damn! missed you bro
Will you be returning to Tvm any time soon? Will be glad if I could meet a living legend

wonderful journey praveen sir,

all you guys do not worry, praveen sir will come & meet everybody in whichever city you are... he is on a really long bike tour, just making jokes sir

we will catch up in bangalore Sudhi

Nothing like that Nio. Will be quite some time before i come to TVM again

thanks goodforeverything


Day 167 - Aug 22 - Shivmog to Kanhangad

Aug22 at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: Share GPS Tracks

291 Kms Trip Meter 23778 Kms

Pretty comfortable hotel in Shivmoga and din feel like leaving. Like i have been saying; a traveler has to move on. Got to the Jewel Rock hotel for breakfast and have this amazing set dosa! Stayed in this city in my early school days. Had come to this very hotel with parents many times i am told but i hardly remember. Any way felt good to be there. Get a call from Santoosh that he is already in Hunsur! the lazy me is just having break fast. And also looks like i am too late for calicut today. Decide to skip Agumbe and head down via NH 13 the supposed to be faster and less scenic route. It was a typical pleasant morning like it is in Malnad area. Awesome twisties and sparce traffic and forest ride spotted quite some birds and the red squirrel. Reach Theertahalli and take a left towards Koppa along the NH 13. Make it there with pretty good roads along the NH13. Take the road to Karkala along the NH and it got narrow and small! With NH boards looking they have been there in quite some years. Soon i am to make an entry to enter the barricaded forest area. I am given a entry slip which i am to deposit at the exit of the forest reserve. As i enter i see the board of Kudremukh national park! Have never rode before in this are. It was interesting forest ride where you get to here the quiteness and some small creatures sounds. Roads were worthy of complaining. Get calls santoosh and seemed like he would be early so he would take some time off in coorg at his friends place and rendezvous with me in Kanhangad. Some 20 kms later i was stopped by some machine gun wielding forest guards and was rudely told to open the panniers. Kept the cool and talked casually and they got interested in my travel and some chit chat i was let off with out checking. Well really did not want the panniers to be unloaded as it would take a lot of effort to pack the stuff again. Then all of a sudden the road widened into smooth bright tarmac and wide curves and throttled on. Surprised to see that i was even touching 110 at some curves. Felt like the trees around gave extra oxygen to the bike!! Was more interested now in riding than stopping for pix. Roads in karnataka when good are awesome and when bad are nightmare!

After an enjoyable undulating high speed ride reached Karkala and seemed like i had crossed the mountains and am in relative plains near the coast. I could hardly see any mountains in the route i did today will be out of karnataka soon. Exchange status with santoosh and also update Meghan that would be passing by Mangalore in some time. After some more pleasant riding make it to Mangalore. Meghan and Abhishek come out to meet me for lunch and it was a nice conversation with the young guys sharing enthusiasm and experience. It was time to move on and Meghan joined me for lil distance before we bid farewell. Soon the roads worsened and it also looked like it would rain. But the bad roads gave way to good ones soon and rain was a false alarm. These false alarms take out valuable time due to wearing and removing the rain gear. There is quite some amount of traffic. Take it leisurely and i make it to Bekal fort and the resort was not working there it seems. Just clicked a pic from outside and went out to kanhangad as santoosh would be there any time. Bustand was decided to meet. What timing we both reach the place almost simultaneously. It was already 5.15 and knowing the mad traffic on the nh, going further only would result night riding till calicut. So we decided on calling quits for the day.

Got a nice looking room. Freshened up and we went out for exploring the city. Once i park my bike i have no energy to take it out for spins. So i go pillion with santoosh. We were unsuccessful at find a snack and settled for cake and groundnuts! I din know of a beach at kahhangad town but since we were near the coast there has to be one nearby says santoosh and of we go in search of it. Have to cross the konkan railway track and few kms we hit the coast and boy what a beach it was. Completely isolated though there was habitation all along the coast. It was awesome there. Wished we had gone there earlier. There is beach every where but just that its not designated as a tourist spot. Spent like an hour there chatting catching up with the few months and trying out some photography. Get to room and crash for the day...


Set Dosa for you... and boy was it Slurpy!!


Waiting for the hotel's celler door to open up...


Quite a parking for the night !!


Cool morning ride under canopy...


Dried up bamboo...


And i spot the giant red squirrel.. having its breakfast...


One fantastic ride...


Some town houses enroute...





Entering the Mandagadde bird sanctuary... hope to see some birds...


Farmer busy...





Farmer women hand planting paddy saplings...


A strange bird in the paddy fields...


A nice place for a break...


