iPod : The Long Distance Biker's Companion

The iPod is a phenomenon, no second opinions about that. It is such a great invention that it has become synonymous with the generic phrase referring to mobile music players. There are many other players, Creative Zen and what not. But there is only one iPod. I was a little flummoxed before the GIR began as to which would solve some of varied requirements in the trip : a backup device for photographs, a easy to plug in photo viewer, a video viewer and finally a music player for those long rides.

The answer was a multiple choice between a Sony PSP and an iPod. Other options didn't even figure in my list. I had a Sony PSP since a while and knew that it was the best when it came to display on the rocking wide screen with fluid graphics and unbelievable game play abilities. I was also aware that it did not have enough internal storage space ( 1 GB Sony Duo card at best for me ).

So I got iPods. A 60 GB and a 30 GB U2 special version. GasolineJunkie got hooked to it from the start with his deafening music which heard like someone was washing utensils and cribbing about it.

I was a little apprehensive in Leg 1 of the GIR about using the iPod for its entertainment capabilities. It wasn't until Leg 2 started and I had to ride the 1000RR on the Golden Quadrilateral for long stretches at once. I turned to iPod, loaded some fast music and tried it once with me on the mile munching machine and rest was history. I am now totally hooked to it. From lots of music videos to great auto shows, it all there on the iPod.

Plus one major advantage of having it coupled with a cheap video out accessory cable which allows you to connect the iPOD to auxillary of any TV these days and voila! You favorite music videos on the TV. But I had a bigger use for this capability. Whenever we used to check into any hotel and got a visit from any members in the city we used to show them the GIR wallpapers and videos loaded onto the iPod on the TV screen with audio. It was like a mobile presentation center. Now even the laptop is obviated, as far as the need to show people what we were doing goes.

Some might argue the screen is a wee bit small for video, but as it changed my opinion, so it will in your case. Just try it.

For the time being I am off to watch Bittersweet Symphony. It Suits me.

The Greatest ride of my life

I slaughtered them all who dared to come in my path. Their blood and body fluids were impairing my ability to see through the tunnel of light ahead of me. The beast that I was astride on was growling like all hungry and mad and warping past other slower species of the bigger lethargic kind. There I was alone in the battlefield, no one there to challenge me. I had the perfect weapon. As a man without any challenge I was growing over confident. Then I felt something invisible hitting hard on my forearms. They fell just short of penetrating my skin. Then I felt cold, very cold. And suddenly I was woken up from my surreal analogy by a deafening clap of thunder. I was back again in real world as I slowed down.

The dream run was over, but just till I went past under the heavy storm clouds. And then I would start all over again with my dream.

The challenge was new and motivated us enough to only see what should be the odo reading for the day ' just short of 800kms : Chennai ' Hyderabad via Vijayawada.

This was Nov 13th, the 76th Day of GIR and perhaps the longest ever that we will ever do in a day in the whole tour.

The stretch from Chennai ' Vijaywada was the best road that I had ever set my quick wheels ( the 1000rr Fireblade ) on. For 450kms it was sheer bliss. I can do a fingercount of the number of times I had to slow down below 100kmph. I rode through the blazing sun overhead, through crosswinds and through rain which felt like god had forgot to turn off his tap while he watched me maneuver the stupendous Blade on speeds even his chariots would fear to stumble on. Ha! It seemed I ruled the world.

The servicing done to the Blade by Vivek ( Tectrac Racing, Chennai ) was terrific. The bike was very responsive and was running buttersmooth. That day I realized how lucky I was to be able to ride this bike which sent a million hearts racing in the Indian subcontinent. It was then I felt anger, pain and utter disappointment in the policies of Indian Government which made it utterly painful to import a superbike in India. So, in the year 2006, I rode 8000kms into the GIR, I rode the bike which is not accessible to 99% of the Indian populations ' either because of the prohibitive cost factor or the general lack of awareness about how to import a bike in India.

