Kerala December 2011: Day Six

Early morning 6, I packed my bags, readied up the cycle. Again, it was humid and hot even at this time. It took me almost an hour before I got out of the city.

Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari: Far View of the temple

 But once I was on the National highway, I managed to keep a constant pace. Reaching Kanyakumari felt a lot more peaceful than yesterday’s ride. Anything would be easier than yesterdays, I kept telling myself all along.  I reached Kanyakumari quite easily. Since I was more worried about my bike than being interested in  Kanyakumari, I just took a quick tour around the beach, snapped a few pics.

My bus reservation was from Nagercoil, so after a quick lunch, I headed back for Nagercoil. It was 20 km from Kanyakumari, but I couldn’t understand how I had missed the scenic beauty here.

I rode as slow as possible, taking in as much of the surrounding as I could.

My dear cycle, Shreya

As I waited at the bus stand, I couldn't help but smile looking at my dear cycle. She had been faithful to me all along the way. Never once did I have any problem because of her. No flat tires over the 750km ride, no crankiness, nothing. What else could I ask for.

Finally took my off from Nagercoil for Chennai at 6 in the evening.

The Crux of the expedition, why did I title it 'The Pilgrimage'

Wikipedia defines pilgrimage as 'A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. typically, a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith.' 

Well, it was no different for me. I took up the challenge of doing this because I wanted to prove to myself that I can. Just like a pilgrimage, it often made me question my motivation and incentive all along the route. It often pushed me to the brink of giving up, but I held on. And when I reached back Chennai in one piece, without much damage to me or any damage to my cycle,  I knew I had succeeded, and i still cherish the journey and will keep doing so for the time to come. After all, I DID IT!

Kerala December 2011: Day Four

On the way to Allepey

After a delayed start, I moved on towards my next destination, Allepey. A day of rest had charged me up, and the effects showed on the road. After the first 5 km within the city, I entered the national highway. Miles flew, before I realised, I had covered 40 km in less than 90 min! this won’t sound like much to a biker, or for that reason maybe even a cross-county cyclist. But for a hardtail MTB rider, this would definitely be stunning. I grew conscious after this realisation and it trickled down to the remaining journey. I reached Allepey in hardly two and a half hours. I reached the boat jetty, and was supposed to take a boat ride to Kottayam, from where I’d reach my destination in a kilometer or so. But the boat I planned to get on was cancelled, and the next boat wasn’t until next two hours, and it would take another two hours for the boat to reach Kottayam. I did not have the patience for all that, and so, decided to cycle instead.

Too much tempting to tread, isn't it?

So I cycled to Kumarkom, around 35 km from where I was. Reaching this place was difficult because of the road, which was difficult to find among the potholes. Reaching Kumarkom also opened my eyes to some saddening features of some of the less developed provinces of this state. I stopped once to get directions from a lady walking by, and she literally ran away, maybe fearing me to be a bad guy. Somewhere in the next village, again I had to stop for directions.

Crossing the bridge towards Kumarkom

I stopped a mother and a daughter, and the mother pushed her daughter away and rudely gestured me to get lost. I had similar experiences with the males as well, but somehow managed even though my GPS was malfunctioning. Kumarkom and then Kottayam. By the time I reached, I was exhausted and after all these days, totally tanned!

The house I stayed here in has to be the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen! Normally I do not use such adjectives for architectural feats, but this was different from anything I had seen before. Housed right in front of a paddy field, the home was compounded by four walls made of stones. The building was a single floored structure, with the construction along two adjacent sides of the compound walls. The rest of the portion was all gravel, with a well centered in the compound. There were two entrances, with some vegetable farms around outside the compound walls. The entire building was white, with white marble corridors. Entering the compound immediately soothed your mind, and you felt peace, the kind of which makes you want to retire and settle somewhere in a similar establishment.

I had the traditional Keralite red rice for lunch, along with some other  curries.

Mr. George Podipora, and aunty, whom I stayed along with were wonderful hosts, I immensely enjoyed their company.  In the evening, uncle took me out to show his fields.

The day ended with almost 6 hrs of cycling and I had covered nearly a 130 km.

Day Five: Kottayam to Trivandrum; The day of extremes

Kerala December 2011: Day Three

Kochi Chalo!

