To God's own country and back - Admiring nature 900 kms over 2 days

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.”

- Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes’

"A lot can happen over coffee" - Cafe Coffee Day's (CCD’s) tagline came true for me on a lazy Thursday evening (23-Jan-2014 to be precise) when a conversation over coffee got converted into a plan that ended up with a 900 km bike ride over the upcoming weekend. Ravi and I (both biking enthusiasts and knowing each other for 14+ years now) were sharing our trip stories when suddenly we thought of having a common one to share with everyone else. I was switching between projects at work and wished to have a much needed break in between them and Ravi too was out of a hectic spell at work. 

Before we begin on the journey, I believe a short introduction is in order. I am a wanderer not only in terms of visiting new places but also on the academic and career front – 3 degrees in 3 different fields of study from 3 of the best institutes in the world and have had 6 jobs across as many sectors in less than 6 years of work experience – still trying to figure out what I want from life. I hope you get a picture of my craziness. Ravi similarly is the consummate adventure enthusiast having started out as an entrepreneur right after we graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD). His aim is to try and not to spend any weekend at home if he can manage. Yeah, it is shocking to see that crazy people like us also go to institutes like these ;)

Now let’s get back to the craziness I (rather we) want to share …

My original plan: Attend annual alumni meet ‘Nostalgia’ at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) scheduled for the weekend of 25-26 January 2014 going along with other alumni in a tempo traveller
Revised plan formed at CCD: Ravi and me riding down to IIMK campus from Bangalore via Mysore, Bandipur National Park and the hill station of Wayanad
Contingencies: We both needed to be back in Bangalore latest by 26^th night due to some pressing engagements on 27^th morning. That meant ~750 kms drive over 2 days while ensuring I reached Kampus before evening of 25^th so as not to miss the alumni meet
Our ‘mean’ machines: One Royal Enfield 500 cc and a humble 7-year old TVS Apache 150 - I know you must be wondering about exactly how smart we are :P

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

"I don't much care where –"

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

My plans never go as envisaged and are meant to be twisted, turned and tweaked till they start looking like a ‘jalebi’. So right from the word ‘go’ we started toying with the original plan of a straight drive to IIMK. We started from near the Sarjapur flyover on Outer Ring Road in Bangalore at 7:00 a.m. on the glorious morning of Saturday, the 25^th of January 2014.

Starting with a Detour: Sangam – Mekedhatu near Kanakpura

As some of the travel enthusiasts here would be aware, there is more than one route to reach Mysore from Bangalore. The normal (read sane) people would take the NICE corridor and Mysore highway. The insane (read people like Ravi and me) take the longer circuitous route via Kanakapura with an additional detour to take a bath in Cauvery – no religious reasons here other than insanity. Sangam is the place off Kanakpura (about 100 kms from Bangalore) where Akravathy river meets Cauvery river. Nearby there are the gorges of Cauvery at a place called Mekedhatu. If a short detour (i.e. ~50 kms extra) provides one an opportunity to bathe in a flowing river, Ravi and I are not the kind of people to pass up the opportunity.

Modelling inside Bandipur National Park

Post the swim in Cauvery and a second breakfast (like the Hobbits in Lord of the Ring), we started out towards Mysore and Bandipur. Running behind schedule we decided to ride non-stop for as long as we could and ended up reaching Bandipur by around 12:30 p.m. Now monkeys were our ancestors and so our natural instincts do kick in as and when we enter the forests. Naturally, we had to take some pictures to show-off while we were inside Bandipur National Park. And of course some tree climbing too was in order. The best part about riding through Bandipur forests is the serene surroundings and silence that pervades even though a National Highway passes through it. This is one National Highway stretch where the speed breakers seem welcome to ensure that none of the speeding and traffic craziness disturbs the calm atmosphere. As you drive through you come across stretches of broken bamboo clusters indicating that the custodians of this park (i.e. the elephants) have traversed this stretch. Once in a while a motor-able trail runs off into the wilderness – the trails used by forest rangers to reach into the denser forest areas.

