The Quest for Red Rain!!

Craving doesn’t have boundaries. And craving something as weirdly amusing as “Red rain” is definitely not questionable. The moment I saw this picture, I was like “Red rain? Seriously?”. Googling it up would’ve spoiled the fun allnd so we packed our bags and were out 
on the roads to our quest for red rain.

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Bangalore-Theni- Thekkady

Throughout these 500 kms of a pleasant start, continued with getting horribly tanned in the Tamil Nadu sun, dancing through the musically vibrant towns, eating delicious food at every step and travelling 3 states in a day, one thing remained constant. And that was the excitement that made us scream like kids on the roads, “We’re going to Idduki and we will see red rain”.

By 8pm, we were in Thekkady, which did not seem like any other tourist place at all-'Some lottery shops on the right, people walking around in the market, a bus stand on the left with an open theatre playiThe“Gandhi” for a fact that it was Oct 2 and some food carts serving steaming hot idlis.'

The best part was, even with all these people around, not for a moment did that place feel noisy or crowded. 
We went straight to our homestay- Claus Garden. How we wished Omana aunty would adopt us. This one is so beautifully made that you'd never feel like leaving.

Day 2

Not planning has it’s own pros and cons. Getting up in the foggy dawn and wondering what to do is one of them. 
“So the closest option is Periyar Lake. Why don't we just go there and figure out the rest later?”

 

At the Periyar Tiger Reserve checkpost, hungry as we are always, we found this chai place open. Vadas/idlis/apams, 
everything was delicious there. 
That itself made our day..A
beautiful ride among the lush green forest and the fresh breeze touching the face as if it was -


 
-wishing us a great morning, led us to the lake we
 couldn't afford to enter. That place was like a kumbh mela at 7 in the
 morning. Not even 5 seconds and we knew 
where we were headed next-“Vagamon”.

with Stella aunty and friends 

That's Jaya Jackson and Rajni

“Walking on clouds and paragliding was a little i knew about this place”. 
 But did we have expectations? No. 
 So surprises were in store
 for us. Thekkady to Vagamon was one hell of a
 ride.
 Stella aunty and her estate friends, Jaya
 Jackson and team, some excited and some
 scared kids we threw chocolates at, were our
 company through all the right and wrong turns
 we took.

selfie time :D

And i forgot her name

Sat near the flowing stream for some blissful sketching time

The "wrong" turn we took at Wagamon

Day 3

The Claus family

Another try to the Periyar Lake was justifiable is 
what we thought. The routine was the same as the previous day. Just that today we atleast had a glance at the lake. Maybe, for us Periyar lake was just a
place to have amazing breakfast and plan the rest of the day. So we packed our luggage, took a picture with the Claus family and left for Chellarkovil.

I don’t know how we ended up going to Chellarkovil just by seeing a picture on the internet.
And so it wasn’t less of a surprise. 
A bumpy, adventurous ride at the edge of the  mountain leading to a not so great guest house at the end. "THAT" was Chellarkovil. Not too great a discovery I know. Maybe we just weren’t too lucky. 

After that little disappointment, Munnar road was simply brilliant. “Those curves were sorta dangerous, got us dizzy". But then a hot cup of  coffee wasn’t too difficult to look for. Around 36km from Munnar was a view which was truly non-erasable from our memories. 

Down the green valley

It was just tea plantations to eternity. Words would not do justice if I try explain that beauty. That moment onwards, there were surprises lying for us every 500m.
About 21km from the city, at this sexy pin bend, we stopped by at Madhi uncle’s chai stall.  2 hours of admiring, jumping,some tea,coffee,Maggie and corn and finally finally it rained!!

Madhi uncle's chai stall

Hamari red rain wali maggi!!

But the rain was nowhere close to what we thought it'd be. It was plain normal colorless rain. 
But who cares!! Madhi uncle and his wife were 
quite a great company in that not-so-red pour down. Nothing could spoil the beauty of
 that moment. Not even the purpose of our travel.

with Madhi uncle and his wife

After sucha blissful time, getting stuck in 2 hour-mountain traffic-jam too wasn’t traumatic. We enjoyed even that. Made some

biker friends,screamt, guided, commented and

laughed with others around.

