Ride for Passion and photography

Bangalore- Rameshwaram- Dhanushkodi- Kanyakumari- Munnar- Bangalore

One week before the ride planned for a Solo trip as usual being a working class person wanted salary to hit the pockets to even start the trip. In the mean while i had a chat with my friend who was keen to join the ride and that became group ride with two of us, but not big numbers. We initially had discussed the plan to ride on the 2nd June 2016 to 5th June 2016{ Bengaluru- Valparai- Munnar- Thekkady- Periyar and Bengaluru}, all was ok and we decided to take tents and sleeping bags, not to book any accommodations anywhere in advance also.

Day 1 {2-06-2016}

Starting Point was at Jaguar showroom silk board at 5am and my friend had an hectic day previous day and had reached home late due to rains and was not prepared for the ride. I did give him a wake up call at 3:30am to make sure he reaches the start point on time. He reaches the start point at 7am and then we start our ride filled fuel for our bike's in Shell at Bomanahalli and hit straight to A2B for breakfast near Krishnagiri, which is approx 90kms by 8am. We started our ride at 10:45am and reached Salem for taking the diversion  to Erode for reaching Valparai, while doing that my friend {Dinesh} says why not we take the staright road and reach Rameshwaram complete Dhanushkodi and reach Kanyakumari tonight?....So was like what??? then said why not do this side and go there??....I informed, if we do that route we will not be able to complete the actual plan....however as it was unplanned so decided to head towards Rameshwaram which is approximately 700kms from Bengaluru.

We then started a different journey altogether which was hot and humid weather all round these places, on the way my friend's bike was short of fuel and was miss firing, we could not find any fuel stations nearby and fortunately was carrying a 1litre bottle of fuel from his old ride which helped us to run the bike till fuel station, in the mean time we also finished our Lunch at Grand Sarvana Bhavan before Madurai. We headed towards Rameshwaram after taking the deviation to Rameshwaram road we found a Coffee shop and stopped over for refreshing. The taste of lime drink and other flavours was very different, that was a real refreshment and then we started to ride as these roads are single lane and we cross villages on the way. Slow ride for almost 140kms which was really difficult due to the humidity and heat. We reached the entrance of Rameshwaram and we see the way to enter our bikes near the sea to enjoy the view and also to click some pics, spent some time around and reached the city at 5:30pm. Hunting started for the stay finally we found the hotel Pearl Residency and the staff welcomed us with smiles seeing us on the bike's and were treated like VIP's. we ended the day and the stay there was awesome.


Day 2 {03-06-2016}

We got up late as usual and got ready to have our breakfast which was complimentary and then we lubed the bike's chain and took of to Dhanushkodi to do the sight seeing and photography. We entered the road which reaches to the end of India, the road was looking like a mat very well made and not all vehicles are allowed to enter the restricted zone. Usually people walk all the way from the entrance for about 5kms to see the old church and the village that was situated there....today also there is school and people stay there. This road actually was built by  Hanuman's family "Vanara Saina" with blessings of Rama to bring Sita back from Exile which is today called "Srilanka".

  
 We finished exploring the place and headed towards the hotel to pack our luggage to head towards Kanyakumari.
We packed and by the time we left it was almost 2:30pm, on the way we did the photo shoot at Pamban bridge. We tool the ECR route which was almost around 300+kms to Kanyakumari and reached the place by 8pm and straight went to Tamilnadu tourism hotel which has the beautiful view of the beech  and stayed back there had food and crashed as we wanted to do the sunrise photography in the early morning.


Day 3 {04-06-2016}

We got up around 5:30am and headed with the camera to the watch tower which is built on the seashore by the Tamilnadu government for viewing Kanyakumari city and the sunrise. Usually the sunrise view in Kanyakumari is very beautiful than any place in the country.

We went back to the rooms and packed our luggage and started to head towards Periyar, we checked on Google Maps which will be the fastest route to reach. We found 3 options a. via Kerala which will take almost 8hours and the other b.via Shabarimallai which is taking almost 7hours and c. Via Madurai which was taking almost 5.5 hours and 360kms which was 100kms more. So we decided to take the fastest route and started at around 1pm....as usual the heat and wind was slowing us down and still we continued to power up and reach as soon as possible. We saw hotel Sarvana bhavan 20kms before Virudhunagar  and stopped over for lunch which was newly opened and was been welcomed with all smile's and hospitality....we had been taken to the AC hall to sit and eat our lunch and food was also yummy.....after lunch we started our ride and we decided to skip Periyar reached the foot hills of Munnar and were getting warnings of rains around 3:30pm and Munnar was like almost 100 kms from the foot hills.

We geared up with rain suits and started doing photo shoot all the way to Munnar as these places where filled with scenic beauty all the way.....we were supposed to reach Munnar by 5-6pm but the beauty slowed us down and ended up to reach the Zion homestay 10kms before Munnar by 8pm. This place we were referred by a localite who was selling hot and spicy bujji's on the ghat's finally we negotiated and stayed. We badly needed a body massage after continuous ride that we were doing every day....we found a place and got the massage and finally ended the day.


Day 3 {05-06-2016}

We got up late and was raining in Munnar.....we got ready and wanted to have breakfast went to the hotel The Siena Village and met Dinesh friend's who were regular visitors to Munnar and we all went on our bike's after breakfast to explore Munnar.....each and every route and turns of Munnar roads has it's own beauty and heavenly feel....was so much enjoying the weather....we explored some lakes spots to photo shoot and then while riding back to the hotel the rains started we got drenched and reached the hotel dropped friend's and went back to the hotel and packed our luggage and had to say good bye to Munnar, turned on the SJCAM (action cam) to shoot the ghats and we rode back with rains and continued ride was lovely down the hills and then we stopped for Tender coconut near the foot hills, from there we headed back to Bengaluru which was approx 502kms from Munnar on the way pit stops as usual and then finally we decided to take a long break in Shoolagiri coffee day and reached by 10:30pm and reached back home by 1:30am.

Thanks to Dinesh Maligachar to join this memorable ride.

Thanks and Adios to all my friend's and Blog follower's until the next one....:)

Click here for more pics

Regards,
Riderboy