South Indian Peninsula 2010 South Indian Peninsula trip 2-up on a BMW R1200GS
Day-6 Kanyakumari to Pondicherry
We
wake up early and after our regular morning prayer,
head to the beach for the must-watch customary
sunrise at Kanyakumari. On the way I see that
my bike has been neatly covered with two clean
white bedsheets! Wow?? Closer enquiry reveals
that many tourists from nearby hotels came to
our hotel parking last night to see the bike &
the hotel owner got worried & decided to cover
the bike. Now, that’s sweet of him.
View
from our hotel balcony as we wake up
Also
in our urgency to reach the beach before sunrise,
we missed a left turn and we two loonies were
going in the opposite direction. A good soul seeing
us running gathers our attention and tells us
we are headed the wrong way. We felt like idiots!
Anyway getting back to the sunrise, being told
the wrong sunrise-time from our hotel we are early
and I thought for a moment Mr. Sun is late to
report for work today! The beach already has a
good crowd waiting for Mr. Sun. No worries, as
it gives us some time to walk around & find
a suitable place to watch the sun without obstruction.
The imposing Vivekanada rock & the Thiruvalluvar
monument look mesmerizing in the moments leading
to sunrise.
Few
minutes later Mr. Sun announces his arrival. From
thereon he slowly & steadily makes his glorious
appearance inching his way up. It’s a nice
& quaint scene to sit back & admire him
steadily rising.
Playing
the fool with Mr. Sun!!!
After
all, this is the only place in India that you
see him rising from the Bay of Bengal & setting
into the Arabian sea a little distance away from
where he started his day.
After
this must-do ritual & wandering a little,
we head for an early breakfast to a nice veggie
restaurant. We enjoy a plate each of idli-vada
(traditional breakfast in this part of the country)
with tea. It was just superb and the service was
really excellent.
We
head back to our hotel as we have to start early
since we will be riding close to 600kms today.
The very thought of 600kms in a single day runs
chills thru my wife who is not accustomed to it.
Frankly, with all my riding experience, even I
am not sure how a 600km day would be under Indian
riding conditions. Anyway, we pack up and load
our trusty red-ruby GS. Again a small crowd gathers
for our send-off ceremony!
We
soon make our way out of town and onto the highway
heading to the city of Tirunelvelli on National
Highway 7.
I
must tell you, the roads in the south indian state
of Tamil Nadu are absolute bliss. A silky smooth
4-lane highway awaits us here and that same 4-lane
highway will be our friend today all the way till
Villipuram where we branch off to the right towards
Pondicherry, the destination for the night.
A
few kms out of Kanyakumari, we are almost face
to face with hundreds of gigantic windmills harnessing
wind energy. Wow, seems our Indian govt is really
serious about going green. For many more kms hundreds
or possibly thousands of windmills with rotating
blades are a familiar sight stretching deep into
the horizon.
A
close up view of one of the windmill blades being
transported
While
this part of the world is tilting towards a greener
planet, my bike is also now tilting sideways due
to the heavy crosswinds. You can imagine maintaining
100plus kph in cross winds with a bike & load
in excess of 400kgs is no mean task. Anyway, after
about 40 odd kms, the wind intensity gradually
drops off and its back to business as normal for
us.
Mid-highway
Round table conference discussing World Goat &
Sheep affairs!!
Pedal
power. My Respect. They were sponsored by KTM
After
crossing Tirunelvelli, Virudunagar etc we are
heading towards the 2500 year old temple town
of Madurai that is famous for its 16th century
Meenakshi Amman temple. On the way we have an
unexpected challenge. My dashboard starts flashing
79kms to empty and soon I get onto the nearest
Indianoil fuel station and ask for refueling Premium.
Answer: Sorry sir, we don’t carry that. Well
I say no problem and I head to the next fuel station
and same answer, dashboard now shows 39kms to
empty. I head to the next station and same story.
We
tried all kinds of bunks including this one which
is ‘work in progress’
I
never had this problem in the states of Karnataka
& Kerala where Premium is available everywhere.
Finally with 15kms to empty I get to the next
fuel station and fill in 5 liters of regular petrol.
Ofcourse, I am told BMWs FI system is programed
to adjust to lower grade petrol, but I am not
deep in the middle of the Sahara desert and as
long as premium fuel is available I want to just
use the best for my bike. However, what I noticed
with regular petrol is that after 120kph, the
bike is not as smooth as it is with premium petrol.
