Cycling through the Western Ghats

First contributor: Hrishi

This is the story of four stupid people who decided to go on a cycling trip through the western ghats. It is told in the present tense in sometimes non-chronological order as a series of snippets of events reconstructed from fading memories and digital photos.

Technical details: The ride started from Kundapur and the first stage finished at Kollur including a detour to marwanthe beach. The second stage was from Kollur to Haladi which is about 15 km from Someshwara. Altogether spanning just about 100km!

Dec 7:

2:50 am: Pain!
We are still 20 km away! Twenty whole kilometres from Kollur. A,B and C are lying on the tarmac while i snigger away inwardly, with a concerned expression on my face. I look at the culprits, three racing bikes standing innocently by the roadside - without gears. I can feel the giggles welling up from within but control them. I debate whether i should offer my geared bike to one of them but decide to reserve the offer for worse times. B has opened his loaded rucksack and is pulling out the innards one by one. With each emerging article of dead weight, we can see how hopelessly we overloaded ourselves. Dilbert, screwdriver set, climbing harness...


12:15 am: detour to marwanthe beach
Its been a breezy three quarters of an hour. We have covered about six kilometres according to the milestones.

C and i wait for the other two to arrive. I look lovingly at my dynamo. That saviour of body and steed! Two luminous dots on the road precede the arrival of A and B. A suggests we continue on the highway towards marwanthe and i heartily back the proposition. It is a mere six kms away. The famed soft sands of marwanthe beckon us!

We get off the road onto the footpath at the bridge. The lights at the river make a beautiful sight twinkling in unison with their reflection. C clicks away on his camera as i stand wisely by, knowing how they never 'come'. An approaching truck dopplers by and we are shocked by the vibrations in the bridge. A vague memory of soldiers breaking step over a bridge strikes.

I lag behind the three and often the three are out of sight. But im cycling to a rhythm so am not unduly worried as i change gears to accommodate an approaching rise in the road.

We are at marwanthe. I am heartily cursing that cheat of a cycle mart owner as i look at the defunct dynamo. B and A's batteries have also given out. Prospects of cycling behind a single holder of the lamp are not at all inviting. B has gone to enquire about the route we have to take. I look uselessly in the direction of the source of the dull, roaring sound. But we cant see a single thing. So much for the sands of marwanthe! B is back. An argument over the route to follow ensues. I want to turn back because at least we are sure of the route to follow. We do turn back.

We are at the blessed signpost again. The road to Kollur looks really gloomy. It also slopes upwards dangerously. Ignoring the warning growls of dogs close by, we flop to the side of the road. A fivestar each is consumed and the fruit juice bottles are cracked. There is talk of turning back. I guess i forgot to mention that our last remaining lamp gave out in the here. We have to cycle the rest of the way in near total darkness. Laughing at our plight, i look up at the non-existent moon.

4:30 am?: B has just taken his third fall. I must say that i was partly responsible for this (i am not grinning!). Since that *** of a dynamo still had its rear light functioning, i was ahead and the others were following the light. Suddenly feeling the road sloping away to the right, i braked and jerked left which stopped the cycle and so blanked the light. Poor B following in my wake, went straight ahead and went off the road. The ghat roads have gutters on either side upto two feet deep, so i cant imagine it!
(B has written an account of his falls. I shall get them asap, along with other first hand accounts.)

6:00 am: we are standing (barely) amidst a curious group of people who wonder where we are from. Proudly we say surathkal, although we cycled only from kundapur. But i feel we can be forgiven this little inaccuracy after cycling nearly forty-five kms including that ill-advised detour. B just lets his cycle collpse between his legs much to the amusement of the general populace.

At sixty bucks a day we have no complaints. Stretching my tired limbs, i afford myself a last glance at the supine forms of A and B before i turn to my side and close my eyes.

2:00 pm: after a terrible lunch at the temple, we are all set to be off.
I hadn't anticipated a banquet after having had lunch here with amma, but we too hungry to really care. B's brakes were out and brake shoes were the one thing we hadn't carried! We actually carried a pump, puncture essentials, extra nuts and bolts but left behind brake shoes at the advice of one who shall remain anonymous. This was after a darshana at the shri mookambika temple. Amusing watching the pious faces all around. B came too which was surprising since he had stayed behind at the temple at yana.

