Hi everyone, hope you all are doing good. I want to share you the experience of a bike ride which me and my friend Ashiq had two years ago, it was for our Thesis project, Our itinerary was from Chennai - Erode - Tirupur - Coimbatore - Ooty - Chennai, but the fate had other plans, we finished all our project related works in Coimbatore and everything was going according to plan, but then we started climbing the hills at 4pm in the evening, Me and my friend went in R15 bike which we borrowed from my friend Bhuvan, who was always ready to help me
Ashiq was riding and the ride was beautiful, as we kept going up it was very cold and the views were beautiful, we dint have any plans what to do after reaching to Ooty , so i suggested him that we shall go to Masinagudi , since we have already visited Ooty during our school times, so we were on our journey , at a point it was soo cold, we had to put our sweaters and continue to ride . By the time we reached Ooty it was 6pm. It started getting dark and we stopped at Ooty for a tea break, we both kept having breath vapors and the place was very pleasant and calm, but out destiny is still 29Kms away. So, we quicky started our journey ahead, by 6:30 the place got pitch dark the route between Ooty to Masinagudi was not a frequent traveled route by many people since it has a lot of Wild Animals near the Mudumalai tiger reserve area, the road was fully through a forest , it was fully dark and the road was soo steep, it was so steep that they had 4-5 speed breakers in a single steep to control the speed, the road was very dangerous , a friend of mine called Wilfred who once lived in Ooty already said this too. We kept moving on, there were no lights, no vehicles , literally nothing. The forest sounds were bit scary, we were hearing strange noises from the woods, we hoped that we will reach our destination soon, but it showed around an hour to reach our destination,
Ashiq was driving very carefully since it was his first experience riding in the hills, suddenly on a hairpin bend he shouted "Macha" and stopped the bike with his legs with the front brakes, he switched off the bike and told me " Macha rear break is not working" We were in the middle of the 29kms, exactly in the middle, i switched on google maps there was no signal somehow i manged to see that we were on the middle and it takes 14kms to reach masinagudi and 15kms to reach Ooty back, we had to take a call whether to proceed further down or climb up to Ooty again but defiantly without the rear brakes, we stopped a second and we both were looking at each others face and had no clue what to do next since there was no one around us, just some strange noises and it was pitch dark, thank God he knew that the brake was not working before the hairpin bend. One van passed by, we put our hands out for help but he just shouted " Don't stand here, keep moving in the front" and left, he added more oil to our burning panic. Then a guy was riding back to Ooty, we asked him whether there is any mechanic shop near by, he said there's no shop till masinagudi but he said 500m away there is an ambulance driver called Jobi, he can help you out if it is a minor problem, he gave his number and he left. We called Jobi and he asked us where we are stuck and he told to come further in the front, a small hope we got for the night. We cannot start the bike and risk our lives since the roads were very steep. So me and Ashiq were just pushing the bike in the darkness with our torch lights on, and we saw Jobi. He was with 2 cops it was a checkpost, it had a small waterfall and a steam running. we explained them the situation and Jobi was sharing his experience being an ambulance driver in this road, a lot of accidents happen in this road he said, last week he rescued people who fell inside the valley because of break failure, he said riding in hills is not as easy as normal roads, people should drive extra cautious in this road and he said about the masinagudi road that cheetahs will be roaming around in this road and will come to this waterfall at nights to drink water, we asked him whether we can stay in his place tonight and leave in the morning since we had no other option, but his place was very small and only one person can sleep in it. He checked our bikes and said it is an airlock because of too much of heat driving in the hills , one shouldn't keep applying too much breaks while riding in hill station, rather should drive with just the clutch. Then the bike also dint get started because of some battery problem, we pushed the bike and tried starting it with first gear, it was funny that we did this 5 times, push the bike down the hill hoping it will start but it wont s then again pushing it back up and again pushing it down, we were fully exhausted, finally the bike got started , he asked us to drive his bike Avenger which was in proper condition and he said he will drive the R15 till we cross all the steep roads , Ashiq was riding his bike . Me and Jobi was in R15, his driving skills was crazy and so professional, it is not so easy to be an ambulance rider in hills, its literally equal to a superhero. He dropped us till all the steep roads got over and we exchanged our bikes, we thanked him so much and we exchanged numbers and he said the next 7kms be careful while riding because there might be Elephants walking on the roads, if there is any elephants don't stop , keep riding and just ignore it , don't react to it he said.He left back, it was a nightmare for both of us, we had another milestone to cross then xD we were strong and continued our journey with no rear breaks, there was no light. Just our bike light was there in the road, the road was empty, in 2 kms there was a tea shop. We stopped and took a tea break, looked at our faces and started laughing at each others, what a night it is.
For sure it is one of our best memory and the tea old man was sharing his experiences with the Elephants in this road, it was very common seeing elephants crossing roads he said, he motivated us and we started and we manged to reach masinagudi , we both were very happy that we safely reached masinagudi, the place is 29km downhill from Ooty, so it is not as cold as Ooty, we roamed in the streets for getting a cheap room since we were on a budget trip and finally found a beautiful place for 700 rupees for both of us,
then we checked in and was breathing out peacefully now sitting on theroom bed, then ashiq asked what next, there was two routes to reach chennai, first one is going back to ooty and reaching Chennai was a little risky since the breaks aren't good, the other option was to ride through the mudumalai forest and reach bantipur forest (Karnataka) it was TN & Karnataka border and reach Chennai via Bangalore , but this route is bit long, but we had no other options to return back safely, so we changed our iternary and decided to choose the other way. I will continue the story in the next blog- Masinagudi to Chennai thorough bangalore, hope you enjoyed the story. Thank you. Follow me on youtube for travel videos : Life of samzo
