The Bike trip - Wayanad

Finally, after years of torture, my brain agreed to listen to my heart for a bike trip. Wow, 2nd trip in 2010 in 2 weeks. Good going!!

The Cast
Puttar 'D' Pathar lead the pack with his Thunderbird. Man with a mission.
AJ Chakravarti aka Emperor. His mind and mouth travels faster than his pre-historic bullet (he likes to call it Vintage!!!).
Shanth Roam-esh had invited me to the trip. I heard he provided quite an entertainment on the way after shifting 2 gears, ehm... 2 beers ;).
SixFace the chauffeur was flying his Santro throughout the trip, except when he lost way, which was most of the time!!
The 'Learned' sharma and Miss India coolkarni brought in the glamour quotient.

It was few days before the actual trip that Shanth Roamesh told me about a plan to go on a bike trip to Wayanad in Kerala. The proud Malayali in me immediately said yes. The funny thing is that when I was living in my home town in Kerala, I was looking for a way out of there to explore the world. Once out, I have spent loads of money to visit places in Kerala as a tourist!

Jan 30th was the D day. After our night shift in office, we were off the grid in 3 bikes, a car and 7 wandering minds. We were late by an hour from our scheduled departure time. I was still happy with that because the Kodaikanal trip that I did 2 weeks earlier started more than 3 hours late. Frankly, I was little concerned about the drive without sleep, but the excitement pulled me through. From Dairy Circle, we went to the BTM 2nd stage filling station. I had my bike fully loaded the day before. Through Jayanagar and Banashankari, we quickly hit the Mysore road (State Highway 17). I adjusted the trip meter to 0. The fun had started!

That was the first time I pushed Hamara Bajaj to over 90km/hr. AJ's Vintage bullet was already experiencing some problem with the electricals and its lights were out - first warning. Hamara Bajaj and Thunderbird gave him cover from the front and rear. Smoke breaks were imminent with men on the saddle. As we were going to Kerala, I could have recommended Beedi to the gang :). The ride through SH17 is more polished these days with enough petrol filling stations, restaurants and 24 hour cafe shops (Cafe Coffee day & Barista). From my house in Arekere, the Mysore road Barista is around 50km and CCD is another 20km. Later I figured that there are 2 more CCDs before that in Mysore road. They have a McDonald as well for the Mac patrons. Our first major stop was at the exit point of Mandya  for breakfast - hotel Jyothi International. Give it a miss unless you don't have any other option. Your taste buds deserve better. My Canon S5 IS came out of its shell during this break. My fellow bikers were impressed with the outcome of that photoshoot.

Moving on, as we reached Mysore border, we took a right at the Columbia Asia hospital traffic signal towards the ring road. This allows you to avoid Mysore town and the traffic. Though it is a longer route, the traffic was meager. You might have to check with the local folks couple of times to keep you in the right road. Ask for Nanjangud. Otherwise look for the sign boards which says Ooty/Calicut/Nanjangud. The 2 Bullet boys had taken this road earlier and went ahead of us. I lost my way in between for about 5 minutes, but was back on track with some local help. At the outskirts of Mysore city area, I entered NH212 and found the Bullets waiting for me and the car. That turned out to be the last time I stopped my bike before entering Kerala. Nanjangud is a town in Mysore district and the road between Mysore city area and Nanjangud is mostly crowded. The road was not as smooth as SH17 and be careful with loads of speed breakers. They should be renamed back breakers. I crossed Nanjangud and headed towards Gundlupet. Here, the roads were narrow, but gives you a lovely drive with a barren but beautiful view on both sides. You will find many people selling Coconut water on road side. On the way, I noticed the Santro zipping past me and the Bullets on a smoke/coconut water/break. The interesting part of the folks in these places are their undeniable love for white, mostly expressed by wearing white shirts.

At the exit of Gundlupet town area,  I took the right turn towards Kerala border. For Bandipur/Mudumalai/Ooty, you need to avoid the right and continue with the straight road. I was excited to see the sign board which read Sultan Bathery -50KM. Traffic was light except for the goats, cows and their other black cousins. The best part of this road is that it goes through Bandipur National Park zone. Try not to park your vehicles in this zone though it is hard to resist with the lovely view and quietness. It belongs to the wildlife. After covering significant ground through this road, Kerala announced its existance with multiple checkposts and signboards in Malayalam. I think Kerala can stake claim for running the most number of border checkposts. May be God wants a strict check on those entering God's Own Country.

