The Road Trip

This Travelogue was written by Naga, It has been uploaded here with written permission of the author. Pls. send your appreciation and criticism to nagarajk@tataelxsi.co.in

‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’ – Robert Pirzig.Period.

This is perhaps one book, which inspired at least three people to make this trip. The plan was to hit the coastal Karnataka on the motorcycle, see as many places as possible and be back in 4 days. The emphasis was more on 4 days than on going places (unintentional bad pun). So, the initial plan was to leave Bangalore on 26th of Jan ‘06, the Thursday, go to Mangalore and from there on to Karwar covering Marawante, Murudeshwar, Gokarna et al and then b2b via Hubli on 29th of Jan ‘06. This planning happened virtually but for the devotees of Bacchus the ‘real thing’ had to happen somewhere else and that turned out to be the Pecos. (I am not an expert on pubs but I can tell you for sure that the terrace is not the best of places for the beer).

Taking detour lemme tell you why such a laborious planning for just a motorcycle journey, that too when ppl like me n Mukunda almost clock the same distance on a weekly basis. The idea was to make this trip as a learning experience for the ultimate hurrah of the year – hold your breath -Khardungla!

The ‘gang’ comprised a cross-section of …well everything…a rank holder to an almost school dropout; a right wing wannabe corporate to a confused communist; a teetotaler to a pivot; a blue whale to a pale cadaver – without naming you had ‘em all. So, there was Krishna, mukunda, Niranjan, Hampi, Chandan, Pramod, Arvind, Manjunath and nagaraj- all gung-ho about their ‘first’ experience.

I am in a quandary – whether to be a chronicler or a conditioned travelogue writer. Just like the book says in the prologue that it is neither perfect about the zen-thing nor factual on the motorcycle, this travelogue too doesn’t chronicle everything that happened during the trip nor I have read any travelogue to be conditioned.

Let me begin from the beginning..the genesis of the biking happened after the debacle of our Goan sojourn! The planned biking trip to Goa never happened and this perked the gang to up the ante and make it to the highest motorable road in the world (?) and take a sweet revenge - on who is yet to be decided.

See the paradox. The guys who failed, that too comically to even rev up the engines to Goa, suddenly decide that they will go to Ladakh and settle for nothing less! Is it competition, craze or just the bloated ego?

And so, the Pecos happened on 10th of Jan. Believe it or collapse we even captured the minutes of meeting! Did everything go as per the plan – yes and no. Now then, it was decided that since it was our first motorcycle trip we would try and accommodate.. well nigh ‘solpa adjust’ on all fronts.

After all the initial hiccups about the lack of bikes, more of men etc we eventually settled down at Hunter’s den on 25th, a day before RD parade. When so many interesting men flock together the least you expect is to sleep at peace. And the same thing happened.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRinggggggggggg went all alarms at some ungodly hour and lo and behold the D-day had come at last…26th Jan which seemed far-off on 25th had ultimately proved to be punctual, leaving everyone gasping for breath and Mukunda furious for not having had his dose of sleep!

So, as Sudheer(one who didn’t make the trip and was missed by one and all ; yeah Sudheer ninna miss maadkondvi kano !) always says we were ALL SET to take the plunge…and to our own surprise happened at almost exact time we had planned to leave Bangalore! Some times lack of confidence too has some advantages..

6.15 AM – the time we started from Hunter’s Yeshwantapur house towards Mangalore. The gang comprised everyone listed above minus Hampi who excused himself for a day and would join us the next day and the bikes- 2 Bullets (Pramod on his Electra and Mukunda on his Machismo), 2 Fieros (Hunter on his friend Punith’s machine and me on my ‘lottery’ bike) and an Yamaha (Amin bhai)…and so had to a bike-pool and it was 5/8 (sounds more like ordering coffee when you go out with your family)

We took the Bangalore- Hassan road. Since, Hunter had vociferously campaigned for breakfast only in Hassan or CR Pattana and big tumbler coffee only in Sakleshpur, as we are naïve as naiveté goes all along thought everything will happen to the tee but…come Nagabhushan’s Kunigal Mukunda’s bullet starts to have a leak..can’t do much but to have a breakm, have breakfast…

After Kunigal, we decided to stop only @ Hassan for lunch. But, one thing you should always be prepared for on the highways are benign offshoots known as ‘by-passes’. So, we had to by-pass and unwillingly (unwittingly?) agreed to ride for an hour more and go to Sakleshpura.It was our first day and so mind had all control over the body. Hence, all the ideals and principles of team work and all were intact..so, we made it to Sakleshpura around 1PM.You know you are in an economically strong zone if you take 30mins to cover 300mts..and that’s what happened. After going thru this rigmarole, we were guided to a hotel by Pramod .Ah, our first official brake of the day!

