This blog captures some spectacular moments of my bike trip to Anantapur with Sarat.
2nd June 2009, 10 pm:
That’s the usual time on weekdays when my room-mates assemble after a hectic office schedule for some chitchatting.
Sarat came up with the idea of bike journey to Anantapur to attend his colleague’s marriage.
3rd June 2009:
Morning: I decided to take part in the journey as it will definitely leave us with some enriching experience. We both are new to this sort of traveling and wanted to experience the fun in biking.
Office hours: The long day in office was spent on net-surfing. It was great to go through different blogs on the road-journeys and their experiences. Team-bhp is the site where one can get blog and discussions on journeys to all corners of India.
Evening: Our initial plan was to start from Maarthalli at 4pm, so that we can reach Anantapur by 9pm or 10pm.
But we started our journey around 5:30pm. I was leveraged to start the ride from Maarthalli on Unicorn (the terminator of the trip). It was the first trip for both of us and it gave a feel of Roadies- Hell Down Under. We are big fans of Roadies –Hell Down Under (Mtv reality show).
It took almost 1 hour to sneak through the Bangalore traffic. Around 6:30pm we reached the HEBBAL flyover. The real journey starts from this point.
Our first pit-stop is Chickballapur which is 70+kms from Hebbal. Anantapur is 220kms from Hebbal.
First pit-stop journey : The journey was fine with cool breeze and less traffic. To make it interesting we started to chase one BMTC Volvo airport bus. It was fun to go on track with it. After 7pm the journey became tough. There were no street-lights after crossing the Airport Road. One more addition to our misery is the construction work, due to which the road was single-lane one.
Its tough to get the sight of the road as the vehicles coming in opposite directions glare on you. So, we reduced the speed to 40kmph and adapted to the conditions. Then one Innova guy came to our rescue. I just followed him and started judging about speed-breakers and vehicles coming in opposite direction by his speed regulations. We were in comfort zone while riding with him on that 1-lane road without any hiccups. After crossing Nandi Hills we gave a 2-minute break to our sneaky race and started the journey once again.
While travelling we started to share some tips on riding as both of us are new to this long journey. Then we came to Chikballapur and started searching for some good Dhaba. We crossed Chikballapur and after some 5kms we got a Kamat Hotel, and we finally gave a break to our journey around 8pm. It was some great 2hrs+ journey for us with some dazzling light and no proper road due to construction etc etc.
We took rest for an hour and started journey around 9pm after some light dinner.
150+kms was still left in our book to reach Anantapur.
Second pit-stop journey: This time its Sarat’s turn to ride the Samurai. I was sitting back and enjoying the journey. There is no traffic at all except lorries, RTC buses and some crazy riders like us. We were doing fine all the way except some construction areas where it is a single-lane road. Then slowly we entered Andhra Pradesh. After some 40+ kms ride from our first pit-stop we crossed Baagepalli and took some rest in a petrol-bunk. That’s our second pit-stop. There we enquired about Anantapur and started the journey after giving a break of 15mins.
Third pit-stop journey: The next pit-stop is Penukonda 46kms away from Baagepalli. In this 46 kms ride there was no traffic at all. We are like ghosts on a bike in darkness searching for a soul. We started to make fun thinking of some unusual things like puncture or etc. There was no way we can come out of some problem as it was a open area with no personage in sight. We reached Penukonda around 10:30 PM and took a break for 15mins.
Destination: We were just 80kms away to reach our destination. We know that these 80kms is tough and tiring. It’s my turn again to drive. We thought of not driving for more than 20 mins at a stretch and to take rest for every 20mins. So we divided 80kms to 3 parts. First and last 20kms were driven by me and the second part was by Sarat. So finally we reached Anantapur around 11 30pm. We started to search for some good hotel and it was around 00:30 am we checked-in to the room. We didn’t do anything other than a small chat discussing our glorious journey and slept.
4th June 2009:
Morning: We woke up around 6AM. The marriage is at 8 AM. So we got ready and reached the marriage hall around 8 AM and had breakfast there. The bride is Swetha, Sarat’s colleague and friend. We spent time pondering the marriage and discussing our over-night adventure. After the marriage we greeted the couple and told them about our journey to attend their marriage. They were shocked and also felt happy listening to our 250kms bike ride for their marriage. We had lunch at 10 30 AM and returned to our room.
We checked-out the hotel around 11 30 AM and started the return journey.
Return Journey: This time it is Sarat’s turn to start the journey. The road was very good and it is NH7 connecting Bangalore-Hyderabad. After the first 60 kms drive we took rest for some time and its my turn to drive now. Day-journey is so cool with full sun-light, no glaring or etc. We were driving around 80kmph and it was an awesome drive. The previous night drive was challenging, but in the morning it is like a drivers paradise.
There were some instances where we crossed 100kmph mark also. The drive was very smooth and entertaining. Around 3 pm we reached Hebbal and went to Sarat’s cousin home and took some rest there for an hour. We again started at 4pm and reached to our home around 5 30 PM. It was one of the special moments in life, first time to have a bike trip this way. I don’t know whether I will be again a part of journey like this or not, but it is always special to do something new in life.
This journey was an instant trip with no planning at all, and it was very successful with not even a single problem. A great thanks to GOD for this to happen without any problem. I told to my father about the trip before starting it. My mother doesn’t know about it. Sarat also hid this with his parents. So after the journey we called them and told them about this journey.
Sarath:
A crazy idea to begin with.... a crazy friend supporting it.... a crazy escape considering what all can go wrong.... was it worth it all??.... well, we never thought of it.... after all there is always a first time n what we got was an adventure to cherish and a bum-bursting bike trip to boast off.... jet-set-go... vroommm.....
“It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.”
JAI HIND !!!!