Coming back to my experience of riding the beast on NH 5, I had not quite expected it to be so surreal. For more than 10 seconds I was well above 150kmph. Even on the Jaipur ' Ahmedabad stretch I couldn't manage that due to lack in confidence of the road ahead, even though both are 4 lane highways. One more difference was the amount of green landscape I had across my field of view from left to right, and the grey tarmac, It was like a secret video game level unplugged.

Actually, the overall thrill of accelerating away from standstill and still overtaking Schumacher in a Bolero coming with the pedal floored on a 4 lane tarmac is unbelievably addictive and dangerous at the same time. You have to check for wet patches, curves, people on the road with an intention to make a quick crossover to the other side. It is a wild world with roses in between that you have to choose and take your pick. Riding a litre class bike for short distances can be fun and a method of relaxing, but long distance touring is a different story with many other elements deciding what can happen in the next 40 odd meters which you cover in a second if you are at 150kmph. The concentration levels have to be top notch, your eyes have scan both ends of the road for live entities trying to cross your path, particularly the bushes in the divider of the four lane highway which might hide goats, dogs, cows, buffaloes and villagers ready to play touch-me-if-you-can on the road.

I will keep my excitement short and would like to list down somethings quickly.

The highpoints of the ride

1. 4 Lane highways
2. Green landscapes all around
3. Played with a Merc, Safari, Scorpio, Accent and other lethargic creatures on the road with vicarious demeanor.
4. Was above 200kmph on many occasions for a couple of seconds
5. Was above 150kmph on many occasions for more than 10 seconds at a stretch.
6. Left the rest of the team behind in the fear of not riding in the dark. Refuelled 3 times with unleaded petrol and just added Octane boosters.

The lowpoints:

1. The torrential rain ( still was hovering around 100kmph with no discomfort at all ).
2. The insects splattering over my visor every now and then.
3. The Fireblade's front was totally covered with organic material from posthumous insects.
4. The road after Vijaywada was hell after dusk. It is a single lane killer highway if traversed after dark, primarily because of the blinding lights from the oncoming traffic which doesn't have the sense to use low beam. Thanks to the 1000RRs headlights I used to traumatize them myself a little bit, just to teach them a lesson.

5. I was carrying a 10kg backpack with the laptop, camera, Ipod etc in it for a whole 700kms.

All in all, I would say the percentage of good highways and roads is increasing everyday and that day is not far when an all India trip on a superbike with average speeds above 70kmph would be possible without the danger of your picture being hung on a wall with a garland of flowers.

Check http://www.nhai.org for more information on roads in India, specially the Golden Quadrilateral.

Kanyakumari : The Great Indian U ' Turn
Sundeep Gajjar

Since I had started learning geography in the school I was always coming across Kanyakumari. And ever since I had ridden my first two wheeler 5 years ago I had met people, books and other mention Kashmir to Kanyakumari tours and records. In short, I came to undersand Kanyakumari as the minima and Kashmir ( more specifically, Leh ) as the maxima of the curve formed on the political map of India in any Indian roadtrip.

There I was, on the 70th day of the Great Indian Roadtrip after covering 11,000 odd kms I was standing on the basement of India. I remember on the 15th day of the GIR I was on the roof of India ( and the world ) at world's highest motorable road ' Khardungla. Read about that here.

It was a terrific feeling as I was approaching Kanyakumari from Kovalam. The last 5 kms I was riding alone, ahead of the pack of 10 off bikes from Trivandrum. I wanted to reach this significant speck of land first and so I did. The seemingly dilapidated gate said "Welcome to Kanyakumari". That was it! The CBR and me had made through half the journey unscathed. Riding further for 2 kms I hit the stimulating sight of the confluence of three waters : Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. There was the Gandhi Madipum, Bharat Mata ( Mother India statue ) holding the national flag , The Tiruvalluvar Statue and the Vivekanda Rock forming the ultimate join-the-dots panaroma on the southernmost tip of mainland India.