After a heavy breakfast in Ponnani, I headed towards Kochi. It was sultry in the morning, and was a bit warm. The roads in the beginning weren’t exactly what you’d call expressways. Cramps from my yesterday's  feat humbled as I warmed up. The distance today was only 115 km, and I did not want to take up more than four and a half hours for this (Though I had begun with an ambitious 4 hrs.) The backache from yesterday hadn’t exactly faded, but it regained its composure after the first hour. I stopped 4 times in the first 80 km, and those 80 seemed more than 150. The scorching sun over and above the fatigue from the last two days was already taking a toll on me. A jeera soda on the way eased much of the pain, but the guy told me that Kochi was 100km. Rubbish, I knew he was incorrect, but it was already 11 in the morning and temperatures were just going up, and even 50 km would look insurmountable.

The Varapuzha Bridge

After another two hours or so, I reached Varapuzha toll, which I thought to be on the outskirts of Kochi, but the package has its own set of surprises you. Once I got in, I reached a junction. It was almost 2 now, and I was totally drained out. I was a bit lost too, not knowing where to go, so I just stationed myself temporarily in shade somewhere nearby. I finished off whatever dates I was carrying along with me, and finally decided to use my GPS.

There are some moments in life, when you feel accomplished, satisfied, thinking that your goal is a whisker away (a km away in my case), when you are jolted into reality by a rude margin. 19 km, read my GPS! I don’t know whom I was cursing, the internet? Or the roads? Google maps? Anything that confronted me passed by tainted by plethora of imprecations.

You call these dangerous?

And then the traffic. I tell you, if there is anything that can eclipse the haphazardness of the Chennai auto-drivers, it has to be the bus drivers in Kochi; twice they forced me onto the footpaths, and countless times forced me to screeching halts. And building up momentum on the cycle after you are exhausted is frustrating. It was 3:30 by the time I finally reached my destination. Worn out and frustrated, a day’s stay was in order.

The true color or Danger

There is one thing annoying about the highways in Kerala, there are no milestones for the big cities!

There will be milestones for the the smallest of the colonies, but none for what lies ahead. I didn’t see a board for Kochi till I had reached there.

5hrs and 30 min, an hour more against my target, 125 Km, the day finally came to an end.

Day Four: Kochi to Kottayam

Kerala December 2011: Day Two

The crash yesterday was more potent than it seemed. His hand swelled up in the morning and the vision was still blurry. And with 5 more days to go, it would be difficult. So he decided to go back to Chennai, and I decided to keep going.

Our second halt was supposed to be at Munnar, which was around 160 km from here, but we had underestimated the rigours of uphill cycling. And Ooty had given us just the nudge to forget Munnar, if we planned to pedal there. So the route was changed, and now it was Ponnani instead.

Road to palakkad

7:30 in the morning, I began cycling, solo towards my next destination.

The highway was awesome! It was mostly flat, and as I moved towards Palakkad, the scenery started improving as well. My excitement knew no bounds when I entered Kerala. I began hooting the moment I crossed the checkpost into Kerala, but had to shut up soon because the stares from the truckers made me feel like a fool. 

Just inside Kerala

I reached Palakkad in about 90 min, and had covered around 50 km. This was by far, one of my fastest escapades. I stopped here to fill up my bottles, and picked up some dry fruits for the way ahead. I met with similar reactions here, bike or a cycle? Is he crazy? Why does he want to cycle so much? And when they learnt that I was going to go all the way to Ponnani, they gave up on me, but nonetheless, wished me luck and went off. Often, auto-rickshaws, bikers tagged along, wanting to know where I was headed. I took my second halt at Ottamalam, had lunch here and moved on.

The all equipped dashboard ;)

The ride after this point started getting tougher. Bad, dusty roads, lots of slopes, hillocks and cattle! Your motivation while going uphill is the downhill ride that follows it, but that is interrupted by the livestock! And then I took a turn at Patambi, and didn’t realise that it was the wrong way until I had covered some 7 km, so had to turn back, get back all the way on the potholed road and reach the correction junction. This was not it, I got lot of directions from here, different people asking me to head in different directions. Giving up hope, I had to call up my friend here, and he advised me to follow the buses to Edappal, some 22 km, and from there Ponnani would be just 9 km. It was around 1 pm in the afternoon, and these distances didn’t seem very comforting, knowing the terrain was hilly. Finally, 4:30 in the evening, I reached his home.

