Day 9 - The Crash and Blast

28-12-2015

1774 KM

The bruise on the right leg of mine also has little blood clot. But never it bothered or bought us down to halt or stop our travel. It wasn't that easy for us to drive till here at the hotel, with broken front brake lever. After a long search we have found this hotel to satisfy our stomach. Let me pen down the "crashing" experience we had today.

It was quite late we finished the discussion on the route Milind and Sagar has to take for their return journey. As they had covered the complete western ghat, it was the coastal route they were planning for. We gave them a brief of the route which would be suitable for them, with our knowledge and map.

It was already morning and good cause of Milind and Sagar was flashing across in our memory. Taking the excuse, we all ended up waking up only by 6:30 AM. It was still cold outside, Milind and Sagar were late by an hour. May be the warmth of our 1BHK made them sleep for little more time. We asked them to start immediately as it would be more difficult for them to start late, waiting for us to get our 1BHK grounded. After the "tring tring" from Sagar and Milind, we started packing our luggage to kick of our journey for today. We left a short "Thank You" note at Rajeev's main door, not to disturb him on a Sunday morning sleep and continued in Kottyam route in search of booster chai (black tea). 

With Milind and Sagar in the morning

We ended up meeting Milind and Sagar in the same tea shop. While on our second tea, a local suggested us to visit Calvary Mount and Anjurli falls (tunnel falls). Though we realized this was out of our route, as usual we never dared to miss an unplanned route on our travel expedition. We can mostly relate life and travel to be the same, when you get some unexpected turn. It use to be really exiting, of course if it's good. As per that person those places are not of tourist type, it excited us more. He also mentioned that Idduki backwater from Calvary Mount is one of the spectacular scenic view, he had ever seen. With lot of expectation, we continued our journey towards Kattapana, which is the nearest point for Calvary Mount and Anjurli Falls.

The previous days maggie didn't make us hungry soon in the morning. Hopefully it was because we had cooked with our sweet own hands. The road was more or less of normal ghat road, what we saw around many western ghat sections. It was more of houses around this road. We quickly reached Anjurli, though the entry for this was exiting with a nice view of the idukki back water, the falls was disappointing. The Anjurli water falls can be a good place for tenting with nice view of the Idukki dam backwaters. But the water is not that clean and very deep. It was a quick exit from there, after few clicks.

Idukki Dam Back Water

Idukki Dam Back Water

Idukki Dam Back Water

Idukki Dam Back Water

Anjurli Falls

By this time we were hungry and found a hotel to fuel up our selves. It was "kadla curry", "puttu" for the breakfast today. The movie running at the hotel wasn't tempting as our next destination. After the quick breakfast, we headed towards Calvary Mount. After the first disappointment, we weren't expecting too much out of the Calvary Mount, but since it was on the way we wanted to give it a try. The area started looking little modern with girls wearing jeans and t-shirts, as for the whole experience in kerala till now, we were seeing all traditional people. Couple of them were even speaking very good English to guide us to Calvary mount. The deviation from the main road to the Calvary mount started with 45 deg incline and I had to get shakila on her first gear. Though the initial road was pretty fine, after few meters it started with all gravels and big stones. We started feeling the off-road ambiance, but not though too tough. With in a short time, we saw a new gate being constructed and couple of people inside. As usual we just turned to right and saw a peak which was higher. With the adventurous mind tickling us, we continued towards the other peak in full determination of conquering it.

The Peak

Dubbbbbbhhhh . . . . .  Narrow road with full of gravels, made me apply my break and tyre started sliding down. The road had taken it's shape out of the four wheel jeep drives and rain water made a uneven trench in the middle of the road. Left side of the motorcycle was mountain slop and right side was the trench. I couldn't find a base for my foot on that trench and we were grounded on the drench side, before I could do anything. We crashed badly !!!!!! I was under Shakila and could see the petrol leaking out of it. Luckily the engine got stopped. Satish jumped out quickly to give a hand for help. Thankfully the newly fitted frame saved our legs not being stuck under the bike. The motorcycle was grounded in a bad position, we really struggled hard to get our motorcycle back into the normal position. We did realize that the front brake lever been damaged. "Oh God ! How do we drive it down in the incline, it will be very difficult". When this thought was being wandering around, we figured out the hydraulic function of the brake was working, but it was the lever which was damaged failing to have the spring action. I should really thank my long hair; the rubber band proved worthy.  We quickly created a mechanical spring action out of this rubber band, to retract the brake lever to its position. 

The other part which was badly damaged was RE's authentic Head Light shade. This didn't bother us much though. The disastrous crash put us down not to continue to the peak, rather go back to the normal view point. Some one who miss Calvary mount, is the one who has really missed to enjoy the beauty of Idukki. It started feeling heavenly, with some beautiful song being sung by a Orchestra group who had come for the visit. The refreshing place gave us a skip to think more about the crash and enjoy the Periyar river flowing in between the valley. A sincere advice to all nature lovers, if you are any where near Kattapana, don't ever dare to miss Calvary mount. Non Nature lovers, please don't spoil this place by littering. After some awesome captures, we headed down towards the main road. Shakila was not happy with her broken finger, though we had a band-aid on her. The 45 deg decline was little challenging with the broken brake lever, but the rubber band did a perfect job. 

