With the last two rides - Hampi Humpers in December'14 and Gandikota Gargoyles in March - being to arid regions, my eyes were starved of the fresh greenery of the hills. I thought of Wellington as a destination initially, but I chanced upon a blog on monsoon drives in Western Ghats (Link: http://traveltwosome.com/blog/12-road-trips-to-experience-monsoon-in/) and decided to postpone Wellington to some other time and enjoy the rains in Western Ghats for the July ride.
Satish and I were torn between Charmadi Ghat and Amboli Ghat. Eventually, we decided to go with the latter since both of us had a rare chance to do a 4-day ride and Charmadi can be covered in a 3-day ride. Amboli Ghat is a good 570+ kms from Bangalore, so a stopover at Belgaum was decided upon. A few date changes happened and Sandeep (who had joined us for the Bylakuppe ride in July 2013) confirmed for the ride too. I think Satish and I were happier than Sandeep, as we finally had a 3rd rider alongside.
When it comes to rains during a ride, the chances increase greatly if it is a BoP ride. These chances increase exponentially if someone is riding during monsoons. And these exponentially-high chances convert to absolute sureties if it is a BoP ride in the monsoons. When it is a BoP ride to Western Ghats in the monsoons, it crosses the "100% sure" mark; the logical impossibility of 200% is the best descriptor.
Dates: 25-28 July, 2015
Place(s) covered: Belgaum, Amboli Ghat and Chitradurga
Route taken:
Bangalore-Tumkur-Chitradurga-Hubballi-Belgaum-Amboli Ghat (while going)
Belgaum-Hubballli-Chitradurga-Tumkur-Bangalore (on the way back)
Riders:
1. Satish Palleti: Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350 - The Storymaster
2. Krishnatreya Brindavanam: Royal Enfield Electra Twinspark - The Drinker
3. Sandeep Modey: Yamaha FZ - The Cameraman
4. Varun Doegar: Royal Enfield Thunderbird - The Escort
Total distance traversed: 1260 kms
DAY 1
Doegar had confirmed a couple of days earlier that he would, like in the Sakleshpur Sledgehammers ride, come with us till the city outskirts and turn back. I had a team outing the day before the ride and I was careful not to tire myself out too much. We planned to start at 5.30 AM the next day. Satish usually turns up for rides on time, but he seems to have a running feud with Doegar and has always come late whenever the latter rides with us. He didn't miss a chance this time either to infuriate Doegar and arrived at 6 AM. Sandeep was dot on time and though Doegar had spotted him, he didn't think he was a long-distance rider, given that he was carrying all his stuff in a poly-bag (which was to be put into Satish's new saddle-bags).
We set off immediately towards Yeshwantpur, after which we had to take the highway towards Tumkur. Around 65 kms later, we stopped for breakfast at Kamat Upachar. We caught up with each other and what happened in the past few rides. Satish dropped a navigational gem here, as he claimed that a branch of the NICE Road actually extended all the way till Chitradurga. He and Doegar debated about this mythical route for quite sometime before Satish acquiesced. Once again, I have found Satish's sense of navigation to be better than mine but he seems to come out with absolute gems like this only when Doegar is around.
We had a small photography session afterwards. Satish was clueless about the Timer function of his bandook, so Doegar took over and got some nice pics clicked. We stopped some distance ahead to click some more line-up pics and then bade our farewells to Doegar who took the next U-turn back towards Bangalore. We now had around 440 kms to cover. The skies were cloudy with the sun peeping through sometimes. We knew rain was around the corner, so we stuck to breaks after every 100 kms. The inevitable happened somewhere before Hubli - the heavens opened up. At the end of our ride, I realized that this stretch of 200 kms was the longest continuous dry stretch we rode in those 4 days.
We had lunch at a place called Green Palace, while we waited for Sandeep to catch up - he had stopped for petrol, the card machine wasn't working there so he was searching for an ATM in the vicinity. The rain stopped for a bit while we finished lunch but we stuck to our rain-gear wisely, because a few kilometers later, it again started pouring.
In this manner, we reached Belgaum at around 7 PM, partly drenched, slightly saddle-sore but still fresh. We found a hotel called Durga Residency near the main bus stand. The room was clean and well-kept but small. The latter proved to be a challenge as we had to creatively lay out all our rain-drenched gear somewhere to dry. What more, Durga Residency was located on top of a local bar.
