Awesome one Adarsh! I'm waiting for the Valparai part

Thanks nisnth! Day 2 will be put up soon

Hello to all Riders,

This is the first time i'm writing a travelogue... thanks to Adarsh for encouraging me. If the words used are not catchy or if there are any grammatical errors.... I can't help it man
And sorry, ain't got many pictures to post either...( I think 'insert image did not work... i will upload them separately )

Alright, this ride to Valparai was planned and successfully executed by one of our club members, Sandeep Shenoy. We can't thank him enough for choosing a place we had never heard of and making the ride such a pleasurable and memorable one.

Here at ABC, whenever we go on a 2 day or 3 day ride, we start on the previous night. That's what we did for Valparai as well. We Started on Friday, Jan 11, night at 11 pm from Mysore road NICE road junction. Initially 5 riders were planned to start from the meeting point but at the last moment 3 more riders joined in making it 8 and we started off towards Maddur. On the way there were so many speed breakers that you may end up finding lesser number of them inside the city, like crazy, without cautionary signs, and there were so many sign boards without any speed breakers ahead . After flying in the air over such unannounced invisible and gigantic humps we managed to reached Maddur CCD in one piece. The plan was to chill out for 2 hours or so at Maddur CCD and to reach Satyamangala ghats in the wee hours of Saturday. That's what we did. But we never expected the weather to be so cold that night.

Maddur to Malavalli road condition was not that great, potholes here and there and single lane. Malavalli to Kollegala was almost the same. At around 3 in the morning we took a break at a small village on the way and Benjamin managed to start up a small bonfire with all the hay lying around on the road. Everyone was shivering to the core. We had few suttas and started off deciding not to stop until we reached Satyamangala. But the best part was from Chamarajnagar to Satyamangala ghat entrance....man that was amazing smooth and considerably wide roads. The smoothness and rhythm caught by our riders did the trick and we just didn't stop until we touched SM ghat section despite of the severe cold, fingers got so numb that I couldn't make out if, when required, I had applied the front breaks or not . If the roads weren't that great we would have definitely taken few more breaks. We reached SM ghat entrance at around 5 15 am and finally stopped when we saw a chai dukaan (felt like feeling warmth for the first time in our lives). Sat around 2 logs of low burning wood lit up by a security guard, had 2 cups of hot chaya and finished our entire stock of sutta.



The Sun, as lazy as we are on a Monday morning, as slow as a snail on a slippery surface and as bright as a zero watt bulb, finally decided to come up and see whats going on.



Twas around 6 30 am when we started our descent into SM town.



Cornered 28 hair pin bends (if memory serves) and reached the town stopping for breakfast. 8 cold and hungry riders feasted on hot idlis dosas omlets and palavs until all burped out loud . Paid a bill of Rs. 350 O_O... i mean just 350 bucks for 8 buffaloes; that's kick ass man .



Then 2 of our guys had a plan of heading towards Madikeri. Bidding adieu to Pramod and Benjamin the 6 of us started towards Coimbatore.



Comes Coimbatore; comes heat, comes insane traffic, comes never ending diversions, comes nature call . Can't help it. We come over all these and reach Pollachi with dense highway traffic and few sutta breaks. On the way from Pollachi to Valpari, the crazy traffic, where every car driver is F1 pro and every bus/truck is from NFS Most Wanted, made us ride carefully and individually as group riding was simply impossible here. Yet one Govt. NFS vehicle (TNSTC) managed to avenge his previous drag race loss on me. Me and Abijith were trying to overtake a truck when a local guy on Pulsar decides to ride in between us. He thought he was gonna beat us both when Abijith had to suddenly maneuver avoiding a head-on collision with another NFS made vehicle. This scared the shit outta the pulsar guy and he braked all crazily tilting and gearing down and everything. I managed to slow down from 60 to 20 kmph and not banging onto the pulsar fellow. When all seemed under control, within a fraction of a second me and my pillion were flying in the air, me landing on my head (God bless the who invented the Helmet) and my friend on his back. Abijith saw my bike rolling on the road in his rearview. It was the TNSTC bus which kissed my bike's tail lamp cover, shattering it and breaking the front visor into two. Luckily enough we were not hurt that bad. Just a bruise on my left calf and small swelling on my friend's lower back. My first crash in 40+ highway rides that i have been through all these years. As they say; there is always a first time.





