely worth the food!

Next day was to ride back home via Pondicherry.

Thanks! Hope you are done with your ride!

Thanks man for reminding me to complete this log!

Ah Champ biker

Day 5 - Chidambaram - Pondy - Chennai

Map for the day

It was supposed to be a leisure ride back home as it was just 220 kms to reach Chennai via Pondy. And Pondy - Chennai is a stretch any guy from Chennai would have done N number of times! But we did one mistake which costed us a lot of time and another hiccup was my bike giving up in the middle of nowhere 60 kms short of Chennai!

We visited the famours Natarajar temple at Chidambaram, had breakfast, took a tour of the Annamalai University and headed towards Pondy . We crossed border between TN - PY a couple of times before reaching Pondy.

First time entering Pondy from this direction


Headed straight to the beach for a customary pic


It was noon when we reached here due to the late start from Chidambaram. Had lunch and took our well known ECR stretch to Chennai. Just after exiting Pondy we saw a sign board to Auroville. Having been to Pondy a number of times never been to Auroville. So headed towards Auroville . Its a narrow road which is full of foreigners riding mopeds and bikes around. We felt like we were in another country! We even asked way to a couple for them. Reached the place and parked our bikes. We had to walk inside the place to reach the spot where meditations would be done. It was a tiring walk under the hot sun before we reached this magnificent structure .


We just saw it from outside as the timing to enter this was over and were informed that only a limited number of people are allowed to enter this structure for meditating in first come first server basis.

Returned back to our bikes and realised Auroville is a place which required more than a day to be spent at and we wasted a lot of time in walking around. It was evening by the time we caught the ECR again to Chennai.


Soon the sun went down and were night riding as we did the past 4 days in the ride! Just before Mahaballipuram while I was overtaking a truck my bike just died! It completely shut down and I didnt have any throttle to complete my overtaking! Somehow managed and pulled over. Luckily I was leading so stopped Sudan and Gughan immediately.

Switched off the ignition and switched it back on . Nothing was happening not even the self check. In fact the RPM needle was stuck at 6k when it died. It was as if there was no battery in the bike. Called Praful who has been always helpful for me in the emergencies. He asked me to check for the fuses. He said if it was one of the fuses then no issues . As there were spares. But if it wasn't them then I should arrange a transport back to Chennai. I didnt want the later to happen! What an unfortunate way to end the ride! Checked the fuses and both were fine. I had an issue with the wiring a year back. So tried to re align the wires and made sure nothing is in contact with metal parts. This worked! My 220 came back to life! But low battery indicator was blinking when I had the headlights on . Didnt want to risk it again so decided to ride with just the pilot lamps and not to use the horn/indicators . Gughan in front and Sudan behind me I was being escorted . We maintained 40kmph throughout this last leg of our journey and safely reached Chennai city limits.

Stopped at Madhya Kailash and bid adieu to each other. Thanked each other for this wonderful ride and parted ways to home.


Phew finally completed this ride log!!! Riding to places is one thing and penning down as a log is another thing! Riding is much much easy and fun!

Buddy. You should have posted a msg saying that you were planning for this trip. I would have joined you at Salem.