He has the most beautiful of homes that I’ve ever seen, house surrounded by lots of trees, in a very serene and an isolated locality. And Ponnani felt a bit underrated, I wondered why it did not feature on the places worth visiting on the net. We went to the beach, had Saudi Cuisine in the evening and crashed. It was a challenging day, particularly in the 25 km. I had broken all of my previous records today, had covered 165 km, ride time of 6 hr 30 min. My back ached from the weight of my backpack, but the satisfaction was enormous.

Day Three: Ponnani to Kochi

Kerala December 2011: Day One

When I woke up in the morning, the bus was somewhere near Mettupalayam. And the bus was going uphill. It was a really slow ride, and we wondered, if the bus were to take so long, when would we reach Munnar on a cycle? Finally the bus stopped, and we put our cycles back together. Ooty, or Udagamandalam on the boards there, was cold. Luckily we’d brought our jackets and were already wearing two layers inside.

Teja in Gear!

The first 2 km were totally uphill. We were already panting by the time we reached up one peak. We stopped here, loaded our bottles with electral, stuffed our ears with cotton, covered our mouths, put on the goggles and began the downhill ride.

The tip of the uphill ride

Swoosh!! The ride that followed had to be the best possible ride ever! Averaging at more than 40 Kmph, and touching 55 every now and then, we left all the motored vehicle drivers stunned. None of them were spared, all of them had to face the humiliation of being overtaken by cyclists. We stopped at Coonor, about 20 km from ooty, and we came that distance in less than 30 min. After an awesome authentic south Indian breakfast, we started off again.

The typical south Indian breakfast

The joy of riding downhill was so much, that we forgot, or should I say ignored to look around and appreciate the hilly beauty. You never start pedalling from the top gear, but here it felt the chain was always derailed! Not once there was a need to put an effort from our side!

The side of the road cleared all of a sudden and the view that it brought out was breathtaking.

The momentary distraction: Root of the first setback

First setback came along. Ajay’s bike slipped over from the edge of the road and he somehow managed to tear off the rear of his jacket, bruise his left ear and get a cut on the left temple. It’s difficult to picture how he’d have crashed, but the first time I saw him, blood was oozing all over from his temple onto his jacket. And his ear didn’t look any different from an over-fried bajji. It was a bad fall, imagine the Kinetic energy of a 80 kg object moving at 40kmph, being absorbed in just one impulse by the body. Ouch.

His vision after the fall was a bit blurry, so we had to slow down.

Till we reached the foothills, life couldn’t have been better. But reality struck us hard when we came down on the flat roads once again. Heat was high, the road was bad, and it was dusty, very dusty!

Ajay’s cycle wheel was wobbling after the fall, so we stopped at every cycle or motor repair shop on the way. But none of them had any clue on how to work on the imported bikes. We had no other option, so we kept trudging along.

The outskirts of Coimbatore were worse than a barren village in Rajasthan. Sand, dust storms, traffic, and the weariness from the journey concocted a really bad image about this place. We hadn’t had lunch, so located a KFC, and relaxed there for almost an hour. Once our tummies were full, we got a place to stay, and began planning tomorrow.

We had covered 95 km today, in about 5 hrs.

Day Two: Coimbatore to Ponnani

The Pilgrimage

The journey had been planned, though not very meticulously.  A rough route had been decided. Bookings were made just a day before, with no idea whether our cycles were going to be allowed to be taken as luggage or not. Cycles had been serviced; we took spares with us; 

The essential was with us in abundance, motivation.

We reached the Koyambedu Bus Terminus almost an hour before time. We still had to confirm the luggage. The person in charge told us that we would have to talk to the bus driver, and it was his prerogative. We waited. Other travellers flocked our waiting area asking about our cycles, mostly clearing their doubts over whether these were really cycles or motor cycles. The bottles, after all, made them look like fuel tanks on a moped. The bus was delayed, by another half an hour. Our anxiety accrued. Our entire trip depended on this one decision of the driver. What if he just denied?

Finally the bus arrived, and I made it to the drivers cabin even before he could switch off the engine. And before he could say anything, I was already blabbering over my demands, or petitions maybe. The guy was confused. By then, some other bus company people came up and offered me to have our cycles delivered separately in a luggage van. No way, that was too much disconcerting. We were taking no risks, and sending our sweethearts separately was in no way an option. The driver finally spoke, and did not speak something very comforting. He said there was no space in the luggage and that he couldn’t help. What?! We weren’t giving up so easily, luggage space? That could definitely be adjusted.

