Velo Kerala - Day2 - Ernakulam to Munnar !!!

It has been over a week that the blog has been dormant and I hardly got the time to finish the first one. So here goes the next chapter in the Kerala chronicles. Our plan to start early was delayed as we woke up late set about truing the rear wheel on Ajith's bike. 

The tablet put to dry

Truing the wheels using the spoke wrench a part of ICE toolz kit.

Once the wheels were back in good shape, I was ready in no time and we headed out for breakfast. After a sumptuous dose of idlies, appam and peanut chutney we were ready for the arduous 120 km of riding. Since it was going to be hot day and we started only at about 10am we rode till the highway and then found a truck carrying gate grille's for painting and the owner was glad to drop us till (Muvattupuzha)a point that was 30kms away. He refused to accept any money but he obliged to take pictures. 

Shah Jahan (Driver/owner) and Faisal

The happy campers on the back of the mini-truck

After over a day's frantic search for tender coconuts in the "land of coconuts" we found one about 10kms into riding and we immediately stopped to utilize the golden opportunity. Next point on the way was Kothamangalam and from this point Munnar was still a 90kms ahead with a 60km climb. With the tummies topped up with the 'tender' recharge we then kept a nice pace through the rolling terrain with a smooth tarmac. Crossed kothamangalam and then we hit this Neriyamangalam bridge under which the great Periyar river flows. 

The Neriyamangalam Bridge

Periyar River as seen from the bridge.

About a km ahead is where the a climb starts and there a 60km of the lovely ghat stretch. The gradient is gentle unlike the kalhatti climb with 36 hairpin bends nor the yercaud climb. Came across yet another tender coconut stall and without having the need to apply brakes our bikes gradually stopped near the shop and we feasted on a couple of tender coconuts. There was a sudden increase in the density of the forest cover and this was evident. Somehow the bridge seem to be the bridging gap between the flat-lands and the ghats. After about 10mins we were to start riding so we reach munnar before dusk however the prying eyes of ajith then fell upon the fruit juice. Needless to say, a shot of mosambi(sweet lime) juice went in and it is worth a mention that the juice was way better than the tender coconut. Tender coconut tasted like it was injected with electral :-P.
I welcomed my old nemesis (the hills) as this time it was an MTB to face the 60km route. The high humidity was certainly felt but the soothing breeze from the trees ensured the engine stayed cool. About 10 kms before adimali we stopped for a break. In went a couple of bottles of mango juice. That is when we met another cyclist. Mr.Ravi from Cherai. He has been riding for a couple of days and his destination was Adimali. So he wasn't far. We exchanged plesantries and he had some queries about our bikes. Something to notice was the DIY chain guard and an extra handlebar prop to aid in climbing. Simple and neat.

He took leave and we soon had to start and thats when we found the rear tyre of Ajith's bike flat. Removed the tyre and tube in no time and then realized that the tube was filled with slime and had we give it more time to heal it would have sealed itself. However the nail might have done more damage. So removed the metal piece and replaced the tube with the normal one. We also discarded the slime tube as it had a lot of patches. Another problem surfaced, the wheel was out of true again and Ajith set about setting that right. Half hour later we got started again and in about a couple of kms we hit a waterfall that resembled the silver cascades of Kodaikanal.

The traffic now getting thinner and thinner and the surroundings greener!! Just what we expected. Humidity levels then dropped and we felt the winds of change. Next stop Adimali for lunch. Just in time to catch up with folks protesting against the price hike. Looked like we were indirectly giving them a hint - Ride a bike..!!! We stopped at the newly opened restaurant called "The Cardamom". A pep chat with the manager and we got to know that the owner was from Taj group. The price and the taste was justified as the food disappeared into the hungry tummies. Simply put, a well deserved sumptuous lunch. 

That mustard sauce...!!!

5.30pm - We start from this hotel and back on saddle for just about half hour and we encounter the board "Welcome to Munnar". The moment Ajith gets to know there is still 30kms of it left here's what happened. (you might have to zoom in to see it).

