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!

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!