Some prophet said, "If you are scared of the path ahead, look back at the long path behind you. Its you who have already covered it." Not very encouraging always.
Day 1 : Mettupalayam (11 th November)
Good bye Cochin : The afternoon meal was heavy. Once in Cochin, my stomach belongs to my aunt and I don't get any say over the selection of food items or food amount. I took a macro sleep of about fifteen minutes. When I woke up, my bag was already packed and aunt was standing, sad and worried. I took some time to console her that I will drive carefully and come back again whenever I get a chance. Finally it was time to say good bye to my aunt, uncle, brothers, my dear sister and to Cochin. I kick started my 180 cc Pulsar classic.
Coming out of Tripunetra, my anunt's place, was little difficult. It was around 2:30 pm. Weather was hot and the road was busy. It took me around thirty minutes to reach the Cochin bypass which is just 6 kilometers away from Tripunetra. The bypass was wide but very busy. After around 15 minutes of drive I got the junction where I had to take a right turn on the road to Trichur. NH 47. I was foretold by Rajesh, my cousin, that till Coimbatore NH 47 is a national highway at its worst. Considering I was not at all impressed by the condition of NH 17 while coming from Bangalore, you can imagine what impression of NH 47 I created after hearing this from him. Thanks to those scary expectations, I actually found the road quite good. It was very busy though. But traffic reduced slightly as I left Cochin more and more behind.
Trichur: It was around 80 km drive from Cochin to Trichur. I was fast but careful. In Kerala, you can not relax while driving, even if the road is not busy. Any living entity can jump on the road from any side at any time. I didn't enter Trichur. Thankfully NH 47 bypassed the city by 7-8 kilometers and went ahead.
The road changed dramatically. In matter of minutes I started realizing what exactly my brother was warning me. He was talking of the condition of the highway from Trichur to Coimbatore. I realized that the best part of the day's journey was over. It was going to be a difficult and painful evening ride. I had to cover nearly 80 more kilometers on this road to reach Coimbatore and it was already 4:30 pm. Oofs!
NH 47: Let me tell you, it was wide. Much wider than NH 17. But where was the road?? It was all broken and demolished. I just prayed for my bike and continued at a steady speed in spite of all the hostility. Occasionally I was crossing places where some tar was left on the surface, but they were all riddled with pot holes like Om Puri's skin. I was getting the feeling of riding a horse rather than a bike on a highway. But time was ticking, sun was falling and distance ahead was constantly warning me. I could not afford to slow down. There were number of places where I had to take diversions from the main road and drive through some local villages to avoid the "highway!". As I approached Palakkad, things worsened. Traffic increased. Its here that I faced one of the worst traffic jams of my life. Huge number of buses and trucks standing like hills, unmoved. Only good thing about such jams is, as a bike rider you always get some gap between those big vehicles through which you can maneuver your vehicle out. But of course not with ease. After around one hour of trekking with the bike, I came out of the jam. It felt like a lifetime.
As I expected, the highway did not enter the city of Palakkad. It bypassed it by few kilometers. I took a small tea break here. My back was paining slightly. When I restarted it was 6:30 pm. Sun was almost down. I had to switch on my head lights. I don't remember how many pot holes I flew over, how many stones my tires hit.. I just remember after around an hour of drive I saw the board, "Coimbatore" pointing to left. I had a sigh of relief and happily headed towards Coimbatore as the diseased NH 47 continued straight, towards Selam.
Mettupalayam: It was already 8 pm when I entered Coimbator. I was still in dilemma whether I should take refuge here or should continue to Ooty. I took a small tea break to sort out the issues. The tea shop owner was a good old man and informed me that it can be very risky now to head for Ooty, since the road is narrow and all the trucks will come down the hill now. He said Coimbator is also not a very good place to stay. Instead, he suggested me to reach Mettupalayam, a town at the foothill of Ooty. It took me another one hour to cover the 53 kilometer distance to reach Mettupalayam, but finally it was worth the extra effort.
Mettupalayam is a small but busy town. It has a descent market which was open even at 9:30 pm when I went for dinner. Somehow, I was not feeling hungry. I took some light dosa-chicken curry and found a good hotel for the night. It was a big and luxurious hotel. I took a double bed room with TV for just 250 bucks (Very cheap, isn't it!). I made sure my bike was parked in a safe place, put the alarm for morning 5 am and.. not sure when.. felt the tiredness overwhelming me and I slept.
