After one month of extensive planning, finally the day had come. It was the evening of 13-Jan-2012. Everybody were full of zeal for the morning ride. Destination SriSailam!! Confirmed riders for the next day was me, Bharath,Canute and Nithin. Aditya was tentative for the ride. Let me stop here and make a brief introduction of our "Riding Souls" before I confuse you with the names:)
Arun Kumar: Least experienced in riding, Works in Oracle and hails from Mangalore, Karnataka. Rides Pulsar 150
Nithin came around at 6 to our flat and we three were already there gathering things for the great ride. Once nithin came, we went to fetch out Canute's bike which he had given for service as his bike's disc brake was almost on the edge of breaking down. He wasn't ready to compromise on riding his bike in that condition, searched all over Hyderabad for the disc plates and finally got one. Service center guy asked him to come at 7 and we went off to collect his bike. Along with the bike, we also brought one first aid kit and ready mix idly for the morning breakfast. Below are the checklists prepared by Canute for the ride.
Checks before the ride:
• Petrol full tank
• Air pressure check
• Bike Service and wash
• Some cash in hand
Things we carried:
• First Aid Kit
• Water
• Rope
• Swiss knife
• Biscuits and snacks
• Pair of extra cloths
• Breakfast(Idly and chutney)
• Kerosene
Riding Gear:
• Helmet
• Jeans
• Knee and Elbow guard
• Gloves
• jacket
Canute D'Souza: You can call him Master of the group, who plans all the rides and takes extra care that everybody follows all safety rules. Works in TCS and From Mangalore,Karnataka. Rides Pulsar 200
Bharath Ramaswamy : Experienced rider of our group, Doing his MTech project in GE, hails from Bangalore, Karnataka. Rides CB Unicorn
Nithin Prasad: Silent rider of our group, Works in Wipro and hails from Mangalore, Karnataka. Rides Yamaha FZ
Aditya Patel: Only pilion rider of the group, Works in TCS and hails from Bhubaneswar, Orissa.
Nithin came around at 6 to our flat and we three were already there gathering things for the great ride. Once nithin came, we went to fetch out Canute's bike which he had given for service as his bike's disc brake was almost on the edge of breaking down. He wasn't ready to compromise on riding his bike in that condition, searched all over Hyderabad for the disc plates and finally got one. Service center guy asked him to come at 7 and we went off to collect his bike. Along with the bike, we also brought one first aid kit and ready mix idly for the morning breakfast. Below are the checklists prepared by Canute for the ride.
Checks before the ride:
• Petrol full tank
• Air pressure check
• Bike Service and wash
• Some cash in hand
Things we carried:
• First Aid Kit
• Water
• Rope
• Swiss knife
• Biscuits and snacks
• Pair of extra cloths
• Breakfast(Idly and chutney)
• Kerosene
Riding Gear:
• Helmet
• Jeans
• Knee and Elbow guard
• Gloves
• jacket
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| Things we took along... |
We planned to sleep at 8 so that we all can wake up early at 3.30 and start the ride. That was the plan ,but when we got all the things sorted out at the room it was almost 8. Then we had to prepare and pack all the things which we needed to carry. I went on to prepare Idly and Chutney while canute arranged all the things which required to carry for the ride. Bharath helped me with the kitchen stuff and then I got a call from Aditya asking how our preparations were going on. I could feel the interest in his voice to join the ride, asked him to get his jacket, a pair of dress and join us as soon as possible. Nithin and Aditya stay in seperate flats so plan was to they come home in the night and start altogether in the morning.
Once the idly and chutney was ready , Canute packed it in a hot box and put inside a bag along with the rest of the carrying things like rug, bed sheet and other things and we both tied the bag to his bike. As we knew that it would be late packing everything, we also brought Chicken Biryani parcel from the HiLand hotel which is our fav place for chicken biryani. One thing you cannot hate in Hyderabad is Chicken Biryani!!