Guess what we do here





Narrow forest road...


Streams enroute...


The only mountain shot in got in Karnataka's western ghats this ride!!





Still on the forest route...





Even chimneys grow moss in rainy season here!!


The mountain view before i get down to the plains...


Me with the enthusiastic Abhishek and Meghan at Mangalore after lunch...


Bad roads to deal with...


Its going to rain, roads getting bad and lot of traffic. Looks like a fun time ahead...


Some back waters on the way...


Its time for some good kerala roads...


Weird divider on the road...


A fishing boat off duty...


Back waters! where water from the sea enters the land...


Bekal fort in Mansoon. Did not go in though...


Found a beach in Kanhangad!!


Me and santoosh there...


Twin HIDs in R15 lighting up the beach!

nice snaps again... liked the chimney one...

@ praveen, good that you turned south of bijapur, I thought you were going to for a record that I am aiming for and want to be the first xbhpian if not first guy to do it

btw, not much pics through mandhagadde, agumbe?

Great going buddy! Why don't you come down to Hyderabad? Would love to meet you. We can have a Haleem and Biryani G2G.

Thanks archister

DarthVeda: It was not for setting competitive records, but rather a personal record to travel from kashmir to kanyakumari. Actually i did not go to Agumbe but went on the NH 13 via koppa. Where you hardly get to see mountains as all the times you will be riding between the trees.

Thanks moeed for the invitation. I would not be riding north of chennai bangalore line i guess so cant make it. We can catch up some time in future. Btw i am a veggie

Day 168 - Aug 23 - Kanhangad to Ernakuklam

Aug23 at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: Share and Plan your Trips

345 KMs Trip Meter 24124 KMs

Ernakulam some 300 kms south seems to be the target for the day. Its going to be tough with the all the traffic that is promised. Santoosh had to leave for Bangalore and decides to rode with me till Kannur. Think of having breakfast some where outside kanhangad hoping to eat something else than chapati and tomato fry. When we stopped at a hotel for breakfast we endup eating the same anyway! As expected there's lot of traffic on the highway. Many bad patches on the road in between as well. We take turns leading and the trailer used to get left behind many times due to the traffic. Hard to ride together and have to slow down for the trailer to catchup. There are quite some very rough patches of road. Really hope the panniers can withstand the torchers of south. Takes us like 2 hours to cover 70 kms and thats gives an idea of avg speeds i will be doing till i reach Kanyakumari.

Bid byes to Santoosh as he getting of the highways heading towards the mountains on his way to Bangalore. It was nice riding together. The road now goes closer to the coast and just a few feet from the water many places. See many back waters on thew way. Could actually see the flow of water from the sea into the backwater canal. There was this heavy traffic jam at Mahe. Every things is occupied here. The cities and towns never ends and this area of country is thickly populated. The ppl seem to be well of in general. Have to get used to the aggressive traffic and am at my almost defensive riding. Well thats not much of help either as you have to be with the flow of traffic if not faster. Progress is very slow. Stop for a leasure lunch around Ayyanikad i guess. Lil did i know what was waiting for me.

Start by around 1.30 pm wondering if i will be able to make it to Ernakulam today as i am yet to reach calicut. The next 3.5 hour session was quite an experience. The roads got bettor wider curvy'er and boy did i feel like i am in F1 race. Never experienced such aggressive traffic. Hardly find any sober drivers. Every ones driving at their optimal speed and boy are they fast. Busses doing 100+ speeds on the narrow curvy roads. All the vehicles do these wild jerky turns to adjust their trajectory. Each such act gets my heart beating up. Next ones up before i relax. Every car, bus, pickup, truck zipping in either direction. Overtakings and evasive manuvers! Even a small bike with huge box of fish on the rear of zipping around. Every over taking was hard earned. It was not only humbling experience but also scary. Its hard to ride slow as its narrow and will be honked from behind in no time. Never experienced an ambassador or truck come behind me and honk at me! Have also to worry about traffic behind as i am not sure when one will pass me. If you cant beat em join em! Geared up for my share of adrenalin. It was hard to keep up with some cars on narrow curvey roads. Narrow i mean 2 lanes plus width but narrow for the aggressive driving in display! Remember especially a dark blue Mercedes c200. Boy was he driving. Tailed him for quite some time and when even if i could did not overtake him cos he would pass me dodging the opposing traffic in no time! Then i loose him. I mean i loose him driving ahead of me! When i look into those aggressive cars , i dont see some rich daddy's maniac kid, instead regular people with families inside and old passengers! Get shivers from the busses hurtling down on the curves from opposite direction at 90+ speeds. Scary overtaking the buses as you just never know when they will swirl right on me! Even two wheelers are no less. Many times they get on to their quick crossing initiative and see me get startled and jamming my breaks; so they politely stop and let me pass with smile, but it takes some minutes to recover from what i think was an Accident just missed! I guess in other places drivers are used to drive in traffic free roads and tone down in traffic areas, but ppl around here always ride in such heavy traffic and they get very good at it i guess! NH 17 in Kerala is a completely different experience! Was just hoping that i would be safe till the end of the day. Boy this has turned out to be a whole different adventure which i will remember.

