Coorg - Karnataka's Treasure - A trip log

Its been a month of quite a few trips. And hopefully more to come. This time the destination was coorg, talacauvery and jog falls. A total distance of 1005 km, 18 hours on road were to be the trip's stats, the starting point being Udupi.

All these places are on the coastal fringe of the western ghats and are beautiful all year long, but the monsoon makes them even more beautiful. Trust me when I say that, cuz when u get to see them, you'll be awestruck.

Here's the trip log:

3-July: Started from udupi at around 1530. The winding undulating roads are a pleasure to drive on, except for a few patches destroyed by monsoon. Though it is a state highway, the roads are well laid and smooth. Torrential rain dampened the speed and we could do only 50-55 on the speedo at the max. Reached Madikeri the capital of the coorg district by 2100. 5.5 hours for the 210 km journey. A quick dinner and then a well deserved sleep was what followed.

4-July: We started off to Bylakoppa by 7 heading to the Namdroling Monastery. Entirely established by tibetian migrants here, it is a beautiful place. Situated in the midst of corn fields, it exudes a quiet exuberance which is probably due to the Golden towers and 3 towering golden Buddhas.

The place is absolutely serene and except for bird calls, not a sound can be heard, other than the prayer bells and whistles of course. You end up feeling much calmer after a visit here. Elderly monks shower their blessings on you and it feels pretty good. Sat in the hall in front of the buddhas for close to an hour.

Started from Bylakoppa by 10 and headed towards Abbey/Abbi Falls. It is about 10km from Madikeri. Believe it or not, this falls are under a private ownership and vehicles are charged 20 bucks per entry. The parking lot is about 500m on top from the base of the falls. The trek to the base of the falls is through thick forest. In the monsoon, the trek path is infested with leeches and make sure you are adequately protected from them. Believe me, they are quite humongous and suck quite a lot of blood. I saw a couple of people faint due to blood loss and had to be carried back on stretchers. The falls are so pretty and inviting, but bathing is prohibited in the monsoon due to leech infestation. The best viewpoint is from a hanging bridge which is right opposite to the falls. The trek and the time spent at the falls and the monastery made us quite ravenous and we made a pitstop for lunch. The food is really good in the hotels at madikeri. I’d suggest you try the local cuisine which is really good.

After lunch we started off towards Talacauvery. Its about 50km from Coorg. The drive was pretty treacherous owing to heavy rain. Plus the dense cloud cover did not help. It took about 2 hours and 15 mins to cover the entire journey. This place is the point of origin on the Cauvery River and hence the name ('Tala' - Head/Origin). Its a place of religious significance too as the cauvery river, like the ganges is considered sacred. A small temple adorns the small crevice from where this historic river starts. Its pretty pristine and you can never soak enough of this place's beauty. Lots of trekking paths for adventure seekers.

From there, we started the long journey back to Udupi. Whoever said that the journey home is never too long (Bombay Dreams) would reconsider their opinion. None of us had the desire to leave this amazing place. Coorg, no matter what the human intervention is, remains pristine and untouched. Would love to do this on a bike again.

Shivanasamudram Falls to Chennai - The return trip

The trip to Shivanasamudram Falls was an awesome one. It something that'll stay with me forever and the 610km trip was worth its salt for all the effort involved in it. Okay, the journey to the falls was awesome. But would the return trip be as good as the trip to the falls? We were about to find out.

Me and Raghu started from the beautiful campus of SDMIMD. The memories of the campus is something we'll cherish a lot too. To be honest we did get a bit of admiration for taking the trip to Mysore on bike from Chennai. :) Thanks to the students there for those compliments. That made us fly! And so we started by 1200.

We took our first break at Mandya at 1300. Drank up on Gatorade and coke of course :) We somehow were quicker on the return trip than the 'to' trip. Probably we got a bit familiar with the lifebreakers. We reached chennapatna by 1500 which would mean we'd covered it at an average of 60 km/h. Chennapatna to Nice Road ramp took one more hour and we were on our way to Electronic City via the outer ring road by 1600.

We reached E.City by 1700 thanks to the Outer Ring Road. We were famished and decided to grab our so called lunch at Domino's in E.City. Our butts were hurting big time thanks to the backbreakers on the outer ring road and the arterial road that led to e.city. To rest them we took an extended break there and feasted on the pizzas like a bunch of hungry wolves. Plus we drank up all the coke we could to keep dreariness out.

Started from E.City by 1815 and covered the 40km stretch from E.City to Hosur in about 45 mins. By 1900 we were smoothly covering the vast expanse of the Golden Quadrilateral towards Krishnagiri. Crossed Krishnagiri by 2000. We took a break at Vaniyambadi at 2030 to tank up fuel. From there we decided on a long haul till Vellore. Our speed was pretty good considering it was pitch dark. We were doing close to 70(being safe here yes) and we reached Vellore by 2215. Time for a coke break again. Start time from Vellore:2230.

From Vellore to Chennai it was a real joyride, less traffic made us real fast. We covered the 130km journey in 2 hours taking two quick pit stops in between. Bid Raghu goodbye at the Kathipara Flyover and headed home with with a heavy heart. One of the best weekends had come to a close. But I cheered up knowing that many trips were yet to come and we'd still go on bigger and better rides in the future. My mind was already in full swing dreaming of the next trip when I fell asleep to one of the best night snoozes I've ever had.