We got up, picked up the bike and our bags that were scattered all over the road. At next town we saw a "TVS genuine parts" dealer and went to him for the replacement of the fiber parts and surprisingly enough he didn't have exactly those 2 parts that i wanted. I said chuck it, Bike is still performing great from the inside, lets hit the road and move on with our ride. And we did just that. Entered Valparai ghats with 42 hairpin bends after crossing Aliyar dam. Stopped at some nice viewpoints for photos and videos.








Moved on up towards Valparai town. And damn, to our amazement, we saw hills and hills of tea estates all around us. I had never seen so many tea leaves at a time even though i have been through all the tea estates we have in Karnataka. We reached our pre booked 'resort' (not really) at around 4 30 pm and checked into our room at "Hotel Woodhouse Resort", ironically the entire room was made of wood, if someone walked the entire room would shake. It was huge, capable of 8 occupants in a 4 bed room.



We had booked 2 rooms where Adarsh and 2 others joined us on Saturday night. Only after checking into the room did i realize that the entire town was in the middle of unending tea estates, standing in front of the room door I tried to look around as far as i could, if the view is not blocked by a building, all you can see is seas and oceans of tea leaves.










One place worth spending time with your friends . That's pretty much of Day one or one and a half should i say ? Had dinner at Sabari Mess; the only pure veg hotel in entire Valparai. Everyone went to sleep early. I don't even know Adarsh and gang arrived. I remember him calling me sometime around 8 30 pm. Next thing i know its 7 30 in the morning :P.





I'm sure Adarsh will do a better job on the day 2 review of the ABC event "Welcome to Valparai"

Regards

Srikanth

Hey Sakshar..great pics dude..! u r an awesome photographer..! We dint even know U were clicking the snaps.!
Thanks..

Good one adarsh..! Feels really great to read our biking adventures...

Thanks man! Working on Day 2 log now, but it is taking longer than expected

Day 2: Valparai – Sholayar Dam – Athirapally falls – Valparai. Total distance : 170kms

I didn’t expect to wake up early at all after the tiring day 1 & also because of the extremely cold weather, but was wide awake & the time was 7:30am. Thought to myself lets see how the view outside looks like, went towards the door, opened it and a blast of fresh morning air greeted me as I was looking outside stunned! The view was simply amazing.. a few pics below..







Stood there for a couple of minutes enjoying the nature around & made some phone calls to home to ensure that things are all fine here. Freshened up a bit & slowly everyone started waking up one by one. Our plan for the day was to visit the Athirapally falls & the route to reach there is a completely forest road which I had heard a lot about!


By the time everyone got ready & had breakfast it was almost 10:45am. There is a small hotel M.R.K. close the Gandhi statue where every item is delicious be it Idly/Vada/Dosa/Paratha. We all gobbled up quite a lot & I had too had a bit too much thinking that we may have to skip lunch


Eight RTRs cruising in line amidst massive tea estates was a sight to behold! I kept imagining this is how it would be like to ride at Isle of Man! Soon we came to Sholayar dam. Some pics below.



All eight lined up! Waiting for their masters



Srikant (@chiri) clicking the new beast...



Our entire group!



Tea estates on the way!






By 12, we started off from there towards Athirapally falls. Came across TN-KL border & we all had some snacks etc at a store there. Soon we heard some rumbling & thumping & saw that a fully loaded Thunderbird and a CBR250R was coming towards Valparai from KL side, which was Sakshar and his friend Stephan (You can read their log here), whom we met later in Valparai.