Kothagiri : Early morning, at around 6 am, I quickly finished the checkout formalities and started my engine. Within few kilometers distance I found a Y junction. The left arm was going to Ooty and the right arm was going to Kothagiri. But, to my surprise, the Ooty path was blocked. Local people told me that I have to take the Kothagiri path and from Kothagiri I have to take the Ooty road. "And", they said, "this road is about 30 km longer than the direct road". "An early morning disaster", I said to myself. But it was not to be so.
Before I could get my engine properly heated, I found myself climbing the hills. The weather was cool and fresh. There were some kind of refreshing fragrance in the air. Soon the reason was clear. I found myself covered with beautiful flower trees and weeds from both sides. Lot of those flowers I have never seen before. Blue, Orange, Yellow, White.. whatever color possible. I have never seen such a colorful road side. It was as if god has carefully painted the path. I was racing through a dreamland. It was a good 20 kilometers of drive through a nature made flower garden. As I drove more and more higher, with the altitude slowly the flowers vanished. Except, some wild flowers still continued their appearance.
Kothagiri is a beautiful small town. From there I took the diversion to Ooty.
Ooty : Kothagiri to Ooty is a usual mountain road. Taking its twists and turns. The road was bright black and spot free. Traffic was less. I cruised to Ooty in about an hour and half. At 9 am I was taking my breakfast in Ooty.
I came to this city twice before. This is a very busy and overcrowded one. In the city itself, there is nothing much to see except a botanical garden, a lake and a rose garden. The rose garden is mostly dry. I am yet to hear from someone who has seen roses in Ooty rose garden. This is not one of my favorite hill stations but still I know almost every gali in the place. So, instead of wasting time here I decided to move on and took the highway to Mysore.
Few kilometers from Ooty, there is a split in the road. While the main road continues to Gudalur, the split, a shortcut, goes directly to Gundlupet. I was aware of this shortcut and continued on it. While the road via Gudalur is very popular and all the major traffic travels via this, it was not clear to me why the other road, in spite of being a good 30/40 km short, is so underrated. The reason became more and more clear to me as I continued on it.
Very soon the road presented me a series of hairpin bands. Each one is very shallow with very steep descent. It needed really careful driving. More dangerous fact was, the surrounding beauty of lofty hills was so breathtaking that it was very difficult to concentrate on the road itself. The experience was more like sliding down a wall. In spite of driving carefully and slow, I was reducing my altitude at a rapid rate. The road had enough warning boards spread around on its sides to inform the drivers about its dangerous curves. The descent was more like fast-forward rewind of my ascent. In very small time gaps, I saw the flora and fauna changing with altitude.
Mudumalai : In matter of an hour I was on the plains again. It was hot and I had to get rid of the jacket. It was time for ride through Mudumalai wild life sanctuary. On the check-post, one guard asked me if I have seen any road block due to a fallen tree. "No", I answered him. But looked like this is a frequent phenomena here and that meant the place is really "wild". The journey through the sanctuary was as beautiful as my journey through Bandipur while going to Cochin. But minus the morning weather which I got while riding through Bandipur. Nevertheless, it was joy of bike riding it its best. But the gift was, I spotted some lazy elephants taking rest beside a pond and some restless deers jumping around on the road side. I carefully drove past them without disturbing their natural habitat.
Bangalore, Oof! : Once out of jungle, I was engulfed by typical Karnataka surroundings. Soon I crossed Gundlupet, the town where I did night stay while going to Cochin. An hour more and I was in the city of Mysore. Here, I messed up with the roads and instead of taking the bypass, ended up traveling right through the city. This delayed me a bit, but glimpses of the beautiful Mysore palace as a compensation. Once out of Mysore, it was a regular drive on the highway to Bangalore. I didn't have much time on hand, so drove fast. Kamath has a good vegetarian restaurant on the way where I took my lunch. It was around 3 pm, I was terribly hungry. Took a good authentic south Indian meal at Rs 80. By then I was very tired of the single very long stretch that I covered since morning. Around 250 km. But once some food went in the stomach, I was refreshed again. My bike roared to Bangalore.
