Now one thing that's a constant on all our trips is Phani's "thing", which ahem......refers to his Blaze of course. And quite a constant it is too, always the source of some excitement on each of our trips.
Now this "thing" is quite something all right....I mean it has to be, right, when a petrol pump attendant asks u if it's imported, or when a dude walks up and looks at it from all angles before flashing a big grin and a thumbs up, or if it has Pavan jumping up and down shouting "128, 128" on Mysore Rd :)
And then it has quite some presence too. What else could possibly have half of Kerala waking up in the middle of the night (albeit because the silencer fell off), just to catch a glimpse, not even the good ol' Queen Lizzie, I suppose. What other machine could possibly be called a half-auto ( credit for originating the expression goes to Vijay Santhosh R), except maybe an auto in the absolutely marvellous movie called "Jaani Dushman".....check it out folks, for a quick lesson on how to drive ur 4 wheeler, quite literally "through" b'lore traffic.
But really, it is a fantastic machine that. Except for one thing. It kinda steals the limelight from everything else (Now, now Srikar....you had ur chance with it. Coimbatore won't forget u soon, I can assure you). It eclipsed even the "chick magnet", our growing up boy's fantastic red zen.
Speaking of growing up boy....what is it that makes a boy a man? What makes him break out of his shell, to suddenly go where he's never gone before, to pick up a bike and ride it on a highway, even though he's rarely touched one before? Such adventures don't always end up in a good way and occasionally result in "skidding" bikes and broken legs. But it's all a part of the rite of passage. So maybe someday we'll see our
beloved "growing up boy" riding on Phani's "thing"....what say?
Friday, May 4, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Bangalore to Munnar
Finally it was here, the much awaited trip. Munnar as we agreed later, is aptly called the "Paradise on Earth". The place was just too picturesque. Though the idea of the trip came up soon after the Wayanad one, there was very little planning done for this, oweing to the fact that all of us had a huge amount of work awaiting to be finished before we left for the weekend. But, nevertheless we had a general idea of the direction and route that we were going to take, thanks to phani who stumbled upon mapmyindia.com.
Day 1: 28-April-2007 (Saturday).
So, as per the plan, we were supposed to reach Munnar on the first day, and it was decided that we should leave Bangalore by 7:00 AM at any cost, even if it meant leaving Anuj behind. :-). But surprisingly he was the first to reach Delmia circle, our usual start point. We started off from Bangalore on Kanakpura road, with me and Pavan on my Pulsar-150, Phani and Subbu on the Blaze and Ketan, Kshitij and Anuj in the Zen. The day started off with a peaceful drive when the devil took over and I freaked out a bus driver on the highway :D. The road was fairly wide and there was a truck which was being overtaken by a mini truck and I was cruising at 100 trying to overtake them both. It was a mirror image on the opposite side too with a bus trying to get past a truck. The bus driver who had almost crossed the truck and was on his extreme right, freaked out when he saw me come out from next to the mini truck and frantically tried to "steer out of my way" :D. That was some sweet revenge for all the times that I had to get out of the road to avoid buses trying to overtake with no regard for riders.