I was elated and blessed. I thanked god to have saved me from many dangers and bought me to be blessed by Kanya Devi, the would be wife of Shiva, who was supposed to get married at this very place eons back.

For now, me, and the 1000rr and the spectacular three waters were one.
From here the Great Indian Roadtrip took the Great Indian U ' Turn.

Tiruvalluvar statue 

Gandhi Madipum 

Left :Vivekananda Rock 

Mother India 

Battle of the Indian Super Yachts ' Kashmiri Houseboat VS Kerala Houseboat

By Gasoline Junkie ( Ashish divakaran )

The Houseboat in Kashmir 

Kettuvalam in Kerela 

They are magnificent floating palaces that give the best of hotels a run for their money. Just a day onboard would enchant you, regardless of weather you're a 10 year old kid, a couple on a honeymoon or an elderly man done with life's responsibilities and dedicated to smoking a pipe. What more do you need when your on a houseboat floating away all of life's miseries? (Well probably a bike or should we say a jet ski for that daily dose of adrenaline ' but lets not go there now)
What I'm trying to say is, a houseboat is more that just expensive accommodation that would blow a hole in your back pocket, it's an experience, it's a journey in itself. It is expensive accommodation that would burn a hole in your pocket but it will also give you memories for life, its something you have to do before you kick the bucket or before your too old to be bothered about having a good time. Drifting in a boat gives you the sense of freedom to go anywhere and the feeling of serenity that you cant even get with 10 pounds if marijuana, a cozy house makes you forget life's problems so you can sit around all day doing nothing, a classy bachelor pad with Kashmiri carvings and silken curtains screams to your neighbor saying "look sucker, I'm better than you" without you having to open your mouth. Combine the three and there you have it ' a Houseboat, and unlike the Queen Mary 2, you have the whole vessel to yourself & unlike the Rolls Royce Phantom, you have a good 2000 square feet of sheer luxury for more or less the same price.

A while back on the first leg of the GIR we had the amazing opportunity to stay in a houseboat on Dal lake and boy it was great, until then I thought houseboats were floating piles of expensive firewood rented out to gullible tourists.
Kashmiri houseboats have been around for a while, but just like cricket and the Ambassador we Indians didn't invent it.
When the Brits went to Kashmir the racist Maharaja at that time forbid them to buy land and build houses in his kingdom, and at that time holiday inn wasn't happening. So instead of giving the finger to the king and going back home they started getting innovative. He forbid them to stay on land, but there was a catch, he didn't say anything about water. So the Poms got themselves a big raft in Dal Lake and built a cottage on it, it was no big deal because for half the year the lake was frozen and that made it all the more like England.
Assuming that they had all the time in the world and nothing to do being stranded in the middle of a lake, they just made their houseboats bigger and better and that is house the Kashmiri houseboat started.
Now, these floating works of art range from 60 to 150 feet long and 15 ' 30 feet wide. Every boat has all the modern comforts you can thing of like electricity, heating, plumbing, television and even internet connectivity in some cases. A typical houseboat has a sit-out in front, a large sitting & dining room, a kitchen and two or three bedrooms. And the amazing thing here is every house boat is made to specification by master craftsmen. Most of the décor along with the wood carvings is Victorian influenced and the tapestries, carpeting and curtains have an eastern blend of Turkish and Kashmiri. The amount of carvings on the cedar interiors is unbelievable and the attention to detail is incredible, it is another one of those things that you have to see to believe. I spoke to the owner and he told me that these houseboats cost around one crore, that's 10 milion. 10 million rupees for a boat!!
If you think about it, these aren't really boats, well they float ' so does a log. The problem with the Kashmiri houseboats is they are made as big as possible and as fancy as possible and at the end of it all they forget about the very vital weight reduction factor. With a little over 100 tones there is no point trying to move this goliath, why even try? That's what the engineers thought when they considered mounting an engine and hence it has no engine, it also has no rudder because who needs to turn it when it doesn't move.
So there you have it, it's a fancy house that floats but doesn't move anywhere. So why not build a fancy house with one crore? If you ask me, 1 ' land prices are skyhigh, the lake is quite possibly a lot cheaper & 2 ' if you build a house on land it wont be a houseboat.