Yet another hour into riding and the darkness sets in. The ultrafire was raring to go. We got the flashlight onand the two vioo lights on fork of Ajith's trek was impressive and they looked even better when they switched places from fork to the handlebar. It looked like a jazzy UFO following me :-). Soon the winds got colder and at about 7.45pm we reached the periphery of munnar town. But we still had 8 kms to go to reach the town. After a quick stop, a few snacks and an enquiry about the buses to take us back to Ernakulam we then started to ride as quick as possible. We rode till the misty mountain resort and its sure lived up to its name. Lot of mist just went past us as we just continued our journey towards the town. Soon we found a tata mobile (207) and just held on to the rear cage on either side. Since it was a narrow path we had a few cars following this carrier and they just wanted to overtake. But if we let go of this then there was no way to catch up. So we held on for as long as it was safe and about 2km away we left the dropped off and started pedaling again. A mad rush to the bus stand  was in vain as there were a lot of confused folks around. One said the last bus to ernakulam was at 9.30. The local were glad to give us the news - All buses had left for the night and we had to wait for the first bus to Ernakulam scheduled to depart next morning at 5.30am. Holy-Moly..!!! Now we were exhausted from the tiring climb up and a sprint towards the bus stand. So we were trying hard to spot any carrier/tempo that could carry us at-least till muvattupuzha or some place enroute so we could hitchhike the rest of the route. Time to satisfy the tummy and we headed to a parota stall. The smell was so tantalizing. Parked the bikes nearby and sat down at the local roadside stall. (unfortunately no energy to take the mobile out for a pic). We enjoyed the parotas + peas gravy. Nourishingly delicious. There were a few agents who were on their night stroll to look for any new comers to munnar and offering them places to stay. So we seemed to be at their mercy. A twisted dilemma, is it better to take a room, stay for the night and then take the first bus next morning? Probably the best solution. Other plans included ::
1.  Ride back in the night (60kms of downhill) in utter darkness..!!
2. Hitchhike a truck or a carrier. 


What did we do ... How did we return? Did we return the same night? Did we book an accomodation? 


Just when we were about to give up looking for a vehicle to hitchike and book a room for about INR500, (Just 1 room and no restroom) we spotted a truck stop on the other side of the road. So quickly we scooted and enquired with teh driver as to his destination and we were darn lucky. He said Kochi and exactly the place where we were headed. He agreed to load our bikes and we were the happiest bunch as we got the bikes properly tied using the ropes. This truck was carrying the top quality premium Tea (not available to the indian market) for export from port Kochi. Also made a new friend Jomit George who is from Adimali and an engineering student. Every day for him could be a vacation @ Munnar. Lucky soul. We got a lot of topics to discuss and I ended up talking with the driver Sendhur Pandian of Tirunelveli but mainly into truck driving hauling goods from and to Kochi, Munnar and Goa. The truck is like a second home and he said he had all the basic supplies and he normally just have to buy vegetables in order to prepare food. Hmm, talk about camping and adventure on road. He did mention that it was not going to be a direct trip but he'd stop on the way probably at Kothamangalam to catch some sleep as he hadn't had sleep in about 3-4 days. PHEW.. and here I am thinking I get only 4 hours sleep every night..!!  There was a lower berth and an upper berth. As we approached adimali we stopped for black tea more discussions followed about the trucking experience and life on road. You get to meet new people and make new friends. Absolutely exciting. Had I been on a motorbike or a car none of this would've ever happened. I settled in the upper berth and slept like a baby once we stopped for the night halt. I only woke up about 10kms from Vytila junction. The upper berth was such that you could enter only in one direction and exit the same. One couldn't even turn around :-) But I didn't care as I was fast asleep and so was Ajith. He too woke up from the parota hangover. The cost of the room expense was then transferred to Sendur pandian and all three of us were happy. He got a chance to make a quick buck we got back to kochi the same morning. The expense of staying back at munnar and taking the next bus would've been a costly affair. In fact Mr.Pandian was about to return me change and my response, you've been a godsend to us when in time of need so this was the least we could do. We exchanged phone numbers and soon our bikes unloaded. 