I wish I could tell you a fairy tale ending of this fantastic return trip. But I was welcomed to the city of gardens with traffic jams, crowd, smoke and noise everywhere. I felt suffocating. We IT engineers have chocked the city. With a lot of pain I reached my office at around 4 pm. Yes, it was monday, a working day, and I had to work the remaining day in office. Soon I was dealing with all software rotten eggs... past was past.
Learnings of the day :
Good bye Cochin : The afternoon meal was heavy. Once in Cochin, my stomach belongs to my aunt and I don't get any say over the selection of food items or food amount. I took a macro sleep of about fifteen minutes. When I woke up, my bag was already packed and aunt was standing, sad and worried. I took some time to console her that I will drive carefully and come back again whenever I get a chance. Finally it was time to say good bye to my aunt, uncle, brothers, my dear sister and to Cochin. I kick started my 180 cc Pulsar classic.
Coming out of Tripunetra, my anunt's place, was little difficult. It was around 2:30 pm. Weather was hot and the road was busy. It took me around thirty minutes to reach the Cochin bypass which is just 6 kilometers away from Tripunetra. The bypass was wide but very busy. After around 15 minutes of drive I got the junction where I had to take a right turn on the road to Trichur. NH 47. I was foretold by Rajesh, my cousin, that till Coimbatore NH 47 is a national highway at its worst. Considering I was not at all impressed by the condition of NH 17 while coming from Bangalore, you can imagine what impression of NH 47 I created after hearing this from him. Thanks to those scary expectations, I actually found the road quite good. It was very busy though. But traffic reduced slightly as I left Cochin more and more behind.
Trichur: It was around 80 km drive from Cochin to Trichur. I was fast but careful. In Kerala, you can not relax while driving, even if the road is not busy. Any living entity can jump on the road from any side at any time. I didn't enter Trichur. Thankfully NH 47 bypassed the city by 7-8 kilometers and went ahead.
The road changed dramatically. In matter of minutes I started realizing what exactly my brother was warning me. He was talking of the condition of the highway from Trichur to Coimbatore. I realized that the best part of the day's journey was over. It was going to be a difficult and painful evening ride. I had to cover nearly 80 more kilometers on this road to reach Coimbatore and it was already 4:30 pm. Oofs!
NH 47: Let me tell you, it was wide. Much wider than NH 17. But where was the road?? It was all broken and demolished. I just prayed for my bike and continued at a steady speed in spite of all the hostility. Occasionally I was crossing places where some tar was left on the surface, but they were all riddled with pot holes like Om Puri's skin. I was getting the feeling of riding a horse rather than a bike on a highway. But time was ticking, sun was falling and distance ahead was constantly warning me. I could not afford to slow down. There were number of places where I had to take diversions from the main road and drive through some local villages to avoid the "highway!". As I approached Palakkad, things worsened. Traffic increased. Its here that I faced one of the worst traffic jams of my life. Huge number of buses and trucks standing like hills, unmoved. Only good thing about such jams is, as a bike rider you always get some gap between those big vehicles through which you can maneuver your vehicle out. But of course not with ease. After around one hour of trekking with the bike, I came out of the jam. It felt like a lifetime.
As I expected, the highway did not enter the city of Palakkad. It bypassed it by few kilometers. I took a small tea break here. My back was paining slightly. When I restarted it was 6:30 pm. Sun was almost down. I had to switch on my head lights. I don't remember how many pot holes I flew over, how many stones my tires hit.. I just remember after around an hour of drive I saw the board, "Coimbatore" pointing to left. I had a sigh of relief and happily headed towards Coimbatore as the diseased NH 47 continued straight, towards Selam.
Mettupalayam: It was already 8 pm when I entered Coimbator. I was still in dilemma whether I should take refuge here or should continue to Ooty. I took a small tea break to sort out the issues. The tea shop owner was a good old man and informed me that it can be very risky now to head for Ooty, since the road is narrow and all the trucks will come down the hill now. He said Coimbator is also not a very good place to stay. Instead, he suggested me to reach Mettupalayam, a town at the foothill of Ooty. It took me another one hour to cover the 53 kilometer distance to reach Mettupalayam, but finally it was worth the extra effort.
