It had been one hell of a trip last time. This time the same route was even more of a blast. This time around, the RD 350s were accompanied by a host of Royal Enfields, all from Bangalore’s Bullet Club “Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club”,  a Hero Honda CBZ and a Bajaj Pulsar 180.

You could call this 3 days of absolute unadultrated fun. The ride was actually organised by the Bullet club, but the RDs also tagged along. Thanks to Praveen for providing the accomodation at one of his relative’s beach house. We did live in style for the time we were there, I must say. 🙂

There was a lot of speculation how compatible the Bullet riders and the RD riders would be on such a trip. I’m not speaking about the humans but of the bikes. The RDs are camparatively much faster than the slower thumpers and Bullet riders by virtue happen to be slower riders. (Appreciating the environment kinds 😉 ). But this trip was a real eye opener. Both the bikes went along at their own pace and waiting up for each other at pre-scheduled interval, or when they thought necessary. We took off from Bangalore at 0630 sharp (also pre-scheduled) and grouped with some of the other riders at (again!) pre-scheduled place. And then we had breakfast at a prescheduled place and lunch at another prescheduled

I am just over using the pre-scheduled, because i was amazed at the amount of thinking that might have gone in. The bulleteers are constant travellers and have everything thought of before hand to make the journey all the more easier. Great job you guys do!!

On the other hand of the spectrum was me, who decided to go along on the trip at just 0000 the previous night. I just picked some clothes and ran (or rode)!!

Ok, so where is the story about the ride? Ahh, I am a bit(?) lazy when it comes to writing about the ride, or maybe I just don’t have the bandwidth for it. But hey, a friend who had come on the ride has very nicely put the ride into words, go ahead and read on!!

Rendezvous in Kundapur

Pallavi Baruah

Day 1 – Bangalore-Hassan-Sakleshpur-Shiradi-Upinagudi-Mangalore -Udupi-Kundapur

Recently we made a lovely trip to Kundapur. This was our first long trip and myself and Rocky were very excited. We woke up early and packed everything up in the bike and off we went. Mornings in Bangalore are anyway very pleasant so it was cool riding down the empty stretch of Airport Road. We met up Vibhu there and both us made our way to Mekhri Circle which was our meeting point.

We were altogether 20 people, which included 16 riders and 4 pillions. After a photo session with the group we made our way out of Banglore. We were still waiting for some last minute additions who caught up with us in Nelamangala.

We planned to go on NH48 route via Hassan, Sakhleshpur Upinagudi, Managlore and then reach our destination Kundapur.

Off we went on the highway cruising at 80kph and we all stopped for breakfast except Joy and Preeti who managed to ride very far very fast… Vipin went to catch up with them and have breakfast with them.

Here we were at Kunigal waiting for the guy to serve us hot “thate idlis” and vadas which was not only filling but also very tasty. I was enjoying the feeling of riding with so many bikes in unison and well I was waiting for us to continue further…

It seemed that Joy and Priti also had breakfast along with Vipin and we were all back on the road and we were together. So on we went 10 bullets, 6 RDs, 1 CBZ and 1 Pulsar.

We stopped at Kamat Upachar for regrouping and refueling and well after some coffee tea and some conversation as to where we would regroup next for lunch we continued on the highway.

We were following bikes as usual and it so happened that we missed the turn we had to take and entered Hassan with the RDs who were anyway planning to stop by Hassan. Tara invited us to her house in Hassan and we had a nice chill out time. The others decided to go without entering Hassan taking the bypass. We would be regrouping at Sakleshpur.

Anyway we caught up with the rest of them in Sakleshwar where we were having lunch. Lunch was a good affair with good thali meals, paratha, curd rice, etc… Both me and Rocky were wary of eating too much so we stuck to curd rice.

After lunch we were riding the Shiradi ghats and well I was as usual appreciating the scenic beauty of the twists and turns of the roads. The RDs zoomed passed by us and very swiftly and expertly initiated the turns. As we reached the end of the Shiradi ghats, Rocky stopped to refuel. The ride through the ghats were beautiful and it reminded me very much of Shillong. Felt so much like home. The roads were great and one could smoothly cruise by without feeling any bumps. The roads were wide and as we were riding we were cocooned from both sides with mountains and forests.