On the other side of India, the Kerala houseboats are very different. Traditionally they weren't houseboats, they were just big boats called Kettuvallams, which means boat made by tying together pieces of wood. Senseless as it may seem, not a single nail is used in the whole damn wooden boat. The wooden planks are joined together with coconut coir rope and then coated with a resign made from boiled cashew nut shells. So while the Goans made fenny and got drunk the Malus made their boats waterproof.
I guess this boat was designed by Robinson Cruso or some guy like him when they were stranded on a tropical island because everything used, everything from wood to the ropes and the resign is grown in your backyard.
Traditionally the Kettuvallams were used for lugging around rice and coconuts all over Kerala, they had the load carrying capability of two or three trucks and they were powered by men using bamboo sticks instead of ores. Then when roads were built in kerala and bridges connected the thousands of different islands, people started using trucks to for transportation. I don't blame them, would you rather send your stash in a 40 toner Volvo or in a boat made by a pile of wood tied together by rope and sealed with un-fermented fenny? With more and more people beginning to think like me, the Kettuvallams were probably being used as firewood or to transport illegal substances across borders and check-posts. So when the tourism boomed in Kerala people probably thought of converting these rotting old Kettuvallams into slick houseboats, every innovative idea always gets stolen so within a few years you'd see house boats all over the backwaters in Kerala.
Ovbously some redesigning had to be done to make the Kettu-V more suitable for living, not just living we are talking about high-end accommodation. The body was redesigned and remodeled to adapt for the new demands and functions. Certain elements had to be added and others removed to make it good enough for comfortable cruise. Height of roof was increased to get sufficient headroom and a plank was laid all through the length to reduce the disadvantages of curved shape of the hull. Some boats have a first floor deck and some really good boats also have pools and jacuzzi. With all this additional weight being thrown around the boat, some of them were given buoyancy by two air tanks underneath. The blokes did a pretty good job in converting a coconut carrier to a 5star houseboat and most comforts in life like aircon and running water are available. I think is the biggest design flaw is cooking done on the floor in a fully wooden boat, I don't know if there is a traditional reason to this but if I'm on a wooden boat I wont even let someone smoke a cigarette. But thankfully health & safety doesn't exist at this part of the world, so I guess if a fire starts you just jump overboard.

What I like most about the Kettu 'V is, unlike the floating logs on the Dal lake these Kerala houseboats can move. They are proper functional boats, not the Noa's ark that floats at the mercy of the waves. The Kettu 'Vs are loaded with a 40 horsepower motor and that can keep the big boat to cruising speed all day and its cool to watch three or four of them sailing together on the Allepy backwaters. If you have to compare them to the Kashmiri houseboats, they suck when it comes to class and luxury. The Kashmiri boats are floating palaces while the Kettu-Vs are sailing caravans. To build, the Kashmiri boats are about twice as expensive and to hire for a day both of them are pretty much the same, the costs also depends on the season and how touristy or western you look.
Giving a final verdict is kinda hard because both the boats are very different and they both have their own pros and cons. But at the end of the day I think I should hand it to the Kerala houseboats or the Kettuvallams, simply because it is a proper boat. It may not be as grand and as fancy as the Kashmiri ones but it has an engine and it sail, just like a boat should.

