Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Travelogue Approved

Nice. Looks good

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Nice teasers. Bring up the main course.

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Thank you Monk for the quick approval.

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DAY 0:
The trip was initially planned as a 4 day ride from the 27th of December to the 30th of December (Though it turned out to be a 5 day ride )given most people had holidays for Christmas and new year . Preparations were going on high on the 26th of December . We started booking rooms at Valparai and Munnar two weeks before the ride . We ended up booking a good woodhouse at valparai for the 27th and another guest house at Munnar for the 28th, there were no open accommodations at Meghamalai as it was the end of the year, so we planned to just go with the flow and find accommodations, if any at Meghamalai.

The route we planned to take :

With routine bike checkups, oil changes done, chain lubed , some stickering done we got our bikes ready for the big day for our dream ride . By the way , this was my first time filling up a full tank on my bike after riding nearly around 40k Kms after 3 years , LOL . Thanks to the TN government , petrol prices dropped to nearly 67 rupees .


The white Beauties pumped up , treated with professional wash and polish and all set for the ride.



and we were ready for the ride after, stay tuned...........

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Day 1 :
The ride day approached and we were hyped and pumped up. I hardly could shut my eyes and sleep even for sometime the night before, woke up constantly to check the time , tried to get some shut eye and in the end woke up by 3.00 AM on the 27th,freshed up and geared up . I called Hariharan who lives nearby and he was already ready. We planned to meet the others at Cresent college, Tambaram by 4.30 AM. As always my lovely parents woke up to make me something to drink and with their blessings i was all set for the ride. Mounted my bags on my bike and warmed up the engine and left to meet Hariharan at 4 AM near his house . The duker was already ready so we set off . Took the chennai bypass route which was pitch black,cruised at around 80kmph . I was shivering because of the cold weather. We were the first ones to reach the meetup point and after a few minutes one by one , all the 7 bikers grouped



From the left:
CBR250 ABS- Raj(Photographer 1)
Karizma R- Yashwanth
CBR 150- Praveen jones(Photographer 2)
RTR 180 ABS - Srinivasan(Had a DSLR , but never took any photos :P )
Duke 390 - Hariharan
Pulsar 220- Harikishen(Selfie king :P)
RTR 180 ABS - myself, Christopher.

So, we set off in the dark. Our agenda was to reach Valparai by 3 PM on the same day. Little did we know on things that were going to happen on that day :\ . We maintained a good cruising speed of 80-100kmph . I was leading while Hairkishen was the sweep . We followed staggered formation all the way and stopped for tea around 6.30 AM . The sun rose and we continued our journey increasing our cruising speed to 100-110kmph.We caught the Ulundurpet highway , stopped for breakfast and continued. Boy , this was one of the best highways one could find. The roads were literally deserted . We rode all the way to Erode stopping in between for a few tea breaks . We were so set on reaching our destination we forgot to click any pictures all the way. We stopped somewhere near Erode and that's when the Karizma started showing some problem.

The Karizma's rear sprocket had developed some issues and did not spin freely. We concluded that the Karizma needed a Sprocket change but the nearest Hero service center was approximately 20 kilometers away. We were in a dilemma to either leave to Valparai while the Karizma was taken to the service center or wait at that spot until they returned . We ended up staying at that spot while Yashwanth and Praveen took the Karizma to the service center. The rest of us were damn tired and like a wish granted by God we found a very good place to sleep . While some of us slept without the knowledge of time the photographers were using their skills to capture things around us






Meanwhile ,the hero service center had worked their magic and fixed the bike as soon as possible .