We stopped to refuel at the end of the ghats. The bike was not feeling that great. Rocky was telling me that the pick up of the bike was slow and well before we could even do an analysis Rocky slided his bike by the gravel and we almost slipped on the gravel trying to stop the bike. I managed to jump off since I was an expert in jumping off my bike as a rider when there is an accident : ) . We realised that we had a flat tyre.

So here we were somewhere 10 kms from BC road and some 30 odd kms from Mangalore. We had seen all the bikes pass by and only Rajshekhar was behind us. He stopped by and tried to help us. We took out our stuff from the bikes and well Rocks tried to call the group, Joy and the others… oh no !! but there was no signal !!

Rocky then crossed the road and climbed up the hilly area and viola !!! he could reach some of the guys. They were on they way, and well I breathed a sigh of relief..

Finally Joy and Preeti, Arun, Karthik reached here. We let Rajshekhar go so that he could catch up with the pack !!!

Preeti and myself decided to just do some time pass and clicked some pics as you can see below as the guys were sweating it out. Joy the ever willing good samaritan along with Keerthi and Arun fixed the tyre.

Here is Preeti by the bike when Joy and Rocks had left to get the tyre fixed and was I glad that I had company with friends and it was not scary.

Karthik meanwhile tried to inform others that we would be on our way and we got to know that they were waiting for us in Mangalore.

The small group was triumphant when the tyre was fixed and we knew we had to hurry but not before Preeti made Rocky do an MRF stunt !!!

Oh yes we were glad to be back on the road. We reached Mangalore and met up with the group. All of us relaxed with fresh lime soda. We were planning to fill our stomachs with the famous Manglorean gadbad icecream but then we did not have enough time. But the rest of the group did manage to go and have the ice cream. Preeti and myself had to make do with fresh lime soda.

Joy again got busy with adjusting Praveen’s tappet. As usual he made Praveen very happy and we started for Coondapur. It was getting dark and Praveen made sure that we stayed with the pack since it would be difficult to find our way to the beach house. I had a cramp in my back was longing for the much awaited stop. As we continued with our ride, we had a CBZ coming out of nowhere and trying to break in between us. After doing a couple of stunts it went past. Keerthi took pleasure in racing it and giving them run for their money or should I say “bike”?

We stopped for a short break to make sure that everybody was in line and then continued and at last we reached the much awaited place. As we rode through the small twisty meandering roads we were welcomed with cool sea breeze and nothing was more pleasurable than hearing the sound of the sea.

When we saw the house, all of us flipped…. I could hear ” Praveen my man you are great …. Wow …. Amazing….. Unbelievable….” And I went on to myself .. “This is paradise”. The picture to your left is the view of the house during the day. We reached in the evening and we were generally impressed by the interiors more than the exterior. Here is the porch outside the doorway where we could perch ourselves and relax. We also got introduced to the friendly who thought it was her duty to know everyone.

Well we all freshened up and quickly chose our rooms. Praveen suggested that we take the two rooms with a gorgeous view… and I was floored by the house and its décor…

The house was welcoming us with open arms and we were so glad that we made that trip. I forgot the cramp in my back and quickly called Preeti up… No sooner was I settled, I took out my camera and clicked a lot of shots of the house. As you can see in the pics above the top right pic is the entrance to the house. Then we come across a spacious living room cum dining room cum kitchen which is all set up in one place with neatly placed old columns of wood. There is a winding staircase which leads us to the floor above which contains three bedrooms and 4 to 5 beds in the open area. Keerthi, Karthik and Vibhu captured the room or lets say balcony plus room with open air view on the top while we took the rooms on the corner with a very romantic view from the beds.

Dinner was ready and waiting for us. We had a simple meal prepared by Ratna Akka who would be our chief caretaker, cook, et al.

Joy was as usual clicking away to glory. I was famished and the simple dinner of dal, rice, cabbage bhaji, home made curd and papad was heavenly.

Meanwhile Keerthi marked his bed and territory by keeping his undies on the bed he chose and announced to all that woe betide anyone who would take his bed and place.. they would have to cross his undies… !!! And if that was not enought he proceeded to scare off everyone from his corner by doing an act o

We all were waiting for some of the guys to get the much awaited and much needed bottles of beer. Most of us headed for the beach to just relax and after sometime Keerthi came towards us lugging a crate of beer.