The weather there was hot. Once in Wayanad, I crossed Muthanga and headed towards Sultan Bathery. Sultan Bathery is the largest town in Wayanad and got its name from Tipu Sultan who captured the Jain temple in 18th century. I reached the place around 12.10PM. Before the trip began, I was told that we will be staying in Sunbird Garden Resort. So I went straight to the resort and figured there was no booking for that day! Oops, what did I miss.... The mobile signal was not available in that area and I was unable to reach the rest of the gang. Later, I realized there were few mistakes that we made. After Gudlupet, I had sent an SMS to Shanth Roam-esh that I was heading to the destination directly, but never bothered to call him and confirm. Shanth had switched off his mobile and had not seen my message. The Bullet amigos had not noticed the SixFace racing his car ahead of them and were waiting somewhere before Gundlupet. SixFace had gone ahead and was waiting for the rest of the gang in Gundlupet. I waited for nobody and went straight to the destination...Finally the Bullets and Santro got together and reached Wayanad.

While waiting to hear from the gang, I stopped in a small shop and had Naranga sathu (Lime juice). I pulled out my Canon for couple of shots as well. Luckily the mobile network was back and I got a call from Pattar. We met up and he updated me that we are going to another resort due to some tariff problem with the first resort we had decided on. Destination - Karapuzha Lakeshore Resort. I was happy to know that I can hit the bed soon, but that was not the case. We went on and on and on and again on and on and on!!!!!!!

The drive to this resort was beautiful, Kerala in full glory. Very narrow roads, lot of path holes. After quite a ride and no resort in sight, we stopped and contacted the resort to send somebody and pick us up. The place where we stopped was beautiful with a big lake on one side and paddy fields on the other. 2 good samaritans from the resort finally came in their Yamaha and lead the way. 3:00 PM!! The entry to the resort had a board which said - an ultimate destination to feel the nature. I guess it was. Though the place won't get many points compared to other 5 star resorts, it was clean and spacious and quite close to nature. After a quick bath, I ran to have some Kerala food. Good...Pattar bhai and Shanth bhai hit the bed. That was when it started- AJ and SixFace arranged for Kerala's "National" drink - Kallu aka Toddy. 2 of them gulped around 15 litres of it in 2 days. Let me not go into the details, but bravo to both. At the end of it, they were still in control of themself. The whole gang except me, hit the bed soon and were down and out in seconds. I decided to venture out and experiment with my photography skill. About 150metres from the resort is the Karapuzha (lake). After spending some time there, I was back infront of our room, tired. The door was locked. After trying to wake the inmates for more than 10 minutes with continuous banging on the door, I gave up. I settled down on a chair in front and gave in to my sleep cells. Mosquitoes can be quite powerful and they proved their might attacking me for the next 2 hours. Dinner was ready around 8.30 with most of us still in the dream world. It was quite a task to wake up everybody. Resort had arranged for a bonfire and the second round of fun started.

I called up my folks and updated them about my whereabouts. After exploring the resort in the moonlight, I headed towards the bonfire. They served food and special red meat we had asked for. It was not bad. Then they showed their skill at grill chicken in the bonfire. Unfortunately, it turned out to be burnt chicken. They need to learn how to do it better. The heavier souls in our gang were busy with their fight with alcohol to prove who is stronger. I decided to hit the bed...

The morning weather was good with some fog around. They served appam with sugar/pickle for breakfast. Good. My Canon was back in action and happy to find some smiling faces. The plan for the morning was to challenge Chembra peak for a quick showdown of our trekking skills. Afternoon we would go to Pookote Lake, Edakkal caves, Meenmutty falls and Suchipara. Plans, I tell you - if humans are paid 1 paise for every plan they make, the world would have no poverty!

The drive to Chembra peak was beautiful. We stopped on the way in a coffee plantation to click few snaps. The last stretch of road to Chembra peak is private property. At the base camp, we got the necessary permission paying Rs.500. That is the minimum price you have to pay for upto 10 people. If there are more than 10 people, the charge increases. I would say, it is worth with a guide they provide to take us around. After parking the vehicle in the base camp, we started our walk. First halt was the watch tower before the actual climb/trek starts. The rest is history!!! The trek has 2 levels. First one is medium difficulty level until the Heart-shaped lake and from the lake to the peak is hard trek. The guide informed me that we can go upto the lake and be back at the base camp in about 2.5 hours -Oh really!! The view was beautiful, sun was gorgeous and the people as usual - horrible ;). It was like watching a mega serial live :(. The reason for this long saga was the same set of people who make such mega serials a success- the fairer ones among us. They spent more time taking breaks than actually climbing. They were so tired. God, I have just one question for you - Why does their tongue never get tired???  I am still wondering if we went for a trek or to take the survery of the land. I should ask the government to pay us for making it up there. To keep the story short, let me summarize - we finished the entire trek in about 6 hours!!!!!!!!!!!

