The Epicurean Rider: Cruising over to TK (tottikallu falls) & Heritage Winery.

Riding is my passion! I could cruise away on my bike for hours together lost in my thoughts. Riding always clears my mind, let's me process the information in my brain, weighs them, highlights the pros and cons, and helps me make decisions.

It's been a while since I went on a long drive, that dint include taking my mom around for shopping or listening to Anju going over her wedding plans or helping out dad. I needed this ride to happen more than anyone else for my very own reasons, and when I need something I could be stubborn and persuasive. Hehe, well that’s me!

 I had this whole thing planned out on Friday. Wipro had its run scheduled on Sunday and I knew all my friends would attend it; who says no to a fun filled day ;). I opened my communicator, pinged Gomathi and Esanya and asked them about their plans for Sunday, after the run. As I expected they had no plans, which pumped my excitement to another level. I immediately pinged back and said "let's make some plan" and kudos to my 2 dear friends, they were sport. Now the first hurdle was crossed, which took us to the next hurdle, were to go?

Well for a person looking for a ride, the destination is not as important as the ride itself, which means we could go anywhere in a 100km radius. As usual google was a life saver. The search engine responded with replies for places around Bangalore that could be covered in half a day. Out initial plans were to go to Hogganekal, but that meant riding for 300 km in half a days’ time which was a little difficult, thus we moved to our next option which was TK falls. This place is not that great, but again the destination wasn't important, but, the problem with this place was the area, it’s not very safe for ladies! That got us into rethinking for another destination, and my friend came up with Ramnagar for trekking. I was a little reluctant to go here coz this place is meant for trekking and I wasn't sure if I could trek after a 5km run, thus dropping out Ramnagar. Our next option was Bheemeshwari, but again it meant a ride of 200km. We could have covered this place, but I found another place I was dying to go on Mysore road, and if I choose that place, I could go to TK falls, play in the falls for a while, relax and then make it to my main destination, which means 2 birds in one row. Moreover Bheemeshwari is a place which is meant to be gone with an adventure club so that we could make maximum utilization of that place. After lot of insistence and pleadings my friends did agree to come with me to these places. Yayyyyy!

The D day arrives, Sunday the 21st, I get up at 5 in the morning, got ready, pumped my bike into life and rode till Wipro EC, meanwhile my other friends arrived. We ran the run, finished the concert and finally met near Wipro gate around 12. We had 2 bikes, CBZ and Activa, the latter being mine. Since we were 3 of us I wanted another person to join. We asked couple of out friends but everyone had plans, so, at last we decided to go by ourselves.

There were a lot of snags when we started from nice road. It would sound crazy but we actually dint know if we were supposed to take the toll pass, to Mysore road or Kanakpura road. We searched on google map but it just showed few village names which we weren't aware of. That's when Esanya proposed a plan of asking the toll guy himself. So, with great confidence we stopped near the toll; Esanya asked the guy and the toll guy being such a gentlemen tried to help us. Unfortunately he hasn’t heard about TK falls, which meant we dint know where to go. That's when the toll guy asked E ( that's what we call Esanya) to show him google maps; well, I cannot stop wondering how much this world has moved ahead in terms of technology that every folk these days use google map. After looking into the map the guy recognized the place and immediately gave us 2 tickets to Kanakpura road. So folks if you plan to go to TK falls you take kanakpura toll ;).

 Moving on, once we entered nice road, the ride was smooth with no hurdles. Goms (that’s what we call Gomathi) was my pillion and E was riding alone. Since his bike was geared one, he could easily manage a speed of 100+. But mine was Activa, which meant I cannot ride at 100, the max speed my bike takes is 70-80, which is kinda sad, when u have a long stretched tarred road to drift. I still raised my accelerator to the max and to my amazement; my bike actually touched a speed of 90, which was a relishing movement by itself. E was dumbfounded  when he saw me riding at this speed on my Activa, and it got him thinking, “what speed will she drive if she gets a geared bike”; well for that I reply, it's something I am yet to explore.

I know I know what you guys must be thinking, isn't it risky to ride at 90 on Activa given the size of the tire, the shocks and etc etc, well, I got this lecture from my dear friends who sits in London and advices me on Whatsapp ;). As much as I want to ignore it, it's quite true so I pledge on not reaching that speed again, moreover it's not fair to my Black Bird (that's what I call my Activa). Anyways, moving ahead, we reached kanakpura road in sometime. E handed over his google maps to Goms, who was our official talking map for entire ride. TK falls was around 11 km or so, at least that's what I recall, from the Kanakpura toll gate. After few km's there was a left turn towards Banarghetta road, and a few km ahead was this falls. The ride on Banarghetta road was beautiful. Lushing greenery on both sides, curvy road, smooth ride. I got the biggest compliment from my friend on my driving skills and ability, which meant a lot as it was coming from him. After few km there was a right turn we were supposed to take, and this road was terrible. A muddy road with lots of unevenness and potholes and stones. This was a 2km ride and it took a while to reach the destination.