Some pics around the border,








After crossing the border, the landscapes of tea estates slowly started reducing and soon we were in complete jungle road. The road quality was good & we were all enjoying the ride. There was elephant shit everywhere on the road most probably by the domestic ones of forest officials. Slowly, metre by metre, potholes started creeping in and later it was almost only stones and some tar here & there. We stopped at one point thinking whether to continue if this was the road condition for the next 40+kms but decided that we will go ahead for some more distance & then decide. What a good decision that was! A fine quality tarmac lay before us, nothing like we were expecting, that too in the middle of dense forest! Everyone was more than happy, which was evident from the way they were riding. Also one has to be on the lookout for the oncoming vehicles since the road isn’t really wide and there were occasional speeding tourist vehicles on the road.
I had a minor incident on one of the corners as I lost a bit of balance mid corner, mainly because I wanted to lean the bike more than usual & also a slight misalignment in rear wheel, which I came to know later. No damage other than a few scratches on crash guard & on my jacket/knee guard. The speed was around 10-15kmph so the damage was very minimal. We all immediately started off from there & reached Athirapally by 2:45pm.


The road towards Athirapally...




Had to wait for around half an hour for entry ticket to the falls, in the meantime some of us filled our tummies. We also had to leave before by 4pm (as told by forest officials) since they will shut down the forest road later.
There is backwater on top & to view complete falls, one has to go down, sort of like a mini trek.

Pics of the falls after the mini trek



Athirapally falls is also called Niagara falls of India!







A weird looking tree near the falls...



Photo sessions



This is how you lock 4 helmets in one bike!




Some didn’t come down for the view of the falls & stayed back to enjoy the backwaters.

We were all ready by 4:30pm & back on the road by 4:45pm. Soon after we left, we came across a small herd of six elephants. They were at a distance of 100+ meters and we were all silent (some cars had stopped too), quickly clicked few pics & we were back on the way. We came across this amazing spot on the way.


The small herd of wild elephants...



An amazing spot!





Three of them went ahead of us & there was no cell coverage to call them back, so it was just the five of us for the pic!





It was almost 6pm and the light was fading away. Return ride was equally fun till that tar-less stretch. By the time we reached Valparai it was close to 8pm.
A hydel power station on the way,




Had dinner at a mess close to our mansion & it was time for the stand-up comedy sessions by our comedian Vinay Kumar. After everyone had an overdosage of laughter, it was time to get some rest for the longer ride the next day.


Also if you remember, our earlier plan was to leave for Guruvayoor to attend a wedding on the next day (our meaning me, Sreenivasa & Abhishek), but we realized it would be way too much riding for a day, more than 700kms if you take highway though there are shorter route through ghats which may not be advisable since we would already be tired & it would also be dark and also the traffic behaves crazily in kerala which will make the ride even more tiring. So we dropped the idea and decided we would all go together to Blore the next day. Needless to say, it was a great decision, more on it soon

nice travelogues adarsh and even better pics...keep posting

Athirapally falls look better than Kuntala. Wow.
Nice louge.

Thanks man! A bit busy lately, will post Day 3 log by today!

Thanks a lot bro! I personally havent seen Kuntala but it sure looks amazing in pics!

Day 3: Valparai – Pollachi – Tiruppur – Salem – Krishnagiri – Bangalore. Total distance : 505kms

I forgot to introduce our group in the last log . It was totally 9 of us, Me, Sandeep (co-ordinator for the ride), Srikant (navigator, since he knew Tamil ), Abijith, Vinay, Ashwin, Sreenivasa, Abhishek and Anand (who was pillion) and 3 RTR180s, 5 RTR160 (Two were 2012 models).


So our plan for Day 3 was to visit Monkey falls, which was on the way and another place called Top Slip at Annamalai Tiger reserve, for which one has to take a detour of 20+ kms. But by the time everyone woke up, got ready & had breakfast it was 11am! There was also plan to visit a temple since it was Makara Sankranthi but it was not possible. So we headed towards Monkey falls through the amazing Valparai roads, but we came to know we had to park our bikes roadside & walk a little to reach the falls, which simply wasn’t possible due to all the luggage we had & the amount of time we spent tying it to the rear seat


The pics of our bikes parked at the mansion..



The woodhouse mansion we stayed in..



Some macros there






The magnificent Valparai! I had missed all this on Day 1 since I reached Valaparai late at night! Some pics..



Panoramic view!



One of the corners...




