Coorg Bike Trip

My friend, Jayanti and I waited for this bike trip to magnificent Coorg for about a month. The only thing planned about this trip was our desire to travel to this place. We had no itinerary with us which made the bike trip unforgettable. We were a bit unsure of the ride even the night before we started our journey. But ultimately we made it inspite of the light showers on the day we started.

It was 25^th of May ’14. We got up an hour late and kick-started our journey at 6.30 though I wanted to begin an hour earlier. I decided upon the route to be taken right there sitting on the bike. Both of us were quite excited this being her first long bike trip and my first with a girl. It was quite bold of her to decide for the journey.

We started off on empty stomachs as I did not want to delay any further. The first break was at a tea shop on Mysore road just after crossing the Nice road junction. There were quite a few YEZDI bikers, sipping their tea, with their machines lined up parallel to each other while I parked mine a bit further away. Once we felt refreshed after the break, she wanted to visit a Ganesh temple just a few meters away. Once done with the temple visit, we zoomed away on our bike enjoying hills on both sides of the road after crossing Bidadi. We stopped to click a few snaps of ourselves with hills as background. Fortunately the weather was very pleasant that day. It was cloudy and the sun never shone bright and hot on us. Then we had to face heavy traffic at Ramnagara town. Here I was proudly exhibiting my trek interests by pointing out a hill to her which I had trekked a year back.

Our empty stomachs started making sounds and thus we stopped at Maddur Tiffanys in Maddur. Here we finished 100KM from Whitefield in Bangalore. The maddur vada we had here was not of exceptional quality. Probably my expectations were sky high. Then we were back on wheels and crossed the City of Toys (Channapatna) and Sugar City (Mandya) without taking any break. Mysore road is good for driving except for the irritating sets of speed-breakers. After making some enquiries in Srirangapatnam (around 145KM from Whitefield), we took a right turn, just after crossing the town, which connects to the Mysore-Hunsur-Madikeri state highway. Thus we bypassed Mysore city. Due to road construction works, this 12Km stretch was not a very smooth ride. A few kilometres after taking this road, there is a road which goes to Ranganathittu Bird sanctuary. We planned to visit this on our way back home but we were unable to do it due to time constraints. This bypass road ended at a signal and we turned right towards Yelwal and Hunsur and now we were back to good smooth roads. At this time, sun slightly started showing up but it was no way spoiling our mood. I can say for sure that, the Mysore-Hunsur-Madikeri road was one of the best roads I rode till date. Both of us were mesmerised at the bends and curves, roads adorned with the red-flowered trees on both sides. This brings into the mind the beautiful foreign locales often shown in Yashraj films. We were having a great day biking. I just love the the endlessness of the roads.

The below pics will authenticate my above words.

We passed Hunsur after a short tender-coconut-break. Our plan was to stop at Bylakuppe, a few KMs before Khushal Nagar, to visit the Tibetan settlement and Golden temple. One gets to see monastery here. This excited us. We came across the typical colourful cloth Flags as is norm for Buddhism. This signalled us that we were close to the settlement. There is a sign board as shown in the below pic and an Arch where a left turn will take us to the Monastery. The golden temple is 6KM from this point. The moment we entered this road, we got to see Tibetan people, Monks, buildings and Buddhist style temples. It looked like there was harmony between the settlers and the local people there. The Buddhist songs and prayers sounded enchanting yet eerie. They had a melody which seemed to give the songs a monotonous rhetoric and a lingering effect on the minds of those who listened.

Then again we embarked on our bike and proceeded towards Khushal Nagar (6KM away) and Sunticoppa. Here my eyes happened to see the Nisargadhama and Hanging bridge board and we thought to give it a shot. Both of us were not impressed by this place as this was over-crowded and everything seemed artificial. Hence we did not do the boating, so-called rafting and the elephant ride (am dead against elephant rides). We regretted having stopped here and headed back to road to Madikeri.