On the advice of a friend, we went for dinner to a place called Sun and Sand. The 1st floor is meant for families, so we were led upstairs. Both Satish and Sandeep had turned vegetarian temporarily (being a Saturday) and I wasn't really keen on drinking since neither of them drank. So we had a saatvik bhojan, absolutely delicious and filling. We returned to the hotel and went into a deep sleep.
DAY 2
The first stop this day, again a recommendation from my friend, was Ajanta Cafe for breakfast. I had one of the best breakfasts ever over here. Belgaum's location on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border meant you could have a delicious combo of masala dosa or idli-vada with a plate of misal-pav. I tried the latter for the first time and it was fantastic! Satish finally got around to fixing his Go-Pro camera to Sandeep's helmet.
Once again, we got into our rain-gear and made our way through Belgaum towards Amboli Ghat. While the place itself just has a waterfall, it is the ride that is more enjoyable. Another first for me was riding in Maharashtra. It is also a bit of a sudden linguistic jump, as I noticed that people didn't speak Kannada at all. Usually, people living on state borders are fluent in two languages. Of course, I admit that I am basing this conclusion on very limited interactions.
As we neared Amboli, I actually saw a huge cloud of rain slowly move towards us and engulf us completely in a matter of minutes, It is a magical experience for a city-dweller like me to witness such natural beauty. This was short-lived though, as we rode closer to the main waterfalls. It was, to put it delicately, quite busy over there. In other words, it was chock-a-blocked with people of all shapes and sizes. The waterfalls are on the side of the road and flow over a set of stone steps, so you can actually climb up towards the falls. Climb up if you can find some space, that is. I contented myself by lounging on a few rocks at the base. The rain never really stopped, so we didn't even remove our helmets. Satish wanted to take a video with his DSLR and was running around to people asking for an umbrella. He finally succeeded though.
We munched on some bhutta there, while a bunch of ladies of various ages took turns posing on my bike for pictures. Afterwards, we stopped at a small stall for vada-pav and egg bhurji. This kept us running till our return to Belgaum, where we ordered a more substantial lunch of rotis and curry to be delivered to our room. It is here that Sandeep and I started making fun of Satish's penchant to come up with outrageous stories which he would then contradict in a matter of minutes. He was thus labeled the "Storymaster" for the rest of the ride, and probably, all his life. One thing new to me was bakchodi in Telugu. It is an important distinction for me, something which might be lost out on people who speak the same language inside and outside their homes. While growing up, I spoke Telugu at home and Hindi with friends outside. So I am completely comfortable with informal conversations in Hindi, but I am confronted with my inadequacies in Telugu in situations like this. I haven't been exposed to the local slang, dialect, vocabulary and all those other little things that make communication smooth and enriching. My Telugu is like the proverbial frog in the well, nurtured and developed within the confines of my home in Noida, outside of which I barely had a chance or reason to flex my linguistic muscles.
We took a short nap and then set off to explore Belgaum. We knew that a fort existed somewhere here, but the first few auto-guys had no idea about it. Eventually, we realized that the fort was there, but resembled no other fort we had ever seen. It houses Indian Army's 5 Mahar Regiment presently and consists of a large number of houses and 2 temples. We walked around but there wasn't a lot to see. Outside the Jain temple, we talked to a jogger about other places to see. Instead, he launched into a short lecture on the history of the temple, the architectural features and what they represent, etc. Satish was the focal point of this lecture, and Sandeep and I could barely control our laughter. Finally, the Storymaster had met his match!
For dinner, we once again went to Sun and Sand. This time I was in a mood to drink, so I had a few pegs of Old Monk while the others gave me company with mocktails. The Storymaster told us about how he actually drinks sometimes and how he once downed 3 neat shots of Old Monk and didn't even get buzzed. Over the course of the evening, this changed to 3 pegs, then 1 shot, then back to 3 pegs + some other drink and so on.
The day's riding had been absolutely fabulous. We returned to the hotel and to our delight, we discovered most of our clothes had dried up, even though they probably would get drenched again the next day!
DAY 3
The plan for this day was to ride to Chitradurga. We could see the famous fort there and also have a short and relaxing 200 kms to ride on Day 4.