Now reaching Munnar was a pain in the bum, but staying there, even more. Hogged at sarvana bhavan and did the impossible of finding an accomodation for us-Rose Garden homestay, around 12km towards Kochi. Not to forget the micro-minute adventure where we almost killed ourselves at the Glenmore resorts. Rose garden was a relief for having a hassle free entry. It was a pretty comfortable nice place with some good home    food.

Day 4

Its this moment when you are no more excited coz you’re going back home. And it wasn’t just a flashback, calm and peaceful, it was a crazy way back home. Getting stuck in the horrifying-unstoppable ligtening and rain, swimming in dirty stagnant water with other vehicles, trying to start the bike for 2 hours and luckily finding a cab to get back. 
But whatsoever, If you ask me how my trip was, in one word i’d say-”GREEN”. Suddenly Bangalore sounded like Rajasthan. 

"4 days of riding in those hills and valleys makes you feel that the entire world is an extension of you, wherever you go, wherever you stay. 

As a traveler, you would never always take the right turn, and for us those wrong turns we took, made our journey worth sharing."

Some crazy moments from our trip

Bought lottery tickets both the days.
Just missed the chance of winning a crore :'(

Crazy rain we got stuck in

Route map :D

PS : Try not to order Hyderabadi biryani or fried rice in restaurants there..its a heartbreak.
Don't forget to buy a lottery ticket. You never know when your luck shiNes :D 

Ride to Goa !!

I always wanted to travel the western ghats. To feel what its like to experience the borders of your country with the blue waters of the Arabian sea on one hand and the beautiful countryside on the other. And yes to see the vast greenery and stroll through the uncountantable number of beaches. Unlike the last time, this time we were prepared with a full-proof plan. And the plan was something like this

Bangalore-Bandipur-Udupi-Gokarna

DAY 1

We left on Christmas morning with our heavy backpacks. Went to St Peters Church, MG road which was beautifully decorated and then set off for the real journey.

As always, we started late because of my excitement-related-digestion issues. And so the plan got a lil twisted(as all great plans always do)-

Bangalore-chitradurga-RaneBennur-Hubli-Belgaum-Goa

Ahh..riding an Enfield on those wide roads of NH7 to Chitradurga feels like you own those roads and nothing around you bothers. There’s a connection which pushes u more and more to travel. I’m sure all Enfield lovers would know. So yes, with that love and pride and a clear head, this journey was gonna be one crazy exploring ride. We had breakfast in Kamat and were back on the roads. After a long 4 hours and a lot of tea and bum breaks, we reached chitradurga around 2pm. Watching all those windmills made me go back to my childhood days. Always wanted to  go close to them.

A lot more riding and less bum breaks now, we rushed to Ranebennur, after which the roads got narrower. Its at this this time in the afternoon that u start feeling all drowsy. We were desperately waiting for a good coffee break and guess what, we found a CCD at Hubli. Another lone rider was taking a break there. You see anyone wearing a rider jacket, an LS2 and a backpack and you know he’s a rider too. So these people had some rider talks about the roads, routes and places, we had some yum coffee and dessert in the hot weather and left for Belgaum at 6:30pm.

The roads to Belgaum are beautiful, with trees,hillocks and vast land all around. Because of our horrible timing, we entered that road an hour after the sunset. Any which way, it was fun riding there even in the dark. We had a little celebration too- “Lighting a glow lantern on a Christmas night on the highway”.

 
Well it required a bit of a patience because the wind would just hit when the lantern is lit, but then we made it happen. Imagine a blue lantern right above a highway surrounded by vast lands, flying away with the sound of trucks passing by and the crazy cold breeze. We stared at it until it vanished somewhere among the stars, and then with smiles on our faces, moved ahead to reach our destination.

Highway Talks+late night chai

Dark empty roads

Till now, everything was good. But a little ahead there was a 30km stretch which was horrible. It was 10:30 in the night and we were struggling on that ghat road full of potholes. That’s when we decided we would stay the night somewhere close by since we had no clue of how the roads were gonna be ahead. To our luck, we found a resort- Doodhsagar Spa Resort. We thought we’d continue to Goa, but the tents in that resort were so good, we just wanted to stay. A much needed break for our backs and bums. 

DAY2

Well, Doodhsagar Waterfalls does takes off an entire day (the next post is all about it).