 

Onward journey concludes

After crossing Bandipur and Sultan Bathery, the next stretch of road to IIMK passes through the scenic district of Wayanad. The ride into Wayanad from Sultan Bathery slopes gently upwards passing through the typical flora of Western Ghats. As one reaches higher up one can see plantations of coffee and tea as well. With a short tea-break at Wayanad to absorb the natural beauty of the place and have a view of the tea/coffee estates around, we continued on our way to IIM Kozhikode. The way down from Wayanad towards Calicut reminds one of any of the dangerous hilly stretches in the lower Himalayas with sharp U-bends, steep slopes, and all. I am sure you get the picture …

On the way to Kozhikode, one passes through Kalpetta which is the only town in Wayanad district. Wayanad district had itself been carved out of Kozhikode and Kannur districts only in 1980 and the population continues to be predominantly tribal with villages interspersed all across the district. Though Tourism has started spreading its tentacles with multitude of resorts coming up to serve the weekend vacation needs of people from places like Bangalore. I was passing through Wayanad after over 5 years and truly speaking was a bit taken aback by the growth in hamlets/villages along the road. Wayanad is the least densely populated district of Kerala but the difference I saw in 5 years makes me wonder how long this will last.

For those who are not aware, IIMK is situated on a hilltop off the main Bangalore-Kozhikode highway about 17 kms before Kozhikode. The Kampus (as the alma mater is spelt by residents and alumni) is a hill station in itself. It basically comprises of two hills – one having the students’ hostels, classrooms and administration buildings and the other is the residential hill for the Faculty members. Thanks are in order for whoever conceived to keep the Faculty and students apart after class hours to ensure unabated fun (oops I shouldn’t have mentioned that). In our wildest dreams we wouldn’t have imagined what we had in store for the evening ahead.

Rock Show and Hip-hop Competition on IIMK Hill

After a quick freshen up session and snacks, we came to know that the night ahead was going to be a lot of fun considering there was a concert by Sona Mohapatra (of Ambarsariya fame) and some excellent hip-hop performance by colleges from nearby cities participating in the 2014 INDIAN HIP HOP DANCE CHAMPIONSHIP – Kerala auditions. While Sona Mohapatra is best known for her song Ambarsariya, she had us mesmerized for over 3 hours with back-to-back songs. Her ‘Bolo Na’ took us on a trip down memory lane – part of the lyrics reproduced here for giving the feel but you have to listen to truly love it and hum it in tune.

Bolo na kya hua… humko ye kya hua…
Hui aisi baat kya...
Bolo bolo na...

Tumne maana bura… mere kis baat ka…
Maine kuch hain kaha…
Bolo bolo na…

Tune bhi., Maine bhi., Badla kyun raasta???

Bolo, bolo, hain baat kya?
Bolo na… Bolo na...
Hum dono mein hain baat kya???
Bolo na… Bolo na...

The evening or shall we say the night was still young. IIM students and grads work hard but party harder – especially with the Faculty members staying undisturbed on the other hill ;) and no night time curfew restrictions. So a cultural festival and alumni meet cannot be complete without “party all night”. While we were having a great time partying with students and alumni, we had to call it an early night (believe me 2:30 a.m. was still early) due to our necessity to drive back to Bangalore the very next day. A collage of the fun is presented below as a teaser.

Return via a New Route

Wanderlust is dangerous and we have serious problems keeping away from it. As Lao-tze said, “A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” While enjoying the evening’s festivities we had decided that we will not return via the same route as we had come. While the major reason was that both of us wanted to take a new route back rather than retrace our path back to Bangalore, there was also a minor glitch of the Apache having over-heated just as we were about to reach IIM Kampus. We were doubtful of the bike being able to handle the steep Wayanad climb that we would face on the way back. So we decided to take the slightly longer (actually just an additional 120 km or so over and above the 370 km that would have been if we had returned the way we came) but less cumbersome route from Kozhikode via Mahe, Kannur, Nagarhole National Park, Coorg and Mysore. It also meant killing two birds with one stone as apart from the scenic beauty we would also be able to drive on the drive-through beach in Kannur – a long (over 2 kms) stretch of gently sloping beach packed hard enough to allow vehicles to be driven right up to the sea – an experience in itself. 

Long routes make longer delays

Well, Tolkein said in the Fellowship of the Ring, “Short cuts lead to long delays,” but unfortunately for us it was the other way around. When we had planned the return route we had expected it to be a smooth ride but unfortunately for us, it seemed as if the entire population of the state was out in their cars celebrating Republic Day. It took us over 3 hours to reach Kannur (just about 100 kms from Kampus) even though we had started out early at 8:00 in the morning. By the time we were leaving the beach and starting out towards Nagarhole it was already 12:00 noon. With over 350 kms still to go we were crazy to take another break by the roadside to savour raw mangoes, sugarcane juice, watermelon, etc. – the stuff that is not common for us to have in cities like Bangalore. With the day progressing fast and both of us not in the mood to drive for too long in the dark (it was inevitable by now that we would arrive in Bangalore late in the evening), we picked up our pace deciding not to break any more before reaching Coorg.

