When i was in Dallas, i relly missed the bike trips that we enjoyed the most. So, when it was confirmed that i would land in bangalore sometime in april, we decided to go on a bike trip to... someplace. :-)
Since my bike was in a bad shape after my himalayan odyssey 2007 i got it fairly fixed the very next day i landed in bangalore. Initially myself and pomchi were supposed to go solo, but darpan and leelu also decided to join us. Our plan was to leave b'lore on may 1st and reach murudeshwar, kodachadri on the 2nd, agumbe on the 3rd and back to b'lore on the 4th of may 2008.
Our plan was to leave b'lore early within 6 AM, but ultimately managed to leave nelamangala only by 8.30 AM, all thanks to the lazy ass leelu who woke up when i reached his house to pick him up!!!! when at his door he signalled that is gonna take a bath!! he is the root cause of ALL delays in ALL our trips. to kill time i woke up navya and bakra at 6 on a holiday. ;-) the ride to nelamangala was a pain due to heavy traffic and road-widening projects on the route. we joined pomchi and darpan who were waiting there for us. the ride to tumkur was smooth and boring on the 4 lane NH. not long ago this streach was notorious for traffic jams and accidents, a good job by NHAI has solved the problem. leelu switched bikes and rode with darpan after a while. we had a good breakfast at tiptur and rode towards kadur. i stopped for some yelaneeru just outside beeroor at a railway crossing. pomchi joined me and some 10 mins later he got a call from leelu saying "maga aaykondvi.. skid aaythu.." we rushed to the spot to see darpan very tense and somewhat shaken. lee was in a lot of pain. the bike seemed intact, but the guys seemed like bhikaris with their clothes completely torn.
the good thing about the bad roads in India is that they pass through lots of villages and the people there are very helpful when there is an accident. with some help i rushed the guys to a nearby hospital in an auto. the hospital seemed good enough for such a small town. darpan was now very tensed and still in shock. "doctor, internal bleeding check maadi... doctor, x-ray tegdu internal bleeding aagidiya antha check madi..." was what he ordered the doc, pointing to his huge tummy. leelu was as usual laidback and cool, though in a lot of pain. to assure darpan we got an x-ray of his tummy!! which turned out to be a blank sheet. :) all four of us then had some chai and laughed out the whole incident.
we took a few pics of the patients as well. life moves ooon and we had a good laugh at the situation. we then transferred the guys to a lodge in kadur. most of them were full coz of the upcoming elections. after lunch at masala dhaba we decided to watch "tashan" in one of the local tents, just to kill time. the movie was sad and we walked out after ogling at kareena in a couple of songs.
we sent the guys back to b'lore with help from a couple of darpan's friends. i and pomchi decided to continue the trip and not go back. it took a lot of courage from us to go ahead with the trip. its never easy to see your friends crash up and limp around and still hop on to the bike to finish the trip. nan maklu aaykond mele even we lost some confidence. we then made some changes to our plan and skipped murudeshwar and decided to go to kodachadri directly from kadur. we rode to shimoga and met badani at the bhadra dam in lakavalli.
"neev bike mele bari scam madode aaythu kandrilla" is what he said in his own unique style about leelu and darpan. i sorely missed leelu in shimoga as we had decided to go to our usual restaurant and have dosa there. amazingly no in shimoga knew the route to kodachadri. "sagara hogi ne hogbeku saar" said one. we had decided on shimoga-ayanuru-hosanagara-nagar-kodachadri the previous night using our map! we reached ripponpet after ayanuru and some 3 kms further pomchi had a puncture on his front wheel. i went into the town to get someone to fix it, but not one was available or willing to come. "savkarru helde naa yelligu baralla saar" said one. "wheel togobanri haakodana" said another. we then removed the wheel and got it fixed.
we rode on towards nagar and then sampekatte. we then spent the next 2 hours or more covering 9 kms towards kodachadri. the road is non-existant and there are huge rocks on the road. only 4WD jeeps use the road (so-called) to ferry passengers to kodachadri. the road seemed in the same state some 5 yrs ago. after the first 2 kms it was pretty dark and we had to rely on our headlights. they were not of great help coz of the mist. the route was very steep and we had to cover the entire distance in first gear. the loose sand and the gravel made sure that the tyres did not have adequate grip and we would skid quite a lot. the technique here is to not slow down too much as the bike would go then stop or start going back downhill. there has to be some momentum maintained to ride over the rocks and also to ensure that the bike dint come to a halt, which would make it extremely difficult to balance as the surface is uneven and very steep. we had no other option but, reach the top as it was too very dangerous to ride back downhill with limited visibility. i was not getting much power from my bike as the throtle seemed to be very hard. i would still stop at regular intervals to ensure that pomchi was on track. at one point i had to ride over a very steep place, but i did not have enough speed and ultimately the bike came to a halt. the best thing to do at this time is to get off the bike swiftly and make sure that the bike is smoothly lowered on to the ground. ayesha at HO-07 would do this perfectly. it seemed ages since we started and the destination was no-where in sight. the forest, darkness, mist and bad road made the situation pretty scary. every once-in-awhile we would see a jeep and ask "inna yesht doora ide saar??". "inna yeradoovare km ide hogi" was the reply. the jeeps and the jeep drivers were our only hope for survival if something went wrong. :-) after a long ride we could see some lights and we had finally made it to kodachadri in 1 peice. we had a sense of achievement and satisfacion once we reached our destination. we managed to get a matress, bed and pillows in a corner of the dormitory available.