Soon we hit Kanakpura and headed towards the Satyamangalam Ghat(the abode of Veerappan) through Malavalli and Chamrajnagar. Not surprisingly we didnt come across any elephants nor sandalwood trees :D. Soon I decided that I would go pillion with Phani and Pavan would get to drive. That was some roller coaster drive that I had and Phani and his Blaze didn't fail to surprise me. The blaze sure has some amazing grip on sand. We were constantly switching the configs on the bikes to make sure everyone had their share of the ride. There was this section on NH209 when Pavan decided to max the bike and show me fear. He tried to take a curve at 70-80 (thankfully on a banked road) when the right side of the bike made contact with the road and the general reaction to that was to straighten the bike. That was when we realised that we wouldnt complete the curve and we were about to crash into the railing seperating us from the cliff. Pavan was busy trying to get the bike back into control and I was busy choosing the right place to jump off the bike when thankfully we got back into control :-). Pavan was probably taking sweet revenge for all the scares that I gave him :D. Soon we hit Sayamangalam and stopped for lunch. Soon after we started on our way to Udumalpet with Annur as our waypoint, we were stopped by the police and checked for license, registration and drunken driving. Phani, the one without the license was lucky to be sitting pillion at that time behind a responsible driver with a licence, which would be me :D. But, apparently the Annur highway police who stopped us 20 Kms later didnt agree that I was a responsible driver. When they pulled me over, I was under the impression that it was yet another routine check, and confidently put on the indicator and pulled over. Phani got off the bike and went to buy some "gum" when he saw me "begging" the police men. Shocked at what could have gone wrong, he ran over only to find that I was slapped with a speeding ticket. Getting a speeding ticket in India would have been the last thing that I would have expected as an offence. Given that Annur was our waypoint, we had slowed down to 50 from our constant speed of 110+ when we were stopped by the police. We decided to argue using that when we were told that we were stopped because of a wireless from a checkpost barricades 4kms before (through which we went at a speed of over 100), asking them to stop two people in red on a black bike. Well, we tried our hand at various pointless and silly arguments such as "Sir, this is not red" (we were wearing orange shirts actually. See pic),
and "Sir, that bike doesnt go above 80" etc. The officer was in no mood to hear our arguments and slapped us a fine of 500/- for rash driving, bad overtaking and over speeding. Phani tried to get to the point a little too directly by asking him how much he wanted. Finally we were able to get away with a fine of just 200/-, when Phani asked him, "Sir, how many more check posts are there?" to which the policeman replied "Dont worry, that ticked is valid for 24hrs ;-)". Now that is surprising, a policeman with a sense of humor.
Soon we decided to go to Udumalpet through Pallad. Me and subbu reached Pallad first and were gulping down one chai after another and priding ourselves at taking a HUGE lead when we got a call from the others saying that they had bypassed Pallad by taking a shortcut.
Frustrated at getting L'ed so badly, we tried to catchup to them when the rain played spoil sport on our drive. But, nevertheless it was an amazing drive through the windmill farms close to udumalpet, at night, though rain and lightning. The crosswinds were actually pushing our bike away from the line I wanted it to take. Soon, I found myself straining hard to look at the road in the night with the rain lashing across my spectacles, making me wish they had a set of wipers. Soon at one point I found myself on the right side of the road and down an incline, and I tried to get back to my side when we went through a huge pond/river of water which had collected on the road. That gave us the scare of our lives. Soon we reached Udumalpet without any further "incidents" and were able to find a very good place to stay (Annamalai Hotels). The first thing that we enquired was if they had a TV and if the match (Australia Vs Srilanka, World Cup 2007 finals) was on. We finally ended the day with a rough plan for the next day. Thus came to an end the first of the four days of what later prooved to be our best trip so far.
Day 2: 29-April-2007 (Sunday).
The plan for this day was to start off by 6:30 in the morning towards Munnar from our Hotel room in Udumalpet. But getting delayed there was also implicit in the plan given that all the cricket buffs and Kshitij (:)) were busy watching the match late into the night.
Soon we were on our way when we had to stop to get Phani's suspension tightened (his bike's actually :-)). But, given that the group comprised mostly of Computer Engineers and Anuj, we failed miserably at it. And again we set off and the beauty of the ride started from the Chinnar forest section. Anuj and me who were on the Pulsar were having a peaceful ride, when I noticed a movement in the bushes to my left a few meters ahead, and even before I could battle an eyelid let alone reach for the brakes, a deer with a shiny brown coat swept past my bike barely missing the front tyre. It wasnt much of a shock given the speed at which the events took place, but we were certainly astonished at the speed of the deer.
