Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Day 169 - Aug 24 - Ernakulam to kanyaKumari

Aug24 at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail: Share and Plan your Trips

303 KMs Trip meter 24427 KMs

Spent till late in the night the previous day working on the logs. Well as every day i break the promise made to myself to starting early in the morning. Takes 5-6 snoozes to get me out of the bed. And i cannot leave by 7 am i said at the reception. Boy did the manager nasty regarding this! Ofcourse gave my peace of mind as well. Any way atleast this makes me alert waking me from my sleep morning mood. Ride to the NH 47 and stop at a restaurant for breakfast. Have just Idly as i dont like coconut oil which they use virtually every thing. Boy were the idlis good. Start riding looking at the Sign boards to KanyaKumari and gets me even more eager to get there. Ernakula is very well developed modern city. Was surprised to see show rooms of WolksWagon, BMD and even Audi showroom beside the road near to each other! 300 kms to K'Kumari says the boards and with not a very high avg speed forcasted for the day should get me there by 5 5.30 i guess.

Takes me nearly 2 hours to make to Allepy. Its quite crowded city and busy with traffic. As i have seen every inch of land is occupied and there is hardly any bypass for any city so far and the entire NH traffic have to squeeze through the city traffic. Get to a back water bridge and see boards saying boat jetti 2 kms! Thought atleast lemme check out the boat jetty before continuing. The road is a bit peaceful and i get to the boat jetty. Stop for clicking a few boats in the back water canal. See a pretty looking Shikara kinda boat and get close to click it. The boat owner approaches me boat ride and politely convinces me for one. Well i got tempted. Felt tired from the lack of sleep from last night and body was hurting. Could use some relaxation. Bike was parked at a hotel and stuff carried to the boat. Booked for a couple of hours ride and cant believe i am doing this. This quite a detour in time schedule. I was told its 6 hours by taxi to kanyakumari. But i am slower though. But thats later to worry about.

Get on to the boat and the weather was pleasant with cool breeze and mild sunlight escaping between the clouds. Soon get on to bit open space and see many house boats parked. They were big and unlike the house boats in srinagar these actually sail around. They come in all sizes and varies in laxuary. some have plasma TV and AC as well! Heard its like 4k for 24 sail! That must be nice experience. Get call from santoosh and we exchange our adventures of the previous day. He seemed to have had a good and tough ride, riding in remote parts through the villages before getting back to bangalore. The boat ride was feeling great and relaxing. Din knew when one hour passed and have to get back. The boat man takes a different route through the canal and kinda gets me worried thinking if there is something fishy. Keep checking my fone's gps tracker to see if we are heading towards where we started. Well i got worked up unnecessarily as there was lot of network in canals and we soo get on to the direction where we started. Pass by many houses just in front of the back water and the ppl in them need boats to get around. Soon it was over and i get off the boat and on to my bike. Really tempted to stay there for the day and just relax. But since i had planned for a day at K'Kumari decided to push ahead.

Then on its was continuous traffic ride. Getting scares and doing my own share of ripping in traffic. There are just few short stretches of roads with sparse traffic. It was kinda becoming labour of riding. Ride almost continuously so that i could avoid night riding in the night. No HID and rain would be bad. Cos every minute i rest means 1.5 5o 2 mins of ride in the dark. It was mix of roads alternating between straights and curves. Thought of skipping a meal. But me got very hungry and when you gotta eat you gotta eat. There was promising boards of Subways ahead but the distance was misleading. one said one kms and next one said 4 and the next one again 1! Found a regular hotel instead and had the big big kerala rice and was served with lot of types of curries and sambar. Unlike popular non-keralaits opinion, i actually liked the big big rice :) This was near Trivandrum. Luckily there was bypass for Trivandrum and i gladly take it. Now the roads narrower as i guess the big cities in the line up are over. Its undulating roads, curves and narrow roads passing through rows and rows houses next to each other on either side of the road.

