Chennai-Nagapattanam
Tuesday, November 15
Woke up by 6 am and saw a telugu newspaper under my door. Surprised to see inside a photo of me with my folks from the previous day in Nellore. Got ready and was down by the bike by 7 am. Hardly a surprise, no one else was there. Was wishing i had slept longer. It didn’t feel good to start the day feeling tired, as the body was getting more and more fatigued everyday. Soon Dinesh came down and slowly the others. We had planned on meeting with Navroze on the way out of town.
Our ride todaty was to have been from Chennai to Ramnathpuram, which we had figured to be around 400 km. We knew the road to Pondicherry (150 km ) was very good but were concerned about the road after that as that region was hit with some very heavy rains the past few weeks.
From Chennai onwards, Bhaskar (a riding buddy of Dinesh, from Bangalore) was going to join us in the ride. He had a very nice Honda CBR 1100 super bike. Barely 45km from our start, Bhaskar’s bike began to over heat. We pulled over and Joe opened it up and found that the coolant was leaking and it wouldn’t hold up. So after over an hour by the roadside, Bhaskar took the decision to abort his ride and get a van to come and pick up his bike to take back to Bangalore. Bummer, he had been planning this for a long time and was looking forward to doing this with us. Sorry man!
We had now decided to make it to Nagapattanam instead of Ramnathpuram for the night. We were still 100 km from Pondicherry and from there it was another 180 km to Nagapattanam. We figured on having an earlier start the next day to make up for the extra distance.
The road to Pondicherry was very good and the weather was was not as hot and muggy as it usually is in that area. We had intended to have breakfast in Pondi, instead we got there for lunch. I was familiar with the town as I go there every time I’m in India. So I led them to a restaurant called Satsanga, which served French and Italian cuisine. For those not familiar, Pondicherry was part of the French colony till the 60’s. There are lots of Europeans and Americans visiting that city for the Auroville ashram.I go there to buy old furniture.
Lunch was very gratifying and we headed further south along the coast. This entire area was hit very hard by the tsunami last year. So, as we were riding through, we could see the camp sites for the evacuated fishermen. The road was unexpectedly good for the next 100 km or so. Navroze and I ended up on a different road from the others as there were quite a few deviations in the towns. Over the phone we figured out that we were going off by another 25 km which didn’t seem so bad on that very picturesque road. So we opted to carry on and meet up in Nagapattanam. from there the road was winding through even smaller villages and the roads were also quite beat up in many areas due to the rains. One of the main bridges had collapsed in a town we needed to pass through and there was another 20 km diversion through rice fields and in the darkness of the night, we were wondering where the hell we were heading as we couldn’t see any lights anywhere. Finally we reached the hotel in Nagapattinam by 8 pm. Rahesh, Ameet and I decided to have an early dinner and catch up on sleep. I was so exhausted that i fell asleep by 10:30 pm without even getting out of riding clothes.
Technorati Tags: India Bike Trip
November 23rd, 2005 03:22
Dtd Nov 23rd, 2005
Dear Shri Navroze / Mr. Bari /Mr. Dinesh
“Congratulations to the three of you” who have been the first to successfully circumnavigate the country. I am sure that your spirits would be taking you to a new high similar to what was experienced by the great explorers.
Your feat could very well go down the list which has pioneers such as:
Robert Scott who was the first to reach the South Pole
Sir George Everest and Norgay Tenzing who were the first to scale Mount Everest
Yuri Gagarin the first man in space
Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon
and many others, though the numbers are still few.
I am sure that your adventure would have taught you many things and in the process make you more compassionate and understanding given the diverse and cultural variety that is India. Maybe, you could put your experiences and reflections together in the form of a book, which could then be serialized in magazines, newspapers. I have visited your website and must confess that envy got the better of me as I savoured the marvelous sites and the descriptions. This has set me thinking that may be I should get a motorbike. What’s your take? Now that you have qualified as an adventure professionals which bike do you think would be ideal? – A Harley Davidson or the rugged Enfield Bullet.
Our country has everything to offer for the young and old alike - we have snow covered peaks, deserts, sunny beaches, wildlife, history, architecture, romantic hideouts - you name it and India has it. But then, it is only through experiences such as yours that people would get to know how fascinating India is. This would also propel them to think of adventure trips which would make them better citizens of our country as against being a Tamilian, Telugu, Keralite, Kannadiga, Punjabi or Bengali, etc . So, the key here is sharing your experiences with the widest possible audience through all available avenues of information dissemination. Wish I had the time and energy to have joined you.
So welcome back to Bangalore. I am looking forward to meeting up with you sometime soon and hearing first hand some of your experiences.
You could even consider marketing your experience to the two-wheeler manufacturers. May be I shall give Rahul Bajaj a tinkle and invite him to visit your website. Don’ be surprised if the ad agencies come calling wanting all of you to model for their ads.
Have a great day, today and everyday!!
Cheers’’’’’’’’’’
Pavithra
February 6th, 2006 14:30
Me encantó tu blog, espero que entinedas español, porque entiendo inglés pero no se escribirlo bien
. Cool