The ghat section started from Sunticoppa and 15Kms from here took us to Madikeri. The ghat roads were thrilling as always but I was surprised to see that the roads were a bit broader than other Ghat roads which I have travelled previously. It was mostly pot-hole free. We reached Madikeri at around 4.30 pm . Our stay was not planned in Madikeri. It was in kakkabe, 30 KMs away from Madikeri. But before heading to it, she wanted to board the toy train. Hence we fulfilled our childish desires and then visited the Raja’s seat right next to the Toy train ride. Raja’s seat provides a splendid view of the surrounding hills. After our short visit to this Raja’s seat, I took the directions to Kakkabe from the Jungle Mount Adventure Cottage stay’s owner, Sagar. I had been to this stay some 4 years back and that is why I wanted to take her to this place. It is in an isolated location, on the shores of Cauvery river with hills all around. Take a look at the stay in the below pics and decide for yourself about the awesomeness of the place. We took the Mangalore road from Madikeri and proceeded till Bettigere, then to Napokulu and 11 more Km to Kakkabe. We reached Jungle Mount Adventure at around 6 o clock. All along the ride, I was a bit doubtful if Jayanti would like the place. But my fears were brushed aside once I understood how much she fell in love with the location and the cottage. Harish welcomed us to the cottage stay and showed us our room. We rested for some time and had hot-water baths after some time. Finally we settled for the day and spent the remaining time along the shores of Cauvery, swaying on the swing and chatting during our walks in the neighbourhood. There were other groups in other cottages and it was getting very noisy as they got involved in a campfire. Some time later, the noises settled down. We had dinner and ended our day enjoying our isolation from the city life.

Day 2:
Just take a look at our cottage location.

We got up at 6 in the morning and went around for a walk. There was a temple on the way which she visited. A dog, name Rani, was present in our stay area. She accompanied us during our walk and befriended another dog and started playing with each other. We returned to our cottages after our walk and had our breakfast.

My bike got completely got wet due to the overnight dew

The temple right next to our cottage

A school right next to our cottage.

Then again we were on our bike to visit Bhagmandala and Talacauvery. The former place is 27 Km from Kakkabe. There is a Bhagmandaleshwar temple here and a triveni sangam spot where Cauvery, Kannika and Sujyothi rivers meet.

Then we headed to Talacauvery after spending some 1.5 hours at Bhagmandala. Hereafter the roads had steep elevation, twists and turns and nature treated our eyes with a kind of beauty which we can behold in our hearts for a lifetime. I had high expectations from Talacauvery and all we got to see was a small pond which is supposed to be the place where Cauvery originates. I was disappointed. But the good thing was that, the peak on which this source is situated is one of the tallest peaks in Coorg (Kodagu). There were steps taking us to a still further height to get a full 360 degree view of Coorg. It was really worth climbing the set of 360 steps. From here we got to see almost all the peaks of Coorg and boy, what a sight it was!

Then we climbed down and had maggi and juices for lunch just next to the temple. Now we were on our way back to our cottage via Napokulu. The nearest ATM from Kakkabe is in Napokulu which is 11-12 Km away. On our way to cottage, we were double-minded whether to visit Chelavere falls or not. It is located at a place called Cheyyundane some 12 Km away on the other side of Kakkabe. We decided against it and retired for the day to spend leisure time playing on the grass fields outside. I spent fifteen minutes swimming with life jackets on in river next to our cottage. We spent more time watching “The secret Life of Walter Mitty” and then had dinner. The dinner and breakfast are quite simple and good food. Rani accompanied us in our dinner too. Thus the day came to an end.

Day 3:

We woke up at 6 o clock feeling sad to leave Kakkabe like a child does before going to school. After getting up unwillingly, we finished our packing and went for a short walk along the shores of Cauvery. The water flow was less since monsoon had not yet set in. We clicked some snaps here and went back to have breakfast. 

