I used to travel a lot when I was in college, and most of my travels were on bike. The main reason I could do such bike trips was that I did my graduation at Coimbatore. It’s a great place surrounded by infinite number of locations where you can go for a drive on weekends.

There are four deciding factors for such a trip; money, time, suitable location and an enthusiastic group of riders. Except money I had everything else, and I somehow used to manage enough money for the trips

But after coming to Bangalore (read getting job) I found out that it’s easy to manage the money for the trip, but tough to deal with the other three factors. The worst part is it’s actually tough to find out a location to which you can go riding your bike. Every damn blog or travel guide out there is worried about only those people who take trips on four wheelers.

So I welcome you to my blog posts on “Travel” category, under “Trips from Bangalore” topic which will be ONLY about bike trips that I’ve done from Bangalore. And hope they will be helpful for similar souls when they plan their next trip.

Note : I’m a proud owner of a black pulsar 220. All the trips were made on that.

1. Trip of my life (Karnataka-Tamilnadu-Kerala)

Total distance : 1850 km

Trip plan      : Bangalore -> Mysore -> Palghat -> Cochin -> Idukki -> Munnar -> Pollachi -> Palghat -> Malappuram -> Wayanad -> Bangalore

Duration       : 9 Days

Expense        : 4000 Rs (Excluding stay, and food)

Well yeah, that’s right, 1850 km on bike without any support team / medical team or what-so-ever!! In fact not even a group, just me and my pillion (and that person changed three times during the trip, and hence the term instead of “friend”)! And for those of you who wonder about the condition of my back, I was perfectly alright and ready to work, by the time I reached back. And that’s not because of any supernatural skills that I possess but just the trip was very well planned.

I chose to drive only during the day time, which made sure that I didn’t miss any scenery and also gave me enough time to rest.

Day 1

Start point : Bangalore

End point : Palghat

Distance : Around 410 km

Well this was the longest single stretch in the entire trip, and it was inevitable since I didn’t have any friends’ place en-route to take rest. There are two enjoyable things in this stretch. One, Bangalore – Mysore highway is a fantastic strip to have a ride on, and we covered the 140km distance in less than two hours (which includes breaks that we took every 40km). And from Mysore, after a horrible stretch of bad road( 30km ), you enter Sathyamangalam forest area and you get to drive through a beautiful forest on a decent track. The scenery on both sides of the road is so serene and the whole riding experience is heavenly. With 27 hair-pin bends, back to back, it is one of the steepest roads on which I have tried my riding skills on. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this route. That night I stayed at my home (My mom is happy that I didn’t ask for the “bill” while “checking out” next day morning ).

Day 2

Start point : Palghat

End point : Cochin

Distance : Around 250 km

Now this day was spent visiting my friends and relatives because I’ve been to Cochin a lot of times and I wasn’t really interested in doing it all again. So there’s nothing much to talk about this day but there are beautiful places that you can visit at Trichur and Cochin if you plan to do a similar trip. My friend, Karun, had arranged for food and stay at his place by the time we reached there. This was a very special day (or rather one of the best days ever) of my life for many-many reasons. We went for a drive in the city at night and took rest.

Day 3

Start point : Cochin

End point : Idukki

Distance : Around 200 km

Except the condition of road everything about the drive was awesome. I got convinced that Idukki is the most beautiful district in Kerala. The drive through the mountain ranges crossing small streams, cascades and dams is simply mind blowing. Temperature drops down below 30 and you begin to experience the chill and freshness of the nature. We saw Idukki dam, which is one of the largest arch-dam in Asia, on route. We reached our friend’s place by 3 in the evening and we had the lunch that was waiting for us since 1 in the noon

And then we went to a place called “Ramakkalmedu”, basically a peak with rock climbing possibilities. It’s a must visit place. If you are adventurous enough you can climb the entire peak in less than half an hour and have this majestic view of other peaks and you can even see villages as far as in Tamilnadu! All these standing against a strong breeze which is capable of driving at least 20 wind mills through out the year!!

Day 4

Start point : Idukki

End point : Munnar

Distance : Around 200 km

We started from there a little late because I wanted to see the 5 acre farm that they had. It was inspiring to see the way they have shaped their lives around agriculture, since it’s one among my umpteen dreams to own a farm house kind of thing.

We decided to visit “Thekkady” on our way to Munnar, even though it meant we would have to drive a 100 km extra since it was in opposite direction to Munnar. “Thekkady” was disappointing for we have heard too much about the place, but there’s nothing “that impressive” about the place and you end up wasting a lot of time waiting for the boat-ride which is the only good thing there. Unless you are too keen about visiting the place for its fame, or it comes on your route to some other place, I would suggest you not to go for it.

