Trek to Kodachadri - Part1

Back with my next trip log. Its been a while has it not? Well, how did the trip turn out? Read on. Me n me buddies have been planning on a trip for quite a while, and after 3-4 months of planning n talks it finally came together, much to my relief. I had not been a part of their earlier trip due to a broken hand and was pretty keen on one. Others were as keen on this as we could be heading to different directions in sometime. How life works, we'll never know. But we were determined to make the most of what we had now.

We deliberated on quite a few places and zeroed in finally on a trek trip to the famed Kodachadri Hills, near Kollur. We did consider Jog Falls and Nagara but at this point in time there's no water in it.

The ones to take this trek up were yours truly, Raghu, Preethi, Kanchana and Esha, all close friends since the past 4 years. Me and Raghu were to join Esha in Bangalore, Preethi would join us in Mysore and Kanch would head to Udupi directly. Our jaunt was my house in Udupi. So me, Raghu, Preethi and Esha would join Kanch in Udupi.

10-Feb-2011: 0600 - 1945:
Raghu n I headed to Bangalore in the Shatabdi and had a quarter of a day to cut till Esha joined us. We headed to INOX in Mantri Mall and tried to catch up with a movie. "Biutiful" they called it. What we thought would be good was a complete disaster. "Biutiful" was nothing beautiful. It was horrible!!!! Wonder which moron had the heart to name it that way.

After the travails of that, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe where i got myself some memorabilia. Time for the train and we headed to the City Railway station where we caught up with Esha.

10-Feb-2011: 2035 - 2345:
Train started well on time. 3 hour journey till Mysore. We caught up with what was happening with each other. Not a moment was boring and it was super good to be back in the company of people whom i adore so much. Preethi joined us in Mysore at 2345

10-Feb-2011: 2345 / 11-Feb-2011: 0815
All the leg pulling and laughs kept us busy till about 11-feb 0230. People started cribbing about our noises but I seriously wonder how could they ignore the snores of them and the ones around them. It was a minor irritant to a perfect day. We too dozed off and woke up to a wonderful day. Train was late by half an hour and reached MAQ only by 0815.

11-Feb-2011: 0815 - 1430
We grabbed a bit of grub at a nearby hotel and hopped on to a bus to Udupi. The journey is pretty scenic with loads of backwaters which all of us enjoyed. Reached Udupi at around 1130. The destinations today for us were Maravanthe Beach and Murudeshwar. We had booked a cab to take us around which helped a lot. A sumptuous lunch at home and we would start only by 1430 thanks to our laziness.

More on the actual trip that day to follow. Keep reading!

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.