Sendur pandian, The weary rider (me) and the trusted Ashok leyland 1612

Secretly, I always wished to hitchhike a ride on a truck and never dreamt that it would be realized in this trip. Half hour of riding got us from vytila junction to Panampily nagar. Time for morning chores and then breakfast at the usual keralite roadside dhaba. 

The world goes by at a slow pace once on a bicycle. One gets the time to understand and take in the essence of time with it.  In any motorized transport the world whizzes past and you miss quite a lot. The spectacular photo opportunities, a stop every now and then to munch on something, the looks at the rest of the world when they see you on a cycle on an expressway or a village. I sometimes do think about defining or understanding time - For humans the world is at its own normal pace but the same world for a housefly might probably be 4x times slower. And for an elephant our world might be twice as faster. This is just one of those instinctive thoughts that crop up while on the saddle. To reinstate, I am truly happy to be a cyclist. Though the public might think I have saved hundreds of litres of petrol/diesel. None of the statements above is aimed at demeaning the petro-heads or diesel-heads. Adventure can take any form its just the passion that binds man and machine. Same theory applies here that binds me with the most ingenious invention of all, "The Bicycle"....!!!

Velo Kerala - Day1 - Ernakulam to allepey !!!

Ever since I began cycling, the dream of riding the green routes in God's own country always remained a far fetched desire. The leaves from last December were still pending and now seemed to be the perfect time to utilize them. Tempting as it may seem the decision was quickly made for a week's vacation. The accommodation was booked in Ernakulam 5 days initially. This had to be shortened due to conflict with the TCS 10K.

The surge of excitement kept me on my toes till the 27th. I managed to finish the TCS 10 run under 55 mins and was contempt with the achievement. Return Tickets booked in KSRTC Airavata Club Class Mercedes coach. The boarding point was Shantinagar BS at evening 7.30. After a quick check with Ajith Jagadish ( another cyclist that I met earlier on a ride to mysore) and he confirmed his readiness for the trip. Such was his attitude about this trip that he wasn't interested in knowing the routes or destination. Just wanted to get the bums on the saddle and ride till the legs beg for mercy. That's a great spirit and certainly is a mind over matter as one gets to face the challenges during the unplanned trip. Little did we realize that there was so much more in store for us than what we had on minds. 

The excitement begins as soon as we meet at Apple istore at Raghavendra swamy mutt 5th block. A km into riding, I quickly lose sight of Ajith. Dang, he rode like a stung bee. After a couple of attempts to reach him on the phone caught up near cosmopolitan club and then we continued against traffic on the one way all the way to Ashoka pillar and then towards inner roads that leads to shantinagar bus stand. This was a quick huffy puffy ride and my T shirt was wet in no time.Only once we stopped I understood the scale of Ajith's luggage. He almost had a caravan on his back rather than a 'backpack'. As we waited for our bus we caught up on the daily lives and the BBCh races. As usual my X6 gets to show its carl zeiss magic hence out it comes from my pocket and I'm clicking away to glory. Then we see the Mercedes Benz coach that we're supposed to board and soon load our bikes and not without the fuss from the conductor who asks us to remove the pedals. We tell him that the wheels will be removed and then we'll mount them vertically. As the passengers had boarded the conductor reluctantly agreen to just push the bikes in and do we did and I secured the bikes against the side rails in the luggage compartment. Luggage cost = 330 as per ticket for two bikes. Thats all ??  Absolutely not. You've got to grease the hands of the conductor else he simply doesn't allow your bike. Add another 70 and he's satisified and I got my change for Rs.500 only at the destination. He was happy to pocket Rs.170 if not bothered. 

