Ride Summary: Total Distance: 145 kms Ride Time: 4 hrs 30 min Total Time: 8 hrs 30 min
Gathering images from multiple sources (DSLR, GoPro and my Phone) is becoming a task on its own. Most hotels offer a wi-fi connection these days but the speed is inadequate for uploading pics and videos. Hence I end up doing it on my Phone's 3G (because it is faster) but it is still quite a time consuming process. But if I don't keep up with the blogs, I will lose the details. On the flip side, I can come back to it 30 years later and flash it proudly to my grand children ;-)
If you like South Indian food (like I do), you are in for some real treat in all the 3 meals. Today's breakfast was Dosa -- served in the garden. I was working on the Day 5 blog but the speed was really poor to delay us any further; hence we took off around 10 am. There are 2 routes from Masinagudi to Ooty. We took the shorter route, which is just 30 kms but has 36 hair pin bends. A paradise for a motorcycle rider. Right at the start of the ride, a deer jumped and crossed the road in front of me. Nature has so much to offer!
All the hair pin bends in the ghat are numbered. I decided to shoot a video on the hair pin bend so that it can be used in the final video compilation. Interestingly, there are speed breakers on the downslope side of the road as the gradient is quite steep. I saw the locals honking and turning in a race. Well, this is Montana GP for them and their chance to be Michael Schumacher. What can I say!
Just before Ooty, we stopped at the Chocolate Museum. It's a pretty small place where you get to see the process of making chocolate from the cocoa tree. The staff was quite friendly. We bought a couple of packs of dark chocolate.
After entering Ooty, I called up my dear friend Mohit Devnani's family. They have been in Ooty for a very long time and we planned to have lunch at their place. We decided to visit the Ooty late and then head over to their family home for lunch. I have glimpses of Ooty lake as a 7 year old when my Dad didn't get us a row boat and I was very upset about it. I did not want to ride a peddle boat back then (for reasons I do not recollect) hence decided not to take any ride whatsoever. This time, I fixed the boating part by taking a peddle boat. I still haven't fixed the row boat part. The tank bags and helmet made us rent a 4 person boat but we didn't mind that at all.
Lunch was ready for us at Mohit's house and we met his father at their family home. They have a beautiful house overlooking the town. And it is more than 100 years old! So awesome! I got to see Mohit's childhood room :) Their cook had made us some tasy mutton kheema along with few other delicacies. We were treated well (as expected). His Dad suggested us to take the Kotagiri (more scenic) route to Coimbatore and off we were around 4 pm.
The Kotagiri route is an absolute paradise -- especially during this time of the year. It was quite foggy, even at 4:30 pm! This was our best riding experience so far. Right from Masinagudi to MettuPalayam, it was just under 100 kms of Ghat riding. Magical twisties and fog. What else does a motorcycle rider crave for?
We stopped for a quick tea break in Mettupalayam where we interacted with a couple of locals who were quite impressed to see a MH numbered motorcycle. They were very friendly. And you are not in TamilNadu until you see the super star Rajni everywhere!
We reached Coimbatore around 6:30. I finished uploading my Day 5 blog and then we visited the famous Velu Biryani for dinner. Their Grilled Chicken along with the biryani is a must try!
No comments:
Post a Comment