The
final day of the trip, we had a long way to go. After my regular duties at
home, which I do each time I visit, I started to Ganesh’s home and was riding
as slow as possible.
It was just because my mom
kicked me out of the house before Rahukalam, and I had almost 2 hours to reach
15 kms. I had to start before 12 or had to wait for 90 more minutes. I chose
the first option and rode very slowly. I enjoyed as much Coimbatore as possible
before stopping to get gifts for GP’s Kid (Ganesh Perumal)
This time I was the first to
reach at GP’s place. His brother had returned from US and he was talking about
his tiring journey. When he asked about our trip, we had a longer story to
tell. Lunch interrupted our story and it was worth to stop the story for it.
GP’s brother had brought the
much awaited “Go-Pro” which was ordered by Anto especially for this trip. After
lunch, we were on the road towards Bangalore. It wasn’t the regular national
highway; but the one which took had just few kilometers of thick forest, some
broken roads, a hill to climb with just 28 hairpin bends.
We
rode through, Annur, Puliambatti and Sathyamangalam. Crossing small towns like
these are sometimes tougher. These roads are narrow, without any dividers and
with almost all interventions to make slow down. Well that was my reason, but
Anto and Abhi were still ahead of me cutting through all these crowds.
We reached the Dhimbam foot hills, from where
the 28 hair pin bends started. We were on or bulls perfectly climbing each of
the bends. While fully loaded trucks counted each inches and moved like snails,
some cars were passing them very swiftly, honking for the entire forest. We
stopped at the 27th hairpin bend and took few snaps. The view from
there was just awesome. We felt as if the whole world was just below us. We
selected a bus or truck far away on the first few hairpin bends and saw them
hiding in the woods and coming up on the next turn. Time passed like that on
that spot and we still had close to 200 kms to cover.
With
our bikes roaring again, we over took the slow moving trucks and too fast cars.
Anto was losing his mobile’s battery and wanted to reach home as soon as
possible.
Abhi
and I were together for the rest of the ride stopping after every one hour.
Anto was still ahead of us and we tried to chase as much as possible and
couldn’t. I was sure that Anto had taken a de-tour somewhere.
We
discussed on possible options where he could’ve fallen out of the track. We
dropped down to Kollegal from where you need to take a right turn, which was
abnormally, silent and dark. Anto should have thought that it was some village
road and should have proceeded straight. There was no option to call him
because his mobile was already dead. We rode towards Bangalore, and since it
was already dark we missed out lot of scenic spots on the way.
We
were still on the track and rode towards Bangalore. We even stopped just before
touching Bangalore city. There were no signs of him and we decided to wait for
him at our place. I was worried, that if had taken that straight road near
Kollegal, and he would have taken a longer route to Bangalore. Just about 80
kms longer.
Around 2130hrs we reached home.
My wife took our pictures, because our mobiles were running low on battery. We
had a small celebration with few photo sessions and went inside, still waiting
for Anto. Almost 30 minutes later, the knock at the door relieved our tensions.
It was Anto, as expected he took the road straight from kollegal, however very
soon he realized it was a wrong route and came back on track.
Chicken Kabab was awesome,
thanks to my wife for that. We started discussing about the most beautiful
things and worst things which happened in the trip. Abhi had to return their
rented bike and then go to Anto’s place to stay. It was already late and they
decided to leave.
Before saying bye, I took Abhi’s
telephone number, which wasn’t with me all these days. Better late than never.
“ So Machi, next trip Arunachal rite!!!!!!”
Abhi shouted while leaving, I said yes and turned to my wife with a tiny
smile….Her face turned red and the rest is censored!!!!!
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