Re: A Journey to the Lost World

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Re: A Journey to the Lost World

Woho.... now let the pics flow suvra bhai

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Re: A Journey to the Lost World

Being a friend... I knew him to have been waiting at the frontier before this trip with the absolute conviction to ride - to ride even if it meant alone, to ride even if it meant going against hell's fury - A rider spoke then and a rider speaks now... bringgg on the full t log mate... we've been living in inspiration and jealousy for a while now... give us our dope.

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

Prologue: The Preparation and Planning

Monsoon was in full flow in Bengaluru and it was nearly everyday I was getting drenched either while going to office or coming back home. Things were looking gloomy out there for me as I wanted a much needed break from office work, and go out on a weekend trip to some nearby place. But hey, the rain God did not want me to go out on a weekend as well and he kept pouring on and on. To many people rain is a beauty of nature, but I was getting frustrated day by day . Things went worse when added pressure in office made me stay longer than normal office hours. Time: August mid.

Cut to September 1st week. The downpour had gone down a bit in frequency and the Sun God seldom used to show his face, smiling,calling out loud to get out of this caged life I was leading for the past few weeks. Thoughts started circling in my mind and wasting no time, approached my fellow roadie Vinay to see if some plan was possible during the time of Onam (We had off from office on that day and Onam being on Monday seemed to make a perfect fit for an extended weekend ride ). Pulled our white board out, chalked out couple of places, calculated distances and started off with our plans. Looked out for couple of colleagues/friends who might be interested to join but ended up gaining only one, none other than our Dinesh, roadie number 2.

Now, the destination. It took us only 1 conference call to finalize the destination as Munnar, the time being perfect, exploring Munnar during Onam. However, there was one problem. Daily news and weather forecast was showing heavy rain and thunderstorms in Munnar belt. The plan's chances of becoming a reality started to fade out as a result. We were back to the white board again.

September 2nd week, Monday. The three of us met in an urgent meeting. Agenda: Finalize a place which could be worth visiting at this time of the year. Thought process started up again over multiple cups of coffee. Couple of options and we converged at one destination, Dhanushkodi. Wikipedia says this place has been declared as a Ghost Town by the government of Tamil Nadu. No, nothing to worry, it does not mean there are ghosts around, but post a terrific cyclone in December 22nd, 1964 this entire village of Dhanushkodi was destroyed, erasing every bit of life. Thrilled after reading the story, along with the forecast showing cloud cover and no rains in the Rameshwaram belt, the three wanderer minds saw a silver lining, a ray of hope that yes, this ride can be done and it was worth visiting this place, such was the history of Dhanushkodi.

Preparations started off. I was more than happy because I was able to finally sense the freedom from the office load and do what i love to do, go on a motorcycle ride. Distance did not matter, place did not matter, it did not matter whether i was going alone or with a group of people. What mattered the most is that smell of fresh air, that feeling when you blaze past the mile stones on a highway.

We hence came up with the following routemap:



Now, about us:

1. Enter Mr. Vinay Kamatagi. His Steed, a Royal Enfield Classic Desert Storm 500.
2. Enter Mr. Dinesh Sirivara. His Steed, a Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 350.
3. Last but not the least, enters your truely, with his puny steed, a Bajaj Avenger 180.

We put our steeds to the clinic for checkup/servicing. Mine was all set, Dinesh's RE Bullet was all set. The problem rose when Vinay failed to collect his RE DS from the SVC on time, Friday night. Our original plan to start off early morning of Saturday, at 04:00 took a blow and we had to wait till the SVC opens up on Saturday morning.

Day One: Bengaluru - Dindigul (original plan was to bunk at Madurai though): A distance of 370 kms

Saturday morning. Time: 09:00 AM. I get a call from Vinay that he still has not received his motorcycle. The expected time is at 10:00 AM so we can start only by 10:30 AM . Things were not looking sweet at that moment for Dinesh and me as we were eager to hit the road at the earliest. But, who dare question our lady luck! Anyways, thankfully, Vinay was able to reach at the meeting point dot at 10:30 AM and we three, all geared up, kick started our journey. A journey to the lost world of Dhanushkodi.

We hit the first petrol bunk we saw, served our steeds with much needed fuel. I wanted this trip to be a memorable one, so I decided to carry my camera outside from the very beginning instead of in the bag. Here goes the first pic, taken at the petrol bunk.