Since my bike was in a bad shape after my himalayan odyssey 2007 i got it fairly fixed the very next day i landed in bangalore. Initially myself and pomchi were supposed to go solo, but darpan and leelu also decided to join us. Our plan was to leave b'lore on may 1st and reach murudeshwar, kodachadri on the 2nd, agumbe on the 3rd and back to b'lore on the 4th of may 2008.
Our plan was to leave b'lore early within 6 AM, but ultimately managed to leave nelamangala only by 8.30 AM, all thanks to the lazy ass leelu who woke up when i reached his house to pick him up!!!! when at his door he signalled that is gonna take a bath!! he is the root cause of ALL delays in ALL our trips. to kill time i woke up navya and bakra at 6 on a holiday. ;-) the ride to nelamangala was a pain due to heavy traffic and road-widening projects on the route. we joined pomchi and darpan who were waiting there for us. the ride to tumkur was smooth and boring on the 4 lane NH. not long ago this streach was notorious for traffic jams and accidents, a good job by NHAI has solved the problem. leelu switched bikes and rode with darpan after a while. we had a good breakfast at tiptur and rode towards kadur. i stopped for some yelaneeru just outside beeroor at a railway crossing. pomchi joined me and some 10 mins later he got a call from leelu saying "maga aaykondvi.. skid aaythu.." we rushed to the spot to see darpan very tense and somewhat shaken. lee was in a lot of pain. the bike seemed intact, but the guys seemed like bhikaris with their clothes completely torn.
the good thing about the bad roads in India is that they pass through lots of villages and the people there are very helpful when there is an accident. with some help i rushed the guys to a nearby hospital in an auto. the hospital seemed good enough for such a small town. darpan was now very tensed and still in shock. "doctor, internal bleeding check maadi... doctor, x-ray tegdu internal bleeding aagidiya antha check madi..." was what he ordered the doc, pointing to his huge tummy. leelu was as usual laidback and cool, though in a lot of pain. to assure darpan we got an x-ray of his tummy!! which turned out to be a blank sheet. :) all four of us then had some chai and laughed out the whole incident.
we took a few pics of the patients as well. life moves ooon and we had a good laugh at the situation. we then transferred the guys to a lodge in kadur. most of them were full coz of the upcoming elections. after lunch at masala dhaba we decided to watch "tashan" in one of the local tents, just to kill time. the movie was sad and we walked out after ogling at kareena in a couple of songs.we sent the guys back to b'lore with help from a couple of darpan's friends. i and pomchi decided to continue the trip and not go back. it took a lot of courage from us to go ahead with the trip. its never easy to see your friends crash up and limp around and still hop on to the bike to finish the trip. nan maklu aaykond mele even we lost some confidence. we then made some changes to our plan and skipped murudeshwar and decided to go to kodachadri directly from kadur. we rode to shimoga and met badani at the bhadra dam in lakavalli.
"neev bike mele bari scam madode aaythu kandrilla" is what he said in his own unique style about leelu and darpan. i sorely missed leelu in shimoga as we had decided to go to our usual restaurant and have dosa there. amazingly no in shimoga knew the route to kodachadri. "sagara hogi ne hogbeku saar" said one. we had decided on shimoga-ayanuru-hosanagara-nagar-kodachadri the previous night using our map! we reached ripponpet after ayanuru and some 3 kms further pomchi had a puncture on his front wheel. i went into the town to get someone to fix it, but not one was available or willing to come. "savkarru helde naa yelligu baralla saar" said one. "wheel togobanri haakodana" said another. we then removed the wheel and got it fixed.