Soon we were again back to our cruise mode, admiring the picturesque beauty around us when the urge to "rip" through that section got the best of me and we were again going at speeds of over 100 in that narrow road trying to maintain our line on the extreme left edge when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Anuj reached over and asked me if I had a look to my left, which I hadnt done till then given that I was concentrating hard on looking out for oncoming vehicles and staying on the left edge. One look over the valley edge that we were driving at startled me enough to cut down my speed. We (me and Anuj) completed this journey( udumalpet to munnar) without a break and this became a cause for concen to the others, which was fair for the two reasons that they knew my penchant for the adrenalin rush and the existence of a valley beside us which I could have comfortably missed seeing, given my track record of having failed to spot an ELEPHANT standing right in the middle of the road. They were wondering whether they would have to order a search party for us in the valley when they found us lazing around 3kms before munnar on a lawn beside a small stream. (See pic).
Given that it was a very scenic drive that we had, Pavan walks over to Anuj and says "Peaceful ride..." to which Anuj shakes his head and says "No Peace" :D. I really shouldnt have spoiled the ride for him which I guess was made up for on the way back. Soon we reached munnar and had lunch at a place called "Munnar Inn" and bought a travellers map to decide on the places we were going to visit. We applied the most basic version of the "Travelling Salesman" :D to decide the places we were going to visit and decided that we would go to TopStation, a point on the Munnar-Kodai Trek route about 34kms from Munnar and visit all the places along the way. The first on the way was a lake where we planned to go for boating, which was unfortunately closed to the fact that it was raining. But the views from that place were an eyeful. (See pic below).
Soon, we headed off and found a signboard leading to another lake which claimed to provide boating facilities. Phani went to check it out despite the fact that he was running low on fuel on his bike which could hold an enourmous 6 litres of fuel. We decided to give that place a visit on phani's recommendation and proceeded down to the lake which was infact a dam. (See pic).
Soon, we headed to TopStation and reached the place shortly and got to know that it was infact the famous Munar-Kodaikanal trekking trail. It began to rain and we took shelter in a place which served bread-omelette the likes of which I had never tasted before. The subsequent hot chai in the chilly rain tasted very good or should I say "hazaar good" :-).
Soon we had to drive back to Munnar and find a place to stay and we started back from TopStation. Night had fallen and it was raining continuously when we started the journey back (34Kms). The rain had turned all the red mud into slush and car, let alone our bikes was swaying from side to side even on straights. In fact me and pavan stopped the bike to check if we had a puncture and if I finally got to use my puncture kit which I had bought for these emergencies :-). That drive though the rain and lightning in those ghats with mist which seemed like steam coming out of the road made that drive a heavenly one. It was one of the best drives I had ever had.
Soon we reached Munnar and were trying to look for a place to stay when we realised that most people seemed to have chosen munnar for their weekend getaway and that all rooms were full. We went to a place which couldnt get any shadier than that and we were asked 650 for it. We decided that we badly needed fuel (not the vehicles) and we went back to munnar inn for dinner. Anuj tried to get us a place to stay and tried to get leads from a taxi driver who also did confirm that were screwed. We tried our luck one last time by asking the owner of munnar inn who said that he could let us stay at his guest house about 8kms from munnar on the bangalore-cochin highway for 2000/-. The idea of staying at a guest house seemed very appealing and we jumped at the suggestion. I was trying to make sure that it had enough sleeping arrangements for all of us and I asked him, "Are all the arrangements done". The guy gave me a blank stare for a whole minute when I decided to make it more clear and said "I meant the beds and mattresses" which brought back a relieved smile on to his face and he replied that there were enough arrangements. He gave us the necessary directions and we paid the 2K cash upfront and proceeded to the guest house (2nd Mile was the name).
Soon we found ourselves on the Munnar-Cochin route and I started counting the kilometres when we began to doubt if we had been conned. Soon the first of his landmarks showed up and releived our concerns and we found the caretaker waiting for us. (Time: about 11:15 at night). He told us that it was a very steep road to the guest house and led us to it. The road led a good 500-700 metres up an almost 60degree incline. Kshitij decided that he couldnt get the car up and parked it down and they decided to walk up, but the bikes made it to the top. The place had a very spooky feeling around it and just looking around the neighbourhood sent shivers down our spines. We decided that it wasnt safe to stay here without calling home and letting them know our location. But unfortunately none of our service providers seemed to have coverage in that area. But, nevertheless we made a bank call in front of the caretaker, just to let him know that our whereabouts were known at home. But that night was a very memorable one, which we spent around a camp fire with bumps given to ketan (since it was his birthday) and anuj (since he was anuj).
We decided to spend the night chatting away (Topic: Life, The Universe and Everything) and watch the sunrise and sleep till afternoon and start off to Ooty. Soon we were served tea (Black Tea) which all of us gulped with pleasure except Phani who was still suspictious of the place. :)). That night was spent away talking and mostly lauging till our sides ached. The conversations drifted from the "Dual nature of light" (the questions on this topic were mostly answered by subbu by shining a beam from the torch that he was weilding :-)) to taunting ketan with shouts of "What a man!!!" for his descriptions of the only time when Kshitij got drunk and how Ketan "helped" him. :D. Soon we retired to bed and that put an end to the second day of our trip.
Day 1: 28-April-2007 (Saturday).
So, as per the plan, we were supposed to reach Munnar on the first day, and it was decided that we should leave Bangalore by 7:00 AM at any cost, even if it meant leaving Anuj behind. :-). But surprisingly he was the first to reach Delmia circle, our usual start point. We started off from Bangalore on Kanakpura road, with me and Pavan on my Pulsar-150, Phani and Subbu on the Blaze and Ketan, Kshitij and Anuj in the Zen. The day started off with a peaceful drive when the devil took over and I freaked out a bus driver on the highway :D. The road was fairly wide and there was a truck which was being overtaken by a mini truck and I was cruising at 100 trying to overtake them both. It was a mirror image on the opposite side too with a bus trying to get past a truck. The bus driver who had almost crossed the truck and was on his extreme right, freaked out when he saw me come out from next to the mini truck and frantically tried to "steer out of my way" :D. That was some sweet revenge for all the times that I had to get out of the road to avoid buses trying to overtake with no regard for riders.
Soon we hit Kanakpura and headed towards the Satyamangalam Ghat(the abode of Veerappan) through Malavalli and Chamrajnagar. Not surprisingly we didnt come across any elephants nor sandalwood trees :D. Soon I decided that I would go pillion with Phani and Pavan would get to drive. That was some roller coaster drive that I had and Phani and his Blaze didn't fail to surprise me. The blaze sure has some amazing grip on sand. We were constantly switching the configs on the bikes to make sure everyone had their share of the ride. There was this section on NH209 when Pavan decided to max the bike and show me fear. He tried to take a curve at 70-80 (thankfully on a banked road) when the right side of the bike made contact with the road and the general reaction to that was to straighten the bike. That was when we realised that we wouldnt complete the curve and we were about to crash into the railing seperating us from the cliff. Pavan was busy trying to get the bike back into control and I was busy choosing the right place to jump off the bike when thankfully we got back into control :-). Pavan was probably taking sweet revenge for all the scares that I gave him :D. Soon we hit Sayamangalam and stopped for lunch. Soon after we started on our way to Udumalpet with Annur as our waypoint, we were stopped by the police and checked for license, registration and drunken driving. Phani, the one without the license was lucky to be sitting pillion at that time behind a responsible driver with a licence, which would be me :D. But, apparently the Annur highway police who stopped us 20 Kms later didnt agree that I was a responsible driver. When they pulled me over, I was under the impression that it was yet another routine check, and confidently put on the indicator and pulled over. Phani got off the bike and went to buy some "gum" when he saw me "begging" the police men. Shocked at what could have gone wrong, he ran over only to find that I was slapped with a speeding ticket. Getting a speeding ticket in India would have been the last thing that I would have expected as an offence. Given that Annur was our waypoint, we had slowed down to 50 from our constant speed of 110+ when we were stopped by the police. We decided to argue using that when we were told that we were stopped because of a wireless from a checkpost barricades 4kms before (through which we went at a speed of over 100), asking them to stop two people in red on a black bike. Well, we tried our hand at various pointless and silly arguments such as "Sir, this is not red" (we were wearing orange shirts actually. See pic),
and "Sir, that bike doesnt go above 80" etc. The officer was in no mood to hear our arguments and slapped us a fine of 500/- for rash driving, bad overtaking and over speeding. Phani tried to get to the point a little too directly by asking him how much he wanted. Finally we were able to get away with a fine of just 200/-, when Phani asked him, "Sir, how many more check posts are there?" to which the policeman replied "Dont worry, that ticked is valid for 24hrs ;-)". Now that is surprising, a policeman with a sense of humor.Soon we decided to go to Udumalpet through Pallad. Me and subbu reached Pallad first and were gulping down one chai after another and priding ourselves at taking a HUGE lead when we got a call from the others saying that they had bypassed Pallad by taking a shortcut.
