Kerala's wonder

At last my desire to go on a long bike trip was going to be fulfilled. I missed out the trip on last Saturday with Himanshu and cursed him so much that Himanshu would have thought that he had made a big mistake of not informing me. But this time yes he did inform me in advance about the trip. Ambrish also decided to join me as no body was here in the hostel for the three days holiday and he would have got bored in the hostel. Our journey started on 26th morning at 5.30 am. We met himanshu and company (Ejaz and Pushkar) at banashankari T-point .Our first stop was "KAMAT LOKARUCHI". I had been so many times on tis route but never been in KAMAT. The attraction was the "leaf idli" or "kotte idli" what is called in kannada. After having heavy breakfast over there we decided to start off, Mysore being over next stop. I felt that my bike was giving problems so decided to have a check at Shah Automobiles, Mysore dealership. Since the dealership got moved from it's place we decided to carry on our next stop being gundlupet. To go towards kozikode you have to take a right turn just two kilometers before gundlupet town. The road is really good. If you have a car you can cruise at speeds of 100kms.We then passed through-out the bandipur check post, where the forest range starts. You get the Muttunga wild life sancutary on this route famous for birds. We got a view not of bird but of elephants sawaying their trunks. We continued toward from there toward Sultan Battery(Waynad District), our next destination. One can spend almost three days in waynad itself admiring it's natural beauty. On the way as soon as you enter kerala border, you can contact the local over there for local spots related information. We came to know of Edakkal caves. 9 kms off the way from the main road. The caves are good one , but try avoiding going on public holidays as it has too much rush. After seeing the rush and also the limited time we had we decide to march back to main road and continue our journey towards kozikode , our last destination of the day. After we crossed Sultan Battery, we reached kalepeetha and then to Quilandi. On the way you have to cross the ghat section which is the most adorable one and we all got refreshed by seeing the view from the top. The ghat section is almost 12 kms and really dangerous. One wrong move and you are into deep valley or the heavens. You have the phokuttu lake on the way. Because of the limitedness of time we had, we didn't stop at phokuttu lake also. Our destination was to reach Kappad beach by 6.10 as the sunset for that day was scheduled at 6.20. Somehow we reached kappad beach at 6.15. and we sat off there for an hour. We searched a rest house for us. Kappad has two resorts. First One, i don't remember the name, but too much expensive. The other one is poonur resort and cheaper one. Luckily we got a room over there for 300 bucks. After having good dinner in night we slept at the beach for an hour till 10.30 pm and it feels really nice. We asked the locals over there about the Vasco - da - gama beach , the place where he landed in India and to our surprise it was the same place where we came yesterday , did sleep for an hour in the night. Because of the long driving, everybody was tired and got asleep very soon. The plans for the next day was ready already which was suppose to start at 7.30 in morning.

DAY -2 (27/01/07)

So it was now fun time for us. Everybody was ready for fun now in the ocean water. We reached the same spot i.e. Vasco-da-gama beach and had fun for an hour in the beach. I was reluctant to go inside the ocean water but Ejaz pulled me inside. The best part was that the beach was not crowded at all except the fisherman. After having a nice refreshing bath back at the resort we left kappad and started our journey towards Kannur , “Cannore” what-ever you say. So from kappad next was the abondened light house in Quilandi. There are many light houses in that area and as you go the highway towards Mangalore you get to see many signs of the spot. It would be helpful if you take the help of locals over there, so that you won’t miss out any interesting spot. Light house was an total disappointment for us as the opening time for the light house was 3 ‘O clock in afternoon. We proceeded with our jouney toward Cannore as we didn’t have enough time. The next big town for us was Mahe Pondichery. The attraction of this town is the Wine that is served over here. The cost of the wine is also less than that compared to the other part of the states. I think it’s because of the tax holiday that Pondichery in Tamil Nadu enjoy’s and Mahe pondichery being a part of that Pondichery (Tamil Nadu). The road is really nice but be aware of the private buses which ply on these routes. They are driven carelessly and don’t care for anyone else. There’s nothing to see in Mahe Pondichery. So our journey continued. The next stop was Thalassery Fort. The fort is too small and is for actually a place where the prisoners where kept. We did run away quickly from that place and felt that the day is going as total waste. We were already bored by the beaches so tried to avoid going there and also the last destination of the day’s trip was a beach. So we continued our journey towards Cannore. Himanshu had information about the muzhpalingad beach (also called the virgin beach). It’s on the way from thalassery towards Cannore (12kms). As soon as we reached the beach and seeing the beach, it was like our day was made. Seeing the cars and bike being driven on the beach I got very much excited. I had very much fun when I drove my bike in ocean waters just next to ocean waters at top speed. (click here to watch video)At this beach bikes and cars are given on rent for riding on the beach. It was 2.00 in afternoon and we were very much hungry. We saw a resort next to the beach and went there but the resort served to those persons who had booked a cottage in their resort. So the next option was to ask the locals if they can provide some food to us or some money and too my surprise one family did provide us some delicious food including tomato curry and fish curry. The curries which are made over here are too much spicy and it’s hard for people who don’t eat too much spicy and hot food. One local named shahji helped us too much in that. Now we changed our plan and decided to stay over there for the night and continue our journey further in the morning. The next thing was to find out some good place to stay. Ask the locals over here and you will definitely get something place to stay at a very low price. Even there are some resorts and cottage at the rate of 300/- per room. Shahji assured us for a room and asked us if we would like to have boat ride for Rs 1000/- . That will include a 10 kms deep journey into the ocean, going to the lone island over there and the round trip of the back-waters. We thought that it was expensive but the idea of coming over there and not having fun made us to go forward. Little did we know that we would get the best of that 1000/- bucks. As soon as we entered the ocean in the boat shahji told us that if you people are lucky you will get to see dolphins(Click here to watch video). And our luck was really great we got to see a dolphin and we did chase it to some extent. We thought the 1000/- buck worth has been attained in the initial part of the journey. The next was the island but two things stopped us from going to the island. One is we were not having our boots, any knife and torch light with us. Second was it was getting dark and the back-waters was yet to be completed. So we decided to skip this one and go to the back waters. It was really amazing to see such a thing. I had seen back-waters previously in Mangalore and Udupi belt but their natural beauty is in this part only. We were tired by the days proceeding and also hungry when we returned from the ocean trip. Again shahji had arranged dinner for us. But this time the dinner was better from the lunch. For the non-veg they had fish, prawns chutney and muzzles and for the vegetarians we had dal, plain curry and macroni and yes paratha too. And this was for just Rs 250/- in all. The women villagers have some kind of self help groups where some 12 women’s form a group and do serve to the tourist and earn money. We tried for a rest place and shahji too tried but couldn’t get one as desired. We started our journey towards Cannore at night some 13 kms from this place. We got a decent lodge for Rs 400/- for 5 people. The next days plan was to go to the Cannore fort and to the Cannore beach.

Day -3 28/02/07

After having heavy breakfast we stared our day’s tour towards Cannore fort. Again here we had to face some disappointment as the fort was place for the prison inmates and the beach was not that good. As we had to reach back to Bangalore by evening we started our journey back at 12.30 in afternoon. The back route was through Iriti -> Gonikoppal -> Hunsur -> Mysore -> Bangalore ( Total 340 kms). We reached kamat at 6.45 in evening and had basundi over there. After reaching back I calculated the total kms rum in three days which came to around 850 kms approximately. It was a real good change for me and my bike.

My next post would be the Madikeri tour which I did on 9 – 10 of Feb. Till then bye.

This was our route map how we went.