Goes without saying, we donned our rain gear as the ride began. We wanted to go to Ajanta Cafe one more time, but it was a little late and we were keen on avoiding the Monday morning traffic. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any breakfast place on the highway either. Eventually, we stopped at a place called Mullah Dhaba. As the name suggests, it was run by Muslims and had the colour theme of green. It gave a very eerie and dingy look to the place. The food was decent though and we had some nice kheer at the end.
One aspect worthy of note is the chai. In this part of Karnataka, the regular chai is overdosed with milk. Consequently, it is very thick and with barely any traces of the taste of tea. Almost always, we had to send it back and ask them to make a stronger tea. I have tasted various types of tea from all over India - from the almost sugarless tea of South India to the very sweet, syrupy chai of the hills in the North. This milky tea was a new experience for me though.
We reached Chitradurga in the afternoon and stopped at the first hotel we saw. The rooms weren't great but we were actually quite tired as it was our 3rd day of riding. Satish wasn't keen on lunch and wanted to take a nap. Sandeep and I stepped out but there were no good places to eat nearby so we rode a little bit ahead. I spotted a bar and decided to have a beer first. Sandeep ordered his lunch there, while I sipped on a cold beer. A gentleman on a nearby table started chatting with us. He was quite drunk and was bossing around the waiters a lot to impress us. It looked like he was a regular and they seemed to be used to his antics. He even showed us a pic of his two sons, one of whom is apparently a DJ in a big club in Bangalore.
The fort shuts down at 5, so we decided to wrap this up quickly. I was too full of 'child bear' and 'snakes' and skipped lunch. Our drunk friend here started insisting that we take a bottle of water from the bar, for God knows what reason. He grabbed a waiter and forced him to go and fill a bottle. We stepped out, tipped the waiter and gestured to him silently not to bother with the water. The man there seemed to be on the verge of creating an unnecessary scene.
Back to the hotel, we met Satish and rode the short distance to the fort through the town of Chitradurga. The Chitradurga Fort is maintained excellently, though not a lot survives. It was occupied by a series of dynasties and kings including the Vijaynagara Empire and Tipu Sultan. We climbed to the top of the fort, from where you get an excellent view of Chitradurga and the surrounding areas. We were a bit surprised to find that Chitradurga was actually quite a huge town. Satish and Sandeep tried their hand at trick photography here while I just enjoyed the cool, peaceful breeze.
Hunger pangs hit us soon and we made our way down to the entrance of the fort. We passed through the entire town without finding a single snacks stall. Right near our hotel, there was a small place called Coffee Day. The logo was very similar to Cafe Coffee Day. In this small town, so far away from any major metropolitan city, you wouldn't really expect great fast food like sandwiches and burgers. Coffee Day, however, blew away our minds with their fantastic cheese sandwiches and various types of burgers. Satish and I, starved because we had skipped lunch, dove into the food like there was no tomorrow. It started as a small, filler-meal to keep us till dinner but soon, it turned into a fest of gluttony at the end of which, neither of us could even dare to think of dinner.
The tiring day plus the heavy meal can only be followed by one thing - blissful sleep.
DAY 4
The final day of an amazing ride! For a change, there were no dark clouds as we started off. We managed to cover almost 70-80 kms before we had to stop and don our rain gear.
Once again, no decent places to eat on the highway. Somewhere near Tumkur, we stopped at a hotel. Sandeep was once again nowhere to be seen and because of the same reason as earlier - petrol stop and no cash. We were almost finishing our breakfast when he joined us.
Satish came up with his best story so far about a group of KTM riders on the other side of the road (point to be noted: neither Sandeep nor I spotted any such group), at least one of whom was a girl. Next, we learn that the girl has brown hair. By the time Sandeep finished his breakfast, Satish was no longer sure whether it was a guy or a girl. It was getting harder to distinguish between Satish's truths and stories!
We took the NICE Road to avoid the heavy traffic through the center of the city and reached home by afternoon.
The continuous rain riding meant the underside of my bike and all the chrome was splashed with red mud. Sure, it wasn't clean and pretty, but it was beautiful in its own way! The Bullet is completely at home on the highway, not inside the garage and the same goes for me - I am at my happiest on a ride like this!
Until next time!
Cheers and Jai BoP!