Kettuvalam on the Vembanad Lake in Kumarakom

Houseboats on The Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir 

Inside our houseboat in Kashmir 

Inside the houseboat in Kashmir 

Joe’s Garage 

Mumbai to Bangalore via Pune-Goa-Mangalore. That's something like around 1750kms including in and around cities. Add in roads which didn't exist, hills, highways and a lot more. On the GIR Fireblade. So that meant that the bike needed to be given into good hands, someone we could trust blindly to bring her back to 100% performance plus prepare the bike to take the best and worst of Karnatake, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. We had never met Joe, but only heard about him, and that too a lot. From his bikes sweeping the Speed Run drags to pumped up 2-strokes being made by him. Therefore, that was the obvious choice for us when it came to getting our Blade checked up. We initially wanted to give the bike in the morning but some work and getting up late meant that it got delayed a lot but Joe was very understanding and made sure he was free for the Blade.. Sunny being held up with work meant I was lucky enough to ride the Blade thru Bangalore's traffic to Joe's Garage on Thimmiah Road in G.C colony. The workshop wasn't any fancy big place with likes of the Aprilias parked, or with jazzy posters and spare parts. Instead it was a small yet properly arranged place with exotic posters, some superbikes and a line up of trophies inside Joe's office! Trophies speak more than anything about a person's capabilities, don't they? When I met Joe for the first time, he seemed like a very soft spoken person. No attitude, no acting pricey and just a humble sweet guy, who is half the times smiling and knows what he is doing. Before he could ask, I shot off with tens of things we wanted to be done on the bike and he patiently listened to me and then took his own time examining the bike. I somehow have full faith in him and started killing time looking around and reading motorcycle magazines. Also had a good time talking to other superbikers and came to know more about the place and Joe in particular. He is responsible for looking after most of the superbikes in Bangalore and also looks after many in Hyderabad too. Apart from servicing and spares, he also deals in superbike sale and purchases and is soon going to get an exotic Italian bike, the name of which I cant let out for obvious reasons! People like Joe mark their presence not with words, but with their work. He himself rides a GSXR K1 and drives a LHD BMW and was a part of the Bharat Parikrama. The Blade needed more than a service ' a rear tyre change, new air filters, oil filter and ofcourse engine oil. Joe also cleaned the injectors using the injector sprays, which really showed their magic when I rode it on the way back to the Hotel. The bike was picking up really well at lower RPMs and there was no hesitation present, which was earlier evident around the 2-3000 rpm mark. Ofcourse there are other Superbike workshops present in Bangalore but the level of satisfaction we got from Joe's garage was more than enough and to top it up, he gave us a good discount too, on the service and spares. In Bangalore, if there is one place where a superbike will be treated as a superbike, you know where to head to.

Some nifty things available in Joe’s garage
 

Joe was the support for vehicles in Bharat Parikrama in 2005 

Bunny with Joe 

Disclaimer : My views in this post are mine only and may not conform with other individual experiences, so please excuse any reform brickbats but comments are definetely welcome. 

Joe’s Automobile Engineers
307, Thimmiah Road, GC Colony, Bangalore - 560051
Ph : 080-25903812, 09243115500 

