Bangalore-Wynad-Coorg

Log of Bangalore-Wyanad-Coorg tripPretty long log guys…but I couldn’t help it..too manyincidents on this tripPlan: Grp 1 (Fiero F2 & Yezdi) leave on Friday morningand reach wyanad by evening and meet Grp 2(Pulsar 180& Fiero). Route: B'lore-Mysore-Gundlepet-Wyanad-total of 600kmsGoal: Paint the town red on Saturday and return bySunday night. Auyurvedic massage. Fish fry.and....get tannedWhat actually happened: Grp 1 felt, enroute, it wastoo early to reach wayanad and took a deviation toooty. Idea was to reach wyanad at late evening. Butdue to bad road condition at gudulor, could not makeit. Me in Grp 2. We left bangalore punctually 1.5hours late at 3pm (like our other biking trips). Tookmysore road. P180 had a minor crash with a jeep. Now,P180 rider is quite experienced long distance rider,but he was riding to near to jeep, jeep had suddenlybraked and P180's head light kissed the jeep( yuck!).P180's head lamp was pointing down too much. But notmuch of a problem. We carried on towards Gundlepet. AtGundlepet we got a call that the grp 2 will not becoming to wynad at night but they would be joining usin morning. We agreed, as it wouldn’t be safe to bikeat dead of night with girls on pillion. But Grp 2decided that we would reach wyanad whatever time itis. And that was a mistake.We entered the bandipur forest at 8pm. It waswonderful to bike in the night when it is a full moon.We were euphoric. We found 3 herds of elephants. Andwe had a incident in the second group which I willnever forget. A baby elephant found our bikinginteresting and started running along side us. We werequite amused by it. But the elder elephants did notfind it amusing. They started trumpeting and making ageneral fuss about the baby elephant. I never was somuch scared in my life. We ripped away from that placenot even looking at our mirrors. Pheeew…now that wasmore than half the distance. There is no way we canturn back. The third group of elephants was prettycalm herd. When I saw them ahead of me, it took me amoment to decide as to weather we have go through thegap between them. Any way as we approached them theygave side to our bikes. Boy that was great feeling...What came next was one horrible experience. We wereaware that bikes are not allowed inside the sanctuarybecause of the inherent danger. We were also one veryvery frightened bikers after the previous incident.While we were in the core of the forest we werestopped by a patrol bike(or they seemed to be). I sawthe guard and stopped, where as the P180 behind me sawthe guard and did not stop. Hence crashed directlyinto my Feiro. The gaurds just wanted to enquire aboutthe elephants in the vicinity. Grrrr… and they did noteven help us to tie our bags back on to the bike. Soin middle of the forest and middle of the night withanimal sounds around us we were straitening our bikes.P180 rider was so tensed up that he wanted to smokethen and there. I had to heed to his request. Itwasn’t a pretty sight, all I wanted to was to get outof that forest. The second crash also set right theP180’s head light. At least something good thing cameout of this ;-) . We reached Wynad without much ado.(as if so far was not enough). Saturday, I took theresponsilibty of getting the P180’s bike repaired asthe brakes; front mudguard and head lamp was damagedtoo much for comfort. (also b’cos I was the only malluof the grp). When I enquired there was only oneservice center in that town and they don’t accept thecredit cards…damn. I was standing outside the sparesshop and thinking about the 1600/- amount as we hadonly 1500/- totally (ya ya ….not carrying enough moneywas another dumb thing to do) then, voila, I saw money on two bikes….ooops I meant friends on two bikes(Grp 2) searching for our hotel. I quickly explainedthe situation and borrowed the cash from them. Havingdirected them to my hotel I started to get the bikerepaired. While I was directing the Grp 2 to our hotelwe found a bangalore bus just about to start off tobangalore from wynad. Yezdi pillion rider wasimmensely happy and immediately got of the yezdi angot on the bus. May be 435 kms on one day was too muchfor her to handle, also that she is a first timecoming on the long distance biking!!!By noon we were to set off to see wynad but thenchanged the plans and off we went to Coorg. Enroute wevisited Tirunelli temple, to say this was one of mostpeaceful temple is an understatement. This is inmiddle of forest and surrounded by green hills. Going to coorg thro the forest from Thirunelli templewas another adventure. We were already late anddarkness was fast approaching. Couple of foresttribals warned us on elephants returning from thewatering hole thro the roads. Not on very keen to meetthe pachyderms we started to hurry to coorg. Asmisfortune has it, another tribal group gave us wrongdirections. After riding some 25 kms we reached theEND OF THE ROAD!!! The road just tapered to some dryland…which looked like a dry river bed. Since we couldnot see much. We asked the next soul which passed byfor road to Kutta (Karnataka/Kerala border) hementioned that the present road was washed off due tofloods but if we follow the same line we could findthe remaining part of the road. Now this is happeningsomething like 8pm. Boy…we were having incidents afterincidents. Now this is the last straw. Our bums werebeyond sensation on that bumpy road. All we wantedwas just to fall down flat and sleep to glory. Butanyways, we found the road and continued to kutta.Another bad luck, all lodges and resorts in Kutta wasfull. No other option, but to go all the way toGonikoppa, coorg. After 2 hours of drive in dead ofnight, in heavy down pour, shivering and hungry wemanaged to get two room after a lot of searching.Yezdi rider managed to get some bananas to munch on.Every one slept like logs. Sunday morning, we toured around Coorg and left tobangalore. With out any incidents thankfully(otherthan eating a lot of sweet mangoes near hunsurvillage). Reached bangalore at 7pm.I still have to get some of the sensation back to mybums..and I find it hard to sit on the loo……….waaaaahh!!!But this was the trip to remember.