It did not take us much time to scoot past the Karnataka border and reach Hosur. What hit us next was the massive jam at the city. We saw thousands of cars, trucks, bikes, scooters lined up at a signal mishap. Cutting the traffic did save us some time though, but still ended up in loosing a considerable amount of time. Once past the signal, we accelerated as if there was no tomorrow! A cloudy weather, sometimes small, sometimes big hills on either side of the NH7/AH 43 were beginning to make the ride a perfect one. We wrapped off the first 70 kms as fast as we can since no one had a breakfast and it was beginning to be noon. We decided to stop at the next dhaba that we see and wrap our brunch. Stopped over at Aishwarya's dhaba and I resumed by photosession.



Dinesh admiring the food



After the quick brunch, we continued our way to Madurai. I could not resist myself from clicking a few pictures on our way, such lovely was the road, the landscape.



We reached Salem when the clock struck 05:00 PM. We took the turn towards Madurai and halted at a chai stall to have the much needed chai break. It was becoming dark and hence we wanted the break to be as short as possible. Some pictures from the chai stall goes as follows



We started off after a short 10 minutes break. The NH7 road from here on was super smooth, with hardly any traffic. We were starting to realize that a considerable amount of time has already been lost clicking the pictures and videos and it was time to make up some time. We were able to maintain a speed of 80 kmph all throughout the highway. With no breaks in between and around 08:30 PM we decided that it was not possible to reach Madurai, still 70 KMs ahead of us and we had to look for a stay over the night. We halted at the nearest town of Dindigul by around 09:00 PM. Sadly, some lodges were already full and some did not have proper parking for motorcycles . Honestly we did not want to risk it and finally when we ended up getting a below-average hotel with proper motorcycle parking facility, we decided to seal our stay there.

Had a light dinner at a road-side stall, stepped into our hotel room, finding a rat speeding up the ceiling and couple of cockroaches staring at us, we did not have much option but to keep the light in the room turned on and go to sleep. We were not much tired and continuing our gossips and pulling each other's leg, I do not remember when I fell asleep. Tomorrow was going to be an eventful day for sure as we had targeted to reach Rameshwaram and bunk there over night.


Day 2 log to follow soon...

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

Rubbing my hands in anticipation for the Rameshwaram bit...

Fantastic pics... nice beutiful roads... greeeeen wet landscapes... terrific...

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

thanks bro for the comments..the Rameshwaram bit is going to come soon . As i said, tons of things to share. This is just the beginning

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

Huuu.. If the beginning is this great, the wait for the end is going to be tiring
Nice pics all along and nicely written.. Keep it flowing..

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

[MENTION=61921]SuvraGanguly[/MENTION], superb pics. I can only imagine the joy of riding on that stretch, can't wait to see more. Bring it on !!

Edit: love that picture of you and the avenger, against the sunlight (was it sunrise or sunset? )

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

hehe..wait for it.. actually the end was not that tiring..oopss..spoiler alert! . thanks for your comments bro!

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thank you bhai..well yes the road was simply makkhan..the day 2 log is going to roll out pretty soon keep your eyes glued

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

@SuvraGanguly Very nice. It's always a pleasure to see Avenger on the move, I mean touring By the way one request: May I know where did you get the headlamp cap or whatever it is called for Avenger in Bangalore and how did you fit it?

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

thanks for your comments . the headlamp cap or lampshed is available in jc road. there are couple of designs though, but I went for the plain one. cost is around 60 bucks
the fitting was done by my mechanic though but as I saw him do it, I think it is pretty much simple. open the two screws diagonally opoosite to remove the front bracket, place the shed on the top and fit the screws back again.


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Re: A Journey to the Lost World

BAKc*@d! ALERT -

Bhai, tu pustak likhna shuru kar de - "Dakshin Bharat Abhiyaan" (trans.: bro, you start writing books - "South Indian Expedition")

Dada on touring spree! Good write-up, good that you realized, time was lost (DejaVu - DD Hills) - realize a bit early next time on. And please get rid of that false hair for photo-shoots. Aisa lagta hain ki sone ka mukut pehna hai (trans.: It looks like you're wearing a crown)

And now that you're posting your travelogue in EMIs, make it fast already. (le me happy)

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

Day Two: Dindigul - Rameshwaram: A distance of 230 kms

Good morning Dindigul. We woke up to our alarm at 05:00 AM. By 06:00 AM we were all ready and packed up to start our journey from where we left at Day One.



