Office, collage, home, hectic traffic, city frustration made
us to hit somewhere out of the town for few days to relax and to give a break
to our routine life. Due to leave constraints @ office and for many other
reasons we decided to ride on the Dasara festival days, yes it’s on ayudha
pooja day and on vijayadashami dayJ.
We were not sure where to ride but we need to ride some
where, then we decided lets go somewhere, where there will be more green. Then
we all sat together and decided to hit Sakaleshpura and Bisile ghats. Other
then the two Places mentioned above we really don’t know which places to visit
else or what the plan is for 2 days in the ride. We just decided to go reach
there and then think of the places.
It was October 4th 2011, I, Shushruth aka shishu,
Karthik aka kaarz, Srikanth and Manju decided to leave Bangalore by noon 2pm,
so all were set to go at 2 pm, the weather was cloudy and also it rained a bit
before we leave. Our ride plan was to reach Sakaleshpura by night, halt and
then decide next plans.
Riders Ride
Chetan (Myself) TVS
Apache RTR 160.
Karthik TVS
Apache RTR 180.
Shushruth Bajaj
Platina 125.
Srikanth & Manjunath were pillions.
Pre ride preparation:
Previous day i.e. on 3rd Oct 2011, I and Karthik
headed towards the Garage shop in Vyalikaval (Malleshwaram) to have a look on
the bike condition, all our bike were in good condition. I just tightened my
Chain & rear brakes of my baby RTR even the same with Kaarz bike & we
filled our bikes with full tank of Petrol @ Shell Petrol bunk.
Where as shishu had given his bike for servicing as he had
sprocket issue with his bike. He was expecting it on the day we were supposed
to head towards Sakaleshpura!!!
Our Rides
Day
1 - 4th October 2011 (Bangalore to Sakaleshpura):
Route map Day 1:
I, Karthik was ready with our bikes to hit the roads. I took
half day off from office n rode to home at 1 pm, I’ve got packed my bag last
night itself, so just went home had lunch and picked my back bag and I was at
meeting point near Kaarz home. After few min shishu came with his bag and the
newly serviced bike. Later Srikanth & Manju also joined us, so all were
ready by 2 30 and we left Bangalore.
We had decided that I will be the Lead for ride, shishu will
be in middle & then kaarz as sweep, main reason to decide so that shishu
had 125cc bike which we thought may not give that much performance on a long
ride of 400 odd km @ one stretch. We made a point that we will control our
speed limit w.r.t shishu’s bike speed, which we thought max may be it reaches
90 kmph!!!
Soon we were able to juggle through the Bangalore traffic
and hit NH4 and we took deviation towards Hassan road i.e. on NH48.
The butter smooth road was so inviting we could not stop our
right hand wrenching on throttle. Soon we are in cruising mode and were
enjoying the ride. Shockingly shishu was also on 100+ kmph on this road which
was a good sign for long ride kudos to Platina :-). We reached Bellur cross by
4 15pm 100 km of ride in exactly 1 hour. Took a break for some tea, again we
were back on the highway it was dusk and
we were nearing Hassan on the way we found some wind mills, which were like
waving and welcoming us, stopped for a short photo shoot as we were able to see
the SUN going back to sleep in front of us (SUN SET)!!! Then we picked up the
road to Sakaleshpura.
On the way we took an left turn towards Sakaleshpura road
which is an diversion from Hassan route by this time Kaarz had taken the lead
as he was very familiar with that route (since his native is Mangalore).
The tarmac was so damn good on this double lane road, we all
three started enjoying the ride by touching our knees in each & every
corners.
We reached sakleshpura by 8 pm and checked in a lodge which
is very and was very near to main bus stop. Yes now we are in Sakaleshpura now
what, what’s next?? Is the question in everyone’s mind?
I was very hungry and wanted to munch something soon, we
decided to ask some localites about the places around worth seeing, yeah Google
was there but it showed only main places, but the real beauty is always hidden
in nature. We left the room after getting fresh up we had our food which was
very normal I mean the same old paratha’s roti etc.., but we were not able to
enjoy the native cuisine of Sakaleshpura L. Collected some information from the hotel
and lodge guys about the places we can visit in next 2 days and we ended our
day with lots of fun and jokes by kaarz and Manjunath.
Day
2 - 5th October 2011 (Sakaleshpura to Manjarabad fort then towards???
Route map Day 2:
We got up at around 5:30 am and managed to have cold shower
in foggy chill morning. And everyone was set to take bikes out from the lodge
parking. There was mist everywhere and we were warming our engines for the day
long ride. Quickly we clicked few snaps and ready to go to our first destination
Kaadu Mane estate and a falls within the forest called as Aanbaalu falls.