Aditya joined at around 10 and we all had biryani together. And it was 11.00 when we went to bed. Sham is another roommate of ours but he missed the ride because he met with a small accident 2 weeks before and broke his ankle. We planned to wake up at 2.30 and sham said he will wake everybody up as he was going to sleep late. Dreaming about the big day awaiting for us , we went on to sleep although we knew it was just going to be a small nap of 3.5hrs :P . Remembered our childhood days how we used to wait till the morning without sleep if there was a picnic planned from the school :)
I am not sure who woke up first and when i woke up, bharath already finished his bath and there was no water left for others.. I was quiet happy as i have taken bath already in the night and it was cold in the morning, i got a good reason to skip it :) I was also thinking that we are going to falls anyway first so why take a bath :)
It was a great feeling when we started gearing up for the ride. It was like wearing armors for the War!! Although Canute was the only one guy who equipped with all the riding gears we adjusted from the things we already had. Canute had one extra pair of elbow gaurd which Nithin took, and I took his jacket and thermals as my android read a chilling 14 degree Celsius!!. With a starting photo session by roomie sham we Fired our Machines and began the Kickass ride :)
Aditya was the only pilion rider so he decided to carry the camera. As always posing with big thumb expression we started off for the big ride exactly at 3.45AM with just 15 min delay from the actual plan. First destination was to stop at MehdiPatnam flyover once and then go along. As I and my blacky(My Pulsar 150) had got criticised by my roommates for low pickup and less speed, I had given to service for the second time in that month and asked him specifically to tune the torque. I did not get a chance to test that though and it was my day to prove it to them. I took lead as agreed and it was a great start. It was clean road with chilling weather. Aditya was sitting behind me. My bike was almost all the way till mehdipatnam at 80-90kmph. Fully satisfied that i do not have to listen anymore criticism this time. And my blacky kept that hope high always all the way till the end of the ride!!
But with that speed I lost direction and without taking left at mehdipatnam went straight ahead. Called canute and came back joined on the ride in 5 min and from there on it was cool ride till the airport without any hustle. We had the hand signal (rotating up in the air) tought by Canute with many other signals, to rotate the leading positions along the way. The leading rider will give signal after leading for some 2 to 3 km and then next guy will take over. Previously leading guy will fall back and take the last position and it will happen on rotation basis for every 2 to 3 kms. So that nobody will be left behind during the ride. There were stop signal to stop the bike, slow signal when the guy leading sees a road blockers, follow me signal and some more.. :)
A problem started when we reached almost near airport and I had to stop everybody. Everybody were wearing hand gloves except me (I was not feeling so comfortable with the gloves ON , so had decided to ride without it.) But i had no idea what the cold weather can do. My hands were freezing and although I tried neglecting it for some time later I started to feel as if my hand was being pierced with needles, And sometimes i was not feeling my hand at all. There was no way we could find a shop where we can buy any gloves in the early morning at 4 and that too on the airport road. After listening some blames from canute who always suggested to buy gloves, Aditya took 2 hand karcheifs and tied it around my hands. Although it dint do the job of gloves, it was little comforting. After some 30 kms canute stopped everybody realising my situation. We took bikes side of the road with our indicators ON. I tried to warm my hands by pressing my hands on the silencer cover of my bike. After rubbing my hands for a while i was good to go. We decided to stop at the next tea point and it would be good for my hands as well as for our belly's ;)
Roughly after 20 KM we found a tea stall run by a middle aged couple open beside the road. Mostly truck drivers are the usual customers so early in the morning. It was 5.41AM ,dark outside and we have already crossed 72 Kms. Pretty good start with some minor hiccups. Aditya was also keeping a notepad and pen and taking note of time and km reading every time we stop. We planned to note all the things and generate a stats at the end of the ride so that we can analyze how did the ride go. Tea was so tasty and almost all had 2 rounds of tea. We would never know whether the tea was tasty or the freezing weather made it so.. Unexpected customers for the tea shop couple :). I was again there warming up my hands on the tea kettle in which the lady was preparing the tea :)
Roads were amazing without any potholes, nice and curvy. I always liked curvy roads so does Nithin. He likes it because he can bend his FZ ;) and the roads were looking so great with reflectors on at every curve. Roads do lack some signs at places but altogether it was great road all the way till Srisailam. It was still dark when we started off after having tea but slowly sky was lightening up. We stopped at the road side at 6.20 after riding for another 20 to 30km to take a leak. Although it was little dark when we stopped the day brightened within 10 min. Suryadeva was yet to give his darshan. After some couple of snaps we ate biscuits which we carried along and hit the road again hoping to stop just before the sunrise.
