I love my bike. I love to ride. I'll post more about this. What follows is the trip log of my trip to Hogenakkal Falls along with Bijesh.
Hogenakkal Falls Trip Log
Destination : Hogenakkal Falls, Tamil Nadu
Starting Point : Bangalore, Karnataka
Riders : Bijesh K - Classic Pulsar 180
Nikhil B - Pulsar 180 DTS-i (Blurr)
Date : 14th February, 2004
Route planned : Bangalore -> Hosur -> Krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Hogenakkal Falls
13/04/2004
TGIF!!! Go out with coupla friends for dinner. Eden Park. Service sucks (Why am I mentioning this here?? Read on, you'll find out). Back to office. Call up Bijesh and confirm and fix place to meet. Work.
14/04/2004
0030 hrs : Home!! No time to watch TV (I'm usually up till 0130 catching repeat telecasts of programmes that I missed). Hit the sack. No sleep.
0130 hrs : Fade to black
0445 hrs : First alarm rings. Wake up and put it off.
0450 hrs : Second alarm. Gets the same treatment.
0455 hrs : Third alarm. Ditto
0500 hrs : Fourth alarm. I dont bother. Alarm gives up.
0515 hrs : Wake up with a start. Ride today!! Consider calling up Bijesh and cancelling (he doesnt know this, yet :-D). Change my mind. Get out of bed. Morning routine follows. Bath. One slice of bread. Suit up. Ready to go.
0625 hrs : [Trip Meter : 000.0] Start Blurr up. I'm off!!
0645 hrs : I'm near the meeting point. Confused by new flyover construction. Ask someone for directions. Follow them. End result -- I'm nowhere near the meeting point.
0655 hrs : [Trip Meter : 021.5] Stop at Bommanahalli. Call up Bijesh. Tell him where I am. Luckily, its on the way to Hosur. So he agrees to meet me there. I'm waiting on a service road off the main road, just opposite this cross road, where there's a break in the median, and one of the smaller roads joins the main road. The scene -- utter chaos. I cringed as I saw motorists get themselves into situations that could've gone really really bad. Why arent people careful on the road?? Also realize that I am guilty of that sometimes.
0717 hrs : As I watch the traffic go by, Bijesh arrives. Hi! Hello! And off we go!! As we ride out of town, the traffic is pretty sparse and the motorists well-behaved. Truckers too. Nice guys. :-). Cross the border into Tamil Nadu. Slow moving traffic at this point. But it clears up. And a riders paradise opens up!! So does my throttle. Bijesh keeps a cool head and cruises along at around 90 - 100 I guess. I on the other hand just break off the shackles. Hit 120kmph. Then hit the brakes as I notice some sort of thing on the road (dunno what is called, will try to describe it) Concrete slabs laid along the width of the road, gaps in between. Pretty unstable to ride on. Luckily both of us hit it at managable speeds. A few meters ahead, I notice a place to eat. The only thing on the roadside. Its called "Forest Dhaba". Wait for Bijesh.
0805 hrs : [Trip Meter : 065.5] Decide to eat at this place. The owner is this very simple and humble chap. He stood in front of us with his arms crossed across his chest in a very humble way, and spoke very humbly too. Led us to a table. Took our order. Remembered the previous night, at Eden Park. I had to ask atleast five times to get a table. And the service was nothing great either. Had this guy set up shop in the city, he'd make quite a bundle in tips itself :-). Two hot and absolutely yummy chapatis later, we are all set to go. Bijesh was talking to the owner of the place. Told him that we were on our way to Hogenakkal Falls. The guy suggests a different route to what we were taking. Said that it was much shorter compared to the route we were planning to take. The route was not part of the highway, and was through a few small towns, the names of which I forgot the moment I heard them. I wasnt very sure about taking this route, cos I had our original route memorized. Bijesh agrees with me to take the current route. So we get going.
0845 hrs : We are off. Bijesh had mentioned that he thought his tyres were over-inflated, so we stop at a petrol bunk. Bijesh checks air pressure in his tyres. And we are off again.
NH7. The new and improved NH7. It opens its arms and beckons. And I gladly oblige. But wind resistance made speeds above 100 difficult. Blurr was starting to sway cos of the wind. In a moment of inspiration, decide to crouch. And voila!! she moves on effortlessly. Manage to cross 120kmph at least 6 times. I think I did 125. But no way to be sure, cos there was this voice in my head that kept saying "watch the road dude, not the speedo". (I *have* to get myself a Sigma!!). Now, Bijesh wasnt gonna ride faster than around 90-100. And I didnt wanna hold back on such an amazing road. Solution -- I let go for a few kms, blasting away. Then ease off the throttle, riding at around 65-75 till Bijesh catches up and goes a bit ahead. After which I blast off again. Did this and we were able to ride together. One thing that happened during this ride was that I fell in love with my bike all over again. She was biting off huge chucks of the distance effortlessly!! And in style too. Pass Khrishnagiri. Toward Dharmapuri.
1001 hrs : [Trip Meter : 133.0] (Input/Output interrupt :-D) Stop at a small road-side tea shop in a place called Karimangalam. Bijesh had tea, I Sprite. Glifford had messaged. Reply. Take a leak. Take snaps of the bikes. We off again. Pretty uneventful ride. Riding at a reduced pace, cos there's traffic and the road's pretty narrow. At Dharmapuri, ask for directions to Hogenakkal Falls. We are pointed in the right direction by a helpful motorist.