we rode on towards nagar and then sampekatte. we then spent the next 2 hours or more covering 9 kms towards kodachadri. the road is non-existant and there are huge rocks on the road. only 4WD jeeps use the road (so-called) to ferry passengers to kodachadri. the road seemed in the same state some 5 yrs ago. after the first 2 kms it was pretty dark and we had to rely on our headlights. they were not of great help coz of the mist. the route was very steep and we had to cover the entire distance in first gear. the loose sand and the gravel made sure that the tyres did not have adequate grip and we would skid quite a lot. the technique here is to not slow down too much as the bike would go then stop or start going back downhill. there has to be some momentum maintained to ride over the rocks and also to ensure that the bike dint come to a halt, which would make it extremely difficult to balance as the surface is uneven and very steep. we had no other option but, reach the top as it was too very dangerous to ride back downhill with limited visibility. i was not getting much power from my bike as the throtle seemed to be very hard. i would still stop at regular intervals to ensure that pomchi was on track. at one point i had to ride over a very steep place, but i did not have enough speed and ultimately the bike came to a halt. the best thing to do at this time is to get off the bike swiftly and make sure that the bike is smoothly lowered on to the ground. ayesha at HO-07 would do this perfectly. it seemed ages since we started and the destination was no-where in sight. the forest, darkness, mist and bad road made the situation pretty scary. every once-in-awhile we would see a jeep and ask "inna yesht doora ide saar??". "inna yeradoovare km ide hogi" was the reply. the jeeps and the jeep drivers were our only hope for survival if something went wrong. :-) after a long ride we could see some lights and we had finally made it to kodachadri in 1 peice. we had a sense of achievement and satisfacion once we reached our destination. we managed to get a matress, bed and pillows in a corner of the dormitory available. the next morning pomchi was famous even before he woke up!! (we did not get bedsheets the previous night and we had to sleep in the cold). all the other trekkers woke up early and were taking pictures of pomchi as he was sleeping on the matress and using the bed as a bedsheet!! a funny sight indeed. the early morning view was very beautiful. the clouds and the greenery was very pleasant and relaxing. all the difficulties of the previous day seemed worth it after the breathtaking view. after a small trek to sarvangna peetha we had a light breakfast and decided to leave to agumbe. my bullet was already short on petrol the previous night, so we filled it up with a liter of petrol from pomchi's bike. "maga yerad sari anthu pakka beelthini" is what pomchi said of our ride back down. i said "maga confident agi iro.. correct agi vodsu yenu aagalla". finally we said bye to kodachadri and started headig back. every turn and every slope was a challenge. going downhill is never easy, it requires a lot of skill. i told pomchi things like "magi neutral alli vodis beda, first alli hodi" and etc etc...
every now and then we would wonder as to how we went uphill on this streach in the night with a lot of fog!!!!! just the thought made us proud. we made a few stops and took a few pictues and enjoyed the nature. the ride back downhill took more time than goin uphill. to give you an idea of our speeds, a group of trekkers were keeping pace with us!!! and beating us at times!! :-) pomchi fell off his bike twice at the same place!!! the second one was too funny.. he fell in front of his bike. hee hee. this was the same place where i fell off my bike the previous night!! we finally managed to complete the off-road ride safely and reached sampekatte safely. we then headed towards nagar and filled in some petrol for the bullet there. we also saw a small fort which was pretty decent. we rode to teerthahalli where we stopped by for petrol and lunch. the small town was crowded with election observers and most of the restaurants were packed. we expected the ride to agumbe from there to be tough with lots of ghats, but it turned out to be a simple streach of road.
every now and then we would wonder as to how we went uphill on this streach in the night with a lot of fog!!!!! just the thought made us proud. we made a few stops and took a few pictues and enjoyed the nature. the ride back downhill took more time than goin uphill. to give you an idea of our speeds, a group of trekkers were keeping pace with us!!! and beating us at times!! :-) pomchi fell off his bike twice at the same place!!! the second one was too funny.. he fell in front of his bike. hee hee. this was the same place where i fell off my bike the previous night!! we finally managed to complete the off-road ride safely and reached sampekatte safely. we then headed towards nagar and filled in some petrol for the bullet there. we also saw a small fort which was pretty decent. we rode to teerthahalli where we stopped by for petrol and lunch. the small town was crowded with election observers and most of the restaurants were packed. we expected the ride to agumbe from there to be tough with lots of ghats, but it turned out to be a simple streach of road.
we booked a lodge in agumbe and the owner provided us with two guides to show us around. the guides were cricket playing 10th std kids. they seemed to be innocent kids who were excited to sit on our bikes. they took us to barkhana first. we did another off-road ride in the dense forest to reach the place. half-way thru we had to stop our bikes and walk as a tree was blocking our path. we trekked to barkhana viewpoint from there. the view there was absolutely breath-taking!!! it was one of the best views i had ever seen. it was green dense forests all around. "akasmika shooting aagidd ille anna" said our enthusiastic guide. "rajkumar avru ide maradinda nethadiddu!!" said another. 