By the time Praveen and Yashwanth reached , it was already around 3.30 PM, we were damn hungry but we decided to push to Valparai given riding uphill in the dark was not our initial plan. We saddled up and hit the roads again after a long break. We reached the foothills of Valparai at around 5.30 PM . We had a very good late lunch at the fisheries department in the Aaliyar dam . We were all set to take on the curves and corners at valparai we started off and we planned on maintaining decent speeds and to keep a watch on the riders behind. As we moved uphill the roads started to get more narrow and the oncoming vehicles' headlight blinded us much . We had loads of corner freaks in our fleet and on seeing the curves , no one could resist picking up speed. We maneuvered uphill inspite of the dangerous roads enjoying the climate and the roads. I was leading and i had visibility of Praveen's headlight on my rear view mirrors. At a particular hairpin bend a tata sumo nearly killed me by overtaking in the opposite lane ,thank God i missed him by a few inches . After a few minutes of all this adrenaline pumping ride we halted at a tea shop to find no one else was behind us . In all this fun, Praveen had missed to check his rearview mirror and i was lethargic myself not to notice the riders behind were missing. we waited at the tea shop for around 15 minutes

By this time Praveen had come to a conclusion that someone had bit the dust and was giving crazy ideas to inform cars and buses going downhill to give us missed calls if they found anyone injured on the way :P . He even tried to call an ambulance service . We hardly had service for any network there and the only network which constantly worked was BSNL. Harikishen had a BSNL number for situations such as these and whenever we got a signal we tried calling him. After numerous calls he picked up , just to abuse us :P Selfie king was also the abuser of the trip :P. He informed us that yashwanth on the Karizma had an accident and we kept on riding without knowing that . They told us he was still able to ride so we waited at the tea shop until they reached. After around 15-20 minutes they reached us . We immediately started giving first aid to Yashwanth.

While Praveen played docotor we waited for Harikishen and Hariharan. Haran in all this commotion thought that he missed his gloves at the place where yashwanth crashed and they rode downhill to get his gloves . When they reached us uphill, after some abusing from Harikishen we learnt that hariharan had his gloves in his saddlebag all along and went in search of his gloves still :P After making fun of him a little while , we set off at around 8 PM again , it was pitch dark and we rode very slow . With all the road laying works going on there ,the roads were filled with gravel , i made sure no one was left out and we reached valparai town at around 10 PM . Whew ! at last destination reached. we checked into our room and two of us , myself and srini set out to buy the necessary provisions for the night . Some medicines for Yashwanth (Beer included :P) , some medicines for us and dinner. When we reached, Harikishen was already in bed and fast asleep Being the good guys we were, we kept waking him up until he started abusing us again :P We left him at peace and started with our medicines. After we shared our sad stories we too hit the bed with Munnar in our eyes for the next day .


A few misc. pictures from the day:
Praveen with Yashwanth's sprocket.




Harikishen , the selfie king alias the abuser :P


Srini's reaction after nap time


Thank God for bikes


Posing inspite of the accident strong fellow :P


The team


Stay tuned for the next log, one more accident , Munnar in all its beauty and more night riding and adventures to come ........

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Good going!

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Starter is good waiting for the rest and wasn't he wearing a knee guard or riding pants, that would have saved him...

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Yes, he was not wearing a knee guard or riding pants . The rest of us were wearing though . But that's one good lesson learnt . He already planned on getting a good riding pant after this incident.

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

I was a photographer too 3 positions Lol

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Stuck with loads of work for the past few days,sorry for the late update but here it goes.

Day-2:
Our initial plan was to wake up as early as possible and reach Munnar before it gets dark , with all the problems we went through on the first day ,we did not want to take any risks again, but little did we know how we would end up riding that day . Some of us woke up soon while the others , including me were busy sleeping like it was a weekend.Everyone was up around 10 and we planned to make a move by 11 atleast . We did not manage to wake up to enjoy the beauty of Valparai early morning but here are some pictures that the guys took.



Raj was showing his strength to a piece of Rod for sometime . Clearly the rod won :d



So after gettin ready, and making everyone to get ready we finally set out to Munnar , all geared up . We had a tea and few buns and samosas to fill up our stomachs to save the lost time. We took to the roads , we took a different route to Munnar covering a forest route on the way. We had to stop at the tea plantations at valparai for a photo session :d



After clicking loads of pictures and pumping petrol on the way we rode to the sholayar dam . With small roads and umpteen number of corners everyone were high on cornering all the way :d . Haran on the D390 wid the Metzelers took it way up a notch and his leg got stuck between the bike and the road and he bit the dust. But he had all his gears on so he escaped with no bruises whatsoever.Very minimal damages to his bike too.





