South India (Day 12: Kanyakumari -> Madurai)

Ride Summary: Total Distance: 250 kms   Total Time: 3 hrs 30 min

Kanyakumari is quite famous for its sunrise; hence we headed to the beach around 6 am to take a few pics. It was quite cloudy; hence this is the best shot I could get of the Swami Vivekananda Memorial.

We quickly wrapped up breakfast and readied ourselves for the boat ride to the memorial. I really feel I am pushing my immune system to the extreme by eating at these road side joints. OhWell! 

Even on a Tuesday in an offseason, I couldn't believe the line and the crowd. Fortunately, they have a special ticket that costs 169 Rs. per person and apparently no one else buys it. This means, you literally run ahead of the entire queue. VIP treatment!

I could not believe the amount of noise people were making in the boat. That too when you are visiting a place where Swami Vivekananda used to meditate. Too much to expect I guess. Even on the boat, I remember 2 westerners taking selfies and the boat attendant came shouting at everyone 'Sarko udhar .. 6 logon ne baithna hai per row..Sarkoooo'. The westerners looked little confused as to why this man was shouting at them all of a sudden :)

The memorial is a very nice place. It's well maintained, clean and fairly quite. The wind and the sound of the waves makes it a different experience altogether. There is a room where pin drop silence is expected. It feels nice to just listen to the waves while you sit there. When we came out of the meditation area, Nitin pointed me to this board. Amazing how translations ruin the intention! No comments :)

After the memorial visit, we hit the road towards Madurai. The road is an absolute fire cracker. We averaged 80 kmph on it and covered 250 kms in 3 hrs 30 min with a 'Tadgola Break'. I don't know what is it called in English but it is awesome to cool you down. This guy added some Tadgola juice to it and it was yummmm. Check out this video! There were lot of wind mills on the highway. The wind really blows pretty hard at you. They have done a good job of harnessing this energy.

Madurai is a wonderful city. Vibrant, full of economic activity and you feel a lot of energy in this place. We took a walk in the evening around the famous Meenakshi Temple. Pudhu Mandapam, in front of the temple, reminds me of Tulshi Baug in Pune. Very small shops, full of energy. Colorful and bright!

Nitin's friend recommended a local dessert called 'Jigarthanda'. We decided to give it a shot. It's a faluda like milk shake and tastes great. A must try if you are in Madurai. We asked the shop owner for suggestions for a good dinner place. He told us to visit an old restaurant named Amsavalli Bhavan. It is famous for its Biryani and has been around for over 60 years. The Mutton Biryani was yummm! We topped it with a 'Sada Pan' and took a walk back to the hotel. On the way back, I saw this huge bull that reminded me of of something dear to my heart. From Wall Street to Madurai!

South India (Day 11: Kumarakom -> Kanyakumari)

Ride Summary: Total Distance: 275 kms    Total Time: 8 hrs

We had a 275 kms of ride from Kumarakom to Kanyakumari but it was a 2 lane road with oncoming traffic. Hence for the first time in the trip we had a 6:15 am start. We made good ground in the morning hours but as we got closer to the 9 am mark, things started to get busy. Kerala doesn't have much concept of a highway. The main road goes through the market area of the towns along the way. Traffic lights causing jams. Kerala desperately needs some infrastructure if it has to keep attracting tourists. Also, they allow motorcycles only 10 kmph more than an auto rickshaw. How insulting is that!

There was a big traffic diversion before Thiruvananthapuram. Although it makes no logical sense, whenever I saw direction boards in Tamil or Malayalam, I ignored them quite comfortably. There was nothing much I could do about them anyways. During the diversion, I saw the pattern of Thiruvananthapuram being written in English and Malayalam. Kept following it. Also, the length of the word 'Thiruvananthapuram' helps a lot :) Similar things happened near Kanyakumari as suggested by the pic. I think the straight ahead says 'Kanyakumari'.