Frustrated at getting L'ed so badly, we tried to catchup to them when the rain played spoil sport on our drive. But, nevertheless it was an amazing drive through the windmill farms close to udumalpet, at night, though rain and lightning. The crosswinds were actually pushing our bike away from the line I wanted it to take. Soon, I found myself straining hard to look at the road in the night with the rain lashing across my spectacles, making me wish they had a set of wipers. Soon at one point I found myself on the right side of the road and down an incline, and I tried to get back to my side when we went through a huge pond/river of water which had collected on the road. That gave us the scare of our lives. Soon we reached Udumalpet without any further "incidents" and were able to find a very good place to stay (Annamalai Hotels). The first thing that we enquired was if they had a TV and if the match (Australia Vs Srilanka, World Cup 2007 finals) was on. We finally ended the day with a rough plan for the next day. Thus came to an end the first of the four days of what later prooved to be our best trip so far.
Day 2: 29-April-2007 (Sunday).
The plan for this day was to start off by 6:30 in the morning towards Munnar from our Hotel room in Udumalpet. But getting delayed there was also implicit in the plan given that all the cricket buffs and Kshitij (:)) were busy watching the match late into the night.
Soon we were on our way when we had to stop to get Phani's suspension tightened (his bike's actually :-)). But, given that the group comprised mostly of Computer Engineers and Anuj, we failed miserably at it. And again we set off and the beauty of the ride started from the Chinnar forest section. Anuj and me who were on the Pulsar were having a peaceful ride, when I noticed a movement in the bushes to my left a few meters ahead, and even before I could battle an eyelid let alone reach for the brakes, a deer with a shiny brown coat swept past my bike barely missing the front tyre. It wasnt much of a shock given the speed at which the events took place, but we were certainly astonished at the speed of the deer.
Soon we were again back to our cruise mode, admiring the picturesque beauty around us when the urge to "rip" through that section got the best of me and we were again going at speeds of over 100 in that narrow road trying to maintain our line on the extreme left edge when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Anuj reached over and asked me if I had a look to my left, which I hadnt done till then given that I was concentrating hard on looking out for oncoming vehicles and staying on the left edge. One look over the valley edge that we were driving at startled me enough to cut down my speed. We (me and Anuj) completed this journey( udumalpet to munnar) without a break and this became a cause for concen to the others, which was fair for the two reasons that they knew my penchant for the adrenalin rush and the existence of a valley beside us which I could have comfortably missed seeing, given my track record of having failed to spot an ELEPHANT standing right in the middle of the road. They were wondering whether they would have to order a search party for us in the valley when they found us lazing around 3kms before munnar on a lawn beside a small stream. (See pic).
Given that it was a very scenic drive that we had, Pavan walks over to Anuj and says "Peaceful ride..." to which Anuj shakes his head and says "No Peace" :D. I really shouldnt have spoiled the ride for him which I guess was made up for on the way back. Soon we reached munnar and had lunch at a place called "Munnar Inn" and bought a travellers map to decide on the places we were going to visit. We applied the most basic version of the "Travelling Salesman" :D to decide the places we were going to visit and decided that we would go to TopStation, a point on the Munnar-Kodai Trek route about 34kms from Munnar and visit all the places along the way. The first on the way was a lake where we planned to go for boating, which was unfortunately closed to the fact that it was raining. But the views from that place were an eyeful. (See pic below).
