Three days of Ride - On the road from East to West coast

May 1st was a holiday, combining the weekend & applying leave on Monday gives 4 days; good time to ride somewhere. Missing the Bekal fort last time (will start a thread as how it was missed), I thought this will help. This time, I'd a company too. I was in charge of the planning as the new rider was an expert in riding but still learning how to plan for the ride. So this was the map...


DAY ONE
We decided to meet at a mutually agreed location; when I started from home, this is what was on ODO



We kept riding & riding for over 200 Kms (125 mi) non stop while we were witnessing the beautiful Sunrise as how the sky turns from dark to red to pink & then finally we couldn't control the urge to stop & take pics...




And then we kept riding & riding. We crossed the TN (Tamilnadu) border & entered to KA (Karnataka) state & kept riding. Had good B'Fast & then kept proceeding until we couldn't help stopping for beautiful scenery of the Gulmohar flower filled roads, the green fields; seriously...pics can't do justice.


















And then we were delayed reaching Mysore; what we should've reached in 2 hours, we reached in 4 hours. We made up that time riding non stop from Mysore to Madikeri & here're some fun we'd at Madikeri hills


Its extremely difficult for anyone to differentiate between KL & KA; all the houses, scenery looks all the same everywhere


After Sulliya, we'd some hard time riding through the border; but soon the roads not only turned good, but also was made worth of riding through the blissed roads, this was right entering into the KL border.






We soon reached Bekal & called it a day

Route Map of Day 1

DAY TWO
We'd a very nice accommodation from Nirvana @ Bekal- Bekal Resorts, Resorts in Bekal, Bekal Hotels, Cottages in Bekal. Extremely friendly people, offered good services & located right next to Bekal Fort. They also have attached restaurant (not tasted the food though). I'd highly recommend this place to anyone who visits Bekal. This place also has a beach in less than 500 foot. Though we decided to start the ride by 6:00 AM, we decided to check out the beach & leave in few minutes, but, little we knew what beauty awaited there!!!







The best part is that, the Bekal Fort is close to the beach






So what was planned as checkout turned out to be a time cruncher; we literally spent nearly 1.5 hours at the beach!!!

Customary pics of cottages at Hotel Nirvana


ODO at start of the day


Some shops enroute


These days I feel the beauty of the road lies in 2 lanes than on super dooper well laid 6 laned highways






And then finally we reached Kutta, the KA border


We lost a great deal of time riding through KA roads; we spent more than 3 hours only to cover hardly 120 Kms (80 mi). Here's the quality of road difference between KA & KL. Needless to say which is KL


The police check post at Kutta


When we entered into KL, we felt like we were riding through heaven!!! If you think these pics are great, I'll say this is crap!!! No pics or video can describe like being there. Absolutely heaven!!!


One of my friend gave an apt title "In the world obsessed with Green, the Red rides right through it"; isn't that true?


And the roads were fantastic to still keep riding


And the scenery even beautiful; yet hard to say which is KL or KA, which indeed is KL though



After crossing Meppadi, we'd 2 morons on a Yamaha YZF R15 trying to do street racing with us. Little they knew we'd been riding over 270 odd Kms & we're still doing over 80 Kmph (In India the speed limits are 40-50...thanks to corruption & lack of enforcement). We let them go on account of photography & most importantly...SAFETY

Day Two Continued...

And we soon entered into TN (Tamilnadu) border once again






We crossed Mudumalai Wildlife Reserve, but didn't take a single pic on account of reaching Masinagudi soon & finding an accommodation, which was a big mistake Anyway, we found an accommodation & took some pics around, but these are very very less scenic compared to the actual Forest














Route map of Day 2

Another great set of photos which convey feeling, spiced up with a few well chosen words. Interesting to see a little "motorcycle porn" slipped in near the end of the second set!

I love the early morning start. I am a morning sort of a guy. It is great to see places wake up; sunrise (my apartment faces the east!), towns and villages, countryside. With the heat in India, and the distance traveled on the first day, the early start must have made for a more leisurely ride over the course the day......

Sometimes if I am up early to do something here in Phuket, after I'm done I'll pop over the Patong on the west coast of the island. It is a nightlife sort of a place, and it is kind of interesting to see it winding up about the time I normally get up, between 5.00 and 6.00 AM.

I empathise with lingering at the beach at the start of the second day. It has been similar for me at different places on my travels. For instance, a short morning walk at Chamonix (in France) turned into a four hour hike to the base of a glacier. Memories such as these are etched into my memory. I do have the odd photo, on film, but pictures cannot always do justice..... Sorry I cannot post them. They are stashed 11,000 km away!

I don't have a camera right now, but must make my delayed entry into the digital era soon!!

You will surely inspire a few others Aargee; motorcycles are for motorcycling.

CBR250R ABS said:

Breath taking beauty...Bet it would be a unique way to see a new part of the world !!

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Thanks for your kind words

B-maca said:

Mate, I’m loving the read!
Thanks a heap for sharing your epic journey

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Aah!!! I don't know if its epic or not, but, this is just another ride. Tks for your post

Top said:

Thank you for sharing, once again... another great road trip thread

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Thanks for reading

etiainen said:

Aargee, do you have your own site that you post trip reports on?

If not, you should make one.

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Aah!!! I'm just an ordinary guy compared to several professional bikers + photographers who go with gorilla pod, 3 cameras that are nothing less than DSLR, remote control & couple of tripods. I guess I'm happy with the forum Thanks for your encouragement.

sendler said:

Beautiful photos. Must be the other bike had the luggage?

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Thanks sendler; means a lot coming from you

qlred said:

Awesome!

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Thank you

Aargee said:

Aah!!! I'm just an ordinary guy compared to several professional bikers + photographers who go with gorilla pod, 3 cameras that are nothing less than DSLR, remote control & couple of tripods. I guess I'm happy with the forum Thanks for your encouragement.

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Maybe a bit more than ordinary? Ordinary people are boring.

Doing something like a photoblog is pretty easy. If you ever want some help, I can always provide(I'm a computer geek).

Blog sites, such as wordpress.com(I'm currently still building mine, however I don't nearly have content as cool as yours), blogspot, etc, make it very very easy to upload galleries. Literally, click upload, and drag the photos you want.

You just have to batch upload them, maybe with some small descriptions of the batch. Would be a great way to organize things around.

Signups are free and you usually get quite a large amount of space.

I hosted my own for a while then moved it to wordpress.com.

Day Three
It was a seasonal time at Masinagudi & Ooty; we'd hard time previous day getting an accommodation with most importantly safety of parking. So we decided to skip staying at Ooty & reach home rather than finding impossible accommodation at sky rocketing prices!!!

ODO captured previous night, start of the day


Sunrise at Masinagudi


Sunrise at Ooty


By the time we reached Mettupalayam, we thought to break in for B'Fast; so we found this little place


We asked for Idly & Vada, but the owner politely said, they only had Aapam & told us that we could find Vada for BFast at a place 1Km ahead. This could be quite unsurprising answer for anyone in the West, but here in India, people look only into their business & this is something quite a surprise at the politeness of them. So we decided to eat Aapam; we now understand we would be fools to miss his Aapam. Such a heavenly food at a very low low price!!!


And then we continued from Mettupalayam towards Lower Bhavani; enroute this happened




The roads were inviting, superb, fantastic (did I loose any word )








And we'd some fun...