Wow is what I want to begin this with, WOW again!
How many of us fly to a different country just for a leisure? most of us isn’t it?
Yeah the pictures, tourism ads, cinema make foreign places look so beautiful and attractive that one like me always get attracted to hop into such a scenic beauty, well you reading this too, must have gone through this!
Let’s get into the main business of you reading this now i.e. to the subject that made you read this
Well it was a normal Saturday, since I am a motorcycle enthusiast, all my accessories, luggage etc etc was packed ready to vroom…. the wet roads. This ride was planned by Teknik Motorcycles (a Royal Enfield dealer) based out in Ibluru, Bengaluru
No more nonsense for you to read, the above is just you create some interest, he he
Well Kuduremukha is the destination,
18 Bikers + pillion/s to a total of 23 of us started at 6.00 AM from the Teknik motorcycle showroom, 1st pitstop was near ParleG factory toll junction on Tumkuru road, Bengaluru. Here is where I joined the group. All fine and we headed as planned, since this was not a first time with this group, I knew the organizer and other regular bikers in the group so the comfort zone was automatically boosted
2nd pit stop was ahead of Kunigal, folks refueled the bikes and stomach (breakfast time), some luggage re-arrangements etc etc, and after almost an hour break we continued the journey. ‘Bengaluru’-‘Hassan’ highway (NH75) is so well maintained that farther distance seem a no stress ride, but then for our no surprise this ride was completed to a 80% through rains and that’s the thrill of this ride-RAIN!
We did take multiple breaks for refreshments, lunch and others, we crossed, Yediyur, Hassan, Belur, Kalasa, etc etc.
HOLD ON WE ALL WERE STILL A BIT AWAY FROM A HUGE SURPRISE
We reached Mullodi, this route will lead us to a Homestay “Raje Gowda home stay”. Now, I made you read it simpler. But… (Where there is a ‘but’ there is something yedwat)
To all of our surprise, a true biker was awakened now, every inch of the path towards the homestay was a no-road. People here did manage with a Jeep, we were told to shift the pillion riders and luggage to the jeep. Now, at this moment we all thought we are great bikers and we can pull this off, little we knew this ride is going to hit our butts off! I took over and followed the jeep right away, and Oh my! This shook most of us, not because we couldn’t ride, we were actually worried about our bikes getting busted, few just brought new ones delivered just a week ago. Yeah we did take the challenge, there were steep slope, muddy, rocky, slippery, suicide tips, oh god! The jeep guy stopped for others behind to join us, since I was on my toes and super thrilled, I rumbled my bike with another rider and moved ahead, it was getting darker, though we were just a few yards away from the stay, we decided to wait for others, took few photographs and videos meanwhile, trust me- this experience is never forgettable one (I purposely mentioned ‘NEVER’- Means NEVER EVER), the thick, moist and rainy jungle, super green all around and sexy fog and mist, I was woo woo with the surrounding, just that “What the F*%$ am I doing” in city life strikes me!
As some of them arrived, we continued and reached our stay, still raining. Although the stay was a mediocre, unloaded our luggage and got fresh- still raining. Snacks and Dinner was ready, riders pulled bottles of ‘theertham’ (undefined synonym for beer) from their bags, and me a redbull and talked a lot about the experience and yeah a lot of shit too! Was a joyful evening a lot of uncensored gala time from our frustrated and f*$% up riders. Here ends the day-1 and we wrapped ourselves and nite nite….
HERE HERE- It rained all night and I kept a ear on the droplet noise!
Day 2:
It was 6.45am when I realized my virginity of experiencing nature better was taken away, he he. As I peeped outside the window, all through the night what I thought was rain pouring proven wrong, there was a tiny waterfall right next to the stay, I quickly pulled myself to the stairs and oh my!, true to the first sentence of this paragraph, it was a true nature bliss for one to experience, fog filled surrounding, water fall opposite to me, green all around me, what else can I ask for in my life. As the riders woke up, some were fixing bike stuffs, rest of us walked a few yards towards the waterfall, took few photographs, although we did not get into the water, we did enjoy the stream.
(To my bad my 7-year old woodland tore apart, and I had no backup, helped myself with some jugaad that helped me through Bangalore).
The next thing is breakfast at the stay and loading the bags back on the bike. Returned to Mullodi base by the same off-road as day 1, now that all of us were enough prepared for the road, uncertainty level was pretty thin, now that was an understatement (read further). As we headed towards Kuduremukha-Sringeri ghat, there were multiple vehicle breakdowns, the check post set a mandate to cross the ghat within prescribed time of an hour since the road drives through a thick forest and animals would get offended when we roar our Royal Enfields in their homes ;-). For our bad, we stopped in the jungle for more than 2.5 hours due to the breakdown. Well we did have a mechanic with us who helped us all way through. Now that we were hungry and tired, we definitely needed some refreshments. We crossed the check post and helped ourselves with some snacks. As everyone arrived, we headed to Sringeri, three of us showed interest to visit Sharadamba Temple after a quick lunch. Quickly joined back the group and continued the ride. All through the journey it kept raining and this in fact slowed us down a bit and there were more vehicle breakdowns. As it got darker we decided to split from the group after the dinner, it continued to rain and so did our journey. We were 4 bikers now; our last pit stop was at Nelamangla Toll. We parted ways, hence reaching home at 1.30AM. So this was my new adventure.
Note that I have posted blog later. However the oomph factor in my nerves is still intact.
Coming days I would also write about my “Rider Mania” experience, so stay tunes.
Late is never too Late!
See ya