Satish and I were torn between Charmadi Ghat and Amboli Ghat. Eventually, we decided to go with the latter since both of us had a rare chance to do a 4-day ride and Charmadi can be covered in a 3-day ride. Amboli Ghat is a good 570+ kms from Bangalore, so a stopover at Belgaum was decided upon. A few date changes happened and Sandeep (who had joined us for the Bylakuppe ride in July 2013) confirmed for the ride too. I think Satish and I were happier than Sandeep, as we finally had a 3rd rider alongside.
When it comes to rains during a ride, the chances increase greatly if it is a BoP ride. These chances increase exponentially if someone is riding during monsoons. And these exponentially-high chances convert to absolute sureties if it is a BoP ride in the monsoons. When it is a BoP ride to Western Ghats in the monsoons, it crosses the "100% sure" mark; the logical impossibility of 200% is the best descriptor.
Dates: 25-28 July, 2015
Place(s) covered: Belgaum, Amboli Ghat and Chitradurga
Route taken:
Bangalore-Tumkur-Chitradurga-Hubballi-Belgaum-Amboli Ghat (while going)
Belgaum-Hubballli-Chitradurga-Tumkur-Bangalore (on the way back)
Riders:
1. Satish Palleti: Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350 - The Storymaster
2. Krishnatreya Brindavanam: Royal Enfield Electra Twinspark - The Drinker
3. Sandeep Modey: Yamaha FZ - The Cameraman
4. Varun Doegar: Royal Enfield Thunderbird - The Escort
Total distance traversed: 1260 kms
DAY 1
Doegar had confirmed a couple of days earlier that he would, like in the Sakleshpur Sledgehammers ride, come with us till the city outskirts and turn back. I had a team outing the day before the ride and I was careful not to tire myself out too much. We planned to start at 5.30 AM the next day. Satish usually turns up for rides on time, but he seems to have a running feud with Doegar and has always come late whenever the latter rides with us. He didn't miss a chance this time either to infuriate Doegar and arrived at 6 AM. Sandeep was dot on time and though Doegar had spotted him, he didn't think he was a long-distance rider, given that he was carrying all his stuff in a poly-bag (which was to be put into Satish's new saddle-bags).
We set off immediately towards Yeshwantpur, after which we had to take the highway towards Tumkur. Around 65 kms later, we stopped for breakfast at Kamat Upachar. We caught up with each other and what happened in the past few rides. Satish dropped a navigational gem here, as he claimed that a branch of the NICE Road actually extended all the way till Chitradurga. He and Doegar debated about this mythical route for quite sometime before Satish acquiesced. Once again, I have found Satish's sense of navigation to be better than mine but he seems to come out with absolute gems like this only when Doegar is around.
We had lunch at a place called Green Palace, while we waited for Sandeep to catch up - he had stopped for petrol, the card machine wasn't working there so he was searching for an ATM in the vicinity. The rain stopped for a bit while we finished lunch but we stuck to our rain-gear wisely, because a few kilometers later, it again started pouring.
In this manner, we reached Belgaum at around 7 PM, partly drenched, slightly saddle-sore but still fresh. We found a hotel called Durga Residency near the main bus stand. The room was clean and well-kept but small. The latter proved to be a challenge as we had to creatively lay out all our rain-drenched gear somewhere to dry. What more, Durga Residency was located on top of a local bar.
On the advice of a friend, we went for dinner to a place called Sun and Sand. The 1st floor is meant for families, so we were led upstairs. Both Satish and Sandeep had turned vegetarian temporarily (being a Saturday) and I wasn't really keen on drinking since neither of them drank. So we had a saatvik bhojan, absolutely delicious and filling. We returned to the hotel and went into a deep sleep.
DAY 2
Once again, we got into our rain-gear and made our way through Belgaum towards Amboli Ghat. While the place itself just has a waterfall, it is the ride that is more enjoyable. Another first for me was riding in Maharashtra. It is also a bit of a sudden linguistic jump, as I noticed that people didn't speak Kannada at all. Usually, people living on state borders are fluent in two languages. Of course, I admit that I am basing this conclusion on very limited interactions.