We stopped for a bit to help him out. He was safe and sound. Praveen and Raj saw an offroad patch in this commotion and since everything was fine they rode to explore where the off road patch was leading . With our clocks ticking we had second thoughts if we would reach Munnar within nightfall. We got back on the road and reached Sholayar dam in sometime, we planned not to take many halts for pictures and we rode more cautious after the incident. We rode in a single line formation.







We reached the forest checkpost leading into Kerala border around 12pm , we were damn hungry we decided to eat lunch cum breakfast somewhere on the way . We got a ticket from the checkpost and rode into Kerala. The forest route was damn awesome with very small roads and endless corners. Everyone was back to their cornering phase and at the end of the road i would say everyone learnt atleast a bit more knowledgeable on cornering than the time before. We halted for lunch at a shop near Athirampalli falls . To save time we decided not to go into the Athirampalli falls and ride towards Kothamangalam. We initially thought that Kothamangalam was the forest route but it was city roads and we got stuck in heavy traffic towards Munnar. It was already 6pm and some of us were having second thoughts on riding uphill in the dark again but we came to a conclusion that we would ride very slow uphill leaving no one behind.







Praveen took the lead given that I did not notice the guys behind during the valparai uphill ride. Some of the guys constantly fell behind and after sometime it got very hard to ride uphill in pitch darkness. In between Yashwanth was very tired that he could not handle the bike and crashed out on some sand . Glad that nothing happened. After all this many of us were hit with fatigue, hunger but we wanted to reach Munnar safe and sound so we kept counting the distance , all we wanted to do was just reach uphill and get some rest . After counting the kilometres ,counting down from 10 to 1 we reached munnar weary and tired , saw a roadside restaurant and we settled to eat there. It was already around 10pm and the climate was damn chilly.











Meanwhile , I called the guy to whom we had arranged the room and to our shock he told that we had to travel another 40kms to reach the guest house which was at a place called Kanthanalloor. We had our dinner and decided its gonna be a rough ride, ate to our fill ,dressed ourselves well to keep us warm and started off . The couple of hours after this turned out to be one of the most memorable events of the ride for all of us.

We rode around 5kms towards Kanthanalloor. It was pitch dark and the roads were very bad. After some 20-30 minutes of riding we were surrounded by mist, in some more time it was fully foggy and it started to drizzle . Visiblity was down to nearly 5-10%. We could hardly see what was in front of us . We stopped at some point scared to hell given we were given the news that there were elephant movement in that area. We decided to stay close two in a row , myself with the projector headlight and Praveen took the lead and we rode very slowly , we could not see a curve until we reached the brim of the curve . It was very risky. After sometime we got the help of a local jeep guy who was well equipped with fog lamps on his jeep. This was unplanned for and we planned to equip ourselves with fog lamps for situations like this from the next ride. After riding continuously like this for 2 hours we reached a small town from where the guest house guy directed us to take a right .







By now the fog cleared a bit and to cover much distance in this short gap some of us rode in the direction told . We totally forgot about Harikishen and Praveen who had stopped to mount their bags . In sometime we were again surrounded by dense fog and we just assumed they were behind us and we kept riding , as we moved uphill the climate conditions got worse but in the pursuit to reach the guest house and get rest we picked up the pace and kept moving , all of a sudden Raj stopped all of us telling Hari and Praveen were not behind us . After some 10-15 minutes Hari and Praveen reached us and Harikishen as usual started to Abuse us especially me :d . He was damn scared as they thought they had lost their way and the route was fully through the forest. How they found their way was an interesting phenomenon . They switched off their bikes and and they heard my bike’s filter sound at a distance , so they followed that direction . It was not totally my mistake as Raj had informed me earlier that everyone were coming behind and I kept riding .

Inspite of all this commotion we reached the guest house at around 2 in the night No one would roam around the hills including the locals but we did . We were damn tired so we settled in for the night and went to bed as soon as possible.
P.S. It was mentioned on the news the next day that there was a tiger that roamed around that area were we were riding late that night , we were very lucky to have not encountered any tigers on the way :P

Some Misc. pictures from the day :

Myself

Harikishen, the abuser :P


Praveen jones .