We reached Trivendrum around 10 am. Kovalam beach wasn't on the itinerary but then we decided to visit it; given that we had time. We didn't have breakfast or tea since we started in the morning; hence decided to first do a little bit of 'pet pooja'. This time I went with Fish Curry and Parathas. Feels weird to eat curry for breakfast but hey! You are in Kerala! Notice the pink colored warm water they serve. It's due to an ingredient 'Pathimugam', which has medicinal properties. They claim it is good for blood circulation and digestion. It didn't taste any different from regular water. So that part was good :)

Kovalam Beach is pretty well maintained. Quite clean I would say. Aur itna aa gaye hai, toh selfie to banta hi hai :) 

Kanyakumari is just 90 kms from Kovalam. As you get closer you see a lot more coconut trees around you. It feels pretty nice. We reached Kanyakumari around 2:15 pm. I felt great. We did it! A ride to the southernmost point in India :)

We checked into a hotel named Gopi Nivas Grand after reading some reviews and it was quite good for the price. The Vivekanand Memorial boat ride point is a 5 min walk; hence we thought it was very convenient. We decided to visit the memorial but due to heavy winds, the service was suspended. So I took a walk around and went to the southernmost land connected point in India for an awesome selfie with the Vivekanand Memorial in the backdrop!

Although it was only 275 kms, it took us good 8 hrs for the ride. Thanks to the 2 lane highway. Hence we felt a bit tired. But given that we were in Tamilnadu, access to alcohol was quite easy. We celebrated the South Ride journey with a couple of cold beers. Feels so good :)

South India (Day 10: Thekkady -> Kumarakom, Kerala)

Ride Summary: Total Distance: 120 kms    Total Time: 3 hrs 30 min

We were the only ones staying at the Bamboo Grove in Thekkady. It is exactly how I wanted. An off-season, cheap rates, no crowd and great weather. What else do you want from a vacation. Since it was a short ride, we weren't in a hurry to leave. I finished up my blog writing and we were on the saddle around 10 am.

Near the town of Vanduperiyar, we stopped for breakfast. Keralites eat fish curry/mutton curry with Kerala Paratha for breakfast. So I decided to do it their way. I ordered an egg curry instead with a Kerala Paratha. The guy who was making them was so fast. I spoke to him and he asked me if I was riding my bike all the way from Pune. He spoke fluent hindi as he used to work in Chembur, Mumbai in his past life. He shared his own adventure of walking from Mumbai to Pune! Have a look at him making those parathas. Impressive stuff!

We reached the Kumarakom backwaters around 1:30 pm. I realized I had just completed 2000 kms in the ride from Pune! The hotel we booked from expedia (after reading reviews from tripadvisor) turned out to be a disappointment as far as location is concerned. It was a pain to find it but the rooms were very nice. In addition, the hotel was connected to the backwater from the canal; hence we were glad that we could take the boat ride without having to take our our bikes once again. But the hotel had a good view of the canal.

We quickly wrapped up lunch. Only bread omelette is second to maggi as far as speed goes; hence we picked that one from the menu. We were set for the boat pickup around 3:30 pm from the hotel. The backwaters are beautiful. This was my 1st experience with boating in the backwaters and it was beautiful. You get to see the villages around. And a variety of birds! Here's a picture I took of the snake bird as they call it. I really missed my 70-300 lens but there is only so much you can carry on a long motorcycle ride. I was already quite loaded with electronics; hence went back to my gopro for some selfie clicks.

As we approached the lake, the boat's engine heated up and the guy told us to get off. He couldn't get the boat's engine to cool down; hence the 3 hr ride was reduced to 1.5 hrs. It wasn't such a big deal as we had done the full trip to the lake. But I was disappointed to not get pictures on the return journey as the sun was coming down. The colors would have really lit up in that 5 pm light. Oh Well!

We walked about 20 mins or so to the road to catch a rickshaw. Kerala rickshaws are really comfortable. They are quite big when you compare them with a Pune rickshaw for instance. 3 people actually can comfortably be seated in them. I took a nice hot shower after I was back to the room and was all set for the fish fry for dinner!