A tale of 3000 Kms, 8 days, 3 states and 2 bikes – Day5

Life is not lived in the past, neither is it lived wandering in future. Life is for today, and it is today. Live it, love it, see it, and show how capable you are of everything you wish to achieve. This is one very motivational quote and true to it, we started the wonderful day at 5:30AM. We were to head to Valparai today to meet up with a group of beloved bikers from Yamaha Riders Club (YRC) and spend the rest of days in their company. But as fate would have it, one of our friend, Saquib who was in the YRC group could not make it and we did not know anyone in their group apart fro Saquib.

We continued on the fantastic Salem-Kanyakumari highway and stopped for the tea ritual. I suggested Lohith on continuing the ride for somemore time than going to Valparai. After lot of thought, he came up with lets go to Rameshwaram? This was what exactly the doctor had ordered for me, and I happily agreed. We took directions from the gentlemen in the tea shop and headed towards Rameshwaram.

This was the view in front of us and we were really enjoying ourselves riding on this beautiful stretch.

Mr. Sun decided to play around with clouds and not show up for a nice sunrise shot. What a spoil sport.

As we moved towards Rameshwaram, the roads again changed to undivided single lane ones which made Lohith get tensed up. Me having ridden in TN, assured him that the roads will be joy to ride on and we carried on.

Stopped for some snaps and some monkeying around.

Thats me.

The surrounding fields.

My new found super bike.

And that's the camera shy Lohith hiding his face.

The roads were fantastic, small cities scattered around, no hint of traffic and we were happily cruising. We stopped for tea at a small road side place and became instant celebrities. The bikes were ogled at, touched, analyzed in detail by the locals. They found the underbelly exhaust in Lohiths Duke interesting. Questions on if the exhaust was cut off? if there is no exhaust? speculations of Duke having an AC! yes AC, the radiator was supposedly AC for them and I was quietly listening, giggling and sipping my tea. Had fun there and thanks to these guys.

We were close to Rameshwaram and a slight traffic started building up. As we neared the famous Pamban bridge, we saw an open sea shore which we did visit.

Couple of fishermen kids showed up, one very shy (as you can see, hiding his face) and the other the exact opposite. We had good fun chatting to these guys, and the one posing with the bike said that his dad has the same bike as mine and he knows how to ride it! He wanted to take my bike for a round! He did a detailed compare between the CBR and Duke and decided that Duke was better and later switched his story to "my dad has a Duke and I know how to ride it".  

We bid good bye to them and headed towards the bridge, promptly to be greeted by a traffic jam. The bridge was under repair and the traffic was one way. While we were irritated at this, we also got the opportunity to meet this wonderful couple who were on a touring spree in their Suzuki Access! And all the people called us mad!

They were into their fourth day of ride and we were very happy to meet them and hear their story. Suggested them to get good riding gears and then we bid adieu to them and took off to cross the chaotic Pamban bridge.

The train showed up exactly on time and I love this train for making this shot complete.

The coastline of Rameshwaram.

Once we reached Rameshwaram, it was chaos. It was hot, we were not finding rooms to stay and we wasted good amount of time trying to find a room to stay. We decided to head to Ramanathapuram and stay there, but luckily we found a room and happily we stuffed all the luggage in the room and headed for lunch.

Next visit was to Dhanuskodi, the town that was decimated in Tsunami and it was around 15Kms from Rameshwaram. We headed on, met a couple of local guys on bikes who wanted a race. Lohith decided to pull over and gave them gyan on riding gears! The best dialogue was  when the guy said that he had a helmet, but he keeps it at home. Lohith snapped back and said why don't you keep it at the temple and do pooja. Lol, they ran away from us, real quick.

We reached Dhanushkodi where we were stopped by police guys who asked for our ID proof. I showed him my PAN card, but he wanted to know where I work and a proof of that! Crazy guy, I handed him my visiting card and had a tough time in explaining that I work for that company and don't own it. As per suggestion of locals, we decided to take our bikes to the end point which usualy is only possible by 4x4 vehicles. The whole place is covered with loose sand and we somehow decided to try our luck.

As fate had it, 50 meters into the path, the bikes wouldn't move an inch forward! More the throttle, the deeper the wheels sunk. Decided to push the bike and covered some ground. Meanwhile, the 4x4's had arrived and were constantly honking for way. How do I give way when I can barely move forward! One driver got irritated, came out, lifted my bikes front section and put it out of the tyre tracks and cursed me to death. Somehow we managed to push our bikes back and decided that we take the 4x4's after parking the bikes. We were drenched in sweat. We were in full riding gear and the heat had baked me from inside and I desperately wanted to find some shade.

Now the biggest hassle was in front of us. Parking! Where ever we had been, the bikes had drawn attention, people touching, sitting on the bikes, fiddling with switches! They say bikes are like wives and you are not supposed to touch others bikes. But this is India, no one cares how the owner cares for the bike, the love towards the machine, all they want is to satisfy their hunger. I still remember how I was in shock when a guy had placed a brick on my previous bikes tank scratching the paint off. This place was no exception either. The moment Lohith parked his bike and walked a few steps, there were posers all over the bike, lined up to take their pictures. High time for us to learn to  respect others property. We scrapped the plan to park and decided to head back.

We headed back and stopped at a temple, built across the sea and the connecting road was right between the sea. Sat there chatting, planning, and me as usual making jokes out of nothing to bug Lohith. We had fun whilst the evening sun was showering his golden rays at us.

After all the fun and jibber jabber, it was time to leave. The day was amazing. Met wonderful people, had fun, tensed about rooms, the feeling when we were stuck knee deep in sand with the bikes. All these make you complete as an individual and this ride thought us a lot. Had a quiet dinner, roamed around and retired for the day.