Text and Photo: Sunil Gupta

Day 70 ' Nov 7 ' Kovalam ' Kanyakumari ' Tirunelveli

As soon as we got up, we were packing our stuff knowing that we might have to again ride in the night, which we were trying to avoid for the last few days, though unsuccessfully so; and yeah, one good thing happened and it was that we decided that we won't ride past 5 p.m. and since Vinayak Ji would be riding one Blaze because Ashish was not able to ride, it was a good decision because Vinayak ji is not an experience rider. But, first we had to collect our bikes, which had been parked at the hotel where Vinayak Ji was staying. As we reached there, we saw a lot of members already standing there waiting for us. Some of them, actually all of them, wanted xbhp T-shirts. As we opened the backup truck to give them the T-shirts, these guys crowded us; the the whole scene was looking like there was a 90% discount sale at an Armani showroom :D. Xbhp T-shirts were selling like hot cakes. Comet and Jupiter were parked at the hotel only, but we had to pick the 2 Blazes from Kinetic showroom. Knowing the distance that we had to travel, we were in a hurry, but the Trivandrum guys asked us to visit their college, which was on our way. This college was the only one Trivandrum which offers Bachelor's degree in Automobile Engineering, so there were a lot of auto-enthusiastic guys and seeing a 1000rr roaring was just too good for them; they started screaming, clapping, and whistling; we were crowded by at least 40-50 students from the college who just wanted to touch and see the Fireblade. After that, we were accompanied by 10-12 members who were riding with us till Kanyakumari. The road from Kanyakumari to Trivandrum was very good, though single-lane most of the time, but we had no problem comfortably cruising at 80s that too in a group ride. We reached Kanyakumari by 1:40 p.m. Don't know why, but as we were getting nearer to Kanyakumari, I was trying to ride faster and faster, just couldn't resist the temptation to touch that milestone. You could actually see the blue-green sea water from some distance before the actual road ends. There was nothing special in that place to my eyes, but I knew it was special. I was very emotional at that point when I got off my bike. We took some photos there before going on a small ride on a road going along the beach, the road was wide enough to allow the Fireblade to touch that 200 kmph mark and Sunny took no time to do that. After clicking some photographs and taking some high-speed photographs, it was time to have lunch. Unfortunately, TVM guys didn't go to the same restaurant where we went because they thought that it was expensive, but it was very cheap, but with damn good food, delicious. Since the GIR leg 2 started, it was the first time that I ate so tasty food that too typical north Indian Dal fry and chana masala. It was time to say goodbye to all those wonderful people who stood by us till we stayed in God's own country, Kerala; bye friends, would meet again some day. We still had some 225 kms more to cover to reach Madurai, so it was time to have a little faster ride on the NH-7. This particular stretch of NH-7 from Kanyakumari to Madurai was very good, less traffic; it was single lane throughout, but the work was on to convert it into 4-lane highway. We had reached till Tirunelveli and it was getting dark and there was no point riding further on that single-lane road, so it was decided to call it a day there and to have night stay in Tirunelveli. Tirunelveil, is a 2000 years old city and is the sixth largest town of Tamilnadu. We got very cheap rooms in a hotel and that hotel had its own parking too, so it was the place of choice for Sunny as his Fireblade was safe here.

We were around 140 kms behind our originally planned destination, but I think it was good decision to not ride in the ride, especially with Vinayak Ji. Our destination for the next morning is Rameshwaram, the Kashi of South India, which is located some 370 kms from Tirunelveli.

Text and Photos: Sunil Gupta

Kovalam Beach- Trivendrum - Poovar Island

The memories of a walk on Goa beach were still alive in my mind and the Kovalam beach was inviting me again, so I had already planned the night before to talk a early morning walk on the beach and the alarm was set for 5:30 a.m. The alarm woke me up at the right time, but it was very dark at that time, not very good light for photography, so I decided to postpone it a little. Finally, I was up and ready at around 6:40. There was a shortcut way going straight from our hotel to the beach, which I used, and there the beach was in front of my eyes with all its pristine beauty, only few people around, very different from what it was the last evening with lots of tourist around. It was very calm, but the roar of the waves was breaking the calmness every now and then.