We took a short nap and then set off to explore Belgaum. We knew that a fort existed somewhere here, but the first few auto-guys had no idea about it. Eventually, we realized that the fort was there, but resembled no other fort we had ever seen. It houses Indian Army's 5 Mahar Regiment presently and consists of a large number of houses and 2 temples. We walked around but there wasn't a lot to see. Outside the Jain temple, we talked to a jogger about other places to see. Instead, he launched into a short lecture on the history of the temple, the architectural features and what they represent, etc. Satish was the focal point of this lecture, and Sandeep and I could barely control our laughter. Finally, the Storymaster had met his match!
For dinner, we once again went to Sun and Sand. This time I was in a mood to drink, so I had a few pegs of Old Monk while the others gave me company with mocktails. The Storymaster told us about how he actually drinks sometimes and how he once downed 3 neat shots of Old Monk and didn't even get buzzed. Over the course of the evening, this changed to 3 pegs, then 1 shot, then back to 3 pegs + some other drink and so on.
The day's riding had been absolutely fabulous. We returned to the hotel and to our delight, we discovered most of our clothes had dried up, even though they probably would get drenched again the next day!
DAY 3
The plan for this day was to ride to Chitradurga. We could see the famous fort there and also have a short and relaxing 200 kms to ride on Day 4.
Goes without saying, we donned our rain gear as the ride began. We wanted to go to Ajanta Cafe one more time, but it was a little late and we were keen on avoiding the Monday morning traffic. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any breakfast place on the highway either. Eventually, we stopped at a place called Mullah Dhaba. As the name suggests, it was run by Muslims and had the colour theme of green. It gave a very eerie and dingy look to the place. The food was decent though and we had some nice kheer at the end.
One aspect worthy of note is the chai. In this part of Karnataka, the regular chai is overdosed with milk. Consequently, it is very thick and with barely any traces of the taste of tea. Almost always, we had to send it back and ask them to make a stronger tea. I have tasted various types of tea from all over India - from the almost sugarless tea of South India to the very sweet, syrupy chai of the hills in the North. This milky tea was a new experience for me though.
We reached Chitradurga in the afternoon and stopped at the first hotel we saw. The rooms weren't great but we were actually quite tired as it was our 3rd day of riding. Satish wasn't keen on lunch and wanted to take a nap. Sandeep and I stepped out but there were no good places to eat nearby so we rode a little bit ahead. I spotted a bar and decided to have a beer first. Sandeep ordered his lunch there, while I sipped on a cold beer. A gentleman on a nearby table started chatting with us. He was quite drunk and was bossing around the waiters a lot to impress us. It looked like he was a regular and they seemed to be used to his antics. He even showed us a pic of his two sons, one of whom is apparently a DJ in a big club in Bangalore.
The fort shuts down at 5, so we decided to wrap this up quickly. I was too full of 'child bear' and 'snakes' and skipped lunch. Our drunk friend here started insisting that we take a bottle of water from the bar, for God knows what reason. He grabbed a waiter and forced him to go and fill a bottle. We stepped out, tipped the waiter and gestured to him silently not to bother with the water. The man there seemed to be on the verge of creating an unnecessary scene.
The tiring day plus the heavy meal can only be followed by one thing - blissful sleep.
DAY 4
The final day of an amazing ride! For a change, there were no dark clouds as we started off. We managed to cover almost 70-80 kms before we had to stop and don our rain gear.
Once again, no decent places to eat on the highway. Somewhere near Tumkur, we stopped at a hotel. Sandeep was once again nowhere to be seen and because of the same reason as earlier - petrol stop and no cash. We were almost finishing our breakfast when he joined us.
Satish came up with his best story so far about a group of KTM riders on the other side of the road (point to be noted: neither Sandeep nor I spotted any such group), at least one of whom was a girl. Next, we learn that the girl has brown hair. By the time Sandeep finished his breakfast, Satish was no longer sure whether it was a guy or a girl. It was getting harder to distinguish between Satish's truths and stories!
We took the NICE Road to avoid the heavy traffic through the center of the city and reached home by afternoon.
The continuous rain riding meant the underside of my bike and all the chrome was splashed with red mud. Sure, it wasn't clean and pretty, but it was beautiful in its own way! The Bullet is completely at home on the highway, not inside the garage and the same goes for me - I am at my happiest on a ride like this!
Until next time!
Cheers and Jai BoP!
