party with a ZOMBIE

Ride to Manipal

2008-04-14T14:13:00.037+05:30

Group: Smit, Sid, Prat and Jay

Bikes: Thunderbird (two)

Route: Bangalore-Hassan-Sakleshpur-Mangalore-Udupi-Manipal (NH48, NH17)
Distance: 430kms
Trip Meter: 1050kms
Average (my bike): approx 40kmpl

My bike (14th Feb '08) had just clocked 800km with the first service done over 20 days back. I had no intentions to expose the BULL to the highways before it does 3000km, but with the 3 days weekend ahead and no other holidays for days to come it was very tempting for me to decide otherwise. Finally i gave in after talking to my mechanic and taking note of his advice that I shouldn't be running the bike at any constant speed and keep it varying between 70-100kmph or else the engine might seize.

Initially I was a little apprehensive, it being my first long ride with the BULL, but at the same time there was a lot of excitement and an earlier two day stint with a rented TVS Star in the hills of Coorg cleared all the doubts.

From here on it was like we have to go come what may...and the first thing was to decide on the place. We pondered over Hampi first but the temples weren't too attractive for all...we know its not always the destination and the journey matters too...but still there isn't any harm to look for a better ending :)  then it came to Manipal...well its the other way around this time...from what I have heard from Naveen (my friend from school) the place is great...but few sections of route ain't very good...especially the Shirdi ghat region....and the last place was Pondicherry...though we all had been to Pondicherry earlier (maybe except Sid)...we kept it as the default option if nothing else works out. Finally talking to people who have taken the route, we decided to head to the western coast line...eagerly waiting to encounter the 25km-30km dug out stretch after Sakleshpur.

Now with the place being decided, there were two other important things need to be taken care of before we could unleash the power of our TBs...one being the essential spare parts that could be required in case of the bike's breakdown and the other being the saddle bag and riding gears that were required to prevent my breakdown ;)

I got myself the regular Stallion saddlebags for Rs 2200/- from Cramster which are widely used on the RE bikes. I didn't have any particular choice for the gloves,  Twist fitted right to my budget and so i bought it for Rs 1300/-. As for the jacket, i didn't want something too heavy and too expensive...the Breezer model looked good and i guess the lightest of all the jackets...it cost me another Rs 4500/-
I also bought the rain suit from Duckback for Rs 900/- and believe me this item was worth all the money.... considering that we rode the first evening in a heavy downpour.... if it hadn't been for the suit... my clattering teeth would have been nosier than the TBs toned down (fooossss) exhaust :P
Currently all thats missing in my kit is a good pair of riding shoes and knee gaurd...the search for the shoes is still on....I believe you can't escape noticing the twin effect of the bikes and the gears...can't help cos D already got the best ones in business :)
Later i went to authorized Royal Enfield store and got the following items in pair:
1) Clutch cable - Rs 156/-
2) Accelerator cable - Rs 50/-
3) Fuse - Rs 5/-
4) Headlight lamp -  Rs 62/-
5) Link lock (chain lock) - Rs 25/-

Well..after this heavy build up...these is all what happened in the four days :)

Day1 - 04/04/2007 (Friday)
Ahem...looks like there was some devilry cooking up at some place against us...just when we were ready to move after a nice GP lunch...there was a huge cloud formation with thunder and lightening...but we were ready for it with our Duckback suits ;) except for Prat who used my cramster external rain coat. We started at around 2:30pm and the rain soon followed to be with us for the next few hours. It took us close to 2 hrs to reach the Neelamangla junction, all  thanks to the bad Bangalore traffic and the rain. After that it was smooth sailing till the end of the day's ride, except for the ugly buses and trucks and of course the RAIN. 
Initially our plan was to make an overnight stay halfway at Hassan, beacuse of a delayed start and traffic jams, we stopped at Channarayapatna (trip meter:159kms) for dinner and eventually found a 'decent' hotel Kruthika (Rs 300 for a double room) with a restaurant and good parking space for our bikes. We stuffed ourselves with an okay northie meal and went off to bed setting an alarm for 4:30am.

Day2 - 05/04/2008 (Saturday)
Woke up with the alarm bells ringing and were once again on the road by 6am. The weather was awesome this morning and it was fun to ride in the dusk. 

[Now that this blog has been idle and incomplete for months, I have almost forgotten about most of the details :( ]

We stopped to fill our stomachs and to prepare ourseleves to come face to face with the famous bad stretch in the shirdi ghat area around Sakleshpur...then it was all fun with approx 25kms of

no road at all... but we all survived :)

After that we just cruised at 80-100kmph to reach Mangalore and visited the beach over there...well i am unable to recollect the name of the beach..i guess it was summersand beach....it was just too hot during that time of the day to enjoy much.

Somebody had mentioned about another beach...again don't remember the name....how could i forget this one which had been a bit adventurous...well we left behind the backpack here with all the wallets...but as luck would have had it, it just lay there on a pulsar without being tempered...and that gave us a sigh of relief...after running back and forth in the under construction highway...with trucks, tankers, buses running in all directions...

We stopped for lunch inside the city, ate at some regular south indian restaurant...one thing that was common at all the breaks was that we kept emptying countless bottles of cold drinks...it at least gave us a momentary respite from the humidity...Finally we made it to manipal sometime in the evening and after a bit of struggle managed to find a hotel room....quickly cleaned ourselves and headed to Malpe beach....and now it felt like everything was worth it! There is a pretty good restaurant just nearby, but the only problem is the service as the phirangis were given speacial treatment....this is one thing i hate about tourist places in india. Anyways we walked out of the place...and only managed to find some "filthy" restautrant in some corner...nobody complained as everybody was too tired (below pics are a proof :)

Day3 - 06/04/2008 (Sunday)

I have very limited memory about this day...all i can recollect is that we were excited to visit St Mary's Island...but the long wait, the hot weather and finally a disappointing island (may be it was too hot to cherish anything about that place) was all we had.

Then we moved onto see another beach and as you would have guessed it already i do not remember even this ones name...i think it was Kapu beach with a light house....we got into the water here...there were not a single restaurant which served good food/snack here...spent some time and then headed back to our favourite place...Malpe beach....this was the perfect place....nice breeze....very less crowded...clean and long stretch of sand....

On our way back to the hotel, we had our first good meal in the trip....it was some hotel on the highway...where there is circle and the diversion to enter manipal i guess...there were a couple of restaurants around here....reached the hotel...set up the alarms for next morning...and were soon fast asleep...

Day4 - 07/04/2008 (Monday)

Early morning around 6:30am...it was time again to get our BULLs roaring in the lovely weather...the smooth ride however lost the flow when we lost inside Mangalore and almost spent 45mins to get back on the highway....and then again we fought the uneasy terrain on the shirdi ghats...but our last outing had given us enough courage and once again we came out victorious...

stopped at the same place as on the 2ne day for a heavy meal....and with multiple stops we all finally made it back to Bangalore in one piece...

So, here ends my first long ride with the BULL, it was an amazing experience and I'm sure theres lot more to come...

Aussies: Bad Losers

2007-09-25T16:36:00.001+05:30

22nd Sept, India defeats 4 times world champion Australia and shows them the exit door of T-20 World Cup Championship. Then two days later I read an article by Ricky Ponting titled "Sree Santh got away with ordinary stuff" in TOI, the article can be found here and as well pasted below.
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Sree Santh got away with ordinary stuff
Ricky Ponting

Its obviously disappointing not to be part of the team in a semifinal game. Watching from the sidelines, it was the 30-ball explosion that Yuvraj Singh unleashed on the Aussies that took the game away.
It ensured that India reached a total that would be difficult to chase. And once Indias bowlers discovered the happy knack of picking wickets at the crucial junctures, we were always playing catch-up cricket.
Yuvraj has always had great ability and in this tournament he has hit boundaries at will. The Indians will be hoping that he will carry this form into the finals as well.
The lack of match practice for most of our batsmen cost us dear on Saturday. The openers Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden have been doing such a great job chasing down totals, that the other batsmen had hardly got any time in the middle before Saturday’s game. I feel the Indian new ball bowlers got away with some ordinary bowling, particularly Sree Santh, whose figures were better than what his performance deserves. Our players lost momentum in the last three overs.
With an asking-rate of over ten an over it was difficult for the likes of Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin to up the scoring rate, and the injury to Michael Hussey was a big blow. We have been struggling with fitness right through the tournament, and viewers would notice the number of runners that have been used so far. This form of cricket is intense, and the travel between games can take its toll. Perhaps the organisers underestimated how taxing it would be.
However, with only one day between games and twohour flights between venues there has hardly been any recovery time.
We did the maximum traveling in the tournament, having played games in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban over the last six days, which is why we were not as fit as we would have liked to be for a semifinal encounter. (GAMEPLAN)
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Ever since I read this article, I have been wondering why Aussies are such bad losers.
Is it because after making it a habit to win such huge competitions the defeat has not sunk in yet and they are in a shock, or is it because they are so arrogant that they can't accept defeat sportingly and appreciate the opposition team for a better show.

Look at the list of excuses the captain has given for his sides exit from the tournament. He says that Sreesanth had bowled ordinary that day, then how on earth the highest run getter of the tournament which happened to be Aussie opener Matthew Hayden was not even able to connect to his deliveries. Even Allan Border had praised Sreesanth for his superb bowling which earned him the important wickets of Gilchrist and Hayden.