We jumped with delight and grabbed the bottles with gutso and glug glug glug we all went.

Suddenly we could see the moon and it was a sight for sore eyes. The sea looked beautiful in the moonlight and we were enjoying the ambience.

Rijesh was enjoying the sea and he spent a looooooooong time in the sea. Sea, Beer and Moonlight makes up a deadly combination.

Then we saw Kartz with his menagerie of cameras, laptop, et al and well Joy freaked out. They spent a long hour discussing the pros and cons of lenses and the rest were just chilling out.

A few drinks later and a few PJs later we went up to bed since we had to get up early in the morning to enjoy the day by the seaside. Some of the guys decided to spend the night in the beach.

Day 2 – Seaside Bliss

Swisssshhhhhh swissshhhhh I hear something in my ears and then some murmuring of who is going to go and buy fish. Fish ?? I think … here I am trying to wake up to the splashing of the waves and Rocky and Praveen are talking about fish … well I decide to get up and on opening my eyes I see this lovely view and two small figures frolicking in the sea and I open my sleepy eyes wider and see Joy and Preeti already having a great time by the sea.

They must have got up awfully early. The view is lovely in the morning with the moon still not ready to give up its place and the horizon is like a pastel hued canvas . Well then again I am not a morning person but it was tempting watching them and as Rocky went with Praveen to get the fish I took my coffee and headed out to the beach.

We played a lot on the beach and had great fun. Me doing silly things which I would not normally do on a normal day but the sea and the wide open space was too much. Joy took some amazing snaps of the morning sea.

Then there was Abhi who slept on the beach and there was this little friendly mutt who thought it was her duty to wake him up by licking him and making him aware of what he was missing.

Here is Abhi waking up and greeting us all.

Joy also took the opportunity to click some snaps of the ever friendly dog.

The other guys meanwhile were in their suits heading for the waves and having fun riding the waves. Joy also got tired clicking snaps and rushed headlong into the waves and urged Preeti to come and join him.

Preeti and myself were happy sitting and letting the waves push us gently. Preeti got adventurous and went out to the sea and bang crash bammm went the waves.

Preeti however managed to convince me to come and join them and well I was shitting bricks since I am a little scared of being washed away by the waves (this I say even though I know swimming ).

Rocky and Praveen had come back by now and they told us that they have got some sumptuous lunch for us with fish, prawns, chicken, etc etc.

Rocky also took some time out with his playful antics. He tried to fly but the wind was not too strong.

Meanwhile, as we made our way back to the house, some us decided that they were too lazy to move and stayed put till hunger struck.

Adrian surfaced with his muscles and tattoo. It seemed as if he had a nice time collecting shells?

We were looking forward to the menu. Gurpreet, Rajshekhar and Vibhu decided to leave for a short ride to Kollur. They did a lot of dirt biking and took some amazing pictures and in the process they missed a lovely lunch. Well I cannot help it if I am a foodie and would prefer a good bite anyway to dirt biking but it seems that they had great fun.

The following pictures are of Vibhu, Gurjeet, and Rajshekhar riding the dirt in Kollur. According to them it was a fantastic ride.\While we were waiting for lunch, we had relaxed with some beer. Kartz after much contemplation (he had stopped consuming alcohol since some time) took a swig of the beer and my… how he swigged. Instead of glug … glug … glug… which we do normally he went glugglugglugglug …. One down… glugglugglug… two down….glugglugglug… three…and it went on… we were left gaping…

Keerthi made a beeline for the beer bucket as Kartz was glugg glugging away. You can see Kartz targetting the precious ice filled beer bucket behind Keerthi. Keerthi also took some time to promote Kingfisher. We all filled our belly with beers and well I was feeling a little too drowsy suddenly (I did not realize how many gulps I took from each passing bottle. Hic !! Well I was not drunk and I am not a beer person anyway but at that moment there was nothing which felt so good as chilled beer which was coming out from the bucket of ice. Keerthi and Rijesh took the pain of getting a huge chunk of ice cube for the bottles .. Bravo !!