As we reached the destination, we were disappointed. The water was drained out, instead of a waterfall, I could stagnant water, and to make matters worse there were a group of men seated under the shade of the tree drinking. This did dampen our spirit but we decided to go ahead and explore the place anyways. As we started walking ahead there were 2 old ladies sitting on a stone; as they saw us they started demanding money in Gods name. Frankly speaking I hate such folks, I will donate money if I want to, I don't want someone coming to me and asking for it. I refused to shell even one penny into their kitty, but my sweet friend as he is paid them few bucks. Heads up here, if u happen to visit this place and if u happen to come across these aunties beware of what to reply. When these aunties got money they told us that there is no water here due to lack of rain, but there is a huge rock up there if u are interested to  trek a bit and you click few photos. After weighing the pros and cons we decided not to go there, 1. I could c only guys there, and we wanted to avoid any sort of problems given the fact that this place is not meant to go with ladies 2. It meant walking a lot in sun which is exhausting and difficult after running a marathon 3. I was super hungry and wanted to eat  4. I was excited to go to my main destination. We started walking back to the parking area chit chatting with each other, when these old ladies snapped at us for speaking in English. I was super pissed, coz it's not anyone's goddamn business which language I speak in, even if I know Kannada. But I let it go as they were old ladies and I dint need a problem for my own safety.

                                                                      TK FALLS

I would recommend this place only for those folks who are interested in ride and not for the destination.

We took our bikes and retraced our steps till we reached kanakpura road. We google mapped for our next destination which lies on Mysore road, a 60km drive. There is some inner route that passes along the country side road connecting Mysore road to Kanakpura road. This route for most of the parts, was good and involved good roads. But there were places where the roads were terrible and it took a lot of effort to ride.

                                                       BANARGHETTA  ROAD

We passed Dirt Mania and saw couple of folks trying on dirt biking. I always wanted to try one of these, and I would very soon. Adding this name into my todo list for future references we made our way to Mysore road. We passed across a lot of agricultural land. At one particular point they had a huge field of babycorns. I dint realize it until E plucked out one babycorn and we all took a bite, I wasn't even sure if we can eat it raw, but I tried it anyways, I donno if it was my hunger or the baby corn actually tasted yummy. This made E, pluck around 5-6 baby corns more and I put it in my bike to prepare baby corn manchurian later that week.

                                                          E STEELING BABYCORN

The ride after this was cumbersome; the awful ride on city roads on Saturday, the marathon run, lack of food was taking a toll on me. All I wanted was something to energize me and I still had around 45km to ride. It's true, if u have will power to do something u can achieve anything u want and I m a strong believer of this. I strengthen my will power and drove that 45km without complaining. There came a point when I started regretting on suggesting this trip, but I heightened my spirits and drove. The 40 km ride on Mysore road to my destination was quite good. It’s a highway road, wider, and traffic free. We had to slow down only when we were passing thorugh town roads, but comparatively the traffic was bearable. We passed Ramanagaram and Chanapattna,  finally reaching the destination around 2.30.

                                                              KANAKPURA ROAD

This place comes after Ramnagar District, Channapattna. It's a vineyard known as Heritage Wineyard. These guys conduct wine tours for interested folks, followed by wine tasting. They also have this quaint eatery joint named Epuol, that's serves both Indian and continental cuisine. I wouldn’t recommend this place if I had other options, but since all of us were super hungry, we ordered like a king, filled our bellies, relaxed for a while enjoying the pleasant calm environment, went for the wine tour followed by wine tasting. Both of my friends are non-wine drinkers so it was only me excited to taste. But since I had to ride back home by myself and there is no spare rider, I had to contain my alcohol level to as minimum as possible. I was super careful not to consume more and had mentioned this to my host as well.

 My friends were really worried if I would be able to ride, but truth be told I was fine, the wine dint hit me nor I was high, I was perfectly fine, plus I was extra careful. Around 5 in the evening we started back to Bangalore. Our target time was 7.30 and mine was 8 as I had to drive to other end of Bangalore. We started off thinking no more hurdles; it's just 2 hrs drive to blore, what could go wrong? But destiny had something else planned for us. I had be cribbing my entire life on living adventurously, and may be that why the almighty decided to shower some more adventure into my life in form of heavy rain. We were near Ramnagar when it started drizzling which later turned out to be a heavy rain. We stopped for a while but the rain was no were near to end so we decided to start riding, moreover I wanted to ride in daylight rather than in streetlights. We started our bikes, I drove ahead and E was behind me with Goms, throughout the ride I was chanting "Narayana", riding at 70, on a highway, with heavy rain, breezy climate, slippery roads, obstructive view, it was quite challenging and I needed an extra sense of protectiveness to know I would be safe, hence the chanting; it's something I believe in.

My friends had concerns coz of my wine tasting and that it would somehow effect my judgements, but believe me, when the disaster struck in form of rain, any effect or residue of wine in my blood just evaporated into thin air, all my senses were on high alert, and I was as fresh as I could be, but this doesn’t mean I support drink and drive, it’s totally against my policy, so folks never drink and drive; its unsafe for you and for others driving on the road.

As much as chanting helped me feel safe, it definitely dint help the rain to calm down, and I was drenched completely. There is this recent joke I came across that says “ When someone says it is raining in Bangalore, be sure to ask them which area, which main and which cross”; it might sound insane but I was hoping for the same. And it did happen, once we entered the outskirts of Bangalore, moved past Wonderla, there were no traces of rain. It looked as if it never happened.

From this point on, the ride was smooth. No more surprises were in stored for us. We took nice road towards Banarghetta, i bid my friends adeiu and drove back home; and E dropped Goms home.

I had a splendid evening, even though it got scary sometimes, I learnt a lot if things, I freeking drove in heavy rain. This ride definitely gave me confidence, that no matter how bad situation gets I will eventually make it through.  

Proud to be a rider

Manju