I found Kovalam beach very different from the Kolva beach in goa; the Kolva beach was pretty calm and serene, yet full of life; very few people were there in the morning, yet there were a lot of activities going on. On the other hand, Kovalam beach is a very famous tourist destination, you'll find a lot of Indian as well as foreigner tourists, but it seemed a little lifeless in the morning apart from few tourists going for a walk on the beach and a few fishermen fighting with the waves for their livelihood. There wasn't much variety in the activities there. Yet, I found it more beautiful with each and every minute that I spent there. While I coming back, I saw 3-4 fishermen pulling a rope from the sea, I looked them curiously and tried to find out what they were pulling out from the sea, but I couldn't find the other end of that rope; the rope was getting bigger and bigger and more and more fishermen were coming every minute or two to pull that rope. After some time, there were approximately 15-20 fishermen doing the job and yet I couldn't figure out what they were doing. I sat in the shadow of a boat for around 40 minutes there; finally, I came to know that they were pulling their fishing net from the sea that was set few kilometers off the coast. It took around 1-1/2 hours for them to get the net on the beach. Meanwhile, Sunny had called me 3-4 times by then to get some chocolates for him and to tell me that members from Trivendrum xbhp had come to the hotel to meet us, so I had to go back to the hotel room, and yes, we also had to leave for the Poovar Island Resort. When I got back to the hotel room, there were a lot of xbhp members waiting for us. I didn't expect so many members there, I mean the Trivendrum chapter of xbhp has been very quiet, nothing much activity, but yet I was tired of shaking hands and saying hi to so many people, what a pleasant surprise. We canceled the ride to the Poovar Island ride with these guys, instead we went for a ride till Shankhumugam Beach, some 10-12 kms away from Kovalam. What a nice place this was, a very beautiful beach, only handful of tourists there, sexy roads leading up to the beach, and even more beautiful road going along the beach. There was one India Coffee House restaurant just in the front of the beach, on the opposite side of road, where we went for our breakfast. The food there was dirt cheap, yet so delicious and tasty. The breakfast for three of us was only 125 bucks. While going back from there, Comet again met with an accident and this time Ashish was the victim, a dog came running straight in front of him; Ashish hit the dog and flipped the bike. The dog died on the spot; Ashish also got injured and it looked to me as if he had broken some bone in his left foot. And, it was not over yet, the Jupiter had started to leak oil and it was doing so very badly. So, we sent Ashish to the hospital on an autorickshaw with an Trivendrum xbhp member and took both the vehicles to the Kinetic workshop in Trivendrum. Meanwhile, we also got the CBR washed in Trivendrum and tried hard to search for the 97 Octane petrol in Trivendrum, but we were told that it was not available in Trivendrum. Also, we contacted Ashish in the hospital and he told us that luckily there was no fracture, but he's has a torn ligament in the left foot. By that time, it was 3 p.m. and we were feeling hungry, se went to a restaurant in Trivendrum with the xbhp members and there we also showed them some videos and photographs of xbhp and did little chit-chat about biking scene in Trivendrum. After that it was time to return to the hotel and then go to the Poovar Island resort. We went till the Poovar Island resort in our backup truck because we did not want to leave our bikes unattended because we can't take our bikes to the resort. Trivendrum guys again gave us company till the Island but didn't go to resort itself for some reasons. They charge 125 bucks per person as ferry charges and as the entry fee for the resort, but to me it was a waste of money; I didn't find the place as beautiful, maybe because we were already too late and it was dark there, so I couldn't actually see the whole place in its entirety. One more thing, that resort was damn expensive, highly unaffordable. We had to come back to our hotel quickly because we were supposed to meet some members from www.team-bhp.com at 7 p.m. and it was 7 p.m. already and we were still 30 minutes away from the hotel. Luckily, Kartik and his friend (from team-bhp.com) also got a bit late, so they didn't have to wait for us at the hotel. Karthick had a souped Mitsubishi Lancer with lots of performance and cosmetic mods in his car. We had a brief, but a very nice chat with them and it felt really great to meet somebody from some forum other than xbhp.com. Finally, they left and it was time for us to go for dinner. So, went again to a beachside restaurant for dinner. All those beachside restaurants were empty at that time or almost closed as there were no tourists at that time there because of rain. We chose an empty restaurant for ourselves; how these restaurant discriminate against Indian tourists is something that needs a separate blog entry and I'll definitely write about it.

Time to doze off for a long journey ahead till Rameshwaram via Kanyakumari, some 320 km, a milestone to be crossed; time to start the journey back to home.

Sightings at the Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary

I am no orinthologist, but I did manage to get some birds in flight and rest. Rather candid. But here they are. We had a ride on a country boat through Kumarakom’s backwaters. And bot did it seem like an Amazon basin. But more about that in a seperate blog for today by Bunny.

An Eagle ( or a vulture ? )

Snakebird

SnakeBird

Flight Plan

SnakeBird

KingFisher