When I requested for a day's leave on 24th June, my Project Leader asked me the reason. I did not have any reason except for the fact that the proposed plan for Rock Climbing on 26th June has been cancelled and I had nothing to do for the weekend.
I told her precisely that and also told her that mostly I may go out somewhere on 25th June just to take a break. At that nothing was planned. Called up my friend and I was terribly surprised to find that he agreed to the sudden plan.
The initial plan was to go biking from Bangalore (Karnataka, India) to Yercaud (Tamil Nadu, India) and return.
The plan was changed to go biking from Bangalore to Cannanore(Kerala, India) and return on the same route. (This plan was not followed to full extent as we shall see the total break of the plan in following paragraphs)
My colleagues, Raghuram and Jimson helped me in finding out the weather conditions and route map for the bike ride. Jimson also gave some valuable suggestions about bike riding on a long journey. In fact, he gave me a copy of the paper he had seen regarding the same. It had lots and lots of instructions. A copy of the same can be found here
With just 6 hours left for the journey to begin, I prepared two lists. A Bike List and a Personal list. We chose to drive the TVS Victor (friends) instead of Bajaj Caliber 115 (mine). The bike had just reached reserve and so needed fuel early morning.
Day 1:
We (me and my friend) left Bangalore at 5:30 AM on Friday, 26th June. Filled full tank of petrol at the nearest petrol bunk. The back pack was heavy and me being the pillion rider could not bear the burn in my butt for more than 2 hours. The first place to stop was Mandya (Karnataka, India). We had our breakfast. Bought a pain spray and my friend gave a his home a call. I drove rest of the journey from Mandya till Srirangapatna (Karnataka, India). Here, we had to decide upon the way (two routes possible) to reach Hunsur (Karnataka, India). A villager came to help and told us to take a deviation right here at Srirangapatna instead of going to Hunsur via Mysore because that would be an additional 20 Km.
The next stop was at Hunsur. Average speed was 60 KMPH. This route was familiar till Hunsur because it is the same route to Coorg (Karnataka, India). At Hunsur, we deviate to Virajpet(Karnataka, India). Virajpet is 244 Km from Bangalore. Around 5 Km before reaching Virajpet there is a deviation to Cannanore (Our destination for Day 1). We reached this junction at 11:45 AM. This route from Virajpet to Cannanore is breathtaking. It is amidst thick jungle.
Upon reaching Karnataka-Kerala border, we stopped at a small water fall and filled our water bottle. We could immediately feel the untouched nature of Kerala. It is really “Gods own country”. We were riding beside a river whose name we did not bother to know. At Iritti (Kerala, India) we crossed the river to go to Cannanore. From Iritti to Cannanore was mostly downhill with awesome greenery around the roads. I got reminded of my trekking to Bisle (Karnataka, India) and Kudremukh(Karnataka, India). There was Rubber Tree plantations and other spice plantations. The houses in this route are built keeping nature into consideration. There is hardly any house that is completely visible. Most of them are covered by trees and plants. There are green algae growing in the walls making them more close to nature. One problem we had to face was the lack of proper milestones and signboards. Locating the towns was a nightmare because we could hardly find English. Most of them were in Malayalam which both of could not decipher.
We reached Cannanore at 2:45 PM and had our lunch. We found that not much is there in Cannanore to visit except for a beach. That beach was pathetic and not much fun in store. So, we immediately decided to leave for Talassery (Kerala, India). We heard that there was a drive-in beach at Mulappilangadu (Kerala, India) on the way to Talassery.
This beach was good because of the drive-in and we spent considerable amount of time in this beach. The blunder then was committed by my friend. He rode the bike too close to the water for want of a good snap. The bike did not start for nearly 15 minutes. Then we geared up to reach Talassery for the Halt. Talassery is 370 Km from Bangalore. We reached Talassery at 6:30 PM.
We were very disappointed to find ourselves going back the same route tomorrow with nothing in store at Cannanore, Talassery and Mahe(Pondicherry, India). When we went for an inquiry about accommodation to a 3 star hotel in Talassery, the receptionist gave us another idea. We could go to Wayanad(Kerala, India) and then decide either to go to Bangalore or Ooty(TamilNadu, India). We were very excited about the idea and decided we shall go to Ooty. My friend was more excited as he had never visited Ooty before. With the receptionist help we got the route to go to Manantoddy (Kerala, India). Manantoddy represents the Wayanad. We halted at Talassery but not in that 3 star hotel as that would be costly.