Here's how the bikes were loaded ::

 After confirming the PNR number we got seated and had a relaxed drive till the dinner stop at McDees on Hosur road just beyond hosur. The service at the hotel was delayed hence we were the last passengers to board the bus when one gentleman started yelling about the delay. I happily chose to ignore him as my tummy was happy and it was time to settle in to sleep like a baby as per the advertisement outside the bus :-). However Ajith had some nice rebuttals ready and after a few comments the angry businessman mallu finallys shut up and we got moving. Fast forward 9 hours @ Vytilla. We soon near vytilla junction and then head to the KSRTC Inter state bus stand. Reached the bus stand at 6 AM and we could smell the wet earth from early morning shower.  Soon it was time to get the bikes out. I headed out to collect change while Ajith managed to reassemble the bikes to riding condition again. Just had to remove the disk brake spacer and put the front wheel back on my 4300D while Ajith's bike was a simpler task of fixing the front wheels back again. Soon we consulted the GPS on Ajith's mobile and we had to reach Panampily nagar and as per GPS it was a good 4 kms away. As it looked like it might rain again, he stopped to pull out a secret weapon to protect his luggage, a secret/hidden waterproofing for his "caravan".

After about 15 mins of riding we reached panampilly nagar and started looking for the BSNL stay. A few mins of confusing directions from the caretaker we managed to locate it and secured our bikes against some pipes. It was like a duplex villa but with rooms on the inside called suites. 

The Goof Up # 1 The one booked for us was Suite 2 and we happily entered Suite #1. Once we had freshened up, we quickly switched over to Suite#2.

We then loaded our bags into Suite #2 and started a ride towards Allepey/Alapuzhzha, our first of the Trifector destinations on this vacation. Having done the extensive homework on mapping routes and checking with google street view for the road and weather conditions, he route for Day1 ran along the coast as depicted in the pic below 

The road conditions were top notch. Hmm I should use more biker friendly terms. So let me rephrase... The roads throughout were road bike friendly except 10 kms (there is a right and an immediate left about 200mts away at kanamaly) which is
super MTB friendly.

The road bike friendly streches:

The MTB friendly 10km stretch:

The humidity levels were high and we were sweating however, due to the green cover and quite a generous amount of shades time an again the hot rising from the tarmac was being cooled and was a pleasant experience. The early morning showers also were a boon in keeping the heat under control. We managed to stop at a couple of places to sip on limca/Mirinda. One tip to whoever manages to read this blog is to avoid coke/limca/thums up etc. Mirinda is probably the only drink that can be trusted. Limca and coke taste very different. To me it felt as if a mechanic had refilled the bottle. There was an aroma of grease. you might want to blame the shop for improper storage but I had similar experience in two different stalls. Halfway through the trip my urge to sit by the beach was at an all time high and soon we found ourselves at thyckkal beach. The gadgetry instinct kicked in and I started clicking pics of my bike and trying my photography skills. Soon the instagram monster arrived with his Asus Transformer prime and managed to capture video of me riding the trek by the beach onto the waves. This feat had to be repeated a few times. Why why??

1. The first time Ajith tried to capture he missed it some how. 
2. The second time he had forgotten to set it in video mode. 
3. I had lost momentum once and was riding in the lowest gear :-)

The Instagram monster :

Thyckkal Beach

My Trek by the beach along a boat.