Soon, we headed off and found a signboard leading to another lake which claimed to provide boating facilities. Phani went to check it out despite the fact that he was running low on fuel on his bike which could hold an enourmous 6 litres of fuel. We decided to give that place a visit on phani's recommendation and proceeded down to the lake which was infact a dam. (See pic).
Soon, we headed to TopStation and reached the place shortly and got to know that it was infact the famous Munar-Kodaikanal trekking trail. It began to rain and we took shelter in a place which served bread-omelette the likes of which I had never tasted before. The subsequent hot chai in the chilly rain tasted very good or should I say "hazaar good" :-).
Soon we had to drive back to Munnar and find a place to stay and we started back from TopStation. Night had fallen and it was raining continuously when we started the journey back (34Kms). The rain had turned all the red mud into slush and car, let alone our bikes was swaying from side to side even on straights. In fact me and pavan stopped the bike to check if we had a puncture and if I finally got to use my puncture kit which I had bought for these emergencies :-). That drive though the rain and lightning in those ghats with mist which seemed like steam coming out of the road made that drive a heavenly one. It was one of the best drives I had ever had.
Soon we reached Munnar and were trying to look for a place to stay when we realised that most people seemed to have chosen munnar for their weekend getaway and that all rooms were full. We went to a place which couldnt get any shadier than that and we were asked 650 for it. We decided that we badly needed fuel (not the vehicles) and we went back to munnar inn for dinner. Anuj tried to get us a place to stay and tried to get leads from a taxi driver who also did confirm that were screwed. We tried our luck one last time by asking the owner of munnar inn who said that he could let us stay at his guest house about 8kms from munnar on the bangalore-cochin highway for 2000/-. The idea of staying at a guest house seemed very appealing and we jumped at the suggestion. I was trying to make sure that it had enough sleeping arrangements for all of us and I asked him, "Are all the arrangements done". The guy gave me a blank stare for a whole minute when I decided to make it more clear and said "I meant the beds and mattresses" which brought back a relieved smile on to his face and he replied that there were enough arrangements. He gave us the necessary directions and we paid the 2K cash upfront and proceeded to the guest house (2nd Mile was the name).
Soon we found ourselves on the Munnar-Cochin route and I started counting the kilometres when we began to doubt if we had been conned. Soon the first of his landmarks showed up and releived our concerns and we found the caretaker waiting for us. (Time: about 11:15 at night). He told us that it was a very steep road to the guest house and led us to it. The road led a good 500-700 metres up an almost 60degree incline. Kshitij decided that he couldnt get the car up and parked it down and they decided to walk up, but the bikes made it to the top. The place had a very spooky feeling around it and just looking around the neighbourhood sent shivers down our spines. We decided that it wasnt safe to stay here without calling home and letting them know our location. But unfortunately none of our service providers seemed to have coverage in that area. But, nevertheless we made a bank call in front of the caretaker, just to let him know that our whereabouts were known at home. But that night was a very memorable one, which we spent around a camp fire with bumps given to ketan (since it was his birthday) and anuj (since he was anuj).
We decided to spend the night chatting away (Topic: Life, The Universe and Everything) and watch the sunrise and sleep till afternoon and start off to Ooty. Soon we were served tea (Black Tea) which all of us gulped with pleasure except Phani who was still suspictious of the place. :)). That night was spent away talking and mostly lauging till our sides ached. The conversations drifted from the "Dual nature of light" (the questions on this topic were mostly answered by subbu by shining a beam from the torch that he was weilding :-)) to taunting ketan with shouts of "What a man!!!" for his descriptions of the only time when Kshitij got drunk and how Ketan "helped" him. :D. Soon we retired to bed and that put an end to the second day of our trip.
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