It was early morning for the city and only chai stalls were open at that time. So, we quenched our breakfast with chai and biscuits and started off towards Rameshwaram. We were feeling the heat and the humidity now. The NH7/AH43 was as usual simply superb We were actually seeing mountains all around us and the beautiful landscape gave me a certain smile all throughout the ride As usual there was minimum to no traffic and this was the best leg i had done so far . Again, the photographer in me could not resist from clicking pictures at places. Here goes a few of them.



While at the tender coconut stall, we filled out bottles with tender coconut water, a much needed drink when you get dehydrated.





We continued our journey after the short break. I was starting to hear sounds from the chain of my motorcycle and I felt the need to put chain oil. Same was the case of Vinay. We pulled over to a local mechanic shop we bumped into. After the quickie, we carried on towards Rameshwaram. We reached Madurai and we saw terrible traffic jam. Adding to it, a lot of humidity . It took us 30 flat minutes to get out of the city Kept on asking the local traffic police for any shortcuts or bypass but what we got was always a nod . Anyways, we did not have much choice but to move along with the jam. Once we moved out of the city, we stopped over for a quick break because all three of us were sweating to the core. I managed to capture some pictures though in the short break.



After the short break, again, we did not want to stop any more, but for lunch because we had lost a lot of time now.We wanted to reach Rameshwaram quite before sunset and look for a nice hotel (after yesterday's experience with the company of rats and roaches, our hearts were urging for a nice, soft bed ).


Around 01:00 PM we hit Ramnad. Rameshwaram was another 75 kms from this town so we stopped over for lunch at Aishwarya's. The food was at its best here and most importantly they were having an A/C restaurant . Ah! Bliss!



So was the bliss that one of us (no name mentioned because of security reasons ) wanted to take more of a rest rather than continue the journey. The rest of us had to give him a proper dose to make him forget the heaven he was in and to ride out to hell with us . Few minutes after that, we were back on the road, aiming to finish off the leg in one stretch. Around 03:00 PM we hit the outskirts of Pamban. We came across the first blue board for Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve and hence stopped over for few clicks (we were well within our stipulated time).





We prepared to start once again and then something caught our eye. Have a look at the condition of the tar on the road where the Desert Storm was parked



This shows purely how heavy the motorcycle is because the RE Bullet did not have it, forget about my Avy. Anyways, did some wooows and oooos after seeing this scene and we started off again. Some kms after we saw a beautiful, beautiful beach on the right side and a railway track along with sea shore on our left side. This was the sign that we were nearing the famous Pamban bridge . Decided to stop for sometime and enjoy the view around, and oh..we did not miss this chance to take our motorcycles on the beach and click some pictures.





Spending some quality time at this awesome location, we started our ascent to the Pamban bridge. Needless to say, am excite! (in Borat mode ). There is nothing in this world which can explain this magical feeling when you ride over this bridge over the sea. The best thing for us was to pull over on the bridge and go on clicking pictures as much as you can, then stand silently on this bridge, admiring the awesomeness and the vastness of the sea. You indeed look so tiny and helpless in front of this. Salute you, Creator of this Universe!
The pictures i am presenting before you now do no justice to the actual beauty we faced over there. Pictures are indeed for memories, but they can not replace the actual images you have in your head. I was indeed blessed to have visited this place and I believe it is a must visit for every Indian out there.

Let me start off with the first two pictures. If you look closely at the end of the bridge you will see a piece of land. That is the Indian subcontinent. Speechless right ?



More pictures from Pamban bridge continued over the next post...

Re: A Journey to the Lost World

More pictures from the Pamban bridge



Spellbound by the beauty around, and spending near about 1 hour, we decided to make our move finally. We had another 10 kms to cover to bunk for the day. On our way, we experienced another awesomely smooth patch of road until Rameshwaram town. Some last bit of pictures from Day 2 follows as we finally got a decent enough A/C hotel with cosy bed (*le me finally happy).



As the sun sets over the horizon, our Day 2 run comes to an end. We were rolling over the bed, laughing, sharing jokes and pulling each other's legs . Tomorrow was a big day for us because tomorrow we were going to experience the must awaited, Dhanushkodi, the Lost World. Had a nice heavy dinner this time and went off to sleep.



Day 3 coming soon...