travelog - garden city to ooty

One fine morning JB(my friend cum colleague) tells me that he wants to get his RE Bullet shipped(trained!!) to Bangalore. Ah, this really turned out to be some kind of Butterfly effect thing.
We cooked a plan - B'lore to Ooty in two days, three bulls and three guys. The third guy happened to be Sampath, just managed to lure him with the trip details :)
Assuming the timely delivery of JB's the bike, we marked Apr 3rd for the flag-off. Well but then there was much action to unfold and no news of the bike until the previous day of the ride. So, after much drama the bike finally arrives here just once day prior.

Apr2
It's Friday and a good one - good Friday.
So I spent most of the day in getting JB's bike serviced. My bull was already in perfect shape, Sampath's at least looked like!
In the night, me and Sampath set out for a test ride to check out the electricals and also had to fill the tank.
All seems good.

Apr3
I woke up at god forsaken 3 AM and buzzed JB. Tried to wake Sampath up but he sounded as if he is in a trance. Let the bugger sleep for a while.
Eventually, we got ready by 4, tied the luggage to our bikes and kept waiting for JB at decided point.

5 30 AM
The trip is on - we had a steaming cup of chai near Rajeshwari arch and rode our bulls at a sedate 60km for next 15 min. By then the bikes had reached optimum temperature. After this all I could hear is the roar of the bullet for next one hour.
Just cruised at a pace of 80-85kmph and we covered 80km in an hour. Amazing stretch this is - Bangalore Mysore highway!
However, little did we imagine the tale of the day, it was nothing less than a movie script. To begin with my bull just died while running. My heart ached and I doubted an engine seizure. I restarted the bike only to get a hell of a noise from it. All of us pulled by and mulled over the next course of action:
1. Park the bike in Mysore which was a good 40km away and trip with two bikes.
2. Get it serviced in Mysore and carry on with the trip.

Well, I was in no mood to act a pillion, took the bike to Mysore RE showroom.
The guy did some medication and says we are good for the trip.

Huh, finally we hit the road again towards Bandipur. Meanwhile JB's bike started spluttering and just stalled midway while he was overtaking a truck :D
He definitely has no faint heart!
Covered some 15km and god damn - I cant change gears. A prefect day, aint it?
This time, it was a broken gear spring. Again, bullet guru from Mysore told me to use the tiny lever(neutral finder) to reach Nanjangud and then we could get it fixed there.

I never thought things can really go as bad as this because all other trips I did were picture perfects.Just drive, eat, take nice shots and narrate the story..
This was different and it proved so very early in the trip :)
Once again, this stuff was repaired and vroom vroom to Bandipur.
JB sahab had khitar in a hotel while me and Sampath munched over a veg puff.
Although my bull had proven to be a pain in the ass, it still ran like a darling albeit some high noise mimicking a diesel engine :)
The stretch through Bandipur was scenic. Fantastic road, beautiful weather, great bikes and animals lurking just beside the road. What more to expect of a trip?
Indeed, the journey is always sweeter and memorable than the detination..
Meanwhile, quite a few nice pics added to my kitty.

End of Bandipur stretch marks the start of Tamilnadu roads. We had a khadak, fresh tea at Masinagudi and then started the Kalhatti ghat section.
This ghat had 36 hair pin bends and by Jove, I could smell the engine giving out burnt smell as a result of deep stress. Still was laughing at the thought of JB's bike, which was carrying a fellow a good 20 kilos heavier than me :)
The feeling when you conquer a ghat is just exhilarating.

Finally at 20 00 hrs we stepped our feet in Ooty and we could already feel the chill in the wind. It's so scorching hot in Bangalore and Ooty , voila started freezing at 20 00! The idea of camping with a tent was sanely discarded fearing the risk of three frozen bodies and hence took a neat resort for two grands.
Me and Sampath left a shivering JB in room under blankets and drove to the town to get some food. It was burger, bread omelet and some fruits in the menu!
What next? just zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Apr 3
Woke up at 8 and immediately went out with the camera. Clicked out a few pics sipping tea and then we got ready for the city tour. We idled the bullets for a good two minutes due to the freezing weather and set off into the town.
The town's got a look of a typical tourist's place with loads of merchandise on sale.
People seemed to know many languages and this surely helped their business. Leather goods were really priced reasonable, so were the chocolates - oh yes, they were homemade chocos.
Tea is another good pick here and found a variety of flavors. I certainly cannot forget the smell of eucalyptus oil in almost every shop we entered. This place has amazing types of oils on sale( I also grabbed Sampath's attention towards a hair oil :D )
We bought some chocos and then set off to check the train to Coonoor. Unfortunately, this train has only around 60 seats and the tickets were sold out instantly.Drooping faces, we went out to the boating lake. Paid 125 bucks for the 4 seater and started pedaling the boat. The lake looks good but is filthy and smells foul. This is where the punchline of the trip was picked - "Shigra varu bhai"...
This was the dialog uttered at us by the boat crew at the dock. Man, it just made our stomachs ache with laughter.

12 00
Back to room, quick showers and we packed the stuff and loaded bikes with the luggage. It isn't quite over yet - we had to check out Dodda Betta. This is a 8km drive from Ooty and the road is curvaceous!!
With an altitude of over 8,000 ft, driving is again challenging and pleasurable.
The bullets never disappointed us and we were atop the mountain in a short while.
Kodak moments plus an ice cream, it was 15 30 already and we were hurrying back the route towards Bandipur.

After reaching Mysore the way back, had to take intermittent breaks every 30min owing to soar butts!! JB was the most suffered - he used a turkey towel on the seat :)
A sip of coffee at a highway CCD marked the last stop in the trip.
We made it to Bangalore at 12 45 AM in the night.
Yet another remarkable tale in the life of a bulleteer!