Day 2:
We started at 6:00 AM on Saturday, 26th June from Talassery to Ooty. It was raining but not heavily. Light showers, in contrast to the weather forecast Raghuram had found in Internet. The scenery was getting better and better and we climbed the mountains which we could see when we were at Talassery. Here was the first encounter of hair-pin curves.
The first stop was at Kuttuperamba(Kerala, India). We encountered Tea estates on way from Kuttuperamba to Manantoddy. Manantoddy represents the Wayanad area. Wayanad is amidst the Western Ghats. Manantoddy is 84 Km from Talassery. When I started to ride, my friend was giving me fundas about how not to over burden the vehicle. Apparently, the TVS Victor has and indicator for that purpose. It came very handy. We decided to have breakfast at our next stop in SultanBattery (Kerala, India).
Upon reaching SultanBattery, we went to an Udupi Restaurant to have the breakfast. We were served water that was Ayurveda treated. Some kind of root was used for that purpose. We could take either the Mysore route and to Bangalore or take the Gudalur route and reach Ooty. We decided on the later route.
Our next stop point was to be Gudalur(Nilgiris, TamilNadu, India). On our way to Gudalur we had to cross the Mudumalai Wild Life Sanctuary. We had to pay toll for entry into the forest. Mudumalai greeted us with a canopy of Bamboo Grass.
The scenery from Mudumalai border to Gudalur via Nellakottai(Nilgiris, TamilNadu, India) was breathtaking. I did that part of the riding and the hair-pin bends were simply challenging. Most of this part of the downhill until we reached Gudalur. We reached Gudalur at 12:30 PM. Gudalur is 174 Km from Talassery.
This place Gudalur is much commercialized with lot of tourist information displayed in huge hoardings. Despite that we inquired with a Bus Conductor about the route to Ooty. He indicated the two routes that can be taken to reach Ooty. One is via Mudumalai, Masinigudi, Kallatty Falls and another is via Pykara. He also told that the former route is steeper and not much traffic can be found in that route. The former route is a highway used by most of the vehicles is not much steep. We decided to take the former route as it is would be more challenging. Also, we planned to visit Kallatty Falls. We bought few snacks and left to Ooty via Mudumalai.
The path from Gudalur is complete downhill. In fact we could feel that we were going away from Ooty until we reached Mudumalai. We inquired about accommodation at Mudumalai and found out that there we no room available for stay. So, we had no other option than to reach Ooty and stay there for the night. (Staying at Ooty is a very costly affair!) On our way down to Mudumalai we spotted an Elephant and a couple of Deers. From Mudumalai, reaching Ooty was really an uphill task.
This route takes us to the base of the mountains and then starts to climb the mountains. This was the first time we were really worried about the Bike. I remember my friend learning how to combat the uphill hair-pin bend. It took a couple of them for him to find the proper technique. He used a different technique for encountering the left-curving bend and different technique for the right-curving bend. There were lots of instances when he rode the bike in the 1st gear for a long time. We stopped after nearly 16 hair-pin bends to cool the engine. We opened the oil tank cap to cool the oil. We did not change the oil here. Cooling the bike was at that instance was a wise decision. There were 16 more hair-pin bends to negotiate. I did not dare to ride the bike and was happy being a pillion rider capturing the beautiful cloud covered mountains and splendid rock faces.
There was one steep which we could never forget. That steep was nearly a 35 degree climb for nearly 400 meters. Special warning boards were displayed for vehicles coming in other direction to give way for uphill going vehicles. The entire climb was in 1st gear. After that steep, the remaining was negotiated with much ease as my friend had gained good confidence.
We reached Ooty railway station at 3:30 PM. Upon having our lunch we decided to hunt for a decent low-cost lodge. Oh. Did I forget to mention about Kallatty Falls? In fact, we completely forgot about going to the Kallatty falls. My friend was concentrating on climbing the steep climbs, while I was busy enjoying the natural beauty and taking snaps on the move. Ooty is 234 Km from Talassery. We got a lodge for Rs.200 per day in Commercial Road, Ooty.
We threw our luggage into the room and left to roam around Ooty. We decided to go to DoddaBetta(big mountain). DoddaBetta is nearly 8600 fts AMSL and is 9.5 Km from Ooty. The view from DoddaBetta was awesome. It started to rain as the clouds were hitting the mountains at that time. Luckily we could take some snaps before it started to rain.
From, DoddaBetta on our way back we noticed a Forest Office board mentioning the Trek Route in Doddabetta. That would have been terrific. While going downhill we stopped half way to spot not just one Rainbow but two of them. The rainbow was slowly moving away from us. After sometime, the rainbow went behind a hill and it looked as though, the hill was hanging like a bell tied to the rainbow string.