Yes, we did not know why his right leg was springing up too :P


Haran strong fellow :P

Yashwanth on the karizma.


Srini on the RTR.

Raj on the CBR.

Cornering mania

X for Xbhp :P

The lineup

That Ennevam reaction :P

Riding through the forest .

My humble steed


By the night all of us were in a dilemma to ride to meghamalai the next day or drop the plan :\. Stay tuned to see what really happened .
P.S. Being a spoilsport, we did not make it to Meghamalai the next day :P

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Good that you people reached the hotel safe. These kind of experiences make rides worthy.

Sent from my Xperia L.

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

It sure does 😁

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

This one's a very short log but ill let the pictures do the talking.

Day 3 :

We woke up late as usual the next day, weary and tired . Some of us were having double thoughts if we should continue to Meghamalai or leave to Chennai, given the lack of time . Harikishen had developed some backpain and he told us that he would leave to Chennai once he was downhill as Meghamalai consisted mostly of off-roading and he did not want to worsen his pain. With all these thoughts we decided that we would move to the Munnar foothills and from there decide what we would do depending on the time we had in our hands. So, we started off from Kanthaloor bidding goodbye to the beautiful guest house we stayed in. Oh! i forgot to mention the scrumptious puttu and some kind of idly made in Kerala style that was served to us for breakfast.

Kandhaloor's early morning scenes





Yummy breakfast served

All set and ready to leave from the beautiful guest house we found shelter in.



After having our fill we took to the roads. We never knew that the place we traveled through to reach our destination was so beautiful as we came through that route well past midnight the day before . Roads were not that great but the scenery was awesome. We decided that we would keep our urges to take pictures to a minimum and keep our eyes on the destination but we could not help stopping at many places to click some pictures.

Riding through the beautiful curves.






We reached Munnar at around 12 noon and we decided that we would keep going on and not stopping anywhere to sight see. We stopped to purchase some tea packets for our parents back home . The roads of Munnar were the best that we encountered during the whole trip . We maintained good speeds as long as we were inside Kerala border. I would let the pictures do the talking here.















We came into the TN border and the roads started to get a bit bad. At around 3pm we stopped and took a poll as to what should be done ! . Most of us agreed that we would halt at Theni for the day and ride to Meghamalai the next day given the hill was some 20 odd kilometers from Theni. As we had some good time we decided we would freak out a bit and click some pictures at the location we had halted. I sincerely hope we had taken this decision somewhere uphill where the scenery was great but fate wanted us to end up in a location such as that then :P After taking umpteen number of pictures and filling our stomachs with chips and biscuits we rode to Theni.










Power ranger pose :P

We searched for some rooms and ended up getting a perfect hotel room with a good parking space below. To our surprise we found 3 other bikers from Chennai who were doing the same route as we were doing . They informed us that Meghamalai was not that tough to ride on as they had rode to Meghamalai and back on that day . After getting some pointers from them we somehow convinced Harikishen that we would do Meghamalai the next day as a group and no one would be left behind . We even lied that they had laid new roads so that he would join us :P . We had a very good dinner and slept soon that day , atleast some of us did :P

Munnar was very beautiful, more than that we had expected of it. I would be sure to do another trip to Munnar alone to enjoy its beauty soon.

Some Misc. pictures from the day:

The big man .

Srini on his Apache

The Duker.

Riding staggered .

Raj's photography.

The 220 in all its glory .

Supposedly a spider web :P

The beauty behind bars .



Selfiee time

because, i loveee my bike :*

There are some pictures that come out well

and some that come out ... well , like this :P

off-roading a bit.

Early morning scenes












Stay tuned for the next log , we ride to Meghamalai , Off roading to the core .

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Awesome T log :thumbup:

Sent from my XT1022 using xBhp Connect mobile app

Re: Dream ride 2014 - Valparai-Munnar-Meghamalai.

Thank you mate