 Harish got us the bill for our stay and we were shocked to find that we were falling short of 1000 rupees. So we drove to Napokulu which has the nearest ATM and paid our bills. We left the cottage by around 10 o clock and took a different route back to Bangalore. This route is via Virajpet which then takes us to the Hunsur-Mysore Highway. On the way, just 12 Kms away from Kakkabe, is a place called Cheyyundane which is home to the Chelavare falls. At Cheyyundane, a right turn and a long 4.5 KM drive took us to the falls. We did expect less water at the falls but not as less as we got to see. This road to Virajpet had many hair-pin bends which I did not find in the Sunticoppa-Madikeri ghat area. This part of the ride was quite thrilling.

The day was not going good for us. On our way to Virajpet, the back tyre got punctured at a village called Kadanur, 6 KMs before Virajpet. Fixing this puncture took me 2.5 hrs and costed me a mind-boggling 430 rupees. The high cost was purely because of the distance from the nearest town. Mechanics took their own sweet time to attend to it. While this was going on, Jayanti was going around exploring Virajpet by visiting temples, buying honey and much more. When everything was set at 1.30, we got back to road and crossed Gontikoppal town. The drive in this part was amazing as the road seemed to be freshly laid and the view of the stretches of the lengthy road was magnificent. But there was more pain left to be faced by us. A 15Km stretch of no-road with only gravels spread throughout. This part just took the life out of me. But throughout the time since the puncture took place, Jayanti kept her cool and did not blame me or our luck for the events. She took everything in her stride and was enjoying as always. I took some time to come out of all the shocks. Finally we heaved a sigh of relief when we touched the Hunsur-Mysore Highway. The Virajpet-route to Madikeri will be mind-blowing when this construction work gets over. The point where this route touches the highway is just 6 KM before Hunsur. We took two breaks before reaching Mysore since the weather was a bit hot. I was having change of plans and suggested a night stay at Mysore for going around this place. After a half an hour thought process, we decided not to go ahead with this plan as the day was already painful for us and were not ready for more trouble. We headed back to the same bypass road which we took on our onward journey and joined Srirangapatnam on Mysore-Bangalore highway. We had to skip Ranganathittu as there were too many unexpected delays. A mango-break at this point rejuvenated us and we were ready to put our asses again on the bike. The odometer stopped working somewhere near Mandya. I did not understand why all bad things happened on the same day. Below is the pic of the best road of the trip.

We noticed pretty dark clouds and felt chill in the air. I wanted to cover as much distance as possible before darkness sets in as I do not prefer driving in the dark. Wish I were a Dark Knight. A mango-truck passed by and he was distributing one free mango to whoever requested. I got one from him while driving. Fortunately it was not raining and reached Marathalli at 9 o clock when it just started raining. We completed our dinner at Bhagini and headed back home. A mesmerising bike-trip came to an end with many good things and a few bad things. Jayanti passed the bikeride-test and proved herself fit for more of such rides. She did not sulk even for a moment throughout the trip. I sign off the blog here with some important details given below:

Destination: Coorg

Route to Madiker: Mysore road – ramnagara – Srirangapatna – (Right turn after the town) – bypass joining the Hunsur-Madikeri highway – right turn at a signal in the end of the road – Hunsur – Bylakuppe – Khushal nagar – Sunticoppa – Madikeri

Route to Kakkabe: Madikeri – Take the Mangalore highway – Bettigere – Napokulu – kakkabe

Alternate route to Madikeri: 5 KM after Hunsur, take left in a Y bifurcation road – Gontikoppal – Virajpet – Madikeri. Currently a 15 KM stretch is not good, it might take 7-8 months for work to get completed

Stay details: Jungle Mount Adventure, Kakkabe which is 30 KMs from Madikeri and 23 KMs from Virajpet.

Contact details:

Sagar – 9845831675

Tamil Nadu bike trip - Part 1

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 25^th. 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 1^st day: 220KM

Route taken: Chennai – Kanchipuram - Vandavasi – Polur – Javadhu hills