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Idukki Back Water from Calavary Mount

Reaching the main road gave us a little relief and we headed towards Kottayam. We also realized the "tyre rubbing to mudguard" has re-occurred after the fall. When we stopped to see if we can quickly fix it, it was the fourth problem which over took all other problems, oil leaking of the air-filter box. At least for us who had decent knowledge of the bike, this problem started worrying us more than other. How the hell would the Oil reach the air filter, which is at least one foot above the engine. Clueless, we just continued our journey to reach a place to fix these problems as soon as possible. The tyre rubbing was getting more annoying with every beautiful turn. Though the road was awesome with right indicators in place and many beautiful curves, these problems weren't allowing us to enjoy the ride. It was around 40 KM and we have reached Pala. Kottayam was around 60 KM from there and out of hunger we have stopped for lunch. The hungry stomach could not wait any more. The good part of today's lunch was that Satish had no option for non-veg and he had to compromise with Vegetarian food, while the chicken's were dancing around.The best part was though they offered some non-veg, which they spelled in Malayalam, Satish got confused and denied. When he was about to complete his lunch, he realized it was his favorite small fish.

I should really say it was a "crash and blast day" for us. Crash was bad, but the blast was really funny. After the tasty vegetarian food, I repeat tasty vegetarian, we continued towards Kottayam. We found very beautiful houses in this route. Most of them made us feel it was build with european culture embedded with in them. We were hurrying to reach Kottayam to fix the problems of Shakila, as we never wanted her to cry oil out of the Air filter. Satish quicky spotted a old bullet modified very neat, parked side by road. I jumped out of the bike to reach out to the owner Vipin, who just had purchased some ice creams for his family. He was an hard core fan of bullet and wanted to help us, but our fate he wasn't carrying his phone to give us the contact number. Before we could say it was our bad luck, his brother who was passing by the same road accompanied us till Kannan's service station at Ettumanoor, upon Vipin's request to help us. Yes, we were really lucky to meet Vipin today. We reached Kannan service station and since he wasn't there we had to wait for few minutes catching up with Vipin's brother, as he studied in Bangalore. Kannan checked each of the problem in detail, and was able to quickly fix two of them. The brake lever had to be replaced and he didn't had spare. So we had to compromise with the rubber band till we get the spare, which we decided to get  done at Alleppey. He cleaned up the oil which had accumulated in the air-filter box, because of the crash. This gave us a big relief to enjoy our journey. Satish who was gloomy all these while, had a big smile on his face. We thanked Vipin, his brother and Kannan to make a happy exit from their work shop towards Kottayam. We realized that our communication had become easier, as people have started speaking good English.

We headed towards Kumarokam, as we had heard its one  of the very good bird sanctuary in Kerala. Kottayam main road had a major traffic jam, we just felt we are in Bangalore for those 5 Kilometers journey. We have to blame the traffic jam which made us reach Allepey route missing the Kumarokam route. Vipin's brother had disappointed us about the Kumarokam sanctuary by saying "Its a bird sanctury with out any birds", so we thought its good to skip and continue towards Alleppey. We were burned out and wanted charge up ourselves and our equipment's. We decided to spend our day in a hotel tonight. While Kanthu was helping us to book a hotel at Allepey, we started riding towards Alleppey. We started feeling the backwaters with some reflection of houses being seen far away. 

It was this shaggy looking colorful toddy shop which attracted both of us at the same time. We bumped into this toddy shop in the next minute. We had little knowledge about toddy, and we knew that only fresh toddy would be good for taste and health. As Satish wasn't keen to "Drink and Drive", I ended up having a glass of fresh toddy. This is some thing no one should miss when they are in Alleppy, fresh toddy. Quickly we grabbed 2 liters of fresh toddy in the bisleri bottle, each costing us INR 90. This one glass started making me feel good, rather drunk. We had to struggle a lot to book tickets using an online app, ending up paying an higher rate to book, Gokulam Home stay. The online app again gave us a wrong address of the home stay, thankfully couple of youths helped by guiding us the right way to reach the home stay. 

"Crap" is what we can say for this home stay. For the decent price, this was really a crap home stay. Since our only intention was to charge up the electronic equipment's and ourselves, we just compromised to stay in this place. We got to know there was a food festival happening on the beach side, so got fresh soon to fill in our stomach. As Satish was taking bath I called my family and friends. 

Before starting for the food festival, I insisted Satish to open one bottle of Toddy. He happily grabbed one to ajar the cap. Before I could turn back to grab my phone, i was completely sunk in toddy, Oh no its not only me, the complete room. The cap flew out getting out the toddy like a flower pot, which spell out the fermented toddy all around the room. I bet, the toddy was much stronger than any room freshener you would find. I just took out the other bottle out of the room to release the gas, as we had done for those Kingfisher beer during the bachelor days. 

We started towards the fest with a disappointment of loosing one bottle of toddy. The food fest was again a disappointment with not much authentic kerala food stalls. It was one of the shop which was offering idiyappam, and we ended up completing our dinner there. We rushed back to the room to checkout and finish our toddy before we crash down. It was very much fermented and the taste had totally changed. I was atleast lucky to have fresh toddy in the evening, but Satish ended up drinking the fermented one. With the "toddy room freshner" we ended up spreading out the sleeping mat on the cot, before we sleep. I cant bear this smell any more and will shorten it here.