Mettupalayam is a small but busy town. It has a descent market which was open even at 9:30 pm when I went for dinner. Somehow, I was not feeling hungry. I took some light dosa-chicken curry and found a good hotel for the night. It was a big and luxurious hotel. I took a double bed room with TV for just 250 bucks (Very cheap, isn't it!). I made sure my bike was parked in a safe place, put the alarm for morning 5 am and.. not sure when.. felt the tiredness overwhelming me and I slept.
Day 2 : Ooty (12 th November)
Before I could get my engine properly heated, I found myself climbing the hills. The weather was cool and fresh. There were some kind of refreshing fragrance in the air. Soon the reason was clear. I found myself covered with beautiful flower trees and weeds from both sides. Lot of those flowers I have never seen before. Blue, Orange, Yellow, White.. whatever color possible. I have never seen such a colorful road side. It was as if god has carefully painted the path. I was racing through a dreamland. It was a good 20 kilometers of drive through a nature made flower garden. As I drove more and more higher, with the altitude slowly the flowers vanished. Except, some wild flowers still continued their appearance.
Kothagiri is a beautiful small town. From there I took the diversion to Ooty.
Ooty : Kothagiri to Ooty is a usual mountain road. Taking its twists and turns. The road was bright black and spot free. Traffic was less. I cruised to Ooty in about an hour and half. At 9 am I was taking my breakfast in Ooty.
I came to this city twice before. This is a very busy and overcrowded one. In the city itself, there is nothing much to see except a botanical garden, a lake and a rose garden. The rose garden is mostly dry. I am yet to hear from someone who has seen roses in Ooty rose garden. This is not one of my favorite hill stations but still I know almost every gali in the place. So, instead of wasting time here I decided to move on and took the highway to Mysore.
Few kilometers from Ooty, there is a split in the road. While the main road continues to Gudalur, the split, a shortcut, goes directly to Gundlupet. I was aware of this shortcut and continued on it. While the road via Gudalur is very popular and all the major traffic travels via this, it was not clear to me why the other road, in spite of being a good 30/40 km short, is so underrated. The reason became more and more clear to me as I continued on it.
Very soon the road presented me a series of hairpin bands. Each one is very shallow with very steep descent. It needed really careful driving. More dangerous fact was, the surrounding beauty of lofty hills was so breathtaking that it was very difficult to concentrate on the road itself. The experience was more like sliding down a wall. In spite of driving carefully and slow, I was reducing my altitude at a rapid rate. The road had enough warning boards spread around on its sides to inform the drivers about its dangerous curves. The descent was more like fast-forward rewind of my ascent. In very small time gaps, I saw the flora and fauna changing with altitude.
Bangalore, Oof! : Once out of jungle, I was engulfed by typical Karnataka surroundings. Soon I crossed Gundlupet, the town where I did night stay while going to Cochin. An hour more and I was in the city of Mysore. Here, I messed up with the roads and instead of taking the bypass, ended up traveling right through the city. This delayed me a bit, but glimpses of the beautiful Mysore palace as a compensation. Once out of Mysore, it was a regular drive on the highway to Bangalore. I didn't have much time on hand, so drove fast. Kamath has a good vegetarian restaurant on the way where I took my lunch. It was around 3 pm, I was terribly hungry. Took a good authentic south Indian meal at Rs 80. By then I was very tired of the single very long stretch that I covered since morning. Around 250 km. But once some food went in the stomach, I was refreshed again. My bike roared to Bangalore.
I wish I could tell you a fairy tale ending of this fantastic return trip. But I was welcomed to the city of gardens with traffic jams, crowd, smoke and noise everywhere. I felt suffocating. We IT engineers have chocked the city. With a lot of pain I reached my office at around 4 pm. Yes, it was monday, a working day, and I had to work the remaining day in office. Soon I was dealing with all software rotten eggs... past was past.
Learnings of the day :
- From Mettupalayam, never take the direct road to Ooty but take the road through Kothagiri. The extra kilometers will be more than compensated by the beauty of the road.
- From Ooty to Gundlupet, try the shortcut. Its a different experience.
