Manipal Revisited... Day 1: Bangalore to Madikeri

It was a much awaited ride for all of us and a much awaited trip for the others... Yes the group was split open this time around, 5 of us decided to ride down and the other 5 decided to come by bus... So the stage was all set for us to leave the riding group was Me(Thuderbird), Sunil(Unicorn), Abhi(Apache), Bharavi(CBZ extreme) and Babu(Blue Splendor 125 cc) the other unfortunate 5 were BK, Supreeth, Pradeep, Rajanna and the new guy Karthik... The bus guys had booked their tickets to leave on 1st night and we were supposed to leave on 1st afternoon which eventually turned out to become evening...

Day 1(April 1st 2010):

I had packed my luggage the previous night itself and woke up early and went to the new Mantri mall for some shopping for my shoes and a T shirt for Joseph (Suman's gift for her wedding anniversary)... After hogging at the new Taco bell at the mall searched for some shoes and finally found a pair of Nike...

I also had to pick up my new pair of boots from shivaji nagar but alas the guy had not got the boots yet so couldnt get the new ones for the ride... After shivaji nagar i headed back home and geared up and got my saddles done and left to sunils place by 2... We were already late and Abhi would meet up with us by 4 so we decided to waste sometime and as well leave with Abhi... Bharavi was already at sunils place so we were playing with Sumans kid and had some chai... Finally we left at 4 and met up with Abhi at the Bangalore university gate only to find that our man Babu had shot ahead to some god forbidden location just to find a petrol bunk which was right in front of the university gate... Finally we got going after finding Babu waving at us wildly some where 20 kms from BU...

Incidentally there was very little traffic on mysore road for a long weekend, neverthless it was good for us... We were doing good speeds I was leading the way while Bharavi and Babu were right behind me and Abhi and Sunil were at the back... Looking into my rear view mirror was scary with babu riding like a snake at the mid line almost got run down by oncoming vehicles... First stop we took was just before the shrirangapatnam cross towards Madikeri... After some gyan sessions to Babu and Bharavi to ride properly we hit the road again and by this time it started to get dark... We were again doing good speeds and i decided to ride at the end of the pack so that i can baby sit Babu and Bharavi...

Next stop was just before hunsur at the Nagarhole junction... We had some coffee and some freshening up and another gyan session to Babu to ride carefully we left to madikeri... This was a super nice night ride... It was like a trail of light moving in a trained manner under the dark star lit sky... Every now and then i switched off my head lights to enjoy just the sky it was psychedelic and amazing to ride without head lights in the dark... Hit some bad patch of roads at Madikeri and finally managed to reach the homestay at 11 after a couple of scares from Bharavi who went off the road on a couple of curves and Babu with his usual stupid stunts and the final 5 kms off roading in the night to reach the homestay... :)

Partied in the night with campfire and some bantering and teasing of babu... Abhi was in all form who literally started hitting babu... Some of pearls of wisdom when the boys are high... :)

Abhi to Babu, Yeno nindu bari height nandu weight bega kudiyo loper (You just have height i have weight Drink fast u idiot)

Babu who drank the first time says we all forced him into drinking... Babu drank 3 pegs of vodka and says we forced him... :)

After Babu told us the sad story of how he lost his mobile, Bharavi's retort "Dude babu I dont understand why u cried after loosing your fone"

Sunil "Maga naale Manipal hogbeka,BK ge call madi ille barakke helbidona"(Do we have to go to manipal tomorrow, lets call BK and ask him to come here)

So after the campfire died out and the boys ran out of the booze we had our dinner and crashed for the night as we had a long day of riding the next day.. Yes we decided to leave to Manipal the next day... :)