Finally, I arrive into Madurai city and my all
evasive Premium petrol is finally available there.
BRAVO! I tank up to the brim and for the first
time the tank takes in its full quota of 20 liters.
So valuable lesson for travel in that particular
part of the country- Lots of fuel stations on
the highway, but no Premium petrol availability.
Once in madurai, our plan was to head to the Meenakshi
temple and take some pictures, but big bike touring
in India has its own challenges! We stopped in
a narrow street close to the Meenakshi temple
& we get mobbed by lot of people. So we move
onto the adjacent street and again same story.
Soon the narrow street is fully blocked and I
see a cop walking towards the ‘root’
of the traffic jam. Wondering how to leave the
bike unattended in one of the narrow streets,
I tell my wife to quickly take few pictures from
atop the bike itself and we move on before we
create more traffic jams in the congested streets
and thereby avoiding being booked by the cop.
Well, sometimes I wished we were less conspicuous!
Also
its hot & humid, so steering the heavy bike
in the narrow crowded streets with pedestrians
walking bang in the middle of the street doesn’t
make riding more fun.
Asking
for directions to head out of the city was also
hilarious as everybody wants to pitch in with
simpler directions and the video is self explanatory!!
Getting
directions left-right-left….!!!
We
navigate thru the congested Madurai traffic crossing
the Vaigai river which runs thru this ancient
city and head for the exit taking us onto NH45
that leads to Tiruchirapalli and then onwards
to Villipuram
On
the outskirts of town, we spot a nice restaurant,
Hotel Krishna Residency & settle in for a
nice Thali meal. From there we head on the same
smooth roads towards Trichi.
The
GS blazing its way on the Highway
The
GS continues to munch the miles with ease on the
4-lane highway towards Trichi & we are constantly
cruising at good speed as we have close to 600kms
to cover today.
I
like Tamil Nadu- They let bikes of all sizes &
engine capacity free on their Toll roads, but
just that they made the lane for we freebies very
narrow and didn’t anticipate a huge red GS
will be making its way thru that (did I say without
paying a toll!). So I have to carefully negotiate
it every time to avoid scratching my sideways
protruding cylinder heads or the even bigger side
cases. When we pass the gate, my wife was whispering
on the intercom, “hope they don’t change
their mind seeing such a big bike making use of
their nice highway”
Couple
of specialities found on the Indian highways:
Slow
moving vehicles are supposed to keep to the left
lane, but…..
Even
on divided highways, constantly watch out for
Idiots with a capital “I”…
A
friend commented on this - Thanks to the topcase,
your wife did not fly off….
We
take the Trichi bypass avoiding the city traffic,
and continue on the National highway we get light
drizzles and as I am in 2 minds to stop for putting
our rain gear, it starts pouring. We are fully
wet in matter of few seconds and hence I decide,
we as well carry on. Although the roads are wet,
with very little traffic, we are cruising at ‘comfortable’
speeds, while the rain is accompanying us on &
off all the way till Villipuram. Enroute, I also
get to unintentionally test my ABS brakes on wet
road as a dog suddenly pops out of the grass filled
road-divider. No drama whatsoever & the bike
slows down solidly. In that split second I saw
the terrified look on the dog’s face (my
own face would not have been much different as
well!), which had the presence of mind to jump
back onto the road-divider.
From
Villipuram we branch off to the right and head
into Pondicherri. Here it is dry and no rains,
but roads are not very good and there is some
traffic all along.
We
finally arrive at our hotel at 5:30pm. We have
covered 596 kms today and while there is no sign
of any fatigue either in the shoulders, back,
wrist etc and we are fine to easily go another
300-400 more kms, but both our butts are sour
with all the sweating!!
After
riding 600kms in a day, if you see a bed- this
is what you do….
We
shower up in warm water, give our bottoms some
much needed rest and then head towards the beach
in an autorikshaw (to avoid more attention to
our bike). Oh, did you know the fare meter in
all autos in Pondi are just for vanity, while
they have fixed rates to different places. We
have a nice dinner at a French sounding restaurant-
La Terrasse (they sell French & other cuisines
as well) and take a nice relaxing walk along the
well lit beach.
Sorry
the guy who took this pic was a lil ‘spirited’,
so we lost part of the restaurant board
Take
an autorickshaw(taxi trike) back to the hotel
and CRASH into bed for some well-deserved sleeeeeep.
