The Motorcycle Diaries - Kudremukh Chapter

The heat is on but I’m on a roll right now…what with a 2nd trip within 2 weeks I guess I must’ve been in a real vacationing mood.
The real trigger again was the long weekend as this Monday was off for labour day (funny name) but the plan actually materialized at the very last moment on Friday night.
Initially there were 4 of us planning to go for a trek to the famed Kodachadri peak in west Karnataka, but as usual being the procrastinators that we are, we found all tickets to the place had been sold out.
Still not being the kinds to admit defeat so easily, me and my college buddy Prabudh were positive about not letting this 3 day break go wasted. So we did a quick search on google for hills in Karnataka, zeroed in on a place called Kudremukh national park, downloaded the road map and made a spur of the moment decision to make it a 2 day road trip on my Thunderbird.
So on Saturday morning we left Bangalore just at the crack of dawn at 5:30 am for this place which was supposed to be a good 360 kms away. So abrupt was the decision that we even forgot to carry a spare set of camera batteries, a blunder that made us miss a lot of good photo-ops later on.

As soon as we got out of the city limits I was surprised to find a smooth, wide and almost empty highway unlike the bumpy and traffic infested Bangalore roads, and I easily started zipping at almost 110 kmph, something this cruiser is specially designed for.

It’s a very different feeling zipping for a long stretch of time on a bike at this speed, with the trees and the vast open fields swooshing by when seen from the corner of your eyes. It’s almost as if your life’s running past by you, and at occasional times one can easily loose the sense of time and perhaps even switch to a philosophical mode. It’s something hard to explain and maybe only another rider can relate to it.
Another remarkable difference that one notices while riding a bike is that unlike in a car, where you’re in relative rest with respect to your immediate surroundings as you’re kind of boxed inside an enclosure, on a bike you’re no longer a passive observer of your surroundings, but become a part of it. With the wind slapping in your face you can actually “feel” the changing landscape around you, and when this threshold is crossed, the journey becomes more pleasurable than the destination.

Also, with the power of a 350cc engine producing the pull of 19 horses thundering under your legs, you simply feel like the king of the road.
For the uninitiated, the cc(cubic centimeters) refers to the displacement of an engine, that is the amount of fuel mixture that the piston can sweep through from the top to bottom. So obviously the more fuel the engine can burn up in a cycle, the more power it can pack to the wheels.

Anyways, we kept taking breaks for snacks and to ask directions, and as usual I found that the humble villagers or small town people are always more than eager to help. The bike and it’s unusual registration no (CH- Chandigarh) invited a lot of curious questions though, and people assumed I was driving it down from Punjab! One restaurant owner even identified Chandigarh as the hometown of Yuvraj Singh and started citing examples of the brilliance of his own Karnataka boy Dravid as the captain, though all with an innocent rustic charm.

By the time we hit the hills after riding for 250 kms, we were already a bit exhausted and the steep inclines had to be carefully negotiated, however the beautiful greenery around soon made us forget all the fatigue and we reached our destination at the base of Kudremukh peak’s trek around late noon.

We asked a local shopkeeper about taking the bike up the mud track to the top of the peak, but he warned us that we shouldn’t go without taking permission from the wildlife officials, since this area was being combed for the Naxalite(Maoist) militants taking shelter in these forests. We were warned that the security forces had a shoot at sight order for anyone seen inside the forest without permission, and this was enough to deter us from going for another misadventure. Permission not forthcoming due to a holiday, we were a little disappointed, but then another localite came to our rescue and suggested that we pitch our tents at the camping grounds of a deluxe resort nearby.
So we finally got the necessary space within the boundaries of the beautiful “Silent Valley Resort”, and had an awesome stay at the resort where they’d organized a flute music program in their open lawns amidst a bonfire. Eating a 10-course scrumptious buffet, especially when you’re dead tired and in the middle of a forest is also a uniquely gratifying experience.
Next morning the resort guide took us to a small trek in the hills around the area, and after absorbing all the natural beauty we decided to start back, since in any case the main purpose of the trip was the ride itself.


The return ride saw me zigzagging with a renewed passion along the sharp and dangerous turns of the hills, sometimes tilting the bike to almost 30 degrees to negotiate the deadly turns. It was again a smooth and enjoyable ride till the last hour when darkness fell, and I had to ride in the glare of the high beams of the incoming traffic, which makes one literally blind to the road ahead, and then losing your concentration for even a second can mean the difference between life and a painful end.

Anyhow thanks to our guardian angels, we reached Bangalore in the evening after having covered almost 800 within 48 hours, and spent the next day discussing the trip and tending to our sore backs and bottoms.

Trip Info:-

Route: Bangalore - Hassan - Mudigere - Kalasa - Kudremukh

Distance: 360 kms (1 way)

Road Condition: Excellent

Close Calls: 3