3 days of adventure – Ride to Kakabe and Bisle Ghat - Day 1/3

I have always wanted to camp In the wild which never happened. My friends used to go on trekking In the Western Ghats where they camp over night pitching a tent. But my priority is always been travelling on my motorcycle. So here comes an opportunity to ride free and camp with the star lit night sky as the roof.
My brother Rubert and I have been researching on which place to ride and which will be ideal for our camping. Kudremukh has been in my mind. The first thing comes to my mind thinking of Kudremukh is Gangamoola and the beautiful waterfalls Hanumangundi. But after hearing from couple of friends about the safety issues in Kudremukh to stay in tent, we had to drop off the idea. We have not finalized on where to go but our saddle bags are packed, tent and camping stuff is packed, our bike is filled with fuel to the brim, but where to go is still a question.

All Packed and ready. At my home.

8 hours before our journey begins, the plan started to flow well as we discussed. We decide to camp in Kakabe, Coorg on day 1. We also planned to ride to Bisle Ghat on day to and camp there for the night on day2. On the third day we start from Bisle and ride back to Bangalore. With the plan looking good we went to sleep, hoping to catch some sleep.
Day 1 of 3:

Ready to roll. At my basement.

It’s the Ride day, in those lines of Race day or Track day! We got up early in the morning, 5AM on 26^th January. Starting the day with Bible reading and prayer, we got ready to roll. Carrying all our luggage, camping and biking gear to the basement itself a mammoth task!. Saddle bags are fixed on the bike, camping gear is tied to the rear seat, riders on their  saddle, ready to Have A Good Day. Happy Republic Day!

On the way to Mysore

The day is pleasant, with the Sun shining and the wind breezing and our pulsar 220s are doing good. We wade through the Mysore highway traffic to Channapatna to have our breakfast. After having Masala Dosas and a tea we continued our ride towards Kakabe via Hunsur. The two lane highway after Mysore towards Hunsur is very scenic and deserted. I was thinking we can even pitch our tent one of these places!

The Road towards Hunsur from Mysore

Enjoying the landscape we missed the road to Gonikoppal and we took the road to Siddapura. This route happened to be just 10km longer but went through the woods and small villages, which was nice. We had a number of breaks for munching energy bars and of course to record our memory in our cameras.

On the way to Siddapura.

We reached Siddapura around 12pm. Siddapura is a small village on some hilly landscape. Its a very small and beautiful town. We noticed people talking in Malayalam! We had some snacks and some nice tea from a local shop.

On the way to Siddapura.

The roads were winding through the hills with greenery everywhere. We had to pullover at every junction to check the GPS if we are on the right track. Google Maps seemed to be more usable that the Nokia maps. Nokia maps is very cumbersome to scan through as you have to zoom in close to see town names and then you have to zoom out to see the route end to end. When you zoom out you loose where you were looking. Hope Nokia fixes these minor issues soon. 

Rubert Jack, at the hotel in Kakabe.

On Entering Kakabe, we were so hungry the first thing we did is to find a hotel. We found a village style hotel. Chicken curry, Chicken fry and Ghee rice were our choice for lunch. Food was really tasty and purely village style. We liked it. The hotel was basically run by a villager and his wife. They were very hospitable.

Our Lunch – Ghee rice and Chicken curry.

After having a satisfactory meal, the next important thing is to find a place to camp. Its around 3pm now and e have till 5pm to find a place and pitch the tent before its dark. When enquired about where we could pitch our tent for the night the guy who runs the hotel suggested couple of places nearby. 

Rubert and Hubert after a good meal.

We left the hotel to explore the places around. It was fun riding around these twisties. We found couple of interesting places to pitch the tent, but since we wanted to have more choice, we wandered around some more.

In search of a place to lay our heads.

We were told that there is a government museum nearby where there is a good lawn where they allow to pitch the tent. We thought that might be a good option and went there. But the people at the museum were not allowing us to do so.

Challenging roads!

As we roamed around further it was getting dark. And then i had a fall in one of the dirt tracks. There was nothing to worry thought. I was climbing the uphill in the first gear and as i shifted to second the bike stalled all of a  sudden and there was no traction. The bike started to slide and i lost my balance.

She got tired!

I tried to lift my bike myself, but the more i tried to lift, the front wheel was slipping and i had no way of lifting it. Rubert was still behind me and he was waiting for me to come back as we had planned. Then i called him on his mobile phone to come and help me out. Finally he arrived and we got the bike on its wheels again. phew.

Can we tent somewhere here?

Its dark now, thanks to my fall and Rubert’s bike running out of fuel we have no options but try to tent in one of the estates there. There is this Kings cottage where they allow people to tent. We found it out from a guy on his jeep. We went there and enquired if we could camp in their estate. Thank dear God, they agreed and finally we got some place to rest for the night. God is Good all the time.

Petrol first!

The worker in the estate helped us to find our way in to their land that is basically on a hill. The stars are already out, a billions of them. The sky was so beautiful i could lie down and gaze at it all night, thanking the wise creator.  Now the big challenge is to put up the tent! we got our bikes on with their lights on. Now we have to figure out how to pitch the tent. In the dark it was hard to find even which side is up. We are engineers right, so we were confident the manual wasn’t necessary. Finally we had to resort to the one page manual, but by then i had screwed the tent enough for the manual to be less useful. At last the tent was up. phew.

Where do i start? Hubert pitching the tent. 

Time for the campfire to be lit and the chicken be barbequed. Earlier in the evening while Rubert had gone to the petrol station in the next village, I had bought chicken from the Kakabe village. Rubert mixed the chicken and the masala powder that we had brought with us while i was making the campfire.

Rubert. He know how to do it.

Finally the campfire is on its own and the chicken pieces placed on the heat. While we waited for the barbeque to be done we started our dinner with the rice and sambar that we packed earlier in the village.

Our dinner. It better get cooked.

Rubert got the  barbeque done really well. His experience from making his steak and sausage dinners back in his home in Bangalore helped!

Yummy!  Thats a first.

Now its time to empty all the snacks we had as we chatted about this and that. Once in a while I will be awe stuck seeing the innumerable stars on the black sky. Unfortunately our cameras did not capture this beautiful sky at all. God must have really enjoyed when he created all these beauties.  Allow me to quote from the Holy Bible here:
“God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.” – Genesis 1:16

Good job, camp fire.

Its getting close to midnight and the campfire did a real good job keeping us warm. Time to say good night to it and hit the tent for the sleep. The tent was just enough for the two of us and only for our valuables. Anxious about the next day, we got decent hours of sleep until 7AM next day.

Next Day >