Then we visited the famous Botanical Gardens. We did some shopping in the Commercial Road and went to sleep at around 9:00 PM. The room was terribly chill. We could not keep our bare legs on the floor. It was like placing our foot on ice. We had to tie our bike to a lamp post outside the lodge because there was no space to park vehicles in that lodge.
Day 3:
Here starts our return journey to Bangalore from Ooty. We left Ooty at 6:30 AM (initial plan was to leave at 5:30 AM). It was terribly cold and once again gave my friend to go ahead with the riding. Our route this time was a different one than the one we came to Ooty from Gudalur. We took the normal highway to reach Gudalur. We planned to visit Pykara Falls and Pykara Lake on our way to Gudalur. We missed the target of Pykara Falls due to false information displayed in the sign boards. There was a board which displayed 1Km to Pykara Falls. We were supposed to stop at that board, park our vehicle in the highway and go by walk to see the Pykara Falls. Instead we went ahead to find that we have reached the base of a climb to reach Pykara Lake. It was too early to visit Pykara Lake as the road was not yet opened. The gate opens only at 9:00 AM. Upon inquiry found that we had overshot our target. So, we took a return journey of 3Km to Pykara Falls. Pykara Falls was a good spot for good photography.
From Pykara to Gudalur is another splendid display of cloud show. We need to look down to see the clouds moving in between two mountains. Few of the mountains are uncovered slowly. After some time we reach the mountain that was being covered with could when we were way above the clouds. We could have parked our vehicle and gone waling to the peak of that mountain to have another splendid view. We did not do that and went ahead to reach Gudalur at 9:40 AM.
From Gudalur we travel 14 Km in the route to Mudumalai (we had taken this route to reach Ooty from Gudalur the other day). At Mudumalai we see the sign board that reads “Mysore-80 Km”. We cross the Karnataka-TamilNadu border at Bandipur(Karnataka, India). We could immediately find that the roads in Karnataka are splendid compared to that in TamilNadu. We started to zoom at an average of 65 Kmph. Not much is store at Bandipur except for the forest area slowly disappearing as we proceed towards Mysore. Our route to Mysore from Bandipur is very straight forward with no deviation. Good roads helped us to speed us to 70Kmph. We stopped near Gundlupet (Karnataka, India) to have snacks and some beautiful snaps amidst Sunflower fields.
We reached Srirangapatna by negotiating the confusing bypass route from Mysore. We were slowed down by a host of police jeeps, cars, and ambulance escorting some Minister who is on his way to Bangalore. We were very hungry and had our brunch (breakfast + lunch) at Srirangapatna in one of the Dhabas. It was exactly 1:00 PM when we reached Srirangapatna.
From Srirangapatna, I drove the bike. It was a very good experience. The roads are under maintainance and traffic is heavy in Mysore-Bangalore stretch. We managed to zoom at 70Kmph and reached Bangalore 4:00 PM. Reached home at 4:45 PM via the Ring Road from Mysore Road till Kammanahalli.
“We did not find even a single accident in our entire ride“
Here are the stops and timings in detail:
Day1
Bangalore - 5373 (bike meter reading) - 26th - 5:30 AM
Chennapatna - 5444 - 26th - 7:00 AM
Mandya - 5483 - 26th - 7:50 AM
Hunsur - 5561 - 26th - 10:15 AM
Virajpet - 5617 - 26th - 11:45 AM
Cannanore - 5700 - 26th - 2:45 PM
Talassery - 5754 - 26th - 6:30 PM
Day2
Talassery- 5754 - 27th - 6:00 AM
Manantoddy - 5838 - 27th - 9:00 AM
SultanBattery- 5884 - 27th - 10:40 AM
Gudalur - 5926 - 27th - 12:30 PM
Ooty - 5984 - 27th - 3:30 PM
Day3
Ooty - 6003 - 28th - 6:30 AM
Gudalur - 6061 - 28th - 9:40 AM
Srirangapatna - 6185 - 28th - 1:00 PM
Kengeri(Bangalore) - 6295 - 28th - 4:00 PM
Kammanahalli(Home) - 6328 - 28th - 4:45 PM
Total Distance Coverved - 6328-5373=955 Km
Approx Mileage - 71 Kmpl
Petrol Fills
8.5 litres at Bangalore on 26th - 5:40 AM
8.2 litres at SultanBattery on 27th - 10:00 AM
Expenditure
Day1 - Rs.830.00
Day2 - Rs.980.00
Day3 - Rs.150.00
Total – Rs.1960.00
The route map can be found in my galleries under travellogues category.