The last time I went out on my bike…emmm…was in 2009 to Hampi. After that wonderful trip there were no long rides. We did one to Antharagange in Oct 2010, but that was nothing; the distance would be like commuting to office from city centre for two days. I was desperate for a trip as this first week of Nov were lined up holidays and the weather would just great where ever you want to go. A lot of places were in mind MM Hills, Ooty, Goa etc. There were chances that I would have to ride alone no company and I was all ready for that too. Sandy was not clear if he would be able to come or not, eventually he did. And in the last moment a colleague of mine, Harwant was willing to ride with us where ever we went. So were three guys on two Bullets and a Pulsar. The other Bullet, Thunderbird belonged to Harwant. We were slated to start on 30 Oct, Sat afternoon; but thanks to persistent intervention from out manager both me and Harwant were in the office to fix some issue. We decided to leave Bangalore early on Sun morning. Oh by the way we are going to Kerala, Thalasseri and adjoining areas. We left Bangalore and reached Mysore for breakfast. The weather was really good, cloudy with occasional burst of sunlight. The breakfast at Mylari was too good. All of us gulped down three dosa’s. We were sitting outside under the exhaust fan and suddenly as the exhaust fan started to blow faster all the oil with water started spraying on us. To watch it it looked like some slimy aliens black in colour were holed up in that fan and now they have decided to attack us. It was only us that they were interested in.
Well after escaping the attack we headed towards Hunsur and Gonikoppa. Our first day was planned to end in Thalasseri or Mahe. The deviation from Hunsur to Gonikoppa had some bad roads and some really good road especially in the Coorg district. As we entered Kerala we were hungry and wanted to have lunch, but there were no hotels on the highway where you could stop and eat. We reached Irrity around 3:00PM and were searching for a hotel. The main road has all shops for buying vegetables, banana, clothes, jewelry and what not but not one hotel in sight. While we were searching dark black clouds were hovering above the town and in a fraction of seconds it started raining. We just parked our bike on the road side and ran into a bakery. We realized that there was not way this rain was going to stop soon and decided to eat in the bakery what ever is there. Communicating with the owner was a thing. I landed up eating some beef dish which was understood as chicken. We hogged like hell in that bakery. We spent almost an hour waiting there and finally decided that we will stay in this town. We searched for a hotel in the drizzling rain and halted in a hotel called Falcon Plaza/Rose Restaurant. The receptionist was excited to have customers and was telling that the owner is from Gulf who will come today and that and this and all. It looked like we were the only guys lodging in that place. The place was ok. We changed into dry clothes and went hunting for soda, water and snacks to go along with VAT69. We were supposed to find the reason for naming it as VAT69 and we still don’t know. We got some tasty tapioca chips, yummy. After having couple of drinks we went to the hardly occupied restaurant and had our dinner and called it a day.
The next day we woke up early and headed towards Kannur. Sandy’s friend gave some information that going to Kannur will be better than to Thalasseri as there are more places to be seen and better accommodation is also available. On the way we had breakfast in a local hotel, man good dosa and amazing chutney. We reached Kannur sooner than expected thanks to some good roads. We lodged our self in Mascot Beach Resort on Baby Beach. What a name na, actually there is no beach on the hotel front. The hotel is just located on the sea shore. We dumped out luggage and headed towards Kasargod to visit Bekal Fort. It is about 80Km north of Kannur on NH-17. The highway road was bad at places and really bad for the last 20Kms to Bekal Fort. Our asses were crying out loud in pain. Bekal fort is also facing the sea, in the past it was used for trading with Portuguese and many empires have ruled in this region. We also spent some time on the beach with the fort in the background. By the time we were finished in the fort the weather had finished us and we were hungry. There was a restaurant next to the fort and we hogged there. Surprisingly the cost of fish was too much in this place. Being on a coastal region we would not expect the price to be sky high. Oh it was also raining here, well not heavily. By the time we left Bekal Fort the rain had stopped and we were happy. We wanted to cover the distance fast as dawn was approaching fast and clouds were also accumulating. Man we had to go through the same ass whooping roads. At some places it had rained heavily. As we neared Kannur it became dark and heavy vehicles started their journey. Sandy ripped through this traffic and we lost Harwant. There was a 30min delay and we realized later that there was a communication gap between us. When we reached the hotel, we were drenched and cold. All of us took a hot water bath and man it was so refreshing. Then we deep dived into food and took a walk on the sea shore and crashed for the day.
The next day we went to Payyambalam beach as soon as we woke up. Played football there and Harwant took a dip in the sea. From there we came back to the hotel to play in the pool before getting ready. We all got ready, had breakfast and headed to Muzhapilangad beach. This is a drive in beach so we can take our bikes on the beach and ride it. This was the best part of the trip, riding carelessly on the beach. We had some nice snaps taken on the beach. From here we headed to Thalasseri, enroute to Waynad/Manathavady. In Thalasseri we went to Thalasseri Fort, not a great place and not a big fort too. Again the coastal weather was finishing us, we stopped at a cool bar and I hogged at ice cream while the others had juice. As we started to go towards Manathavady, the weather also started to change slowly and we were feeling better. We reached Manathavady for lunch and the ride on the hills amidst the tea estates was really good. We had lunch in a local hotel called Hotel Rolex. Nice ghee rice. We had initially thought of staying here for the day, but after reaching the place we felt that we should continue and decided to ride to H.D Kote through the Nagarahole Forest. Ha ha what a ride, amazing road but lot of humps. All along the route you can see elephant crossing symbol. We also spotted a lonely tusker chomping on to grass. It had its tusker intact. As we rode along the forest we saw Langur, Deer’s and a Peacock. When we reached H.D. Kote it was almost evening and there was unwillingness to ride further. We searched for a hotel to stay for the day and man what a place. There are not hotels but dingy lodges. We decided to head to Mysore which was just 50Kms. We went straight to Bopy’s and crashed for the night. Harwant had to leave early next day, we both had a heavy breakfast in GTR and then we headed to Melkote. There is a temple here and fort on a hill top. But the timing was bad, when we reached we had only half an hour to spare before they closed down the place. So we visited the temple and had Pulliogre as recommended by our friend HP. After that we headed straight back to Bangalore. I was feeling really sad that the trip has come to an end so soon. Yeh dil mange more!!