Little did we realise that today wasn’t our day and Murphy was hell bent on proving his law was a universal law of nature with us being his experimental guinea pigs. Soon after entering Nagarhole National Park, we were greeted with pathetic roads for almost 20-odd kms – in fact it would be gross injustice to other roads to call this highway through Nagarhole even a road!!! While Apache was anyways not in good shape, the Royal Enfield too gave up on one bad stretch and refused to start after having shutdown on its own. The prospect of having to get the RE put on a tempo and taking it back to Bangalore with the necessity to be in office the next day was a terrifying thought. Desperate times call for desperate means. I took out all the fuses of RE and one-by-one reinserted them after cleaning their surface praying to Hephaestus (Greek God responsible for creating all the tools for the other Gods) for his blessings. Either Hephaestus heard our prayers and had pity on us or I am a superb engineer (pun intended) – either way the taking out and re-inserting fuses back seemed to work and we managed to restart the RE and proceed. Nagarhole National Park was more arid and less dense compared to Bandipur but we couldn’t enjoy the surroundings owing to the horrible roads which didn’t allow us to take our eyes off them and see the surroundings. Probably, there will be another trip another time to cover this one…

Butterflies welcome us into Coorg

As we started our climb into the hills of Coorg, our spirits were lifted probably by the wood elves (being a huge fan of LOTR I cannot refrain from such analogies). The greenery, the sound of waterfall/river trickling nearby, the various sounds of the forest were all mesmerising and we soon forgot the bad traffic and the pathetic roads we had faced on the way – it all seemed worth the trouble. And to top it all, we drove through swarms of butterflies in a multitude of colours like a glittering moving rainbow. Some of them also decided to take free rides for short distances by sticking onto our clothes. It is not possible to leave such beautiful surroundings without spending some time absorbing its serene calmness and admiring the beauty of the place. So another tea-break was in order at the roadside shop at the junction in the Coorg hills where the road diverges with one leading towards Mysore and the other leads deeper into Coorg towards Madikeri.
With another round of listening to “Bolo Na” by Sona Mohapatra (this had become kind of our tradition for today to end each break after listening to this song) while sipping tea, we started our descent towards Mysore. Since it was already nearing 4:00 p.m. we decided to grab a quick sandwich at Café Coorg so that we could avoid taking a break later and proceed straight to Bangalore bypassing Mysore through a shortcut that led directly to Srirangapatna. Also, Café Coorg gave us the opportunity to clean ourselves and freshen up for the remaining ~200 kms which we planned to cover in another ~4-5 hours.

Last Leg – All’s well that ends well J

After this our luck seemed to change suddenly as if there was a blessing on us and even the Apache started cruising at a continuous speed of 60-70 kmph. We continued non-stop only stopping a couple of times to confirm that we had not missed the shortcut to Srirangapatna. We hit another stretch with traffic congestion after Srirangapatna which we realised was because of 26-Jan being a holiday and tonnes of people having come to Mysore for a day’s outing. It slowed us down a bit thereby extending the time we would have to drive. Around 9:00 p.m. we were still about 70-80 km away from destination and so we decided to stop over at a CCD which was midway between Mysore and Bangalore to have our last meal on the trip. What started with a conversation at CCD definitely needed to have CCD as a part of the memories. J

From here on, we drove non-stop and reached Bangalore around 11:00 p.m. having driven ~900 kms in less than 40 hours on a trip which covered 2 national parks, a drive-in beach, a rock concert atop a hill with the stars shining down, a hiphop dance competition, late night open-air party, and some of the best natural surroundings in this part of the world. Ernest Hemingway’s words come to mind, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

    The Road goes ever on and on

    Down from the door where it began.

    Now far ahead the Road has gone,

    And I must follow, if I can,

    Pursuing it with eager feet,

    Until it joins some larger way

    Where many paths and errands meet.

    And whither then? I cannot say.

 - J. R. R. Tolkein, ‘lord of the ring’