It was 5pm by the time we reached back to the resort. So we hogged, checked out and left for Goa without wasting a minute. Another 80km of beautifully lit houses with Christmas star-lights (kinda obsessed with those) and the celebration mood gave me a slight kick even before reaching our destination - Baga. We Checked in into a hotel called Ancore Beach Resort and rushed to the beach. Ate in a beautiful blue- lit canopy, stayed on the beach until our eyes started to close and then went back to the room.

Day 3

GOAAAAAAA!!

Waking up anywhere in Goa is like waking up on a beach. You can smell it from miles away let alone being 100mts from there. A refreshing coffee with some food and we were off to Arambol ( 20 km from Baga towards the North of Goa). I won’t say its deserted, because there are quite a lot of people there. I would neither say it’s like any other beach in Goa, because Arambol’s got its own charm.

Anand's hardwork paid off

Pavan bhaiya with Yogi

Arambol beach from the top

Watching the endless waters

A refreshing swim in Sweet Lake

Pavan bhaiya and the freaky guy

That's me paragliding

Sunset at the beach

Some cold lime juice on a hot sunny day, a small little trek to para glide down to the beach and a rejuvenating swim in the sweet lake with a beer. That’s like it- a summary of one hell of a day in Goa. And yes, you get brilliant food in some of the shacks there. I wish we could stay there for the night, but we had to go back to Baga. I so totally didn’t miss it. But yes, the next time I go to Goa, Arambol’s gonna be my destination.

PS- Don’t forget paragliding. I fell in love with the sunset at the beach all over again (with just a tiny angle change).

For paragliding information, contact Yogi(instructor)-0959214187

Or, just reach the sweet lake somehow and you’d know what to do.

DAY4
Getting up with a depressing thought of leaving Goa and the not-so-depressing thought of the ride along the western Ghats, left mixed feeling in my heart. It was 11am, and we were out of Goa. The roads to Karwar is a rider's paradise.With endless beaches and tiny villages all in the Christmas mood, we found a lot of interesting things on the way.

Our new friends :D

We made a few friends too. A short nap under the tree, chit-chatting with these new friends and some posing for beautiful memories.We had lunch in Karwar and then just followed that one road along the Coast. Navigation is just a waste of time there.We crossed Gokarna and watched the sunset on the beautiful bridge before Murudeshwar. With our horrible experience of night riding near Doodhsagar, we did not want to take a chance. So the plan got twisted a little and rather than staying the night in Udupi, we planned to stay the night in Maravanthe, around 50km from Murudeshwara.

The only thing we knew about Maravanthe was that theres a lake on one side and the beach on the other side of the road, that there are very few accomodation choices and few tiny places to eat. So we decided to stay in a hotel called Sagar Kinara Resort. It wasn't really a resort, but the beach was right in front. What else do you want. Plus the owner had an interesting ancestral story.Shockingly, he had a family history of 1040 years. The king then in the year 1240, had given the entire village of Maravanthe to his ancestors. "We survived with Dharma" is what he said.

Wow! A 1040 years of history is not a joke. All I know about my ancestors is that they ran from Pakistan and settled here during the partition. This wasn't it. There was more fun to the day. There was a wedding reception taking place right next door with brilliant music to dance on. So we danced our hearts out in the room. All hungry, we wandered for food and finally found a dal-rice place after a lot of efforts, after which we came back to room for a nice good sleep.

DAY5

Staying in Maravanthe was probably the best decision we took in the entire trip. Watching the sun rise from behind the lake on the left, to shining on the waters of the beach on the right is a completely different experience. You wouldn’t want to miss it.

And the bike got stuck

After the whole sunrise scene and a silent walk on the beach, we started for home at 9am. In no time we reached Mangalore and had breakfast. After that was a long ride on a 50km stretch of horrible roads. It took more than 3 hours to cover up the Sakkleshpur-Hassan route. And at the end of it, was a tiny waterfall to compensate with all the potholes and dust. A refreshing little break and we moved on.

With the estate women

 
On the way, I took a small ride with a bunch of tea estate ladies. We were somehow trying to converse with all the language issues. Sweet people, they even called me home. It was such a relief to reach Hassan. We knew the rest of the way back was gonna be a smooth ride on NH4.

Long, smooth wide roads and the wind hitting my face. You kinda get addicted to it. So yes, taking barely any bum breaks, we stopped at Chanaraipatna for an evening lunch and through Neelamangala and Nice road, we reached home sweet home after an overwhelmingly exhausting journey.