Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Ha!! That's one mass of land that shouldn't be missed & you missed it!! There's always room for tomorrow & try to make it next time

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Day 2 - Friday 20-Feb-2015

As decided, we woke up early and took off. Oh wait, we didn't. Let's do flashback to day 1. When the German-American fellow gave us the room, we asked whether we could pay the paltry sum of 700 rupees by card based on which we received detailed directions to the nearest ATM. Being the lazy, mindless people we were, we decided to use the pay-when-you-leave service - this meant that someone had to wake up quite early in the morning to collect payment. And they didn't. So, we did the whole walk around and bang on door routine and finally decided to leave and call them back later for instructions on how to send them the money. More on this later.

And then, we started crawling out of the town. A few twisty town roads later we came across this beautiful newly constructed temple where we clicked some pictures with our bikes in tow and crawled out again. A few minutes into the town roads, we met a van driver who was brake checking - right in front of us. As the van braked to a complete halt to dodge a pebble sized speed bump, I managed to escape from the right, overtaking the van. Mindless, being the mindless rider he is thought of a better idea of almost crashing into the van and having an embarassing fall instead. I came back to see some oil spilled and was dreading what would come next - blood. Though it was a pretty small incident, a nasty gash on his right pinky, torn gloves and oil spill indicated otherwise. Meanwhile, a passerby started stating to another passerby that we were racing (at 20kmph? are you kidding me?) and that is why we had a fall and such things from KA bikers should not be tolerated. Without hesitation, I screamed broken tamil expletives to the offending passerby who found it amusing more than intimidating. Oh, well.

Anyway, we rode on for a bit and joined the highway, me dropping my bottle off the cramster bag twice and mindless giving me mini heart attacks by disappearing off my rear view mirror trying to collect it. We stopped for some exceptionally good service at a highway restaurant bundled with superb food and learnt the location of a medical store. After the heavy breakfast, we went in search of this mysterious medical shop which was nowhere to be found and bought band aid at a nearby condiment store, and some electrical tape to wrap the gloves up.

Soon, we were on our way on the highway, belting at triple digit speeds on the beautifully laid out asphalt on TN highway. Almost a non stop ride along swiftly changing landscape which turned green-brown-tall brown-green on both sides later, we stopped for coffee and cake. Coffee was the famous filter coffee of TN and Britannia cake that we gobbled up and left. One fuel stop later, we arrived at Madurai junction.

At Madurai junction, we had a huge task of deciding between Rameshwaram or Kanyakumari as our destination for the day. We searched for a place to have lunch, landed up at Parozza and yes, what we ate was a cross between parota and pizza. We decided reluctantly that Kanyakumari was a better bet for the rest of the journey would be even slower if we chose Rameshwaram instead. And then the unthinkable happened. The dreaded F word arrived to greet us on the rear tyre of my zma. Thankfully, we found a punch her shop close by who aced fixing the flat but struggled to lodge the wheel back inside, blaming everything under the sun except his useless skills in the process. We were 700kms from home on an ambitiously loaded ride for the day, so I refrained from complaining.

Once the bike was fixed, we reached Tuticorin by twilight and the route from Tuticorin to Kanyakumari is something I will NEVER forget. That awesome sunset in the hills as we chased it to the southern most point of our glorius subcontinent, huge windmills as far as the eye can see and the winding roads gave a sense of freedom that every motorbiker has experienced at sometime in life. For that short blast, all of life's problems were a blur and all we could experience was the joy of biking.

After reaching Kanyakumari, we crossed a few good looking hotels and were asking around for directions to a particular hotel when a security guard of a building asked us to park our bikes elsewhere. When we stated to him that we were only going to be a few moments as we were just asking for a hotel for the night, he beckoned us to come stay at their hotel which was available for a not so princely sum. We haggled and settled on what was an ultra low price, unpacked, took a shower, remembered to pay the hotel bill(yeah, we learned our lesson) and head out for a hearty dinner at a nearby dhaba hotel. The punjabi dinner at the border of TN was strangely enchanting and the walk to the edge of land was mesmerising. We sat at the end of the ramp into the water and spoke about nothing in particular before we returned to the room and slept like logs.

Next stop Kerala. Coming soon!!

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Please post some pictures to compliment the amazing write-up.

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Dhanushkodi is next on the radar but as part of a cycling trip.. downright amazing that place..

I am too lazy to extract the pics from my digicam it seems..

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

About the pictures, now I remember what we had for dinner on Day 1. I'm a huge fan of woodfire pizzas and mindless knew an awesome place for dinner on day 1. We had this tasty treat.

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Some pics finallyyyyyy...