And then we drove to Munnar which was “the best” part of the trip. The drive through the dense forests and tea plantations is so refreshing that not even once in the entire stretch I felt tired. It was 5 in the evening when we reached somewhere near Munnar and the fog was on the road already. It was extremely difficult to see anything beyond a few meters, and that too on a road through cliffs! I could feel my body freezing, even inside a double layer jacket and a pair of cotton gloves!

After an adventurous drive of about 20 km we reached Munnar town at 8pm. We had dinner there in a hotel and headed to “Mattupetty dam” where stay at my friend Nikhil’s place was arranged. People looked at us in horror as we asked the route to this place. Nobody usually takes that route at night coz of possible elephant attack! Perfect! An 11 km drive at night, through thick fog, expecting a tusker at every corner of the road is an unforgettable one in my life! Anyways we reached my friend’s place safe and had a sound sleep. I was bit sad to miss the elephant though

Day 5

Munnar

4 days of travel, covering 1000+ kilometers distance, now what?! We decided to go trekking. Before you judge me as insane, try visiting Munnar at least once, and you would see that nobody can resist that temptation to climb up to one of the peaks and see what it looks like from there. Now this decision was not pre-planned. The road that they had to Koluthumalai, one of the largest peaks at Munnar (from which you can see Kodaikanal and all!), was so pathetic that after driving on it for around two kilometers we decided its better to walk (that was one of the best decisions I took, ever)!

I honestly didn’t know that we were committing ourselves to a 7 km trekking (one direction), with just one liter of water for three of us! Trekking through the tea plantations was an awesome experience, although it was a risky business. It was risky for 4 reasons; 1) We didn’t have enough water, and didn’t know how much we have to walk since we were not walking on the “road” 2) We took “shortcuts” through the plantations and had absolutely no idea about whether we were headed in the right direction or not! 3) The best thing you can do to get mobile network coverage is to pray 4) Tea plantations of Munnar is the favorite habitat of King cobras (15 minutes is all it takes for King Cobra venom to kill an adult)

Even though we got completely exhausted by the time we reached the peek, and we had to catch a returning jeep to reach to the place where we had parked our bikes, it was a wonderful experience. And as you may guess the only thing I could do after reaching back was to sleep.

Day 6

Starting point : Munnar

End point : Palakkad

Distance : Around 250 km

“Top station” is a place 40 km away from Munnar. Now, what’s so interesting about this place?! Ok, riders, they have the highest altitude road south to Himalayas at an altitude of 2000+ MSL. I got to drive there. And there’s a possibility for a 7 hours trekking through forest to Kodaikkanal (I will do that some time, hmmm)

After all these travel through the forests of Kerala, I was so sad that I didn’t get to see any wild elephants, even though we saw many other rare wild animals. That got resolved on our way to Palakkad. There was this tusker on the road with his wife (my guess) and their kid (again my guess!). Elephants are very furious when they have kids in their group, and this family was no different. I decided to try my luck and trust my bike’s pick up and we crossed them in a split second. They looked so beautiful and we managed to click some pics.

Again, the drive was wonderful since there were dense forests, huge waterfalls, wild animals through-out the route until Udumalaipettai. I reached my home by 5 in the evening, and took rest for the remaining of the day.

Day 7

Start point : Palakkad

End point : Wayanad

Distance : Around 300 km

Well this day was not meant to be for site seeing. I visited my friends’ (Hari and Liju) homes at Malappuram, and together we headed to Wayanad by that day evening. The route to wayanad through the famous Thamarassery churam was great, but the condition of the road was pathetic (in fact there’s no road when u get to hairpin bends; just mud and gravel). And for the first time in the entire tour I got to drive without any luggage since I had dumped them in my friends’ car, and it turned out to be a nice experience since it  was raining heavily as well. You don’t want to miss a drive in the rain, in kerala; trust me.

We reached my friend Sajeesh’s home by evening 8, and there was this wonderful dinner waiting for us (along with our other friends, by the way ) Had a great time there since it was like a re-union kind of thing.

Day 8

Wayanad

Wayanad is a beautiful place, and just have a look at the pics and you would know what I’m talking about.

We went to Banasura dam reservoir, where we had bamboo rafting. It was a great experience and the place is wonderful. We had a great time there testing our skills in photography

I’m sad that I couldn’t see much places in Wayanad, since it was mostly a hang-out with friends, but I will be going there again since it is very close to Bangalore.

Day 9

Starting point : Wayanad

End point : Bangalore

Distance : Around 250 km

Now, this was a sad day, because I knew it’s the end of the long trip that I was having. The drive through Bandhippoor forest area was great, but didn’t see any wild animals. We reached Bangalore around 7 in the evening, and had a nice sleep.

That’s it. It was the greatest trip of my life. I would encourage you all to do some trip like this once in a while, for it gives a mental reboot to you.

BTW, Look for pics here : http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/14647433/1//IdukkiTrip?h=93af2e&#/