to Ooty, on 2 wheels - Part 1

Oh My!! I didn't know it would get this long!!


Its been about a month and a half since we did our last weekend get away (to Hogenekkal), and the travel bug in us had already started itching. Praji and me had been thinking and discussing about different options - Yellagiri, Hampi, Shravanabelagola, and somehow Ooty featured into our talks. We decided that we would go for it.

Jaggu had planned to go to Madras to his parents house last weekend. Praji and me had decided no matter what, we were not going to waste this weekend too, by just lazing around.

Anvar had come back home from Malaysia on a months deputation to the bangalore branch of his office. That brought the headcount to 4. We decided that its gonna be 2 bikes - Praji's 'Ducati' and my 'Avenger'. We both had serviced our bikes just about 2 weeks back, and that let us confidently decide to go for it.

We decided to do things as they came. Absolutely zero plans were drafted. I reached home
from office at about 8:30 PM. We packed light and by the time we left home, it was about 9:30 PM. After a brief stop over at the gas station, to add enough fuel to reach Tamil Nadu(petrol is cheaper in Tamil Nadu) and making sure that the tyres had sufficient pressure in them, we started off with our journey.

Reaching Mysore road from bangalore was about a 30 minute adventure, especially since none of us were familiar with those roads. However we managed to find (read 'guess')the routes, and hit the mysore road by around 10:30!

On the way we pulled over for dinner in one of those road side 'dhabha's and continued. Many
stretches of the highway were awesome, I could hit about 120 kmph in a few instances(ok, a 110?), except avery few ones where it was awfully bad (few ones where we had to make diversions on to the opposite lanes. They hadnt even put any 'diversion ahead' signs at some places!). We managed to reach Mysore without any major hickups at around 2:30 AM. Well,
Praji had called up a hotel in mysore at about 9:45 PM and made a booking. OK, now that can be called a 'itenary plan', if you wish! This was the same hotel where we had stayed during our car trip to our home town, for the 2005 Syritz get together. Except that this time the room was much bigger, and we had 2 huge beds to dozz off.

Unusually this time, I was the first one to wake up! I was all set by the time when Praji woke up!!! yay!

We started off at about 11:30 from mysore. We kept up our tradition of getting lost in the city, only this time we were searching for an ICICI ATM. Someone pointed us on to Devaraj Urs road, where we found every other (err.. almost every) ATM other ICICI and HDFC banks. Those were the only two banks I had an open account with. Finally we decided that only one of us would get rich, and Praji used his ICICI debit card at a Indian Bank ATM, and we were all set to Go!

We figured out the Ooty road, and hit it around 11:45. I could hear a few unusual ramblings in my bikes engine, but decided to ignore it for the moment. And after like 2 kms its was all gone, and we were able to reach Nanjangud, with no difficulties. From there the road though it was old, even more better. The only problem we had to face was the heat! Luckily we found a few tender coconut vendors on the roadsides, and quenched our thirst, and continued.

We stopped for a lunch in a restaurant (Gopika) between Nanjangud and Gundlupet. It had a
huge hall (it could house atleast a 100) and we were were the only customers there at that time. Later figured out that it gets filled in only when a bus plying to Ooty or mysore stops by.

After lunch we continued till gundlupet. Beyond that was a the going started getting tough. The road was full of potholes, and we couldnt hit more than a 45- 50 kmph. This continued till Bandipur, and also beyond. The roads started getting narrower, but since there was vitually no vehicles coming on the other side we dint have much issues.

At around 3:30 - 4 PM reached this checkpost in the Tamil Nadu - Karnataka border (Theppakadu). The Karnataka Govt check post had no issues in letting us go through, but the Tamil Nadu side had 2 checkposts, one from the Forest department and one from the Police department. The police guys wanted to frisk our bags,and also wanted us to produce our vehicles papers. As we were waiting we could see many other cars and SUVs pass through without being checked. Probably bad luck was with us, we had to stop there, and produce all our vehicles documents. Since ducati was still not transfered to Praji's name he had to convince the guys there by paying them a 'fine'. We continued to Mudumalai and then took this unusual road that goes to Ooty, without reaching Goodaloor. This would cut short the distance to Ooty by about 50 kms!

This road is supposedly closed between 6 PM and 8 AM because wild animals are said to frequent this area at night. I was hoping for some lazy animal to come out when we were on it, but was unlucky. Oh, we did see a few monkeys by the way - not the usual ones; the ones with black faces and grey hair.

Just a few kilometers after we passed Masanakudi, we started getting our first glimpses of the mountain ranges. It was stunning to think that we were to climb up those might giants in no time!

As we went a little further, the road started getting more steeper. And in no time, we had reached the first hairpin bend. The sign board said 36 / 36, indicating there were 36 more hairpin bends to cover. I had never had experience riding a bike on a hairpin bend. Even a car journey through hair pin bends usually brings me nausea! Man, I should be brave to have decided upon a bike trip to Ooty!

By the time we made 2 hairpin bends I had realized that the bend towards your right is far ore easier to make, than the one towards your left. The reason being, when you are making a bend to the right you take the largest possible curve, and you usually have the enough space on the road for tat as well! I had trouble adjusting my speed accordingly. All the while I had the luxury of cruising at round 40 - 60 kmph, and here I had to control my speed at aroudn 20-25 kmph!

As I reached 31/36, I saw a car from coming downhill reach the curve at the same time. I had to keep left, and as I tried to make the curve up, I noticed tat the slope in the road was too much to handle in the second gear that I was in. Before I could think more, the bike had almost stopped. That gave me no time to switch down gears. And the bike had stopped and started going back. I locked my front brakes, but it wasnt helping. the bike, Anvar me and our bag was more heavier than the brakes could stop. So it started sliding back. within 2-3 seconds we reached a point where the ground was deeper than I could reach, and then the most undesirable happened. My bike was down, I was standing over it with my right hand still holding the brake lever, and Anvar was lying on the road. I couldnt just stop laughing, when I saw Anvar. The bag he was wearing had been soo heavy that it didnt let him balance on his feat!

After the thrill of dropping the bike was over, We pulled it up, and started looking for the damages. the left rear view mirror seemed to be broken, Other than that there were no visible damages. I removed the rearview mirror, and we started off again. Just when we had moved a few more feets, I heard some sounds in the rear end, everytime it ran through a pothole. I guessed something serious has happened.

We managed to sacle up the hill without any further 'adventures'. And by then the bike engines were crying for help. we could smell the burning smell from the engines, and we decided to give them a little rest. And we stopped at the 'thalaikundah' entrance. This is the entering point of Ooty, where the road from Goodaloor meets the road that we had taken.

After a few minutes, we continued, going further. Praji wanted to take us through the Golf Course road, but there was some car advertisement shooting happening, so we had to take the other route. Finally we reached Praji's home by around 5 PM! There it was Ooty, some 270 + kilometers, and we were literally on top of the world (technically, some 1500 odd metres above Sea level. lolz)