Within some 10 min we saw the Sun rise with crimson red colour. Bharath had no clue to stop and Canute had to go past him to show the stop signal , we dint miss the sunrise though. We had a nice view from the place we stopped and took some memorable snaps along with the rising sun. One of the greatest pic of Canute clicked here and got the highest likes in his FB among all his previous photos :)
Time 6.54 AM and distance covered is 107KM.. We still had a long way to go.. Srisailam is 270 km far and we still weren't halfway through it. We hit the road again and rode continuously for an hour. Ride was smooth all the way from there. Roads were soaked with dew and were glittering in the rising sun. With the cool breeze it was a heavenly ride and we stopped after exactly one hour near a small dam near Dindi which is constructed right beside the road. Relaxed for a bit with many photos taken and weather was getting little warmer. Time 8.02am and distance 146km.
My bike almost slipped because of the sand beside the road when we started off and thats the only scary thing that happened till the end of the ride. After half an hour of ride we stopped at the starting point of ghat section which is also a reserved forest.
Took some snaps and after taking some precaution points from Canute we started riding on the ghat road. I and Nithin were the happy guys as we liked to ride in curvy roads than the straight one's. Roads were dangerous too sometimes because of the oncoming trucks and buses. Stopped at a big sign board indicating largest reserved forest for tigers in India. It also said tigers indicate health of the Eco system.
First destination we planned was Mallelatheertham falls and we had to ride almost some 9km's on the mudroad to reach there. We virtually bathed in dust when we reached the falls. Thankfully all were wearing jacket and helmet so it dint matter but our bikes lost shining because of the dust. I kept my speed just on 40 to avoid slipping anywhere. Others were running fast but they all agreed that it was very slippery. I heard it would be hell riding through that road during the monsoon. Weather was getting warmer. Before going to the dam we thought of having food and its 10 am already. 205km.
Parked our bikes below one small tree and had nice idly and chutney there by spreading bed sheets on the ground which we took along. It was a perfect picnic moment for us :) We ran short of chutney but still there were no idly left over.. Thanks to Bharath ;)
From the place we parked our vehicle we had to make a descent of 100 steps to reach the falls. Falls was clearly visible from the top but we couldn't see any water. Feeling heartbroken , we were in dilemma that whether to climb down to see the falls which doesn't have "water" or return back.. Then we heard some faint sound of water splashing and decided to test our luck by climbing down. Falls had only teeny bit of water running down,but it was worth more than what we imagined. It was fully surrounded by dense forest and that reminded us some of the places of Africa which they show in Discovery channel!! It was one of the best part of our ride. We were the first to reach the falls and nobody else was there. I and nithin were the first to get under the water fall. Weather was very cool near the falls and water was almost upto freezing point . Surrounded by green sanctuary of trees ,no pollution, cold crystal clear water falling on us..The Glory of Mother Nature...It was amazing. Bharath tried to come under the water but ran away when he couldn't tolerate the coldness. Canute got busy taking pics of nature's beauty while I and Nithin enjoyed under the water. Aditya was just enjoying our madness and waiting near our belongings.
Canute got another crazy idea(he is famous for that) of climbing the forest and take round against the fall and go up. Aditya was the first one to oppose the idea as he was the one who already got tired by sitting behind the bike and he knew that his body won't support such adventures :). First we thought it would be good idea but we just started our rides. So we weren't ready to get tired in our first destination itself and we had another 80km more to ride. Everybody later realised that it was the best decision that we dint go for what canute said because all were tired as hell when we climbed up of those steps back to our bikes :)
Time 11.55am.. Back to mud road for 10 min and then to main road... It was all curvy road once again.. More dangerous than the previous roads.. We rode for another 45 min.. And finally we reached the great SriSailam Dam. That is the center of attraction in SriSailam for non religious people :P. Actual temple is almost 15 km ahead of it. When we stopped at the Dam view point everybody where staring at us. It wasn't usual for them to see 5 dudes in 4 bikes with all the riding gears :) Of course we enjoyed the attention for a moment but in another moment all got lost for the beauty of the place.. Dam was almost filled with water and from the place we stopped we could see both side of the dam. Took many pics there and rested for a while eating cone ice creams. Although it was bright noon we dint feel the heat as we were riding all the way. Canute's camera battery got dried off and i had to take some pics from my mobile.
Started again and stopped after some 4 to 5 kms when we found a decent looking lodge. As it was the day of Sankranthi we guessed that we may not get a lodge near the temple. Just checked the availablity of the room at the lodge so that if we dint get any room near the temple we would come back. We reached the temple around 1.30pm and as expected all the rooms were full. We took a turn and came back to the old lodge. Luckily there was one room left when we came back and we all 5 agreed to fit in one room. Rent wasn't much. Just 800 bucks. But with one condition that we had to leave by early morning at 7am. We accepted as anyway we have planned to leave early to temple in the morning.
Room was pretty good than what we expected, with three cots in the room,LCD TV, neat and clean toilets. Room boy gave one more bed which we put on the floor. Aditya took bath and we all just washed our faces and went down to have food. It was almost 2.30 and we were all starving for food. Meals 60 rupees. Unlimited rice and curry. What more you want.. Had stomachfull of meals along with the curd and sugar :) and whats the best you can do after having such a heavy meal? I just remember coming back to room and seeing the bed and some fade moment of jumping into bed :)
It was almost 6 when Canute woke everybody up. Then I came to know that Canute was the only one who dint sleep and was roaming here and there eating chips and drinking tea :). Everybody got up and hit the road riding off to dam to see the sunset from the dam. But it was late and we missed the sunset. It was almost getting dark when we reached the viewpoint. Dam was beautiful from the viewpoint with lightings ON.
We tried to get on to the dam by asking officials there but they strictly said they wont allow after 5pm even after we tried to bribe him :) . Whining our luck we sat beside the road near the dam and started eating Churumuri :). As there weren't any new places to see for the day, we spent our time chatting there for a while planning for the next day. After some time we rode back to lodge. It was just 8 by then. I wanted to take walk and asked everybody to come. Canute was having sleepy eyes as he did not sleep in the noon agreed to come for the walk. We strolled on the rode for a while for some 10 min and Canute was very keen to go back as he was already feeling sleepy. Although it was early, we went to have dinner in the same canteen which is at the ground floor of our lodge. We thought of taking some other items instead of taking the same meal but changed our mind back to meals again thinking about the long ride back home next day. All the curries were exactly same as of the noon and Owner didn't hesitate to agree that its left over from the noon :) Ordered one chicken curry which was shared by me,Canute and Nithin. Went back to the room and Canute was the first one to sleep. We all took bath and slid into a deep sleep because of the day's tiredness.
It was Canute again to wake up first and woke everybody up at around 6.00am. Everybody got freshened up and exactly at 6.55am we were out of the room. Thanks to Canute who is very punctual in his plans and its executions. We requested the Lodge owner to keep all our bags and riding gears at the lodge so that we collect it when we return. So to the temple we went without any riding gears except the helmet. Reached temple within some 10-15 min. Bharath, Aditya and Nithin went inside the temple while me and Canute had breakfast and roamed around taking pics. We heard that laddu prasadam is famous there so we went to buy some for us. We rejoined everybody there and came back to the canteen so that others will have their breakfast.
Next destination was Akkamahadevi Caves which is around one hour journey in boat from the temple. We parked our vehicle beside the ticket counter and went to buy the tickets to Caves. There was a roapway from the temple to the boat for which the ticket price is 50rupees. And to Akkamahadevi caves it was 230 bucks per person which covers roapway too. But unfortunately all the tickets to the Caves were already booked and no tickets left for the day. Everybody felt bad for a moment but there was some hope left when Canute said there might be private boats from the shore. Keeping our fingers crossed we took ticket for the roapway and went down in it. That wasn't our unlucky day. There was one private boat waiting for us :) Charged 200 per head and we jumped into the boat with full of spirit. After some 10 min he started the boat and thankfully it was not as crowdy as my earlier boat rides. Boat ride is almost for 1 hour but you will never know how the time passes if you are a true nature lover. Beautiful scenes on the both sides all along the way and i clicked as many as photos i could. Exactly after one hour we reached the caves and the boat guy instructed us to return back within one hour.
You just need to walk few meters for the cave and there weren't much people. There is a Akkamahadevi statue outside of the cave and Shivalinga inside of it. We took some snaps there waited for the people who already went inside to come out as there is only a narrow passage to go inside. According to Wikipedia
Finally our turn came and we went inside. Its full dark inside and canute switched on his mobile light but still its barely visible inside. I tried to take pic with flash but amazed to know that nothing was visible on the photo other than full of dots . When i was wondering about the dots ,somebody told me that the air was full of dust . It was very hot and suffocating with many people inside the cave. There was one Sanyasi sitting at one side showing light to the people who go to see the Shivalinga. Somebody said he is been there since many years now!!.
Till the halfway inside cave we can go in groups but from there to the Shivalinga its only one person way. One by one we need to go and see the god and come back. We could not walk in that passage but had to crouch and go. we somehow managed but it was Canute who struggled because of his 6 feet 3 inch height!! Somehow we got out of it and climbed up above the cave where there was another small temple. Rested for a while then we headed back to the boat as it was getting late. We were the last to board the boat and started to Srisailam temple from where we came.
One advantage of me boarding last that i got the front seat in the boat and a nice scenery to enjoy myself. It was more than one hour in the same boat with the same people and everybody were familiarizing with others. Three kids started playing with canute's camera and my mobile and there was a baby whose mom and dad were nice enough to let me hold the baby when it was grabbing my arms :). Except me all others were sitting at the back side of the boat and some took little nap too :). I was enjoying the only song which i played during the entire ride which i heard in a movie ' The Real Steel' recently. Song name is "All my Days" by Alexi Murdoch. Do not know how but i was feeling inside me that the song just made for our rides :)
Finally we made into the shore exactly after one hour and we are all so eager to get back to our rides. Ate some nice Churumuri there and then went on to stand in a queue for roapway which takes us to the temple. There were so many people waiting in the queue and we were sure that it would take another half an hour more waiting there. We had a choice there. Either climb up through steps or wait in the queue for roapway. I suggested to take steps rather than waiting in the crowd and we came out of the queue. Took one 2 litre bottle while Aditya argued why so big bottle? We asked the shopkeeper how many steps to the temple.. He said 700!!! :) There was no way we are going back again to roapway, asked Aditya to keep quiet and not to tell others about the no of steps. Like no big deal everybody started to climb up the steps and got tired within some 20 to 30 steps...!! When we reached the top everybody where scolding the each other for giving the idea of going by steps. I kept silent :) Water bottle emptied even before we reached the top and as per our guess Aditya might have lost some 2kg weight there!!!
We barged into the first hotel we saw and took one nice meal of 50 rupees each. Bharath suggested to go back to the same lodge for lunch where we had our previous day lunch and dinner, but everybody else blasted him off!! Finished lunch with ice cream for dessert and started our ride back to lodge where we have kept our riding gears and bags. Time 3.05pm. Km reading :290.7km
Canute fueled his bike there near the temple and we all reached the lodge in 20 minutes. Everybody put on their riding gears with jackets and helmets and tied the luggage bag to Canute's bike. It was exactly 4.05 pm when we hit the road planning to stop for first viewpoint near the dam. We took some couple of snaps but didn't spend much of the time as we had to cover maximum possible distance before dark as it would be a real difficult and dangerous to ride in the night.
We also decided not to miss the sunset as we have already missed the previous days one. We hit the road with full speed now almost going in 80 to 90 kms and sometimes touching to 100 too... I asked Aditya to sit behind Bharath for a while to test my bike's pickup without pilion behind me. But there wasnt much difference i noticed, but my bike was flying in the air and was not getting the road grip because of the low weight. So called aditya back on my bike again and it was a smooth ride again :). Stopped exactly near the sunset but this time it was nithin who missed the action as he was leading and din't stop although we all three hornet at a time.. He could barely hear in those tight helmet of his. Took some 2 - 3 snap posing against the setting sun, we hit the road again. Nithin was just one km ahead of us stopped and waiting for us :).. But he missed the photo though..
Twilight was fading.. We were as fast as we could so that we will cover utmost distance before its dark.. But we had to slow down whenever there was a small village on the way.. There wasn't much we did rather than enjoying the ride while coming back. Once it was dark we stopped for a while and decided to go at 60km per hour. And the one who is leading will flash his indicator after leading for a 2 to 3km and fall back instead of hand signal as the riders weren't not visible in the dark. And we also had to keep minimum distance of 100meters and should move in a rhombus pattern keeping equal distances just to avoid any sudden breaks from our fellow riders. All were following rules of keeping speed within 60 but i was the one to reach 80 everytime i went to lead :). After listening some lectures from canute and bharath it was just 60km per hour all the way. We took 4 breaks of 15 min each for tea or biscuits after the sunset. There was a perfect sync as always all the way till home. Only once i missed to take right turn at Dindi but heard horn from Canute and turned back. Other than that we never missed anywhere till home.
When we reached home it was 9:56pm. Distance Travelled: 530km. Noted the time and km in the small note we carried and wrote at the end " Happy Ending"!!!
Here are the some of the stats we collected:
Total Distadnce Covere : 530km's
Starting Date and Time : 14th January 2012, 3.45 AM
Reaching Date and Time : 15th January 2012, 9.56 PM
Total Time Riding : 11 Hours and 15 Minutes
Total Expense(excluding petrol) : 4017 Rs - 803 Rs per person.
Arun's bike:
Pulsar 150cc
Fuel Consumed : 13 Ltr
Canute's bike:
Pulsar 200cc
Fuel Consumed : 16 Ltr
Bharath's bike:
Honda Unicorn
Fuel Consumed : 9 Ltr
Nithin's bike :
Yamaha FZ
Fuel Consumed: 16 Ltr
Aditya joined at around 10 and we all had biryani together. And it was 11.00 when we went to bed. Sham is another roommate of ours but he missed the ride because he met with a small accident 2 weeks before and broke his ankle. We planned to wake up at 2.30 and sham said he will wake everybody up as he was going to sleep late. Dreaming about the big day awaiting for us , we went on to sleep although we knew it was just going to be a small nap of 3.5hrs :P . Remembered our childhood days how we used to wait till the morning without sleep if there was a picnic planned from the school :)
I am not sure who woke up first and when i woke up, bharath already finished his bath and there was no water left for others.. I was quiet happy as i have taken bath already in the night and it was cold in the morning, i got a good reason to skip it :) I was also thinking that we are going to falls anyway first so why take a bath :)
It was a great feeling when we started gearing up for the ride. It was like wearing armors for the War!! Although Canute was the only one guy who equipped with all the riding gears we adjusted from the things we already had. Canute had one extra pair of elbow gaurd which Nithin took, and I took his jacket and thermals as my android read a chilling 14 degree Celsius!!. With a starting photo session by roomie sham we Fired our Machines and began the Kickass ride :)
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| Riding Souls..!! (From the left) Nithin, Aditya, Arun, Bharath, Canute |
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| Thumbs up for the Destination SriSailam!! |
But with that speed I lost direction and without taking left at mehdipatnam went straight ahead. Called canute and came back joined on the ride in 5 min and from there on it was cool ride till the airport without any hustle. We had the hand signal (rotating up in the air) tought by Canute with many other signals, to rotate the leading positions along the way. The leading rider will give signal after leading for some 2 to 3 km and then next guy will take over. Previously leading guy will fall back and take the last position and it will happen on rotation basis for every 2 to 3 kms. So that nobody will be left behind during the ride. There were stop signal to stop the bike, slow signal when the guy leading sees a road blockers, follow me signal and some more.. :)
A problem started when we reached almost near airport and I had to stop everybody. Everybody were wearing hand gloves except me (I was not feeling so comfortable with the gloves ON , so had decided to ride without it.) But i had no idea what the cold weather can do. My hands were freezing and although I tried neglecting it for some time later I started to feel as if my hand was being pierced with needles, And sometimes i was not feeling my hand at all. There was no way we could find a shop where we can buy any gloves in the early morning at 4 and that too on the airport road. After listening some blames from canute who always suggested to buy gloves, Aditya took 2 hand karcheifs and tied it around my hands. Although it dint do the job of gloves, it was little comforting. After some 30 kms canute stopped everybody realising my situation. We took bikes side of the road with our indicators ON. I tried to warm my hands by pressing my hands on the silencer cover of my bike. After rubbing my hands for a while i was good to go. We decided to stop at the next tea point and it would be good for my hands as well as for our belly's ;)
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| Warming up my hands by pressing against the silencer cover..!!! |
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| Hot tea in the early morning!! |
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| Just before the sunrise.. |
Within some 10 min we saw the Sun rise with crimson red colour. Bharath had no clue to stop and Canute had to go past him to show the stop signal , we dint miss the sunrise though. We had a nice view from the place we stopped and took some memorable snaps along with the rising sun. One of the greatest pic of Canute clicked here and got the highest likes in his FB among all his previous photos :)
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| Canute's highest liked pic in FB!! |
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| Rising Sun!! |
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| Thats us... Posing..!! |
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| Glittering road along with rising Sun!! |
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| Dindi Dam |
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| Riding along the side of Dam.. |
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My bike almost slipped because of the sand beside the road when we started off and thats the only scary thing that happened till the end of the ride. After half an hour of ride we stopped at the starting point of ghat section which is also a reserved forest.
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| Ghat section starts from here.. |
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| Aditya at Tiger reserve forest!! |
Parked our bikes below one small tree and had nice idly and chutney there by spreading bed sheets on the ground which we took along. It was a perfect picnic moment for us :) We ran short of chutney but still there were no idly left over.. Thanks to Bharath ;)
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| Breakfast time!! |
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| Exotic Mallelatheertham Water Falls |
Time 11.55am.. Back to mud road for 10 min and then to main road... It was all curvy road once again.. More dangerous than the previous roads.. We rode for another 45 min.. And finally we reached the great SriSailam Dam. That is the center of attraction in SriSailam for non religious people :P. Actual temple is almost 15 km ahead of it. When we stopped at the Dam view point everybody where staring at us. It wasn't usual for them to see 5 dudes in 4 bikes with all the riding gears :) Of course we enjoyed the attention for a moment but in another moment all got lost for the beauty of the place.. Dam was almost filled with water and from the place we stopped we could see both side of the dam. Took many pics there and rested for a while eating cone ice creams. Although it was bright noon we dint feel the heat as we were riding all the way. Canute's camera battery got dried off and i had to take some pics from my mobile.
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| SriSailam Dam |
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| Opposite side of the Dam... |
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| Hotel where we stayed... |
It was almost 6 when Canute woke everybody up. Then I came to know that Canute was the only one who dint sleep and was roaming here and there eating chips and drinking tea :). Everybody got up and hit the road riding off to dam to see the sunset from the dam. But it was late and we missed the sunset. It was almost getting dark when we reached the viewpoint. Dam was beautiful from the viewpoint with lightings ON.
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| Dam in the twilight with lights ON!! |
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| Dinner!! |
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| Temple |
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| Roapway |
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| On the way to Akkamahadevi Caves |
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| Beautiful scenery from the boat |
During the 12th century A.D. this cave appeared to have attained its present name after the famous ascetic, lyricist and philosopher, Akka Mahadevi who hailed from Karnataka. It is believed that Akka Mahadevi did penance in this cave and worshiped the Sivalinga that naturally existed in the deep and dark end of the cave.
Finally our turn came and we went inside. Its full dark inside and canute switched on his mobile light but still its barely visible inside. I tried to take pic with flash but amazed to know that nothing was visible on the photo other than full of dots . When i was wondering about the dots ,somebody told me that the air was full of dust . It was very hot and suffocating with many people inside the cave. There was one Sanyasi sitting at one side showing light to the people who go to see the Shivalinga. Somebody said he is been there since many years now!!.
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| Akkamahadevi Statue outside the Cave.. |
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| Aditya going inside the Cave... |
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| Awesome boat ride.... |
One advantage of me boarding last that i got the front seat in the boat and a nice scenery to enjoy myself. It was more than one hour in the same boat with the same people and everybody were familiarizing with others. Three kids started playing with canute's camera and my mobile and there was a baby whose mom and dad were nice enough to let me hold the baby when it was grabbing my arms :). Except me all others were sitting at the back side of the boat and some took little nap too :). I was enjoying the only song which i played during the entire ride which i heard in a movie ' The Real Steel' recently. Song name is "All my Days" by Alexi Murdoch. Do not know how but i was feeling inside me that the song just made for our rides :)
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| Little girl asked for a photo..!! |
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| Bharath taking nap...!! |
Finally we made into the shore exactly after one hour and we are all so eager to get back to our rides. Ate some nice Churumuri there and then went on to stand in a queue for roapway which takes us to the temple. There were so many people waiting in the queue and we were sure that it would take another half an hour more waiting there. We had a choice there. Either climb up through steps or wait in the queue for roapway. I suggested to take steps rather than waiting in the crowd and we came out of the queue. Took one 2 litre bottle while Aditya argued why so big bottle? We asked the shopkeeper how many steps to the temple.. He said 700!!! :) There was no way we are going back again to roapway, asked Aditya to keep quiet and not to tell others about the no of steps. Like no big deal everybody started to climb up the steps and got tired within some 20 to 30 steps...!! When we reached the top everybody where scolding the each other for giving the idea of going by steps. I kept silent :) Water bottle emptied even before we reached the top and as per our guess Aditya might have lost some 2kg weight there!!!
We barged into the first hotel we saw and took one nice meal of 50 rupees each. Bharath suggested to go back to the same lodge for lunch where we had our previous day lunch and dinner, but everybody else blasted him off!! Finished lunch with ice cream for dessert and started our ride back to lodge where we have kept our riding gears and bags. Time 3.05pm. Km reading :290.7km
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| Lunch |
Canute fueled his bike there near the temple and we all reached the lodge in 20 minutes. Everybody put on their riding gears with jackets and helmets and tied the luggage bag to Canute's bike. It was exactly 4.05 pm when we hit the road planning to stop for first viewpoint near the dam. We took some couple of snaps but didn't spend much of the time as we had to cover maximum possible distance before dark as it would be a real difficult and dangerous to ride in the night.
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| Thats all of us...!!! |
We also decided not to miss the sunset as we have already missed the previous days one. We hit the road with full speed now almost going in 80 to 90 kms and sometimes touching to 100 too... I asked Aditya to sit behind Bharath for a while to test my bike's pickup without pilion behind me. But there wasnt much difference i noticed, but my bike was flying in the air and was not getting the road grip because of the low weight. So called aditya back on my bike again and it was a smooth ride again :). Stopped exactly near the sunset but this time it was nithin who missed the action as he was leading and din't stop although we all three hornet at a time.. He could barely hear in those tight helmet of his. Took some 2 - 3 snap posing against the setting sun, we hit the road again. Nithin was just one km ahead of us stopped and waiting for us :).. But he missed the photo though..
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| Setting Sun!! |
Twilight was fading.. We were as fast as we could so that we will cover utmost distance before its dark.. But we had to slow down whenever there was a small village on the way.. There wasn't much we did rather than enjoying the ride while coming back. Once it was dark we stopped for a while and decided to go at 60km per hour. And the one who is leading will flash his indicator after leading for a 2 to 3km and fall back instead of hand signal as the riders weren't not visible in the dark. And we also had to keep minimum distance of 100meters and should move in a rhombus pattern keeping equal distances just to avoid any sudden breaks from our fellow riders. All were following rules of keeping speed within 60 but i was the one to reach 80 everytime i went to lead :). After listening some lectures from canute and bharath it was just 60km per hour all the way. We took 4 breaks of 15 min each for tea or biscuits after the sunset. There was a perfect sync as always all the way till home. Only once i missed to take right turn at Dindi but heard horn from Canute and turned back. Other than that we never missed anywhere till home.
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| Racing back home...!! |
When we reached home it was 9:56pm. Distance Travelled: 530km. Noted the time and km in the small note we carried and wrote at the end " Happy Ending"!!!
Here are the some of the stats we collected:
Total Distadnce Covere : 530km's
Starting Date and Time : 14th January 2012, 3.45 AM
Reaching Date and Time : 15th January 2012, 9.56 PM
Total Time Riding : 11 Hours and 15 Minutes
Total Expense(excluding petrol) : 4017 Rs - 803 Rs per person.
Arun's bike:
Pulsar 150cc
Fuel Consumed : 13 Ltr
Canute's bike:
Pulsar 200cc
Fuel Consumed : 16 Ltr
Bharath's bike:
Honda Unicorn
Fuel Consumed : 9 Ltr
Nithin's bike :
Yamaha FZ
Fuel Consumed: 16 Ltr
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| Route Map |
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| Without them this ride wouldn't have happened...!! |