Riding in mist in cold morning was bliss. After some 15 km
we came across beautiful falls, which is hidden almost under the road, we did
few meters down trekking!! To reach the falls, let the pics tell some words
about Aanbaalu falls.
After falls our next destination is Manjarabad fort, it was
32kms away from Aanbaalu, we rode to Manjarabad fort where we felt the real
beauty of Western Ghats with full of greenery is welcoming us, it was almost
nearing to 10 am, and then we realized we spent more time playing at falls nevertheless
it was a worthy time. Manjarabad fort was just beside the Shiradi ghat (Bangalore
Mangalore highway), we hogged some paratha and dosa, which was not that tasty,
in near by so called hotel but some how we filled our stomach & shishu
picked up some snacks & juice from the shop as I often feel hungry!!!.
The
Manjarabad fort is located just outside of Sakaleshpura on NH 48. The fort was
built by Tippu Sultan as a strategic defensive location.It is also believed that he constructed a tunnel from this fort to another fort in Srirangapattana near Mysore (amazing engineering!!). Apparently, it had to seal off as the tunnel had many reptiles.
While I expected the fort to look like the normal which I had already saw well, a fort which is built above a hill, this one is very different – it is almost just an excuse to get up there to enjoy the beautiful views of the beautiful Western Ghats.
The fort is built in a star shape. It is so green inside the fort, what with the entire insides filled with grassy contoured ground and a pond exactly in the middle of it.
You forget that it is a fort you are visiting; only the binding fort walls are fort-like.
We were warned by few visitors that they found a big snake in one of the tunnel; unluckily we could not find any. We enjoyed the view of Western Ghats from the top of the fort clicked some pics with my DSLR & shishu in his Sony Cam and geared up to leave from there.
I suppose it was 11 30, we bid a bye to Manjarabad fort and again on Shiradi ghats on
Mangalore highway, our next destination was ‘Kempu hole’ , it was told that we
should cross the river with bikes so that we can go to other side of the forest
which is Bisile ghat our destination for the day. This has some amazing views
and beautiful forest. We rode till Kempu hole on not so good roads of course it
is Shiradi ghat, we would have enjoyed the twisty if the roads were bit ok.
By around 1 pm we reached Kempu hole place took a break and
the water current was very high we could not cross the river, so we dropped the
idea of crossing the river and we headed towards Bisile ghat by one more way
that is via Kukke Subramanya which we came to know by one of the Tea shop near
Kempu hole!!! Even tea shop owner didn’t
forget to warn us about the road which they said it is worst. It was bit hot
and everyone was hungry so first we went to Kukke Subramanya and had nice
Mangalorean lunch and gave a quick visit to temple as shishu wanted to enquire
about some pooja in the temple. Again at 2:30 started our ride towards Bisile ghat.
Bisile
Ghat:
One of beautiful forest route which connects Sakaleshpura and
Kukke Subramanya and enroutes Somwarapete towards south. We entered bisele
ghat, initially the roads were good and the silent forest with cool breeze was
welcoming us, we gottu see many small falls on the road side, @ some corners we
had to cross the water which was flowing along the road.
Next comes the biggest hurdle THE ROADS, sorry there was no
roads at all it looks like a small single lane road in ghat with full of stones
n rocks n gravel (We all were thinking about the warning what we got from the
Tea shop owner), we thought the gravel n kachha road will end soon, but it was
going worse as we started to climb further, after some 6kms of riding on those
kachha roads, we got a dual mind that should we need to continue riding on this
no road path?? Shall we return back, never the less there is no turning back we
rode further and Srikanth wanted to have a dive n feel the water on his body in
some falls, but unfortunately we could not stop any where on the small road as
we can expect oncoming Govt KSRTC busses in that NO ROAD SINGLE LANE.
We met a unicorn rider (from Shanivarasanthe) who was riding
in the same ghat with 2 of his friends on his bike, and we told him that we are
going to cover bisele ghat, we jus passed by him without much talk, and they
stopped by a falls over there.
After few km we reached a view point and decided to stop and
have a look at beautiful Western Ghats in another view & take some snaps.
Here comes one more twist in our ride there we met a couple
of guys (from Bangalore) who were riding on same route and we asked them about
the road conditions and places to visit further Bisile ghat, yes we were not
sure where to go & what to see..!!. They told us about a place called Maandal
Patti (Mugilu Pete) in Madikeri. The description they gave about the place made
us to change our plans and head to Madikeri, for that they told us to ride back
to Kukke Subramanya and from there towards Sulya - Somwarapete - Madikeri,
totally 92 km of ride.