Things change a bit there are continuous smaller towns with lot of slow traffic on the road, and places seem comparatively not so vella. The traffic is normal and slow for me and i have to maneuver around. Did feel the difference in the road and before i realized i was already in TN state looking at the number plates of the vehicles and uniform of the traffic cops. Kanyakumari is still a 40 kms when it starts to get dark. And i am not gonna be able to ride any faster than before. Slowly and steadily i make it to Nagarcoil and once of the city the traffic lessens and the road heads to kanyakumari. There are lot of deviations. Tired of asking aroud, i kinda memorize the name for Kanyakumari in Tamil, graphically. This makes it easy for me to read the boards written in Tamil. Its dark now some 20 kms to kanyakumari and the lights starting my eyes. Seems like i lost my night riding abilities! Just a follow a tempo doing good speeds and i see sign boards reducing the distance to Kanyakumari and i am finally there by 7.15 pm. Get call by arun and SMS by prem congratulating me even before i got to the tip. They were tracking my by my blog link. Am in the town and instead of looking out for rooms i head straight to the end of the road.

And i am there at the southern tip of india. Had not come here before though its close to bangalore and now that i come from kashmir it feels all the more special and rewarding. Managed a couple of pix of my bike at the tip with my flashless cam. Cant believe i rode Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Found a pretty good hotel near by and tad expensive but great bargain for an offseson price. So took it as this was my last major stop and wanted comfortable ones. Great view of the sea around. Dump stuff into the room and walk to the beach. Was hungry by now but din wanna waste time and had some yummy chats by the beach. The Vikananda rock memorial and huge Thiruvalvar statue was lit by lights and the structures were looking great in the night sky. walked till the end on the beach just a bit behind water and sat there for quite a while soaking in the moment. The weather was very pleasant. Was just staring at the huge waves pounding away on the rocks. Never seen such huge waves so far as after all these are from the occean, the Indian ocean!

Its gets cold and the winds gets stronger and that gets me going and i settle in my cozy room for the night. Work a bit late on the logs and crash for the day.

Wet morning streets of Ernakulam.


Kanyakumari here i come...


Have breakfast here...


Ride on the Ernakulam streets...


It looks like a metro city...





Do i see a BMW show room? din know they had outlet in india!





I passed a Wolks wogan showroom and now an Audi showroom! One of the 10 in india...


That A6 is 53 Lakhs onroad!!


More A6s there


Loook look one of the A6 has Zma sticker on its side !


Backwaters wide and plenty..


A fisherman going about his business...


On the banks of Backwaters!!


Checkout a Allepy backwater...


Pretty looking boat, kinda motorized shikara...


Other boats in the dock...


What do you know i end up taking a ride in the same boat!





The cheerful boatman Raju..


Some standup sailers...


Me enjoying the boat ride...


Sail on...


House boats spotted!!


More of them...


Plenty of them...


Now this was a big one!





Floating weeds...


Ac on the house boat...


House boats sail into the open..








There are milestone boards on the water's edge for the backwater highway!!








Lot of traffic in the backwater canals and they even have vehicles like horns!


House by the water, they need a boat to get around...


My boat sails on...


A komarant drying its wings...


A horizontal coconut tree!


My gear on the empty seat...


Never see so many cocks together!


Resorts with houseboats...


A long snake boat of the onam boat races. 100 plus ppl sail on it...


Another komarant resting on a log...


Temple which you need a boat to visit...


Getting back to where we started...


Backwater highway has petrol bunks too!


The free traffic streches of highway...


This happens in Kerala too!


A Taj Mahal like building, not sure what it was...


Quite a traffic jam. I got off the road to wear rain gear and there was sunlight all of a sudden...


More back waters...


Long jam for KMs cos a truck had broke down on the highway...


Yeah right!


Quite a distraction i must say...


These empty streches were a laxuary and rare...


Yes i was strictly doin 40kmph avg speeds...


Din know they had a restaurant division in india...


Roads get smaller after Trivandrum


Ride in this and more traffic for hours together


Enter Tn and see the shouthern tip of Western ghats...


Four type of plantations next to each other...


I see mountains again...


Almost there...


Deal with the traffic in Nagarcoil...


I am there!


The Kanyakumari Arch...


Bike at the southern tip of india...


Biking looking at Thiruvalvar statue...


Shops there...


The Thiruvalvar statue lit up in night...


Sea view benches at the south tip of india...


The powerful waves on the beach...


Long exposure shot by gone crazy!


The Empty streets leading to the beach, in late night...

2 comments:

farhan said...

great trip bro...
which bike did u use..??

Praveen said...

Thanks farhan. I used Karizma!