Bangalore to Ooty ride

So after a very long time i am updating the blog here, due to some work or busy schedule i was not in a position to update the blog although i have done some rides/treks/trips.

Here it goes my latest update :)
I have done this Bike ride in  December with my office colleagues.

As we were not had any rides for a quite a long time , i decided to head somewhere and made a plan for Kerala [South state of India] and cover some of the very lavish landscapes and places, so i floated this idea to my colleagues in office and some how was able to convince couple of guys for the trip, then started the planning of routes and places to visit. Finally after weeks of discussion and planning we were able to chart out a route map and planned to cover quite a bit of places , and most importantly the famous riding wonder of the world ...... ie.... Coorg-Ooty-Munnar [recently crowned as riding wonder of the world by Shell petroleum after a world wide contest], as we had 4 days of time and it was enough to cover these places and it will result in almost 1700km of round trip. and finally total of 4 ppl got ready for the trip.

Day 1
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Just before the day of the ride we had a shocking news, that one of our colleague [Malli] decided to drop the trip, so it was not good sign for us who are planning to ride in the morning as he was one of dedicated biker. soon i called Andy and got the status of the trip and we decided to push off without Malli.

Morning soon after waking up early i called Andy and asked to him try to convince Malli to come and if possible we can cut short the ride to single place. so after lot of discussions finally Malli got permission from his home department, and as a result of this the whole plan has to be modified and finally we decided to visit only till Ooty, so the final route will became B'lore-Ooty-B'lore and instead of 4 days it will now became 2 days.

we reached the meeting point near mysore road and after a quick briefover we started towards Mysore, we stopped by near Kamat for breakfast and after giving lot of gyan about wearing shoes and proper riding gear  to Vicky [who incidentally riding with sandals], we continued

we reached mysore ring road in no time and took a short break  and as we started towards Ooty via Nanjangud road it was terrible .. the roads are not good and more over its a single lane with vehicles rushing towards in the opposite direction its pretty dangerous but we didn't had any choice and it made the pace of riding little slow till we crossed the Nanjangud after that the road also become some what ok kind of thing and moreover traffic was eased a lot .. and we started to realize that the surrounding environment also started changing rapidly as the distance we traveled now its more of coldness in the air with surrounding changing to forest. after a couple of distance we stopped by for the photoshoot [Andy and Vicky bugged us for the photoshoots through out the ride, each time we need to remove the riding gear and take photo's] .. and here we saw a dozen super-bikes roaring past us in the opposite direction in a full speed ...from hyabusa to ducati we could able to see all manufacturer logos  and that too in a busy road ..seems like those big bikes had excellent control/handling or the riders are insane.

In good time we have reached the Kerala border and now we needed cross the famous Bandipur national forest ..and oh boy it was wonderful experience ..smooth small single lane road with thick forest on either side ..with beautiful scenery and silent music of wildness .. we did really enjoyed the whole route and luckily we were able to spot some animals including elephants in a far away distance.

After reaching near the Ooty ghats we decided to take a break and finish our lunch ..soon after we stopped near the starting point to the Ooty's famous 36 hair pin bends ghat ... so i wanted to video the whole climb and i had helmet/tank mount video recorder ..it took a couple of min to fix the cam to my helmet and after a quick briefing on the ride rules/formation on the ghats .. i asked the rest of the guys to start climbing so that i can record video from behind.

We reached top and in to the Ooty city and after roaming a bit here and there decided to find a lodge to stay .. and it didn;t took us long time to find one as the entire Ooty is more of a lodge/hotel rather than a normal city..u can find every where the boards saying about lodging/staying .. after deciding place we crashed in to the rooms, although it took some time for us to find the Lodge which has good safer parking for our bikes and also we wanted to stay in a place from where we can get good view of the city.

It was already started drizzling and temprature is on the lower side ..which making our finger go numb even in hotel room and even though the floor is of wooden finish ..it was so cold that we needed to walk in slippers :D. After lot of photo-shoots and roaming finally we ended up the day in cold sleep in the hotel.

Day 2:
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Next day we all woke up little late and still no sign of sunlight the occasional drizzling and cold temperature made sure that we start late .. and we also had small problem with Malli bullet [all bullets need more frequent maintenance than other brands ....bullet owners excuse me but its true], during this time we didn;t wasted our time .. and a lot of photo's i had to click for Andy and Vicky, after fixing Bullet clutch wire we started again from the hotel towards city to have breakfast and later towards a view point up in the mountain called Dodda betta [Big Mountain] which is the highest peak around this place , its basically a place where both western ghats and eastern ghats will meet.

we took plenty of time to roam around in thick fog on top of the peak which is also a tourist place and it was great time to ride towards that place as it has thick forest around it and with the very dense fog. we spent almost 3 hours in that place and head back to city center.

I visited a petrol bunk which is at the center of the city and asked him to fill 300Rs petrol .. and that guy intentionally filled only 100Rs while other guys was engaged in talking to me ..when i pointed him that i needed 300Rs not 100Rs petrol .. and acted like he didn;t heard me .. and while other person started to grab my attention i was kept close watch on the person who is filling the petrol .. and without resetting the machine he filled up another 100Rs and asked me to pay 300/ by saying that he did fill up 100 at first time and 200 next time .. and i argued with him that second time he didn;t reset the machine and he continued over the last reading which is 100, finally i paid him only 200, so becareful guys when u visit this petrol pump

We had lunch after climbing down the ghats and started towards B"lore .. it took us a good amount time to reach back with all those Sunday traffic on Mysore road, although i have visited both Ooty and Munnar .. i give my full points to Munnar when compared to Ooty.. i found Ooty to be little dirty and no soo clean place, where as Munnar is very much perfect in terms of its fame.

PICS:

https://picasaweb.google.com/102729674108102165962/BLOROoty