Meanwhile, Adrian was taking his brother Christopher’s trip .. He kept on calling him Lara. And I was wondering what a couple LARA and TARA. Amazing !!!

The tables were suddenly turned on Adrian and everybody took sometime to make sure that he got fingered !!!

We had a lunch which comprised of Prawn curry, fish fry, chicken curry, rice, papad, curd. It was more than Praveen promised.

We ate till we all could eat no more and then all of us chilled out in the front porch again. All of us were satisfied and replete with good food, good company and a wonderful place.

After lunch I took some snapshots of us guys while they were chilling out doing this and that.

Abhi was busy talking to his friend. Preeti was up and very active.

Tara was enjoying the afternoon. She was missing her daughter a lot. She took some time out to go to the beach in the afternoon and walk by the sea. It was too hot for me to venture out. I stayed put in my cosy little room.

Joy went all around the place clicking snaps of the house and discussing stuff with Kartz. Vipin was lazing around in the bike as usual. We chilled out as usual. Joy afer traipsing all around the house went up to one of the bunker bed and napped a little and here was Preeti search every nook and corner for Joy and assuming that he was still dating mother nature with his lens. Clever Boy that Joy !! Preeti and myself in the meantime took a short nap and went down to the beach to watch the sunset.

We had dropped our plan to ride up to Murudeshwar and for the sunset. We were not willing to give this beautiful moment up. As evening came in upon us, we made the most of the last warm rays of the sun for that day.

As the sun started to set we started to take silhouette shots for the guys who decided to stand in the same spot and click their silhouettes except for Adrian whose tattoo looked amazing as the sun went down.

And then the sunset…. What a glorious time it was. For a moment it seemed that we would miss the most awaited moment because of the clouds hovering here and there but patience paid off and we were watching a beautiful view which we would remember for a long time to come.

Well if you think that the fun stopped here, you are mistaken. As the sun went down the group was impatiently waiting to race their bikes by the waves but some were apprehensive as they did not want salt water to enter their bullet gear box.

The RD boys could not wait to race each other by the beach and well they ran to get their bikes and off they went to get their bikes and after seeing the RDs Keerthi and Adrain also got out their bullets and raced by the sea side. All in all everybody had a great time.

Meanwhile Christopher alias Lara took some time out to flex some muscles and show us what speed is made of what racing is all about.

Then we proceeded to the dinner table. Keerthi and myself went on talking about silly stuff to pass the time and then all of us except Adrian, Rijesh, Christopher, Sanjay were left in the porch comparing Fiero to Bullet…. Fiero ? Where did that come from ?

Anyway that was the last thing I heard before my lights went off. We got to know later that while they were arguing about Fiero and Bullet they missed out on the scrumptious dinner of fish fry, Kori Curry which is a special cuisine of Mangalore.

This is to be had with Chicken gravy and broken pieces of papad-like roti . Ummm the food was delicious as usual but Adrian and group seems to have missed out on it and they realised it at 3:00am that there was no dinner left.

Day 3– Riding good Riding smooth

Sunday the 20th of April started with Praveen waking us all up at 5:30am. We freshened up and after a quick wholesome breakfast of idlis and chutney and a quick photo session we were on our way. Christopher had a flat tyre right in the morning and Adrian and the RD pack stayed back with him They would be starting late they said but we all knew that it would not take them much time to catch up with us and right as we predicted they did catch up with us pretty soon.

We planned to take the route down Kundapur, Udipi, Mudabidri, Charmudi Ghats, Sakleshpur, Hassan, Bangalore.

This time we decided to make it a planned ride without too many people going too fast and in the process also made sure that the ones who would want to race would also be comfortable within a certain limit. This was done as we did not want anybody to get lost and since. It was planned such that if any mishaps occurred we would all be well within range and not lose any time. Karthik took the lead with the book in front o f his bike and Praveen took the rear.

We maintained the rule that our headlights should be on when we were riding. It was a pleasure to be on the road where there were no trucks and no buses it being a Sunday and the truckers were still on strike.

We started out of Kundapur and rode in a staggered formation to Udipi.

It was hot and well the heat was making us kind of dehydrated and Keerthi was complaining that he should not have played on the beach as his muscles were acting up. We reached Manipal pretty soon after navigating through the narrow lanes of Udipi.