With my limited lexicon of the tamil language, I somehow managed to persuade the driver to show me the space available. It seemed tight, but could be worked out. He saw the bikes, and the first reaction was: ‘You call this small-u?? No way sir, not possible.’ By then, I had already dismantled my front wheel and had put already begun loading. Ajay was doing the same. When mine was inside, the driver gave similar concerns, how will the second fit? But by then the second was in as well.

Back inside as we reclined back on the chairs, we couldn’t help, but feel overjoyed. 500 bucks for two cycles. The bus started moving.

This is what it looked like after the luggage had been emptied

Finally a much fantasized journey was taking place.

Day One: Ooty to Coimbatore

Upcoming Winter Tour of Kerala

Continuing on our quest for adventure!
Wish us luck!
The journey begins on the 7th of this month!

Pallavaram, 13th August

Evening 5 o'clock, after the tiring waterpolo practice session in the morning.

Pretty awesome climb, always had to keep in my 1-1 to 1-3 gear combination. There's a broken temple up here along with some telecommunication tower, and a bunch of angry pigs. But a fun climb, better come here only on a good geared bike. No hawk, mach or the normal types.  And the hill is not to be under estimated.

And as usual, the best part of the climb always arrives after a good tiring climb, the downhill ride! Usual because some time back on the Nagala trip, we had a similar ride down the hill, on parts of the river bed and the wet muddy village roads. While going up, my speeds had been limited to a little over 6kmph, but I clocked speeds of upto 64 kmph on the way back! Once I almost lost control, resulting in an almost a 30 feet slide, but once again, my bike proved it's worth. And then i almost bumped into a few hill folk, but managed to sneak away before they could scream, "Are you crazy??". And the rest of the ride was just a boring high speed escapade, stunning a few pillion riders every now and then.
It's a good sunday morning ride, except for the fact that you'll have to endure some really nasty stench on the way up.

Nagalapuram Trip, on Bicycle!

  Early morning in Chennai, 3:15 am, 6th June, 2011, hot and humid even now, but somehow bearable. The excitement about the trip made everything bearable. Backpack: ready, cycle: serviced and ready, equipment: ready, self: ready to be tested. Finally we were embarking on a trip that we (My friend Ajayteja, and me) had long fantasized, cycling all the way to Nagalapuram, camping there for  2 nights, trekking and coming back.

   4:30 am, and we were off. By 5:30 we had reached the far end of Poonamallee, and took our first stop there. It took a lot of referring to the GPS for first timers like us. But nonetheless, we were there. We had tea here and took off at about 5:45, with our electral packets loaded into the sipper bottles. and before long, we were on the state highway to Thiruvallur, which was to be our second stop.

   The road to Thiruvallur was really good, no potholes, and with excellent farms around, and beautiful scenery, and weather. But riding on this wasn't easy, especially with the wind totally against us. The wind limited our speeds to a little over 10 kmph. And at around 8:30, we were at Thiruvallur. We had cycled 45 km from our hostels to reach this place, and were already starting to feel high.

    After crossing the railway station and getting out of the city, we stopped on the outskirts of this town, at some small tea stall. Had tea and a few slices of bread, refilled our bottles, and were off by 9:00. Our next planned halt was to be at poondi, around 20 km from this place.

   Our path took an unexpected turn after Thiruvallur, when we branched off for Poondi onto the state highway 50. It just furthered our image of the Indian rural highways, pathetic, pitiable for vehicle travellers, but all the more fun for cyclists like us. It was all the more invigorating, as it was different from the mundane highway rides. We had to watch out for every pothole, every bump, and overtaking the villagers on bikes was even more fun! And the eyeballs we grabbed on the way, thanks to our bikes and our attire! As we reached the poondi village, beautiful farms started coming up. But the wind was still against us. We took a halt here for a few minutes.

And a picture, wallpaper material, isn't it?
Not for everyone! The place was really awesome, ideal place to set up a tent, and we even thought that on the way back, we'd have a night halt here.

    As we passed through the Poondi village, a local followed up to us and struck up a conversation. He took us to the Poondi reservoir and offered us lemonade.
    That's Teja, with the local, Mr. Suresh.
    After exchanging contacts, we furthered onto our trip, towards the next halt Uthukottai.




 
   On the way to Uthukottai, we stopped at some village midway and bought steel mugs, and maggi.
Reaching Uthukottai was a kind of a mini achievement for us as we had come across a milestone previously that placed Uthukottai at 57km. We had our breakfast here at a small dosa stall. The stall-owners were surprisingly friendly!  After refilling our bottles, we took off again. And we came by Palavakkam. This was the point where we crossed the state, into Andhra Pradesh, another woo-hoo moment for us!

Me

Teja!!

 As we cycled on and on, as every pedal took us near to our destination, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the cadence. The wind, as if it had sworn to be against us all the time, continued it's fury against us. And 1.5km before the Nagalapuram town, we went off road. This was amongst the most fun part of our trip, as we cycled in the scorching sun, on and on, unsure of the path. All we knew was that we had to get to some village, and get further directions, till then just enjoy the road!

en route to the village

off-road!

    And we reached a village, and after lots of twists and turns and ups and downs, and again a lot of asking and seeking, we finally met a guy who knew where we wanted to go. He took us to his home, offered us mangoes and chilled water. Chilled water was a luxury!! He set us on to the right track, and before long, we reached Tipikottai, the last Village before we got onto the hill. And as we climbed up the reservoir, our joy knew no bounds! We were finally there!

On the reservoir boundary

The reservoir

    Our next aim here was to find a place to hide our cycles, as we planned to trek on later. We found a place at some  15ft above the ground, some flat place with a good strong branch above. After tying our cycles to the branch and covering it with a lot of leaves and stuff, we headed inside the forest.
 
    We walked on till the first pool, found a clear place nearby, and set up the tent. We lit up a small fire, and put the maggi for cooking and lazed in the pool. And Teja sure did exhibit some skill as we tried to lit the fire, scrapping out pulp from dried wood using his swiss knife. Lazing in the pool, we almost fell asleep, but the smell of cooked maggi is too much inviting to not eat it off. Once we were done with eating, we got back to the tent and started clearing around, and it started to drizzle. And boy, was that awesome! In the jungle already, raining, and time to spend some time in the tent! It couldn't get better!

    First disappointment came along. The tent wasn't waterproof. Within minutes of raining, our stuff was almost starting to float inside. And then, we took the most upsetting decision of the trip, of getting back. Technically it was the best we could do, but the excitement was gone. The trek was ruined. We hastily packed all our stuff back inside, folded back the tent in the heavy rain, trekked back all the way back to the reservoir, got the cycles down.

   And then the best, let me emphasize on this word, BEST part of the entire trip followed. We cycled down back to Tipikottai, in that heavy rain, on a river bed road, bad mud, racing all the way down. Our cycles jumped as high as 2ft high, which was in no way any less than a thrill for novice cyclists like us! And our cycles were faithful to us all the while, not one puncture, no wheel bend, the gears changing smoothly as ever, and the shock absorbers proving their worth! In short, LOVELY!!

   We got inside Tipikottai and arrived at a reasonably dense locality. We stopped by some snack stall, and as we ordered, we asked for a place to spend the night. It was already dark, and raining, so we couldn't have gone far as well. After a lot of asking around, we finally got a place in the verandah of locked hut. The place was hardly 4m by 2m, and we set up our tent, parked the cycles, and spent the night here. In the tent we tried to have some dinner, the packaged stuff that we had brought along, but we were too exhausted to eat. Just had some plum cake, set the alarms and "crashed".

All in all, it was 105 km cycling plus 5 km trek. This was Day One.

 Day Two

   Day two begun at 4:45 in the morning, actually 3:15 again, but snoozing took us all the way. Even the hard floor we slept on last night felt a very comfortable bed. We woke up all shaken up, because we had not slept well, and we hadn't had a proper dinner. After folding the tent back, watering off the mud from the gears, taking some glucose, we left that place. It was drizzling, but the wind was not against us now. We came back till Uthukottai, stopping frequently in between. The ride back was scenic, but we did not have all the energy to enjoy it much.

    And then we took a lift in a tempo till Poondi, where we called up our local contact, Suresh. We had some breakfast, coffee at his home, and took off again in an hour. But now we were all charged up. The village kids sure did go crazy on our bikes.

     The rest of the ride back was easy. As we passed every landmark that we had come across previously, our enthusiasm grew, we pedaled faster and faster. Finally we reached Chennai, the change was imminent. It was one in the afternoon,  and the traffic was bad. It was 2:30, finally, when we dropped dead in our hostel rooms. And we did not wake up before 8 in the evening.
Total distance covered in 2 days: 200 km on cycle + 5 km trekking.

    Last word, if you enjoy physically challenging feats, this is one good opportunity!