we took pictures and were in awe of the place. we then did another small off-road ride to jogi-gundi falls. then we rode to sunset point which is famous in agumbe. the sunset was great but the big crowd did not allow us to enjoy it peacefully. i got my bike fixed at a local mechanic who told us not to miss kundadri betta. "neev adanna nodidre vapasse hogalla saar" he said. we decided to visit the place and then leave to b'lore the next day.
we took pictures and were in awe of the place. we then did another small off-road ride to jogi-gundi falls. then we rode to sunset point which is famous in agumbe. the sunset was great but the big crowd did not allow us to enjoy it peacefully. i got my bike fixed at a local mechanic who told us not to miss kundadri betta. "neev adanna nodidre vapasse hogalla saar" he said. we decided to visit the place and then leave to b'lore the next day. 
we woke up early and left to kundadri betta. the mist on the road had not cleared yet and visibility was not that great. the ride to the betta was steep but the road was a good single lane road. the view atop was a disappointment as the cloud cover did not let us enjoy the sunrise or the scenic beauty. we waited for half an hour and then decided to leave to sringeri. we had breakfast in sringeri and visited sirimane falls. we again had to do a small off-road ride to reach the falls. the falls was good but, had less amount of water. it was one of the most well-maintained places that i have seen in India. the forest dept. has done a great job out here. though we could enter the falls for a bath we left as we had to ride back all the way to b'lore. the route from sringeri to balehonnur was a smooth ride with lots of fast corners which gave us a good opportunity to bend our bikes and enjoy the ride! we had coffee in our favorite coffee shop in balehonnur. while there we were recollecting our ride a year ago in these parts with badani, leelu and murthy. that ride was on my CBZ and this on my bullet. we then reached chickmagalur and then hassan where we went to out usual hangout "satish angadi" and had a slice. we both recollected out good old days in hassan three years ago. time flies!!! the ride from hassan to b'lore was boring and also we were extremely tired after riding so much over the past three days. the off-road rides did take a lot out of us. in bellur cross i said to pomchi "sisya, ee streach na next time inda out-source maadana..." hee hee. from there we safely reached our homes by 7.30 PM.
overall it was a GREAT trip. except the first day crash, this trip was very satisfying and challenging. the highlight of the trip was off-roading to kodachadri at night.
some pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/rangan.iyengar/KodachadriAndAgumbeduration: 4 days
route: b'lore-tumkur-tiptur-kadur-beeroor-kadur-bhadravati-shimoga-ripponpet-ripponpet-ripponpet-ripponpet- nagar-sampekatte-kodachadri-nagar-teerthalli-agumbe-kundadri-sringeri-balehonnur-chickmagalur-hassan-b'lore
distance: roughly 1100 kms
petrol: roughly 30 liters
11 comments:
Do you have a snap of pomchi- "using the bed as a bedsheet!!"??? This one is a killer :)
Neat trip you guys had - as always - makes me wonder why I am not doing anything?!
Keep those trip updates coming - I ll follow u guys :)
Venki
Nice post. Really good to see someone write in such detail! :)
Have fun!
unfortunately i was lazy to wake up and take a snap of pomchi.. :(
gr8 yaar... reading this i also miss bike trips in bang...
Wonderful!!!!!!
Shd have been a nice ride dude. Esp the nite ride to kodchadri should have been amazing :). I loved this part "lowered on to the ground. Ayesha at HO-07 would do this perfectly" :))))))))))))))))))))))
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Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!
Hi,
We have planned a trip this weekend to Agumbe, Sirimane falls & Kundadri , will the 4 wheeler (Tempo traveller) goes till the end of kundadri hill ?? bcoz we have planned to stay there at night , is it safe ?? please suggest us ..
Regards
Manjunath
@manju,
yes, TT can go to kundadri..
there are no facilities to stay there.... but, you can pitch in tents and stay...
Thanks for the suggestion ...
Pomchi,
As always u still keep enjoying trips. In Oct-10, we had visited majority of the places u have visited but in a 4 wheeler. I like the idea for riding the bike, especially in forests, though we had an incident of elephant chasing us... "It happened because of me saying a big "heeeelllooooo" to the mighty one.. I probably misread that it was coming nearer to me to shake-hands.... OOOpps.. :-) A ride to visit the sunset point is a amazing experience....one will realizes what nature has to offer... I will definitely try biking in couple of months from now... like isn't giving me time....! Good to see all your friends smiling & cheering @ all times/situations... U guyz live life king-size... I know about Pomchius.......keep rocking...
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