As we entered Manipal I was amazed at this little town. I had heard about this town from a lot of my friends who had studied here and yes this place also reminded me so much of my hometown Shillong again because of the steep slopes and the awesome view.

Down the road we went moving downhill till we reached level road . We regrouped after sometime to make sure that everybody was in line and by this time the RD group also had joined us and it was pretty hot. We reached Mudabidri stopped for some refreshments and continued on to the ghats. Our speed was consistent and we were able to keep in line with each other. We were doing 80 to 90 kmph. Though it slowed us down a bit but we were together. The RDs were ahead of us as usual but we stuck with Karthik who tool the poll position and Praveen made sure for sometime that everybody was on the same route.

Meanwhile we were approaching the ghats and the roads were kind of bumpy but manageable. There were not many potholes. Here to your left you can see us approaching the ghats from afar.

As soon as we started riding the Charmudi ghats we were awestruck by the view and we had to ride carefully since there were so many hair pin bends.

Preeti went clickety click with the digicams and well here are the results.

Sanjay took this opportunity to let out the monkey spirit in him by climbing on the perch of a precariously balanced tree at the edge of the road and one false step would have pushed him down down down deep into the forest. But I guess he was enjoying the view more than anyone else.

As we continued up the ghats we came across small towns perched on the hillside which looked so cosy. As I looked up I could see that we were chasing a rain cloud and suddenly we were in the middle of the rain cloud as in the rain cloud was moving and we were moving directly beneath it. All of a sudden it was very cool. I could feel the cool breeze blowing and we though that we would be caught in the rain. It was a cool experience. Felt somewhat like a penguin in the Kelvinator Ad. We crossed the rain cloud to come up to the top of the mountain from where we would go down to hit Sakleshwar for lunch. It was well past lunch time and we were kind of hungry. Here we bid Rajshekhar goodbye. He would be going back down the ghats to work someplace and then would continue on his bike to Hyderabad.

Anyway now we were kind of hungry and I wished that we would reach Sakleshpur soon before we get caught in the rain. And so we did. The roads were not that great but the view compensated for the road, I guess. We passed by small fields in between mountains beautiful forests and the quietness of nature with only the sound of the bikes cruising.

By this time I was kind of tired and lunch was a slow affair and after a stuffing our stomachs with food we carried on from Sakhleshpur. It had started to drizzle and it was very pleasant but it was dry after some kilometres. The air started getting warmer and we planned our next stop at Kamath for refueling and where we took a short tea break.

Abhi was feeling sleepy because of the weather and he almost rode his bike to the side of the road. He gulped two cups of tea and then we continued to Kunigal. The highway was peaceful to ride in since the trucks were not there and it was one clear stretch of road. Out of the blue an Enticer tried to race Rocky. Rocky having this big aversion to Enticer gave it a good run going at 110kmph. and I was holding on to my dear life. All I was feeling was the wind and for a moment I closed my eyes and it was better. Thank god he stopped after sometime. I could very well imagine what Tara might be going through sitting behind Christopher in the RD which goes 120 to 140 and maybe to 160 kmph. Christopher had a great time racing with Jahangir, who anyway rides pretty fast.

Anyway while we were on our way to Kunigal we came across a wonderful sunset which was better than any sunsets I have seen in my life. It was so bright and red and we did stop to take a few shots with our camera. Our camera was done with and we had no more space and it ended just with the sunset. What a coincidence !!!

We reached Kunigal as the sun went down and Praveen discovered that his clutch cable was broken and the ever helpful Joy got to work immediately fixing the cable. Keerthi could not find us in the dark and he went back the route and was wandering alone on the highway until somebody got him back on path. After everything was set and everybody was in place we were back on the road and home was getting nearer and nearer and I was having the bittersweet feeling finishing a lovely weekend but happy to be back home…

We regrouped at Nelamangala for the last time and Rocky and myself along with Gurjeet went on our way after saying our goodbyes to the group. The rest of the group were planning to have long dinner but I guess we were too tired this being our first trip. Thus ended our trip and back where we covered about 920 kilometres in all.

THATS ALL FOLKS !!!! Looking forward to another great trip.

Pallavi Barua Copyright © 2003