The NS in the wild.. the lone glove beckons you to just go out and ride..

The temple that came out of nowhere.. one lone corner of Pondicherry that hardly anyone knew about.. totally awesome though..

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The road that led to the YOUTH CAMP.. an amazing dormitory + individual rooms in the middle of nowhere..

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can anybody help me with posting pics properly along with captions.. getting auto merged somehow..

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Great. Carry on!

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Day 3 - 16 hours in Kerala and nowhere to go!

As the first two days of awesome riding, the backwaters of Kerala were reaching out to us in day dreams, beckoning us to the beautiful countryside of God's own country. But what we didn't realise was that the traffic and road conditions would stop us from experiencing all this good stuff.

Mindless grudgingly agreed to wake up at 5:45AM after which we happily walked up to the end of landmass at Kanyakumari and waited for the glorious sunrise that are written in several pages of history and captured exquisitely by some amazing photographers on the interwebs. But today wouldn't be our lucky day and the clouds blocked the entire spectacle of the sunrise. Slightly disappointed, we rushed to the hotel because we had a lot of ground to cover.

We head out to Trivandrum where we would have breakfast and for around 2 hours, we were stuck in a traffic jam like in a city. When we finally reached trivandrum, covered in sweat and dodging crazy motorists who were for some reason in a terrible hurry on a Saturday morning, we thought that the highways further would be a better experience. While we had a nice south Indian breakfast, I called a friend of mine who hails from Kerala about the highways further onwards to Calicut. For some reason, which we would discover later, he used the words "main road" every time I said "highways". I explained to him that we were planning to take the highway and enquired about the road conditions and traffic at this hour - whether there would be any big trucks etc and he kept talking as if we were riding through a city and kept saying "traffic on main road" "working day" etc.. which had me confused.

As we ignored what my friend said on the phone, we were posed with an immediate issue - getting out of Trivandrum. As it turned out, each person in Kerala has a different way of getting out of the city and no one agrees with any other person, living or dead. After a few nods and lots of Malayalam and sign language we couldn't understand, we were finally out of Trivandrum on some kind of a single lane road filled with traffic. However, the roads were named as highways, amusing!

What followed this was a death trap of a ride. I am convinced, after riding through Kerala that

1. There is no concept of highways similar to other states
2. Every motorist riding/driving in Kerala has a single most important purpose on the road - to ride/drive as aggressively as humanly possible, without concern for lives of theirs or anyone elses
3. I will never again ride/drive on these "main roads" in Kerala, EVER! Maybe I will ride to the border towns but would never inside the heart of Kerala

As we ploughed through the drudgery, seemingly unending hours and hours passed while we were crawling at 20-30kmph, dodging high speed cars, buses and motorbikes in the blistering heat of the day. When we reached Alleppey, we hadn't had anything to eat or drink for about 4-5 hours and stopped at a KFC. My zma's brakes were fading slightly at this point. We quickly grabbed a bite while our jackets and other gear were of great amusement to the staff and customers at the KFC. Even though we were told that Alleppey beach is only a stone's throw away, we were scared of overshooting our timeline to reach Calicut by the end of the day or even midnight, given the traffic situation. I wasn't happy because I know how beautiful the beach is, but I had to accept reality and the blistering heat made it easier to ride than get burnt at the beach anyway.

After lunch, we requested the good folks at KFC to refill our bottles with fresh water and rode on into the sun. Although we did pray, neither the sun, nor the traffic was any kinder to us or our bikes. The brakes on my bike kept fading quite a bit and I was more worried about the traffic situation than dying - both were kind of intertwined at this moment.

A few years later (kidding, it was maybe 3 hours) we came at an intersection where we could head towards Salem or trundle along into the depths of Kerala. The time taken to reach Bangalore through both routes would be the same but TN was far more forgiving from a traffic and road condition standpoint. The catch was - we would miss riding through Gudalur and Mudumalai. I wanted none of that nonsense and I convinced mindless to carry on into ente Keralam since the end result would be two wasted days instead of one if we rode through TN.

After druging along hours which felt like years, we were having second thoughts about riding all the way till Calicut. We stopped a few times for water breaks and to fill fuel where we were constantly worried about actually getting anywhere decent to stay for the night, let alone reaching Calicut! A few meters ahead, I found a small roadside mech who filled up my bike's brake system with Dot-4 and fading brakes resumed to work in full capacity. I knew that a bleed might be required later, but that would be better than having no brakes at all while riding through unruly traffic in the dark!