We sail out under the welcoming arch which is such a common sight in dakshin kannada. The road is downhill all the way. Grimacing at the memory of pushing the cycles up the very same slopes speeding by the night before, i let go of my hands and lean back feeling the cool wind. The signposts facing us read the distance to kundapur heightening my sense of achievement.

80 km?? Agumbe is eighty freakin kilometres! I must say, although im quite and honestly ashamed of this, such moments of hopelessness do not have a depressing effect on me. This is simply because i get stark images of my intrepid friends gaping at the very same signpost!

4:00 pm: We are pushing our cycles up an impossible slope. However do those cars ever manage it! I look ruefully at the race bike in my hands. B was having some trouble on the slopes. So my iron heart finally cracked and i yielded. Anyway, his mac has been carefully wrapped around the seat so it is a little less oppressive on the behind, which i forgot to mention was quite raw. I had been warned about the cramps which sometimes set in after a long day's riding, but the most uncomfortable part of the whole affair was the pain in the ass! My god, when the bones begin to ache there is no looking back!

On our cycles again. With grim determination we ride on, seeking to erase the picture of those jeering motorcyclists who happened to catch us with our pants down - pushing the cycles that is. I hear a bus moving up behind me. I edge closer. I simply hate this manouvere. Slight misjudgment takes you onto the gravel which gives the tender behind such a pounding, you have to cycle 50 km to know! Anyway i move over and something hits me on the head. Twisting in my seat, i can see the bus boy waving at me. My anger changes to slow realization when i recognize the bus as the same one which dropped us to kundapur on the night of the sixth. I wave back.

Its all winding roads and huge down slopes. The new brake shoes i got put on B's cycle give me enough confidence to take them full tilt. We are all widely spaced out. I concentrate on keeping the rhythm going. I try and think of something but it is impossible to keep your mind on a single thread of thought when you are cycling. You might want to try that some time! I dont think about the aching limbs at all, That is when the tiredness really sets in. So there is a wonderful sort of clearness in the mind, where there is not a single thought in your head. That is of course until the thought that there isn't a single thought in the head hits home. Milestones whizz by and i cant help but look at them, although i wouldn't like to remember this ride as one that i spent counting down the distance to be covered.

6:00 pm: After many conflicting reports, we finally established that someshwara is reached before agumbe on the route that we are on, which is quite a relief since it saves us the impossible task of riding up the infamous 13 hairpins. The next point en route is haladi.

8:00 pm: I wipe a satisfied hand across my mouth. That benne masala dosa was excellent. There is even hutch connectivity here. Good ole haladi! Setting up my traveling bag ostentatiously, i look around smugly taking in the curious stares at me and my cycle. But there are mostly truckers there, so i feel quite stupid. We have only covered a hundred..(wow!). I find out that it is only fifteen or so km to someshwara where our benevolent host mr.bhakta awaits us.

Thus terminated our cycle ride, somewhat prematurely as we took an auto to transport selves and cycles to someshwara. But as we stood at the back of the auto crammed in, speeding through the naxal inhabited forests, the cold december wind hitting us, i for one could only smile. Nooooo, that was one of our carrymates outa the auto!!Stoppppp!

Tadiyandamol

First contributor: Sundi

It had been a fortnight since we went out. Though that would not have meant much in normal circumstances, considering the fact that we had been going every weekend during the summer break, frustration had started to creep in. My ( and Mabhi‘s) internship at ITTIAM was ending on July 20^th and Hrishi had been working from home (I think) for IBM in those days.. I’m getting old, you see! Memory is starting to give Kai. Bacat, as usual had been coding and was always free. Kantha, who had just smashed GRE was more than willing to pack his bags. Mabhi, like always was fussing about “not feeling like coming”. Yeah right, we all know that trick of yours, Mabhi! Bhat and the rest had some “family commitments” as always.

What better place to go to during the monsoons than Tadiyandamol! It had been due for more than a year now. It was also the first time we would be camping. My sis had recently got me a tent, and I was desperate to test it. And, of course. Hrishi hired the other tent from the “reliable” Wildcraft and we were all looking forward to it. At that time I didn't have a clue about camping in the monsoons, which most people would logically reason out to be insane!

