Last day, had my breakfast, and headed out. No clouds, no nothing, just scorching hot and dry highway ahead for the next 50 kms.
This trip feels like an achievement. The goal wasn’t to finish 4000 kms, it was to see what’s outside our 4 southern states – KL, KA, TN, AP.
The best part of the trip was the jungle of course. During this trip I actually got to ride in the forests, on beach sands, on mountainside trails, and on highways. Within 10 days I encountered temperatures of between 20 and 40 celcius, many many terrains, torrential downpours, hailstorm, humidity, dry heat, and a few chills when I was riding in the rain. I guess the only thing remaining was super cold temperatures – maybe another time.
I also got to speak to about 200 people from about 10 different cultures, at my hotel stays, stretch breaks, and of course the sign language guys who gave me directions.
Met people ranging from ones who came running out to give directions with smiles from their faces to people who saw opportunity in ripping me off, one guy even accompanied me on his bike to guide me through the next few turns inside a town. So if you get treated real nice in a place, don’t be surprised to get a cold shoulder after a couple of kms. There was a village where I was offered accommodation and food when it was late night. Not to doubt their intentions, but I politely refused and moved on. Can’t take a risk outside my side of the country.
When you ask someone local for directions when in a remote area, don’t ever ask then how far is it. Stick to direction questions only. The answers for a 10 km away town will vary from 0.5 kms to 40 kms. I guess it stems from the fact that for them odo readings don’t matter. You leave when you want to and you reach when you reach. It’s very interesting because I had this almost throughout my journey. I started sticking to GPS distances after that.
On today’s ride, since there was not much to see around, I spent a lot of time trying to do the maths around how much horizontal distance you would cover when overtaking. Went into relative motion and what not. It works out to about 7-8 meters of additional distance per overtake. That adds up big time on the highway. If you do 10 of those in a km, you are doing 100 metres extra – a 10% error factor. And I guess that is what translates to mismatches between your odo and your GPS.
In these almost 4000 or so kms, I have covered Bangalore to Delhi and back or if i had started from Delhi, i sould be halfway inside China now. Or crossed Pakistan, Afghanistan, and reached Syria or turkey. If I was in bombay, I would have been in Kenya – well, these are all ‘as the bird flies’ , but the associated feel-good factor is fantastic. Theoretically (and in this case stupidly speaking), if I started at the equator, I could go around the world in 100 days, comfortably. Maybe I should try that some time. It equates to 10 such trips only. I’ve already finished 1 !
Anyway, enough of the dream world, I reached tirupati and stopped for lunch at a coffee day. It was fantastic inside with the stepped up air conditioning, and I didnt feel like getting back on the road again. I don’t feel like going back to Bangalore, or going back to work either. The disconnect for 10 days has been refreshing to say the least. The troubles I encountered on my trip could happen to anyone, anywhere, but they were all a part of the adventure I went through.
Something else I want to do – visit the forests of Madhya Pradesh – 10000 sq. Kms of raw forest – 9 national parks, 25 wildlife sanctuaries. Only 1200 kms away. The most notorious, but also the most beautiful forests of India.
And after this current trip, the distances actually look miniscule. I have lost respect and all fear of distances. 400 kms a day is a walk in the park. 200 kms a day doesn’t even get me to clench my backend. 100 kms is a stones throw away – one of those ‘right around the corner’ things.
An experience from last night when I was headed to Nellore. It was 50 kms before Nellore, a car had climbed up the divider on the highway, and there was a gentleman with a child standing outside. Rushed there to see if anyone was hurt, thankfully, not a scratch. Asked them if they needed anything, and he said he has already called a tow truck . I moved on, reached the next toll gate, one km away, informed them, and within 10 seconds, their patrol jeep headed out to the spot. I was full of admiration, we have come a long long way from the days where highways were scary places, with zero help available. Well, its still the case with state highways, but the national highways are good !
Another experience at night – a flying bat hit my helmet visor – real hard. Maybe his SONAR wasn’t working properly after all the highway flying. Anyway, I dread to think of it if I didn’t have my helmet visor closed.
The previous 4-5 day – 1600-1700 km trips I’ve done look like ‘novice’ trips. I don’t know if I’ll do a trip longer than this again, or even the same distance – this time I was quite lucky with bike trouble, next time maybe I’ll plan in a group so there is more of us for safety reasons. I also think I’ve tortured my bike enough. It was an endurance test not just for me, but for the bike as well.
My casualties were minimal – an ankle bruise from the slipping on slush while riding, 2 insect bites, a slightly stiff back, a little tan, and a bum needing a replacement procedure.
The bike went through a lot – loose chain, with a broken lock and a cracked link, a bad helmet visor, a loose battery connector, a bad horn, and 2 flats. All fixed.
The forests I’ve seen this time are probably not an experience to be compared, to the past 15 years I’ve been in the forests within 500 kms around Bangalore. This experience that I had was unmatched. Maybe the MP forests will beat that – who knows when. I didn’t see any wildlife (and wasn’t expecting to, since the sightings are fare), except some deer outside my cottage in the forest.
Entered Karnataka and it started getting very cloudy and then a downpour. A sudden drop in temperature by almost 20 degrees. Actually started feeling cold, after the scorching sun an hour ago.
Stopped by many local coffee places, and with 80 more kms to go, and still light, I wasn’t in a hurry. I should have been. The rain increased and I had that last mile to go – the home run. Started to shiver, but rode on, teeth chattering. Had a couple of cups of tea and just had to move on and finish the ride, and be home. I had almost become brittle with the sudden temperature changes. One blow, and I would have shattered into pieces. Plus the ‘terrain’ in whitefield is actually worse than the forest terrains I had waded through. Surprise puddles in potholes, ridiculously designed speedbreakers – nothing short of an engineering marvel.
Reached home, freshened up, had dinner, realized I have a high temperature, popped a paracetamol, and going to sleep now.
All along, there were many bottlenecks and trouble in addition to the thrills and adventures, but what kept me going was my spirit. The moment that goes, you know its time to head home leaving your trip halfway. Thankfully, my trip was completed as planned – the schedule went all over, but it ended well. A total of 3800 kms, a very enthralling experience.
One more check on my bucket list. It wasn’t even on the list till 3 weeks ago, but the moment I decided to do this trip, I put it on the list, and now I’ve checked it off !