1056 hrs: [Trip Meter : 172.6] Some 30Kms from Hogenakkal Falls. Messages from friend. Reply. Take snaps. Drink water. General gup shup. Minutes before we stopped something happened that made my heart stop. Riding at around 80. Notice this thing fall across the road, inches in front of me. Takes me time to realize that it was a stone. From the corner of my eye, see these village kids trying to knock something off the tree I just passed. Thought of stopping and blasting the kids. Then realized that I did not know any Tamil. That plus I was really happy cos of the awesome ride I was having. (Riding does have a very calming effect on me. Whatever mood I'm in, two minutes on the bike and I am calm. No road rage after I got Blurr, cos I know, a momentary lapse of concentration, and she's on the ground, damaged. And I love her too much to let that happen to her :-) ).
1120 hrs: We are off. As we approach Hogenakkal Falls the roads get twisty. Such a pleasure to ride. I thought, if Glifford loved the twisties at Nandi Hills, he'd cry with pleasure seeing these. But the road got pretty bad later. At some places, the road was being repaired. Still managed to ride at around 50-80. But when I nearly hit the other side of the road at one of the turns, decided to cool it.
1145 hrs: [Trip Meter : 201.7] We are there!!! Hogenakkal Falls. But thats when the excitement died (for me atleast). The moment we reached the place, we were mobbed by people -- some asking us if we wanted a massage, some telling us to follow them to their boat. We said we just wanna look around. One of the guys said "People come here to see where the movie Roja, Ashoka, etc were shot. The only way to see that place is if you go by boat. Come with us".
Now, I am not a big fan of force-fed tourism. I like to move along at my own pace, take my own time, take in the scenery, and so on. These guys followed us all the time, pestering us to go by their boat. Now, I cannot swim, and the boats did not inspire any confidence in me, so I wasnt too interested. Thought I'd just walk around and see what ever could be seen with my feet planted firmly on the ground. Bijesh agreed. We walk away from the boats, but the guys continued to follow us. All I needed was to be left alone. I tried to discreetly tell them that we wanted to be left alone. Told them that we wanted to look around, and we'd go to them if we change our mind. But they scoffed us saying "there is nothing to see on foot. you have to go by boat. we can take you there." They were really bugging us. We walked a bit and sat down near some rocks, some water flowing by. After a while, they got tired of pestering us (or so we thought) and went away. We sat on the rocks for a while, with our tired feet in the cool water. It felt great. I was just beginning to enjoy the moment, when one of the guys came back and started pestering us again. I told him again that we are just gonna sit around for a while, and if we make up our minds about going for the boat ride, we shall go to him, cos we know where his boats are. The guy agreed after quite a lot of persuation and left us.
Took a few snaps. We then moved towards the place where we had parked our bikes. On the way, we decided to try out the fish. Stopped at one of the small hotels by the roadside and ordered fish. The guy asked, "and meals?" We said, "no, just fish, thank you". The guy must've thought we were nuts ;-). But it was just 1235, too early for lunch. So we had some fried fish (which tasted good!!) and left.
The walk back to our bikes was even worse. The guys were back, pestering us to take the boat-ride. One of them was saying "people come here all the way just to see the falls, what was the use of your coming here, if you aren't going to see the falls??". Little did he know, that for us, it was as much about the ride as it was about seeing the place ;-). We just said no thanks and walked away. I could hear the guys grumble and comment about us, but I didnt bother to notice. That was the worst part of the trip. I wish that the place wasnt so commercialized. It ruins the pleasure that is meant to be experienced on seeing nature's beauty.
1305 hrs : [Trip Meter : 201.7] We start off on our return journey. Its really really hot by this time. Bijesh leads the way out of the place. This time, we decide to take the alternate route back. From this point I dont remember the names of any of the places. Maybe Bijesh can fill in. We didnt ride all the way back to Dharmapuri. Somewhere in between ask someone for directions to Palacode. Take that route. Ride on. The road isnt as good as the one we came by. The max we were riding at was around 70-80.
1400 hrs : [Trip Meter : 249.0] Butt break. Take a few snaps. Stretch a bit. The road was taking its toll on my back and neck. In a few minutes, we are off.
1420 hrs : [Trip Meter : 259.5] We stop for lunch at a place called Vellichandai.
Lunch was tastier than expected. :-). Bird flu be damned!! The chicken and mutton biryani we had tasted yum.
1505 hrs : We are off. Ride on. Everytime we come to a fork in the road, ask for directions to Hosur and go on. No more breaks. Ride on till at last we are in Bangalore. Bijesh and me part ways at the place we met in the morning. It was at around 1645 hrs I guess. Not too sure. We both were tired and sleepy. Settled bills and headed our respective ways.
1716 hrs : [Trip Meter : 363.7] Back to office. Hands are all black cos of the grip. Back aching. Arms too. Thought I'd write the trip log when the details are fresh in my mind. Check mails. People in office are playing Quake 3, so I join in. Before I know it, its 1900. Too tired to write the trip log. :-D
1745 hrs: [Trip Meter : 372.6] Back home. Tired but very, very pleased. Cant wait for the next trip!!!
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