Finally, all five of us met at Platform 6, KSRTC bus stand. I was beginning to wonder how there were so many chicks in a KSRTC bus stand. That’s when I understood why Mabhi and Bhat were amazed at Coorgi chicks. Oh hell yeah! they were hot! Mabhi and me made major plans to flirt with a few in Coorg, but as you may have guessed by now, such plans never materialize! We hopped on to our bus only to realize that all of them were getting onto the neighboring buses. Not a single one in our bus. Damn! Why didn't we book Rajahamsa instead of some semi deluxe 2+3 bus ;) Baah.. Who cared, we had lots of other things to look forward to!

With all the usual laughing ( and belting Mabhi) for a while, we slept well that night, not knowing the blissful sleep we would all get (other than mango) the next night.
I shall not elaborate much on Abbey Falls and Raja’s seat right now. Anyway, so here we were, at the Nalaknad (not sure of that name) palace at around 1 in the afternoon, all set to trek! The green was enough to keep us all in high spirits for the next two days. We met a local at the start who literally laughed at us for even “dreaming” about camping at Tadiyandamol during the monsoon. He was like a black cat which crossed our path. Like he knew how crazy all of us were. Those were the days when we used to just jump into something without knowing what awaited us. Wild, so to speak. So, anyway, green could not have got greener. Air could not have got cleaner, spirits could not have got higher, and we soon trekked to the camping place by 4:30 in the evening, without a drop of sweat. There was not a single person apart from us that day, which was quire expected since it was a weekday (and the monsoon!!). The monsoons are weird, It somehow separates the trekking junta into two categories. The First, are those who don’t like to trek during the monsoons because of leeches ( lame excuse!) and like to stay indoors. The prefer trekking once the monsoons are done. The Second, are people like us, those who just adore the monsoons. Those who get high just by the smell of rain ,not giving a damn about the leeches and all the other trivialities of life.

Moving on, we took almost an hour to set up our tents. We had a nice duel with the wind, which had started to get quite steady . By 5:30, we were all covered by mist and the visibility was reduced to less than ten feet. What a feeling!! What a place!! We were almost shivering standing outside! We were terribly hungry and since it was too early to have dinner, it was junk food time.. Mixture, Kurkure (wink), KalleKai et al. Once done with that, we were generally chillaxing in our tents. Hrishi and I in mine; Bacat, Mabhi and Kanth in the other. Soon, like in every trek, our laughter session had reached its heights. The laughter here is inversely proportional to the quality of jokes. The more Chappar the jokes are, the more value it gets ( in terms of number of spits/ second). The wind had started to get really crazy now and it also begun to drizzle! We were all happy that we were in our tents. That’s when the Wildcraft tent began leaking.. Oh my gosh! It was still seven in the evening. We decided to finish up with dinner. It was time for all the MTR ready to eats to be eaten! Once done with dinner, Kantha and mabhi ( It might as well be me ;) ) volunteered to stay in the leaky tent for as long as possible. Hrishi, Bacat and I slept peacefully in my tent. By now, the rain was steady and the wind was getting impossible! At some point in the night ( which I thought would be around 2 or 3 am) Kantha and Mabhi complained that they couldn’t stay in the tent any longer. We pretended to be asleep. But somehow they managed to jugg into our tent. So, here we were, five of us in a two man tent! It was still 10:30 in the night (fraud.. It was supposed to be 2 or 3).. What a night it turned out to be. Every half an hour ( fraud.. It was supposed to be at least one or two hrs) one of us would invariably ask the time and all of us would be awake! On second thought, only four of us. Mango was having a blissful sleep. He was making himself, “felt at home”, so to speak! The rest of us were awake most of the night. Mabhi (it might as well be me) was sitting upright while bacat, kantha and me were trying to lay down. I was wishing I would be like Shreyas at that night! Time seemed to have frozen! After rolling around for a long time, finally I fell asleep at 3am ( it was actually 3 am) and got up by six, amazed by the fact that the tent was still there. We couldn’t believe the tent had taken this much beating. It had rained for like six hours on the trot and the wind had literally slapped the tent all night! We inspected the “leaky tent” which, by now had a nice pool inside it (with a couple of frogs mating.. Vole). Anyway, so we packed all our bags and had a hard time rolling up the wet tents and the Styrofoam mats. The night was over. We were all glad and reached our usual spirits in no time. I wanted to crap, but that rascal Hrishi, scared me saying some of the leaves caused constipation ( and imagine, I believed that!). Naah, not really. It was more of the fact that I dint want leeches up my ass… wink wink.

The rest of the trek was uneventful till the peak apart from the usual pseudo peaks which keep leading you to believe that you are just 100mts from the peak for almost an hour. I hate them! We reached the top and what a view we got. It was nothing like I had ever seen before.. I could not see anything! Thanks a lot MISTer fog! Like most of our treks, we laughed at mabhi( and kantha, who had developed this knack of staying 100 feet behind us..???) . A few times it did clear up and what a view it was. Phew!

We went to that rock! That rock.. How could any of us forget it. We just sat there for two hours contemplating, overwhelmed by nature. Its one of the few things ( apart from the beach) which could silence me. Everything seemed perfect. These were times when you think of everything else in the world as trivial. You are lost in thought. Things just seem so right. I call it, “right click, refresh!”. it’s the feeling I just crave for whenever I just want to get away! But yeah, reality soon reminded me that we needed to get back.. I hate it! Time.. What a bastard it is. Just when you think you are on cloud nine, it gives a prompt alarm that no one can ignore and throws you back on ground.

Anyway, we descended quite fast. Ran for most of the time and we were at the palace in less than two and a half hours! Phew, what a place!! We went to Chaluvara falls, which was a kind of a let down coz we couldn’t do anything much. The jeep dropped us off at Chayyandane (yeah hrishi, I still remember that name) and we waited for the bus. The bus journey from there to Napoklu was memorable. Hrishi, you should buy a house in Coorg man.. Remember that discussion we had?

We had arbit dosa/ meals in Napoklu in a shady hotel, some Hotel Ganesh or something of that sort. We decided to spend the night at Kushalnagar. and loaf around like other “normal” tourists the next day. Kantha decided that he had had enough and called it quits. We got off at Kushalnagar at 11pm and started looking for lodges. In the condition that we presented ourselves , one of the pseud looking ones decided to deny us rooms.. Lol! Finally, we got into hotel Vinayaka after much haggling with the owner . That night, we all slept like logs. Woke up at around 7 the next day, feeling really fresh! Its not often that you would find us staying in a nice hotel on our treks. Tiled bathrooms and clean white linen arent something we are generally particular on our trips.

The day was pleasent. Again, I will not elaborate too much on it. We went to the Golden temple monastry, Nisargadhama ( the hyped up place which sucks) and dubare( love that place). The days highlights were -

1) the Jackfruit craving ( wink wink) was finally satisfied.

2) amazingly sweet, juicy pineapples which we just belted ( much to the surprise of the waiter there)

3) hotel Athithi.. Amazing food

4) the elephant ride.. On those bare backs.. Ouch! It hurts

5)the fresh honey, in XXX Rum bottles.. Wink wink again!

6) The monks, dressed in saffron clothes and studs, playing soccer ( I would have called it football, But I‘m in the USA, you see ;) )

7) the shop keeper near the monastry asking me if I was buying stuff for my girl friend!!! And that rat, hrishi embarrassing me in front of him. I’ll get back at you for that man.

Finally it was time to get home! The conductor of a Rajahamsa bus claimed that all seats were booked and expected us to believe that. He took some bribe to let us into the bus. We dint have a choice and none of us were really in a mood to argue. The bus reached Bangalore at 4 in the morning! And guess what… me and mabhi got a bus at that time. The BMTC night service. He took some 1.5 times the usual fare. That’s like 15 bucks instead of 10. Going by an auto would have cost a fortune at that time. At least a hundred and fifty bucks. We were more than happy to just hop on to the bus knowing that these memories of the last few days would last a lifetime! Rock on, guys!

Its kinda incomplete… Its just my perspective of the trip! Lemme know if you guys can think of some more interesting stuff that I left out. Some philosophy fundae are there.. I can remove that!