Tips For Night Time Bike Rides (India Specific):

1. Make sure you have a clear visor, or a yellow tinted visor. Yellows work better than plain visors, scientifically proved. I won't go into the details here, google can give you that. NO Dark Visors, very, VERY dangerous. You can so easily lose sight of medians and jaywalkers.
2. Bikers, please stay left, there will be tons of vehicles faster than you, and trust me, pretty reckless. Higher chances of getting run-over or run-into. Safety reasons et-al.
3. Brakes, please double check them before rides. Very important in the nights, stray dogs run back and forth across. They don't deserve to die.
4. Night rides, if you can maintain optimal speeds, help you raise the overall mileage of the trip. Optimal speeds burn less petrol, and your steed will thank you for that.

Better enlightened souls, feel free to add to the knowledge I've gained.

P.S: Would like to thank PepsiCo and Coca-Cola India for keeping our alertness stable all over the 1220kms.

P.P.S: Learnt that having like minded company and close friends makes the trip all the more enjoyable, solitary ones come next :P

P.P.P.S: If you ask me I'd say everyone should go on a bike ride once in their lifetime. The open air thrills and chills are totally outa this worlds.

Hope you enjoyed the blog. Until the next trip, this is Harsha saying Sayonara & Happy Riding!! Be safe!

A Bike Ride from Chennai to Shivanasamudram Falls

My bike rides have taken me to quite a few places. Starting from a trip from Chennai to Kanchipuram, then to Mahabs, a couple of trips from home to places in the western ghats, its been a thrilling and exhilarating experience. Trust me when I say that. Nothing gives you a bigger kick than controlling that tankslapper on your bike when you suddenly brake for something unforeseen. Me along with Raghu(the second biker in the pic below from the front, the first being me of course!) have been planning on a long trip for quite sometime and it took quite sometime to materialize. Cyclones, unpredicted rains, gales et al., have forced us to drop our best laid plans.

But this time it was going to be different. Pleasant weather all over from Chennai to Mysore, coupled with a well executed bunk of work helped us execute our plan. Destination, Mysore and Shivanasamudram falls, a waterfall of pristine beauty 65km away from Mysore. It was Me(on a XCD 125) and Raghu(on a Caliber 115) who were the riders. Our route was simple, the national highway till Bangalore via Krishnagiri, and from there the SH17 from Bangalore to Mysore. You can see the bikers below.

We started from Chennai at 1100 exactly on Friday(18th June, 2010). Halted for a bit at Motel Highway in Chembarambakkam to tank up on our fluids. We kept at a steady pace of 60kmph. We reached Vellore by 1500. We had our lunch there and started riding again by 1530. We reached Vaniyambadi, a town about 60km from Vellore by 1645 and took a break there. We upped our fluids and resumed riding. Parked up at the far outskirts of Krishnagiri for another fluid break at around 1800. We had made good time, covering the 162 km distance from Vellore to Krishnagiri in 3 hours. We resumed riding by 1815 and reached Electronic City by 2000.

The traffic in Bangalore was as horrible as usual, normal services back. It took an hour and a half to reach SH17 and we reached there only by 2130. The road apparently is known to the locals as the "Nice Road" and true to its name, it was real nice to ride on. We covered the 150 km distance in 3.5 hours taking 3-4 breaks to up our caffeine(read coca-cola) levels. :) don't ride without it when fatigue creeps in. Though the ride was super smooth, it was frequently marred by what we termed as backbreakers or lifebreakers at times. These are poorly designed and built speedbreakers and can catch you unawares. This is really a factor that affects your travel times. Be careful, especially at night and watch our for them. We reached Mysore at 0000 on Sat and put up at a Hotel called Abhishek. Decent rooms, pretty decent rent. Both of us switched off instantly to a real sound sleep.

The next morning was the ride to Shivanasamudram Falls and we had our dear sis joining us for the trip to the falls. We had a light breakfast and started off for the falls by 1000. The 'to' ride took 2.5 hours as we did ride pretty cautiously and thanks to the notorious lifebreakers which made ours and our ride's lives pretty miserable. We reached Shivanasamudram by 1230.

Shivanasamudram has two falls separated by a distance of 12km. The first one you'll encounter is the GaganChukki Falls, which is pretty inaccessible and can be viewed only from a safe distance. We spent quite sometime at Gaganchukki taking in the splendour and the scenery there, and chatting of course. A pic of the gaganchukki falls for the record.

We started from gaganchukki by 1430 and took the long and winding roads to the next waterfall, the bharachukki falls. The roads are really good save for the last couple of km. It took about half an hour to negotiate it. The bharachukki falls are much more accessible and we can actually get near it and take a bath in like the other falls. Its a half an hour trek from the top of the hill where we had to park our rides to the base of the falls.

The base of the falls threw up the biggest surprises of it all. We got an opportunity to ride in the coracles!!! The round boats made of bamboo were a real cool thing to ride on. The ride lasts for about half an hour and the boatman will spin the coracle for a couple of minutes in the midst of it, which'll leave your head in a tizzy. We spent sometime there, clicked our pics and made the trek up in 20 mins. A couple of our better clicks at the bharachukki below.

We started back to Mysore from Bharachukki at 1710 and covered the return distance in 1 hour and 25 mins and were back in the oh so serene campus of SDMIMD by 1835. The ride was awesome with the setting sun and the cool breeze.

Next entry would take you guys through our return journey.