 Experiment with new methods/modes of capture

All in all it similar to the "ride-in-beach" just like the drive in beach in Muzhappilangad and hardly any crowd when we entered but soon we could see considerable groups of people entering the waters. Though I had my trusty Nokia X6 working its magic via carl zeiss and capturing the natural colours it was no match for the Asus Transformer Prime. The video was HD and of stunning clarity. After the harsh ride on the 10km stretch the rear wheel on Ajith's Trek had a bend and the brake levers were swaying when on the move. So we tried to fiddle with the brake settings without much luck. Soon it was good enough to be on the move but with the bend still conspicuous, we decided that it will be sorted out once we were back in the room in Cochin. Nibbling on the energy bar equivalents that Ajith managed to source from abroad, we managed to reach Allepey at  3pm. Once the batteries are near-empty, a cyclists eye then assumes that it is a hawk eye and looking out for prey which then was visible to us as Al-Firdouse restaurant. Unfortunately only meals was available and nothing else and fortunately, atleast that was available :-). It was after a long time that i ended up eating Kerala rice which resembles the idly rice locally available however a new luncheon experience is never an unwelcome to a bleary cyclist. I finished my meal as quick as a woodpecker drills. Ajith on the other hand took it nice and easy which gave me more time to realize that we in fact were at Allepey or Alappuzha. We had next hour and a half at our disposal to explore the backwaters and soon we hit a small trail alongside a channel that was covered in weed. We followed the trail for about half a km after which we hit the main road which was narrow but the water was clear of weed and we hoped that we could see houseboats soon.In about 15-20 mins of riding we were at a T-Junction and our cameras were probably just bobbing in the pouches ready to swing in to action.

Action >>  Camera  >> Click, Click,  

Crossed a small bridge to ride alongside the mini-channel.

 

Off the trail and on tarmac to reach marine expressways.

WOW. So many houseboats, ferry boats, mini boats containing goods for for transit, Canoes boats resembling shikharas of the north. I was amazed and dumbstruck by just looking at the sheer number of houseboats. Wild thoughts prevailed. I recalled the 'boating' experiments of my schooldays when I used to make paper boats of which i knew only two kinds. The really standard and the knife boat (Had a protruding extension at the base of the boat). The spark to try something new was probably missing and that might explain why i didn't build houseboats that ride the rainwaters :-). Would've been a rocking houseboat at that. Soon Ajith parked his bike by a tree and we started clicking pictures of each houseboat that passed. We stood by another small boat that was used to carry some kind of a fruit that resembled mango but learnt that it was poisonous and had medicinal value. Maybe the reader can shed some light as to what that fruit is..!!

And now some houseboats... (courtesy - My Nokia X6)

This one come to park for a short while.

On the way to the market

Something like Shikara but a lot smaller

As we didn't want to miss the sunset, it was a fast paced ride avg 28kph all the way to the Alappuzha beach. The sight of the ocean is a perfect finish for the day's ride. Or was it? As we pushed our bikes on the beach sands, a thought struck us why not try riding. Ajith managed to ride for about 30mts before stopping. Then I tried but only to stop at 10 mts :-) and it was so much fun watching the wheels getting sucked by sand. Then we pushed the bikes nearer to the shore. My trek had a stand while ajith made a "Sand stand".

The bicycle 'limits'

Love this pic

At this point you'd be expecting a wrap up and end of excitement for Day 1 and head back to the room. And.... you are absolutely...... Wrong.!!! Ajith captured many pics of the sunset. After clicking he kept the Asus transformer on the handlebar over the bag. Then.. disaster, a big wave went right through the wheels of his bike as his bike was parked against one of the pillars of the pier. The tablet fell in water and what a shocker I could do nothing to rescue it as i was farther from his bike. Ajith rushed quickly and picked the tablet which was being dragged into the ocean by the waves. The next half hour was spent trying to drain the tablet off any water that has entered via the ports. There was trouble switching it off. With a dismal note we left the beach. We hit the MCR ( Main coast road) which was an NH and soon found a truck to draft which went good for about 10kms. then we stopped for dinner and had some tasty dosa. It was a quiet dinner as I was exhausted drafting the truck at an avg of 45+kph. On a roadbike it would've been a different ballgame but on an MTB there was lot more confidence just because of the disc brakes. After dinner we managed to hitchhike on a tempo traveller for the next 30kms to panampilly nagar junction. We headed to the room to catch some sleep as we had an early start for tomorrow's big adventure. How would tomorrow be like? More riding in the highly humid conditions ? More drafting? Hitchhiking? tender coconuts?

Wait for the Day 2 report..!!