Kaustubh's blog: A whirlwind tour of South India

We were on our way to Thekkady and onwards to Allepey. All this time, I have not mentioned my riding experience. For the last 5 or 6 years, I am used to driving a car and riding the bike was not at all easy. But on day 5, I felt that I had found new confidence in riding and I was able to keep pace with Rohit comfortably. Rather at places, I was taking the lead as well. So much so that Rohit stopped me and asked me to be careful. Anyways, I had found my bearings and we were on our way to Thekkady.
The road or rather most of it is downhill. After travelling some distance, I realized that the ghat was getting dangerous and it was getting difficult for me to stop in time. My front brakes had to be adjusted (I don’t have disc brakes). We stopped and decided to adjust the brakes, but hey, how the heck do you adjust the twin caliper brakes? I didn’t know it and I did not want to take a chance. So I readjusted the rear brakes and our progress was slow then onwards. At one time, Rohit was in front, behind him was a Scorpio and I was behind the car. I saw Rohit apply brakes hard and lose the bike’s rear end. But he was able to correct himself and did not fall. Here the credit is due to the bike. She refuses to lose grip or trip over whatever you do. But then another funny thing happened. After applying the brakes, Rohit was standing still in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. The Scorpio just missed him, the driver cursed and went away. I had heard something fall off the bike but didn’t know what. I checked the brake of his bike and it wouldn’t return. The lever was down and stuck. I took a spanner and hit hard at the brake caliper. It went back. Rohi’s bike’s rear brakes had worn off completely. If he applied the brakes, they would get stuck. From then on, the progress was even slower. We reached Thekkady and found that the boat ride at the Periyar wild-life reserve would take 2 hours. We didn’t have time to spend. So we decided to carry on to Alleppey.
During one of the “status calls” with my father, he said there was a boat ride which would take us all the way to Alleppey and it originated somewhere near Thekkady. The ferry would also take our bikes he said. We enquired and found that it was at Kottayam and not Thekkady. All the anticipation and excitement we had about the boat ride evaporated. We thought we would try and make Kottayam and take the ferry for the remaining distance since our bike brakes were not in good shape.
After some distance, we stopped at a coffee shop. We asked for 2 coffee’s and the owner promptly said “No coffee dispensing machine sar”. I said WTF. Do we really look like those “phoren tourists” and all?
I said, “get us some nice homemade filter coffee”. We had 2 cups each. Now we ride on towards Kottayam.
At one small town (don’t remember the name) on the way, we found a junction and the board read, take right, 20 Kms Kottayam and head straight for Changanacheri. In that town, we asked lots of people about the ferry and the bikes and no one knew either Hindi or English. Finally we found 1 person who understood Hindi and he said there is no such ferry that could accommodate our bikes. Only people could go. If we took that chance, it would be a gamble of 40 Kms both ways. Heck, time was not on our side. We decided we would ride all the way to Alleppey.
We reached Alleppey by 5 in the evening, reached “Finishing Point” and called up Binoy. He said, we would come and pick us up. Rohit said, you cannot miss us. We are 2 goons on 2 Thunderbirds. When he realized that we had come on Royal Enfields, he promptly arrived there with his friend Mr. VijayKumar riding a Royal Enfield Bullet, metallic blue and chrome all over and boy the sound of it was nice. It was a very well maintained bike.
Alleppey is known as the “Venice of the East”? I didn’t know that. But we could see boats sailing through canals actually parallel to some of the city’s main roads. There were ferries large and small, boats carrying construction material etc. At “finishing point” there were large houseboats and speedboats. We realized that Kerala also has “Tourism Police”. When we were waiting for Binoy to pick us up, there were some local guys asking us whether we needed houseboats. Immediately one of the “Tourism Police” officer came towards us and enquired whether we were OK and whether anyone was causing trouble. How nice.
They were all praise for us because we had come all the way from Pune. Binoy said he knew people who flew down from Israel and rode back on RE Bullets. That was amazing. We would do that sometime, in our next life. Meanwhile, we had 2 tasks at hand. Check into the hotel and fix our bikes. Binoy said, someone from the hotel would come over to pick us up and we get our bikes fixed by that time. Mr. VijayKumar opted to show us to a garage. He stood by us while our bikes were attended to and also took us to various spare part shops to get brake liners etc. He himself was a bike freak. He was happy to help us. My bike just needed the front brake tightening. But when the mechanic opened Rohit’s bike rear wheel, he said how the heck did we travel so long? One of the rear brake show had FALLEN OFF. I said that’s not practically possible. How would a brake shoe fall off? He said it has. Then I remembered the noise I had heard of something falling when the brakes got jammed. Tell me guys. Would you believe it? I did not. However it had happened. The bikes got fixed and we went back to Shri Krishna Ayurvedic Centre. There a young boy named “Jain” had come to show us the way. He requested us to pick up whatever we wanted from the city since there are no shops nearby the hotel. We bought some cigarettes and continued.
Up until now, we felt like we had “been there done that” with all kinds of roads. Open highways, ghats, bad roads, dirt roads, bus drivers and buses and what not. We rode back 8-9 Kms towards Changanacheri and we had to take a right at a T junction. There were no sign boards. We had put our trust on an unknown boy who was taking us through some village towards god knows what place. We still carried on. After the village there was an over-bridge on top of a canal and no street lights. There was just darkness enveloping us and by the looks of the road and whatever stretch our bike lights lit up to the left and right, we were going through a vast expanse of paddy fields. Loads on insects were attracted towards the bike lights and we were having trouble keeping our eyes open. We travelled some 3 Kms on the tar road and at one point we came to a dead end. Another bridge, this one narrower and no road after the bridge in sight. We crossed the bridge and Jain asked us to take a right turn on to a dirt road. This road was even narrower. There was just space for 1 bike. There were paddy fields to the left and backwaters to the right. I was doomed if someone came from the opposite side. At one point, there was a small “water pump room” constructed on the way and the road got narrower. No maneuvering space to the left, stones below to throw me off balance and no space to touch my foot down on the right. Just the bike would pass through. Jain got off immediately. I looked to the right and could see the water some 5 feet below. In Hindi they say “MERI TO FUT GAYI”. I thought I couldn’t do this. Not possible. Rohit was waiting behind me.
Somehow I made up my mind, recollected all my “dum” and moved on. I was sent off balance by a small rounded stone and shouted out some bad words. Somehow, my right leg got a grip, I released the clutch and twisted the accelerator violently. The bike moved forward. The road now narrowed further and we had to take a 90 degree right turn. By this time, I was so pissed off at myself for no reason. I was actually enjoying it and with the adrenaline rush, my hands had started shaking. I don’t remember why I was pissed off.
We parked our bikes in someone’s backyard and we could see the “Riverine” resort from there. We walked on loose sand for 100 meters and were greeted by the owner. The resort in itself was very beautiful with paddy fields to the back and backwaters on the front. I mean, the resort was on a small island. Houseboats were parked right by the jetty and everything was so silent and peaceful. We took a nice Kerala full body massage which was so much needed.
During the massage, they apply some nice smelling oil to the whole body while we are sleeping on a wooden table of sorts. The oil was so much that I started slipping off the table a couple of times. The massage is actually a kind of rub-down and is very very relaxing. After the massage we had a couple of beers, appams and curry and some rice. We had a sound sleep. The next day we would reach our destination Kanyakumari.
Hotel T&U on the way to Thekkady: