Demistifying Ooty...(day 2)

The next morning started like any other usual day...tight sleep with laziness embracing you with all its love...!!! The most pleasurable moments in life are those when you get up, see your watch and realise that you can still sleep for some more time...but that sunday I couldnt get any such pleasure as I found out we had overslept by one hour and woke up others with haste. A brief view outside our hotel window was not very encouraging with decent rain and heavy fog limiting the view to nothing more than a few metres. Hoping that it would clear soon, we started our bikes and searched for a roadside shop to quench our hunger. A small shop called "Kalaivani Coffee house" served us with delicious Idlies and Pongals and Aapams and the spicy chutneys were in perfect sync with the numbing climate.

After the heavy breakfast, we started towards Avalanche, some 30 kms from Ooty and the route was terrific. The majestic mountains, draped in white sheet of mist, ocassionally revealed themselves and the views were simply awesome. The constant dripping of rain and the freezing cold reminded us that mother nature was not in a good mood but that added flavour to our trip....We had a small break to snatch some snaps and proceeded towards Avalanche.


The last 10 kms towards Avalanche welcomed us in a way similar to how Hitler would have welcomed Jews into his Nazi state..!!!! If there had been any road, we found no clue about it and to add to our misery, the path was sludgy, terribly muddy, murky and uninviting. I started fearing about my notorious bike tyres which had a reputation of failing me when I needed them the most but luckily they played quiet. We couldnt go more than some 5-6 kms into that forest road and in some places had to get down and push the bikes over the mud and other obstacles. Maybe, more experienced bikers could have done the route better but we decided to play safe. We encountered a huge lake on the way and the weather and fog added beauty to it. Posing for some pics, we decided to return as the road became unmotorable after that point. An SUV would have done us a whole world of good. If not for the rains, we could have definitely moved ahead but alas!


With heavy hearts and with heavier rain coats, we retraced the terrible path back till the fork, where the right was the route towards Avalanche which we had taken and the left was the road to Manjoor which we had to take now. We stopped for a cup of tea and had a long serious look at our bikes. They looked beaten with all the mud and slush but still shared our hunger for adventure and ready to take more. Bikes are always the first love for any guys and unlike girlfriends they always remain loyal to us.Aint they!!!!


Originally, we had to descend to Manjoor from that spot through 34 hair pin bends before ascending for Upper Bhavani again. But as it turned out, another casual enquiry with a local revealed us that we can bypass that route by going to a village called Pycatty and catching up with that road from Manjoor to UB. That could save us some serious time!!!! Things seemed easy again but they were not.


The time was around 12.30 noon and we started feeling hungry but the 30 odd kms to UB was devoid of any human signs. There were no villages or shops on the way and the EB official with whom we had talked the previous day had clearly told us that there would not be any inhabitations up there at UB as well. We didn not allow the issue to bother us and started riding towards UB. Things started getting worse. The rains which had been our companion through out the day started to get very heavy and there were streams flowing along the road in many places. There were few "landslides" along the way and my "loyal" tyres tried to trip me time and again...!!! The route was eerily silent except for the occasional animal sounds, bird chirps and the rain itself. The only sign of human presence were the drone from our bike engines. We also found many trees uprooted and lying on the road dead, due to the rains.


After some 20 km ride, we could see umpteen number of elephant dung lying along the route. We were just hoping that we would never encounter any elephants face to face...!!! Luckily, the forest canopies opened up and we could see a river flowing in the valley with lush green grasses on its either side along with that herd of elephants. Natural ecosystem at its best!!! We were so engrossed at the beauty of what we were witnessing so much that we forgot to capture those moments in our cam!!!


We finally reached UB after a lot of struggle and found the gate locked!!! that particular thought never striked us but luckily as usual we found some officials on the other side of the locked gate!!! Initially, they told us to return back but after some pleading and innocent faces from our side, they allowed us to visit the dam but only for an hour. They left from the office and it was only four of us in that beautiful place!!! We spent quite sometime in UB and felt like we had conquered a final frontier!!! The dam looked awesome, with the rain and mist adding "make-up" to the already damn beautiful location. After many round of snaps, we decided it was time as we had more than 120 kms to do to return back to our hostel at night and the time was already 3 pm.

The rain never deserted us and the story continued.We started feeling really hungry and a hot cup of coffee or tea would have done us a world of good...and guess what??? It did!!! We found the only other soul in that place to be the cook, who used to serve the guests at TNEB Office...he made us hot coffees and teas and brought smile onto our faces. He narrated us stories of how he used to see leopards and elephants along the very road which we had just traversed and about to traverse again, how dangerous elephants could be and finally wished us happy journey!!!! Happy???? Never...we were terrified...!!!!

The journey back to Coimbatore turned out to be uneventful without any sight of leopards or elephants but the route was as usual scenic. We enjoyed every bit of the ride and after stopping at Manjoor for so called lunch at 5 pm we continued towards Coimbatore via Karamadai. The road after Karamadai joined the Mettupalayam Rd towards Coimbatore and was terrible to bike at night with my slippery tires, ongoing widening work,absence of signboards, buses blaring horns behind you and the glare from the oncoming traffic.


Finally had our dinner @ Hotel Annapoorna and proceeded towards our hostel. A fantastic weekend we had and a hell of a bike ride of 365 kms. As I had already said, destination was never important to us, but how we travel is and in that context this bike ride proved worthy for every damn penny we had spent..!!!!!