Aliyar dam,




One of the 42 hairpins,




A photo break



This is a normal pic and not a panorama!



A grey langur on the way...






So we headed towards Top Slip and some were already concerned that we would reach Bangalore late at night, so we all took a vote on the way J & the decision to visit Top Slip won. Took some wrong routes and finally reached the gates of Annamalai Tiger reserve only to come to know that the place is banned for two wheelers! Only 4+ wheelers are allowed inside.

So we had a small photoshoot nearby and got back to the main road to head back to Blore.

Annamalai tiger reserve




Some photoshoots!






A lone farm, close to tiger reserve...



Look at all of them posing!!




It was a great decision to not visit Guruvayoor since Sreenivasa was suffering from fever and was feeling quite uneasy. There was yet another minor incident when he blacked out while riding, bumped Vinay & fell, luckily the speeds were less than 20kmph! Vinay managed to maintain his balance and was safe. Sreenivasa had minor injuries to his knee and a broken right mirror to his bike. Everyone took a break, had tender coconut nearby and once we were ensured that he was fine, we started ahead with Sreenivasa as pillion and Anand (who was pillion earlier) rode his bike. We were lucky that Anand had come as pillion or else I don’t know how we would have managed!! Going to Guruvayoor would have been really a blunder! I have good reasons to explain to my colleague why we couldn’t make it!

Later journey was rather uneventful. After crossing Tiruppur, we waited for Abhishek since he was not with the group but later came to know he went ahead of us. It was almost 7:00pm by then and we had a long way ahead, almost 300kms.

Windmills on the way..



Some Emus kept for sale..




Some sunset pics while we were waiting..







We also came across two suspicious dudes on a white Hayabusa without helmet and when we asked, he told he forgot about it & remembered after riding quite some distance!!! We were shocked when we came to know that he was also riding to Blore in this condition!! He was barely able to ride at 70kmph on the highways!! Also for some reason he wanted to stick with us but we told him to go ahead. Also another point to be noted was that the rear number plate was missing (Though front number stickers were intact). Enough said, it was indeed suspicious but let me not speculate anything more! J


Later it was more of a speedrun on the six lane highway to Bangalore. The group got split in between mainly due to visibility since you cant recognize anything by looking at mirror, its just full of headlights! Abijith was tailing and I was just ahead of him. There were many cars who got offended when two wheels overtook them, esp there was a guy on i10 with extra HID setup & other bling- bling who wanted to keep up with us. As usual, we don’t compete nor encourage anybody to engage in road rage & stuff. We just kept the same pace we were maintaining & he simply couldn’t keep up. There was a moment when my rear view mirror was filled with headlights and I thought it was a Audi SUV looking at the headlamp shape and when he overtook me I realized it was a Volvo!! I myself was at 110kmph & he overtook with ease, must have been doing 130. Was amazed by the acceleration that behemoth has!!


Finally reached Bangalore at 11:20pm and Vinay was waiting for us there, but it was just the three of us. Came to know the rest are enjoying in McD around 60kms away! We three bid adieu and headed our ways home. The rest of them reached Blore after midnight.


So a three day ride through three states, 1170kms, 120+ hairpins, massive tea estates, a hell of a ride with ABC had finally concluded. I wanted to ride to Valparai since the first time I heard about ages ago! Now that it is done all I can think is when will I go back there again!


Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed it!

Excellent Pictures... Rocking gang... Well written... Keep hard riding and enjoy safe biking..

Thanks a lot bro! Looking at your signature, you have done quite a many yourself!

Remember me !! Adarsh.. I think it was we who met on the way from Ooty to Coimbatore. I was in a hurry too, thats why I could not spend more time with you guys. Otherwise xbhpians meeting on the road would be more eventful. Anyways I enjoyed reading your travelogue and seeing the excellent photographs. Kudos to you and your team. I am at Cochin and any day you want to make it this side, you are welcome.

Reading your travelogue & looking at your photos made me remember my trip http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/2...-part-1-a.html . The scenic beauty was similar teagardens, sexy curvey hilly roads, rocky river & riding through the cloud. Awesome yaarKeep Riding || Keep Inspiring