PuliyogareÓ(Ó All rights reserved by Iyengars) had a wonderful effect both on us and on the bikes..we were now prepared for the item number of the day , Shiradi ghat. It was one helluva ride on the ‘Ghati’ and to our surprise we even got our chemistry right!

Things go wrong only when you think you have crossed all your t’s and dotted the I’s and it was my Fiero which taught the lesson that machines after all are machines and they too have a right to go wrong at times..Just after Ghati my cycle conked up and that’s the reason why Mukunda’s Machismo has clocked an extra 40 Kms..the bike developed problems because of engine oil and we were stranded in a non-airtel zone. After trying a lot at cooling-off the engine and in the process even coming across a good samaritan who gifted us a bottle of water and such stuff, we finally got a mechanic to fix it and becos of all this, the team was hit on two counts – one, it lost precious 3hrs of daylight and an opportunity to watch RDB FDFS in mglr!

After having lunch @ Kamath, Nelyadi we left towards Mangalore..a really scary experience! With light fading and high-beam headlights glaring at our eyes, we had to struggle and do all that was possible to reach the safe haven of Mangalore and its scarier to even imagine what would have happened if the fate that had to strike Hunter’s headlight had struck a day earlier!

The Batmen of the day reached Mglr and had to ride further to reach Suratkal and we celebrated (celibated?) our first night at the KREC guest house….went to beach,hit bottle.

Day TWO: A change in the team..out goes Pramod and in-comes Hampi..but with Pramod we even lose his Electra ..so it was by-two ride on all bikes.

Udupi. After breakfast and temple we left towards Marawante. It was a picturesque ride what with beautiful water bodies infested every 3 kms or so..we met Pramod who guided us to Brahmavara from where a boat-ride took us to Bengre beach..Sun n’ sand..frisby and all..hungry ;no food but good fun..

From here on it was just 100kmph on all machines but sometimes reminding the cricket-fan riders of Michael Holding, whenever ever-so-cool cars whizzed past us at most unexpected of junctures..Whispering-death was all that came to mind.

Marawante- a place where the tarmac cuts across the river and the beach..a place of interest for all shutterbugs to capture sun-set. Unfortunately, for us it was a big dampener, as the sun didn’t oblige too much. Then came the shocker of the day. Witnessed an accident of two students on bikes hit by a truck..tried to help them..were not much successful. Left towards Murudeshwara- a beach cum temple town. It was once again dark and Hunter’s headlight got burnt and it was Chandan’s audacity and Bullet’s headlight that came in handy ( Amin bhai saala teersta idini).Reached Murudeshwara via Amin bhai’s Bhatakala. Stayed in a rented house.Hit the bottle.

Day three: Went around Murudeshwara – a neo-commercialized temple town with muck strewn all along the beach. It was fun to watch people using waves as auto-flush! Dropped the plan of going to Gokarna. So, its Honnavara and Shimoga via Jog. After Honnavara, its seemingly easy ride owing to less traffic. We take B-H road and it’s once again Naga who comes into picture at the wrong time at the wrong place. Speeding at a narrow lane I see a truck on the opposite side and hit a ditch to miss the truck and fell! An unwanted delay induced into the itinerary once again by me..After falling down Naga’s reaction – was it over-reaction, genuine concern or just trying to be famous? Now then, was this line required?

Had a so-so lunch at Gersoppa;a photo-op at Sharavathi valley(?);Coffee at Saagara and reached Shimoga by evening. Stayed in Athithi’s(?). Cant write much about the later day’s activities cos I hit the bed thanks to my injury. But, knew the boys wont miss the opportunity to party on the eve of Arvind’s birthday.(Jan 28th)

Day four: Perhaps the driest day of the trip..After having breakfast left to Blr..stop-over at Kadur ;lunch at Tiptur; Krishna and Manjunath go missing at Tumkur but in fact had went past us ; reached Hunter’s house flat-bottomed around 6PM..Phew! (Jan 29th)

It’s been one week since and I can still write the travelogue with a little help from Krishna. That’s how memorable was the trip..but for those practical people who always think in terms of cause & effect, input & output and all, lemme make it clear that we did it for just like Jim Morrison told us,".. i don’t know what’s gonna happen man! But I wanna have my kicks b4 the whole shit goes up in flames".

Even then what has changed after the trip? Government continues to be shaky; infrastructure continues to crumble; Tendulkar continues to be his poor shadow; Ash continues to try for that elusive Hollywoodian role; Kannada films continue to come with badly titled English post scripts (‘ a feel that continues’); Hampi continues to be an eligible bachelor …are these gonna change after Ladakh? The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin ‘ the wind!

Summary of the route we followed....