By 4Pm around Kuttipuram and stop for a break to catch my breath. Boy was the session good. Ask for further directions and Ernakulam seems to be 100 kms. I dont think i can make it in daylight. But also heard that roads to Trissur are very bad and i am bettor of riding via ponnani closer to the coast. Arun had suggested me to get off the highway and ride south on the mountains as the roads are bettor and less traffic. But that would mean riding for a day or two more. Which i declined as i am aching all over and want to keep it short or so i think. Even a guy at the petrol bunk suggested the NH17 instead of NH47 to Ernakulam. Said its just 100 kms and taking 50kmph its only two hours. I knew this was another of those impossible and highly optimistic timings these locals make. I really want to see how they manage 50kmph avg riding/driving at 40 to 60 kmph! Any way i get off the wide and nice l ooking highway to the narrow road towards ponnani. Now where am i sent? the road is very narrow, it started raining, there are lot of potholes and even have to do rain water puddle water crossings and how am going to maintain avg? But on every enquiry i was reassured the way i was going. Looks like it would be a long evening ride. I have to take a leak but cant as there is no concept of outside city limits. There are continuous houses on either side of the road. Takes me like an hour to hunt for a place to relieve myself! Reach ponnani and the road becomes wide here and pace increases. But not to be very happy cos its bad patches and narrow paths every now and then. Sure enough its gets dark with 35 kms to Ernakulam. My bike's HID is officially dud now! Cos it keeps switching of. The halogen bulp not much of help. Plus the wet road and opposing lights. It was tough i must say. Any way reach Ernakulam by like 7.30. Find a hotel after a couple of tries and bikes gets a safe parking. Thats about the day.



Santoosh and me before we start of for the day...


The medicated warm drinking water you get in Kerala restaurants...


Our early pitstop for breakfast...


Road for the ride...


Santoosh negotiating the bad patches...


Good that the bus is off the road!


See many back water canals..





The empty road is some short lived lauxary i must say...





Boats on the back waters.


NH 17 going parrallel to the arabian sea...


The arabian sea by the road...


NH 17 for you!!


Always houses on either side of the road....


Traffic jam at Mahe...


Water from the sea getting into the backwater canal...


This is outskirts between towns on the map!


Some free roads to give me comfort...


A Kerala veg thali with the big and thick rice...


Thats the rice variety unique to Kerala. But i must say i liked the lunch very much..


Where i had lunch, a house turned into a hote...


Some awesome streches in between....





Boy these nimble looking buses, boy they can drive these things!!


Then it rains...


Ganesha festival today...


People going to do Visarjan of this year's idol...


Huge fishing net beside the backwater...

you went through thirthalli ->Koppa, that's awesome stretch, Koppa to Jayapura is one awesome stretch with good roads and excellent scenery around

At NH17, there goes my myth that all kerala roads are awesome!!!

That's bullet rice bro...

Correct me If I am wrong, you have visited every state in this country on this trip except ->Madhya pradesh, Chattisgarh and TN?

most of the interior kerala roads are awesome , this highway is a mess during the monsoon. from Ernakulam till goa . Its horryfying.

@praveenkm: no words to describe u man.....hw cud u manage fr all this dude?....no offences frm ur parents and family?

anyways ur a game .........wud be the pleasure of hyderabad xbhpians to meet u down here in future

praveen thank god you didnt take the NH17 route from trissur to ernakulam...its just horrendous i did a trip to trivandrum last week and took these roads oh boy my backbroke and R15 was really struggling(in b2w no roads at all on highway)...but roads after EKM are damn good(NH47)...Sure those buses are mini rockets dont mess with those guys or the tails of those buses swinging in the curves will get you...

Ride safe & waiting for the REST

PKM out of curiosity what does the number 25 stand for guru ?

30kms short of trichi. Front sprocket broken need to open up engine!

Front sprocket broken?! Hope you have found a HH service center. So, you'll be in Chennai tomorrow?

, the whole chain sprocket was changed recently correct (if im not wrong during the Mangalore visit)??