We decided to head back on the worst road we ever rode and
almost we rode 8 km down the hill towards Kukke, there we met those Unicorn
guys again and they stopped us and enquired why we are heading back, we told
our plan to Madikeri, that guy told the route what we are talking is pretty
long (92 km) so suggested us to take Bisile Ghat - Koodu raste (means joining
road!!!) - Madikeri route & it is just 52 km.
We again took a U turn to climb up the hill and we passed
the Bisile again in the same worst path!!!
After crossing Bisile ghat, shishu who was in leading
started tailing and after few min he disappeared in my rear view mirrors, I
stopped for him, after few min he came slowly and told something is wrong with
his bike, later we found that his rear tyre gone flat.
Some how we reached Unicorn guy where he was waiting for us
to guide further towards Somwarapete.
Later Unicorn guy took us to Koodu raste but for our bad
luck we had no sign of garage or puncture shop because it was ayudha pooja day
where no puncture shops were open, so the villagers suggested us to move to
Somwarapete where it is kinda small town with many shops around. It was already
5:30pm and we left for Somwarapete which was 25kms away. Shishu was on his flat
tyres, sitting almost on the tank of the bike and all were started crawling at
15kmph, on the way his tube nozzle broke down and tube started coming out of
the tyre it was dark by that time around 6:30 pm and we were in middle of some
forest route leading towards Somwarapete.
We stopped there and tried fixing tube inside tyre, but it
seems its not going to work then we cut the tube and pulled it out of the tyre,
now he rode the bike with no tube.
Only on flat tyre till Somwarapete!!!
It was almost close to 8 pm by the time we reached Somwarapete
and there was Dasara celebration going on that place and all were in festival
mood, unfortunately we didn’t find any shops open at that time. We decide to
halt there and look into some options in morning, we got a decent room in one
of the lodge for reasonable price, we had no hotel open for food, we just had
vegetable puff in one of the small bakery and we ended our long and adventures
day.
Day
3 – Somwarapete – Maandal Patti – Bangalore:
Route map Day 3:
We got up soon by 5:30 am and got ready our major aim is to
fix shishu’s bike first. Myself and
shishu got ready and came down and just opposite to lodge we had a tyre shop
which was closed and luckily with help of few people we got to know the house
of the shop owner and we pleaded him to open shop soon for us, kind hearted guy
opened the shop without having his breakfast, and we took the suitable tube and
meanwhile we found a puncture shop also, and by the time we fix the tyre other
guys were ready to roll for the day, we quickly filled fuel and had our
breakfast in near by hotel then filled our bikes with petrol for further ride.
We soon were on the twisty roads which leads to Madikeri, I
rode on those roads earlier so I was full of memories of previous rides, saw a
group of java riders on the way. I was enjoying the ride with cornering on each
and every curve leaning as far as I can, it was like mastering the cornering
(Girn) soon we all reached Madikeri and found the route to Maandal Patti, and
we were warned about mad roads by the localites. Soon we were on the road which
leads to top hill of Maandal Patti. We saw few cars standing before the ramp
down thinking whether they can make it to top. :-D we met a swift with a bunch of
uncles who were regretting for getting a cage (read car) till there and not
able to make it to top.
The road which leads to top was literally scary and very
hard for a normal 4 wheeler to do it till top, we need a good 4WD if you want
make it via 4 wheeler or bikes with a proper rider will make the job.
After going through many types of gravel, no roads and
kachha roads finally we reached the top of Maandal Patti. Ok let the pics say
about the beauty of this place.
Although we were too late to get glimpse of fog and cloud at
the top, we enjoyed the silent beautiful peaks which were holding lots n lots
of green in it.
After few clicks and spending some quality time there, we
started to head back down the hill and on the way Abbey falls was very hard to
miss so we had a visit to Abbey falls, and soon was on our way to Mysore from Madikeri,
via Kushalnagar, again the roads were awesome, the 4 lane twisty roads were so
inviting we started to rip and we stopped at Kushalnagar for lunch and had the
typical Coorg food.
After filling our stomach with delicious food throttled our
bike towards Bangalore via Mysore. We took a break further riding of about 90
odd km, then took our bikes and decided to reach Bangalore latest by 8:00 pm so
that we can go for bed and take rest.
Later part it was just Bangalore Mysore highway where we
rushed in the traffic which I think need not to explain much since it was very
normal.
At last we reached Chennapatna & I did some shopping of
toys made out of wood.
After crossing Chennapatna we rushed to Bangalore with loads
of memories.
Finally we all did a most memorable ride/venture which was unplanned
where we saw the inner beauty of Western Ghats. Most memorable part of this
ride is that unlike any other ride where we will be riding on a well maintained
tarmac road, we did the ride on OFF ROADING (Bisile ghat, Maandal Patti).
Other then shishu’s bike getting flattened whole ride was
full of fun, unexpected twist and turns etc..,. JJJJJ
Final route map:
