Am writing this in continuation to my previous blog "Life of an IT employee"
My parents had reached US and were busy with their kids and
kids’ kids. This helped me in a way that parents were not much worried about my
adventure trip and thus I was fully excited without any pressures. Me and Mohan
started thinking about the route to be taken and after umpteen number of
discussions we decided not to have a pre-planned route. Hence we wanted to take
it one day at a time. That is, at the end of each day, we would think about the
next day’s destination. This sounded very adventurous to both of us. I wanted
to cover as many forest areas and hills as possible. This, I thought, would add
more zest to my trip as I was willing to do some tough treks and hill or rock
climbings.
As a part of the preparations, I got my Thunderbird serviced
well for our long bike ride. Then we shopped for small items like head torch,
swiss knife, tissue paper, wet tissues, rechargeable batteries and many more which
we felt might be necessary for our journey. Unfortunately none of us had a
smart phone and hence no maps or GPS L
So we bought two good Tamil Nadu maps, one in the form of a book (Eicher’s) and
the other one a big sized map. The major item which I bought especially for the
trip was my Sony camcorder. I wanted to cover the whole journey through my cam
and make it a full fledged travel video. Then I thought I can make use of this video
to somehow get into the travel and tourism profession.
Mohan has a friend who is a part-time racer. We had taken
some tips from him about things that have to be taken care of while riding, of
course, eventually most of them we did not follow :D
Along with planning for the trip, I was also a bit busy with
my thoughts about my Sports club plan. I went around looking for suitable
places in Chennai and talked to their owners. I also met vendors for all the
sports equipments like Table tennis, Snookers/Billiards, Fusbol and more. As my
journey start date was nearing, I started focussing more on the trip and less
about my business venture (which eventually did not end up anywhere).
Just 2 days before our journey, both of us wanted to get a
feel of riding. We set off to mahabalipuram, 55 KM from Chennai. On the way we
halted at many places to play Frisbee on the beaches. We came back home by late
afternoon. The feeling of liberty when one does not have a job at hand and zero
commitments is one thing which I would like to have throughout my life J
By this time we were fully set for our road trip. We decided
to start on Feb 25th. The night before, we slept early after packing
my trek bag which finally weighed around 18KG. I was wondering how my 50 Kg
friend is gonna manage it on the bike.
Day-1
Finally the day came. After a good night’s sleep, we got up
waiting to embark on the bike trip for which we were waiting for about a month.
It feels nice to wake up with such a nice plan in mind. One of the bes/t
mornings of my life. We got up at around 5.30 and gave a final check to the
list of items packed. Everything seemed to be perfectly done. My friend gathered
the luggage we and stepped out. We clicked a snap of ourselves in front of the
bike before starting off.
The kick-start sounded like a thunder and then we vroomed
away from our home. We bid goodbye to our house. This day we wanted to reach a
hill called Javvadhu hills in Tiruvannamalai district. Javvadhu is not a
popular place and less commercialised. But I heard from my brother that it is a
good place suitable for treks.
We took the Bangalore
highway NH4. The watch showed 8 o clock. We crossed Sriperumbudur and had Idlis
at a small hotel (Kai-Yendhi hotel in Tamil). Then left for Kanchipuram, 63KM
from Chennai, where we halted near the famous Kamatchi Amman temple. We spent
some time here, not with the intention of visiting that temple me being an
atheist, but just to look around the city. This is when we started having “colour”
drinks (Kalimark brand) which we do not get in Chennai. “Colour” drinks are
basically cold drinks of Orange and Grape flavours. I just love those. The
whole trip we drank only these colour drinks and Bovonto. I opine that these
are far better than the colas and pepsis. Then we just walked around the city
and started again after an hour.
After some deliberations about the route, we headed towards
Vandavasi. Just 6 KMs before Vandavasi, we noticed a good looking temple at a
place called Thennangur. It was a Radhe Krishna temple. Guys I promise that I
am an atheist and I am not sure if I can say the same about Mohan. We stood
outside the temple and were just making enquiries about the local area. This
was the first place where we started shooting video as a part of travel
profession plans. I was really excited standing in front of the camcorder
talking about some tourist spot. I already started feeling like a TLC travel
reporter J Hope
one day I land into one such job in TLC or NDTV good times.
Then we proceeded with our journey and halted at some scenic
places to enjoy the nature. We took a small break at Vandavasi. On an average
we take atleast 15 breaks in a day. Here we made enquiries about the road to
Polur. On the way to Polur, we got to see many hillocks and got attracted to
one. A mud road led us to that and we parked our bike, left our belongings
there. In the intention of climbing the hillock, we went towards it and started
climbing the boulders. Some were tough and some quite easy. Spent some quality
45 minutes here, got some good view from the top and clicked some snaps. Throughout
we were keeping an eye on my bike just to ensure that no passerby meddled with
it.
It was around 1:30 in the noon now. On the way to Polur we
saw many more climbable hills and hillocks but Mohan stopped me from halting
here in the fear that we might be late to Javvadhu. One awesome hill I gotta
mention here. Its name is Ponnur hills. This had a temple on its peak (most of
the hills have some temple or the other at the top). I got a feeling that this
temple might be a popular one as there were steps constructed for people to
reach it. Steps were right in the middle of the hill and it gave it a beautiful
look. I am afraid I do not have a picture of it to be shown here. Further we
stopped only at Polur to have lunch at around 3 o clock. Javvadhu is around
45KM from here.
We took the beautiful road to Javvadhu and halted for
clicking some snaps at a place. Here some villagers on the road were courteous
enough to ask us if we required drinking water. I did not have words to thank
them for their helpfulness. Going ahead we almost reached the hill top. Just a
few KMs before the town, we stopped to see a board which was showing the
tourism spots in and nearby Javvadhu. As me and Mohan were spending time here
leisurely, a man came towards and started talking to us. Behind him was his 3
year old daughter. He wanted us to take a picture of his kid who was running on
the road. That guy made her go back and come towards us running. I did as he
pleased. Then he made her do it several times. We being fools, took time to
understand that he was drunk. Then we stopped him doing this and brought that
kid towards us. He started talking about local politics and other things. He
also wanted us to help him with the politics. I wished I too were drunk to
handle this guy. After a great deal of time we managed to get rid of him and
advised him to take the kid home safely. I understood that we wasted our time
advising him as he was not in a mood to listen to us. Somehow we escaped and
reached the town. We had a coffee break here and made some enquiries for
accommodation. A guy told that the only good place to stay was the village BDO.
As I already mentioned, the place was not a commercialised one and hence the
only hotel also was not upto the lowest standard possible. We talked to the BDO
manager and after giving us some suspicious glances, he agreed to give us a
room for 450 rupees. After sometime the manager started conversing well with
us. The room was as simple as possible. Normally, the one and only thing I look
for in an accommodation is the washroom. I am very particular about it. But
here I had no choice. After a long gap, this was when I started using Indian
lavatories.
Having taken some rest, we went out to just make enquiries
about the forest area. We had idlis and kuzhi paniyaaram (a Tamil Nadu
delicacy) for dinner. Then we came back to our room and hit the bed awaiting a
good day the next day. I started noting down the places visited and distances
covered on that particular day. After doing this, we dozed off.
Distance travelled on 1st day: 220KM
Route taken: Chennai – Kanchipuram - Vandavasi –
Polur – Javadhu hills
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