And then he goes on to say lack of match practice was a factor, what a silly excuse and I have no words for it... he further goes on to say about fitness and traveling, did other teams not travel too and fitness is the players' own problem and even India, Pak have had fitness problems with their front line players. Lastly, it might have been difficult for Clarke and Haddin but didn't Misbah and Tanvir not almost turned the tables for Pakistan in the final?

I read in another blog that Ponting has started to play mind games through this article for the upcoming series against India, but I believe its just plain arrogance and even if it's a mind game the charged up Indian team will not give a damn. Overall India deserved to be in the finals and go on to become the world champions, Australia was not even a near 3rd or 4th place in the tournament with 3 defeats.

CHAK DE INDIA!

Hogenakkal Falls

2007-04-09T17:36:00.007+05:30

This was a 3 day weekend for most of us, but all were not so lucky [read: ppl working in Infosys & Wipro]. Considering there was very little time left to plan for the trip and just two days in hand, we had to limit ourselves to a one day trip.
At once we zeroed it on Hogenakkal falls which is at Karnataka - Tamil Nadu border where the river Cauvery falls with a great force. It is also called the Niagara Falls of India [the second one that I know is Athirapally and Vazhachal waterfalls in Kerala].

[One of the falls at Hogenakkal]

There are two ways to reach Hogenakkal from Bangalore. We took Bangalore-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri-Hogenakkal route on our way to Hogenakkal which is around 180kms, this stretch has good roads. On our way back we took Bangalore-Hosur-Rayakottai-Hogenakkal route which is shorter by 35-40kms but it had a very bad stretch for about 40-50kms with the road dug up on both sides.

We started at around 7am from Airport Rd and reached the falls at around 11am, way longer than our estimate.
Since there are no good restaurants in Hogenakkal we carried our own food and also the bedsheets to have a complete picnic experience :D
We had ample snacks in our kitty that there was no need to stop for breakfast anywhere, however on the way about 60kms from Bangalore there is a Reliance petrol pump which has a place called A1 plaza and is quite good for a quick bite.

After paying all sorts of tolls & taxes and eating our lunch we divided ourselves in two coracles. Since it was not yet the rainy season, there were not too many waterfalls. The boatmen took us around the various points were there were falls. We disembarked at one of the points and spent sometime in the gushing water. The moss over the rocks made a couple of us loose control but luckily without much damage, though i need to confirm about Smit's spine ;-)

The weather wasn't that bad except for the time we were on the sandy area. This was the bathing place and Mani (one of our boatman) was so bent upon we having a bath and savor the fishes fried in some red masala which didn't look very inviting to anybody :)
It was terribly hot there with no place to hide from the sun and things got worse as we could afford just one bottle of water with all the chillars that we were carrying that point of time.However it was quite pleasant rowing through the rocks over the steady water in our coracles. Finally we started off for Bangalore around 5:30pm after having the much needed snacks in one of the shops around the corner.
The traffic on Hosur road reminded us that the holiday time was now over and it would be back to business after a day once again. We reached home at 8:13pm sharp!

The only sad part of Hogenakkal was the littering done by people who visit the falls. Even though its a "No Plastic" zone there were plastic bottles and polythene bags lying around in the water and shampoo sachets by the side of the falls.

Boatman's contact:
R Mani
+91 9442738049

Wonderla !!

2006-04-11T16:38:00.001+05:30

Well this blog has been stale since long, and i don't remember the details except that we had a lot of fun in Wonderla that day.

[Scream Engine: Myslef, Raheem in the front with Vas and Sweta in the second row]

Tennis with a Cricket Ambience

2006-02-19T16:25:00.001+05:30

Well this happens in India where you get to watch a tennis match with a feel of a cricket or say football match. I have always watched tennis on television till yesterday. The Bangalore Open 2006 doubles semi-final between Sania-Huber & Koryttseva-Peer was only the second one after the preceding singles semi-final that I saw live in a stadium. And believe me it was not at all like the other matches (please read Wimbledon or French Open) where the silence is broken by the applause (claps and not verbal) when a game is over.

[Sania Mirza and Liezel Huber celebrate after winning their Bangalore Open doubles semifinal against Shayar Peer and Mariya Koryttseva at the KSLTA on Saturday; Courtesy: Times Of India epaper]

The crowd was going mad watching Sania play and unsettled her opponents during serves with the loudness quite similar to the scenario when Shoaib runs in to fire at Tendulkar.

The KSLTA efforts to keep away the non-tennis crowd by having high ticket prices didn’t pay off as most of them had come to have a look at Sania and make an appearance on ESPN. The sardarji sitting beside me had a comment to make, “Indian audience kabhi nahi sudhar sakti…”, only after his over-exuberance put him live on TV which was one of the motive.

Another amusing thing was that you could even spot Dosas being taken into the stadium among the eatables.