The sun went down after a while and we decided to slow down quite a bit because our senses were not working at their full capacity and we knew that since it is anyway dark, there was no point in pushing it. We finally reached Tirur when I unanimously decided to nod off at a nearby hotel since I wanted no riding to be done with my once doubtful brakes. I convinced mindless yet again that a really early start would help to reach Bangalore the next day and he reluctantly agreed.

We ate some really crappy oily dosas at some shady joint by the bus stand, haggled and overpaid for a shady hotel for the night and dozed off to oblivion, not before setting the alarm to an ungodly 3:30AM that night. Did we make it out of Kerala? Did we make it to Bangalore before time? Would I be penalised for not joining work on a previously specified day? Next episode will have all the answers to these and many more questions. Next stop Bangalore - if we make it! to be continued.....

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Great reading till now. Please carry on ..........

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Day 4 : Nowhere in Kerala to somewhere in Bangalore

I woke up swiftly at 3am and practically kicked mindless out of his bed. We woke up to the chilling darkness outside the hotel and readied ourselves for the race out of Kerala before traffic kicks in (or kicks our already tired butts). Since we didn't have a clue where we were at this moment, I decided to switch on gmaps navigation on my cellphone and listen to it on the earphones while we rode. For safety, though we knew the route very well from Gudalur, I typed in the destination as Bangalore which incidentally also increased our hope of reaching in time. We kept riding on Nilambur highway(lol) from Tirur with mindless mindlessly following me as I mindlessly followed every mindless turn gmaps spit out.

At around 4:30AM, after one hour of riding, we stopped in the middle of nowhere to do some stretches and drink some water. This helped a lot as the slow ride in the dark was pretty relaxing and we were conscious to not fall asleep on the bike. At around 5:30AM, after one more hour of riding into the darkness, we arrived just outside Gudalur. The almost rising sun and cool breeze lifted our spirits and to be in Tamilnadu lifted our spirits even more. we stopped here for breakfast and knowing fully well that we would arrive in Bangalore with enough time to spare, we spent a good half hour eating some borderline delicacies!

After this, another amazing part of the trip opened up to us. We climbed the amazing ghats which were long and winding and a definite welcome after the idiotic ride across the length of Kerala the day before. We both had smiles printed on our faces. The greenery, cool breeze, wonderful weather and the feeling of going back home - everything added to the unparalleled joy of being on a motorbike! Our lives felt worth living and enjoying again and we were having the time of our lives .

We rode onto the ghats taking knee scraping turns(almost) and lots of pictures. After the thrilling ride on the ghats, we headed into Mudumalai tiger reserve. Oh, my my. I have been through these parts in a car but man is the place even more beautiful on two wheels!! Since it was almost summer, we saw quite a few dried grass and trees but man the feeling of riding on two wheels inside a place this beautiful simply cannot be put into words. We took our own sweet time to get out of mudumalai and enjoyed every inch of it. There were a couple of vehicles which slowed down and took pictures even though pictures weren't allowed but we ignored and overtook them just to focus on the natural beauty and not be stuck behind noisy touristy people. Over some really sugary sweet tea, we exchanged high fives and remarked about how we almost gave up on this beautiful ride just yesterday. What the hell were we thinking!!

Once we got out of Mudumalai, it was a relaxed ride with the Karnataka traffic not bothering us at all. I for one was thrilled to see boards in Kannada at 10 in the morning - this meant I wouldn't miss the first day of a new job and more importantly, we would reach well ahead of planned time.

We had a quick breakfast (hey, it was 4 hours since we ate ANYTHING) at Mysore at a really slow service restaurant and as the sun went up in flames, we were out on the highway to escape the traffic in Mysore too. After a quick stop at decathlon on Mysore road and a fuel station stop, we reached home from what was one of the best journeys of our lives!

This trip was a very ambitious plan and included a whole lot of riding and very little relaxing. But we were glad we went out and did it because any other small ride of 500-600kms over a weekend when compared to this mammoth will seem miniscule in comparison. Also, we chased the sun from the east to the west coast of India - 2024 kms, 4 days, a union territory and 3 states, spanning hills, flats and beaches all in one, this trip will stay in our memories for a really really long time to come!

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Beautiful log. Hope to see many such logs from you in future!
BTW, if you have any pictures not yet posted, please post them.

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

Thanks Krishna. We are planning for Wayanad/Dhanuskodi but I'm pretty sure it will be slightly less adventurous than this one. Mindless, care to share pictures?

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness.

No issues, We will be glad to have any more adventures!

Re: 2 bikers.. 2 bikes.. 4 days.. 1900Kms.. south india coastline.. pure awesomeness..

Very nicely put up, almost felt like being on your journey
:-)