Exhausted, tired, hungry, thirsty - I need more words in the dictionary to describe the condition. We had asked our Resort to send our breakfast to the location of trek earlier in the day. They did and it had to wait for more than 7 hours to find our stomach. Near the base parking lot, there was a beautiful small stream of water surrounded by rocks. We took rest on the rocks while having food. Helped a lot!

The car fellows were not happy with the food and they decided to find a restaurant. If I remember right, it was Hotel Paris that kept them going. 3 of us on the bike decided to go the other way to Lakkidi view point. The drive was totally worth it. Curves and the charm of Wayanad all the way. I did not like the view point itself so much, but really enjoyed the drive towards it. Canon got more opportunity to impress. I guess Pattar bhai was hungry, he gulped 4 ice cream candy bars in no time. I got one too. On the way back was when the ride got really exciting. The Vintage bike was giving trouble now. We stopped at a small workshop and then.....the bike just wouldn't start :( The workshop guy played around with his tools on the Vintage beast for almost an hour. We then decided to leave the bullet at the shop for charging its battery and find a restaurant to charge us. We found Paris in Wayanad and ordered red meat and parotta. The gang was surprised to find them provide us hot plates. Loved the food. We finished it off with chai. Happy stomach creates happy minds- so true! Not for long :( We went back to the workshop, got the bike and hit the road back to our resort. On the way, we had to wait for almost 20 minutes on the road because of a procession from a nearby Catholic Church occupying the road. It was a peaceful procession and thank God for that and had nothing to do with a Bandh or Hartal. Once we entered coffee plantation road, trouble hit us again. The Vintage beast stopped and wouldn't move. We decided to split. I lead the way for the car towards the resort while AJ, Pattar and Shanth bhai decided to stay back and get the bullet back to life.

After a quick shower in the resort, I wanted to stay out in the night to get the best out of it. Noooo, no naughty thoughts-it was a moonlit night and enjoyed every bit of the charm. Soon the other gang reached the resort. They had to leave the bike behind in a good samaritan's shop. The resort people tried calling few of their contacts to figure out what can be done, but with no success. We decided to take it up next morning. That did not stop us from filling our stomach. The beer/toddy/whisky gang was going strong again! The fairer ones among us were facing some problem in their room-lizard I guess. They looked scared like watching Ram Gopal Varma's movies! After their performance during the 6 hour trek and our resolve not to let RGV win, Shanth Bhai and me decided to exchange rooms with them. I couldn't find any lizard that night, not even in my dreams...

Day 3... With so much confusion about our plans, I was up and ready to face the music how ever it sounded. Finally, Pattar bhai, Emperor AJ and Shanth bhai decided to stay back for few more hours while I and SixFace decided to head back to Bangalore. Santro carried the Lizard lovers as well. 8.30AM and we were out on the road. I lead the Santro until the main road where it flew past me. Not for long.. When we reached the checkpost area, SixFace remembered that his Santro needed a drink as well. The people around informed him that the next filling station was 45km forward or 13km behind. He decided to play it safe and turned around towards Sultan Battery. I was alone, driving my heart with so much excitement. I realized that it was the drive itself that excited me the most than the resort or any place we visited in Wayanad. I challenged myself to reach the destination before anybody with not more than 3 stops. Going past the Kerala border,  and through the sanctuary road, it was awesome. It was so refreshing and beautiful to drive between those trees. I was hoping to see some animals. All I found was our ancestors coming down the trees. I kept the bike above 60 most of the time here and once out of the woods and nearing  Gundlupet, I kept it between 70-80. My first stop was for a minute between Gundlupet and Nanjangud to relieve my posterior (damn complicated word ;)) property of all the stress.

The weather was getting hotter. Nanjangud to Mysore was not much of fun with traffic and not so comfortable speed breakers. I decided to avoid Mysore city and used the ring road to get around and join the Bangalore-Mysore state highway (SH17) at the Columbia Asia hospital traffic signal. In SH17, my bike found a much smoother ride until Mandya Town where the traffic was thick. It was time for me to listen to the 'Call of Ktulu'. Damn, what! I just want to have my lunch. I guess I have been writing/riding for too long to make sense anymore. Gururaj hotel served me limited meals-average on taste. After that 40 minutes lunch break, I was back on the road and feeling the heat. After crossing Ramanagara, I made my 3rd and final stop for 3 minutes before the final destination. This time, I wanted to check out the NICE corridor bypass that took me directly to Bannerghatta road from the state highway. It is a toll road and bikes have to be careful of heavy trucks though the traffic itself is very normal.

3PM- Home sweet home. 290KM, total for 3 days was between 650-700km. Tanned, tired, excited, happy- completely worth it!!! Why did I not take this ride earlier.....

Please leave  your comments in the comments section...