I have been planning this trip ever since I have taken my bike. Its almost 9 months since the planning started. Planned to do it many times, postponed it. Some times because of unavailability of friends, one time everything came together in place, but dropped it in the The plan was to take the GQ ( Golden Quadrilateral) route, as it is short and in good condition. Since we had only a time window of 6 hours for travel,the less number of tourists spots were not an issue. We took NH4 from Chennai to near Ranipet from there NH46 till Giddampatti . From Giddampatti we changed to NH7 till Silk-board near Bangalru. last minute because I suddenly got scared by the long drive ahead. But to my luck, CTC ( Chennai Trekking Club) along with Rotary International organized a two day bike rally to promote blood donation, the description of the event seemed good, 100+ bikers escorted by few cars, an ambulance and a mobile workshop. I some how gathered the courage, registered for the event along with my room mate. Then came the wait, the time where you re think your decision, a point in which many people looses their confidence.. A time when everything, including your mind tells you to give up, the moment at which most people gives up and let their dreams go. It happens to everyone and mostly we will give up. But it didn't happened to me then, or rather that week was too hectic, didn't got time to think about the trip. So the mind couldn't trick me and I went for the trip.
The trip was really tough, mainly because of the fact that it was my first long trip in the bike, where I have ride 300+ kms. But man!! I enjoyed to the max..and it boosted my confidence in driving, after that trip I was sure that long bike rides will not be an issue :), thank you CTC for taking away my fear.
Think I deviated too much from the topic, coming back to the Bangalaru trip, I am one of the very few guys who got placed in Chennai from my batch. Though Chennai is great city with many virtues, it lacked something very important, friends :( With most of my friends in Bangalaru,it was my favorite weekend spot, in fact I have been there more times than I went home after coming to Chennai!!!.
As I said, it has been long since I have been planning this trip, and the time when I ditched the plan in the last minute , I have told my friends that I will be there on the morning. Rest is history, got some very “interesting” phone calls from Bangalaru, and I was sure that they are not going to believe me about bike trip once again. So in this trip, we ( me and 'GT the great', my pillion rider and navigator :) ) decided not to tell any one, just gave them a hint that we may be coming.
We planned to start from Chennai on a Sat early morning, since GT leaves 15kms away, I asked him to come to my house in Friday night, so that we can start at early morning. On Friday night GT came with his laptop bag and crocodile T shirt [ ;) ], still we were unsure of going, as the forecast predicted rains in Chennai. Finally we decided that, if its not raining, we will start by 4 A.M, and went to sleep. After many snoozing of alarm, I gotup finally at 4.15, and woke him up . There was no sign of rain so decided to start.
The plan was to take the GQ ( Golden Quadrilateral) route, as it is short and in good condition. Since we had only a time window of 6 hours for travel,the less number of tourists spots were not an issue. We took NH4 from Chennai to near Ranipet from there NH46 till Giddampatti . From Giddampatti we changed to NH7 till Silk-board near Bangalru.
We started out epic journey at 5.15A.M from Chennai, the plan was to reach Bangalaru by 11. The trip was a really pleasant one, well separated 4-lane highway, very less traffic, and line of sight view of over a kilometer. We were able to maintain an average speed of above 80kmph without much risk, the climate was really superb also, sky was cloudy altogether the universe was seemingly conspiring to make our trip a really enjoyable one.[;) read Alchemist few days back]
We took a small tea brake in every 100Km or so, had many teas and biscuits and continued. GT was in full form with high-tech GPS navigation. Live commentary about the speed, ETA, towns on the way, hotels.. needless to say, it was fun ;)
We reached Bangalaru, our dearest '3rd rate's palace' by 11.30AM Saturday morning. Very few people were there most have gone home for the weekend, but still it was a great weekend. On that night we went to Skanthagiri for a early morning trek, thats a whole other story.
The return journey started on Sunday evening 4.15PM, the first 2/3rd was cool, rode at good speed and covered it under 4 hours. Then started the rain!! :( For the remaining 120kms it took around 4Hrs!!. It was one of the worst rains in Chennai!. Fighting the rain and the water bullets from high speed cars passing, we reached back in Chennai at around 11.45Pm ending to one of the most amazing journey of my life.
NB: If anybody is planning for a Chennai- Bangalore road trip there is an amazing article by SLN, he has specified many routes with tourists spots, and other details do have a read here.
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