Kodaikanal ‘The Princess of hills’. A story of 3 days and 1025 kms: Part 2

With lot of excitement, comes lack of sleep. That’s what exactly happened. I was up even before my alarm clock started ringing. Got freshen up, put on the gears, mounted the luggage on the motorcycle and I was on my way.

First break was Attibele toll gate for a cup of coffee. Ended up drinking two cups and started the journey.

Nothing much to write about this leg of the ride. Boring but well maintained roads all the way for 470 kms till you reach Kodaikanal.

Route taken: Bangalore – Salem – Dindigul – Batlagundu (Chennai Theni Highway) – Kodaikanal

Had breakfast after Salem and moved on.

Till Dindigul it’s a four lane highway, and once you take diversion on Chennai-Theni route it turns into a single lane with moderate local traffic.

After around 50 kms on Chennai-Theni highway, a right turn comes that leads straight to kodaikanal. It is well-marked so don’t worry about missing it.

While I was riding on this route, about 10 kms before turning for Kodaikanal, I started hearing some weird noise from the chain. I could also feel some sort of minute vibrations on the left foot peg. Stopped and checked the chain. It had become too tight. Now I have heard that a tight chain will not pose much risk but a loose chain might break. (I don’t know if this is correct. If anybody can throw some light, it will be highly appreciated). Decided to fix the issue before moving on. Saw a local mechanic and took a break while he fixed the chain.

Few people gathered around and started asking about the bike while the mechanic was at his work. I could not understand as they were speaking in Tamil but we soon started conversing in sign language and some broken English words. They were curious to know about my tank bag and how I had installed it, looked at my hydration pack and tube in awe and were amazed to know that you can mount your phone on the bike and use it for navigation. They were all concerned with the amount of petrol I’ll be using on my journey.

After leaving I thought that I should have clicked a picture with all of them. You are more approachable to people when riding solo and small gestures like these bring you more closer to the people. I’ll keep that in mind next time.

Once you take the turn for Kodaikanal, the ghat road starts. This road is a 52 kms of motorcyclist’s heaven. Some awesome twisties coupled with good views. You will feel a sudden drop in temperature as you start the ascent. Saw a Diavel, a Multistrada and a S1000RR marking their territories on this road. Their music reverberating through the ghat was very soothing to the ears.

By 1:30 PM and 8 hours later, I reached the top and checked in to the hotel. Had a veg biriyani and dozed off for some time.

In the evening, I went out to explore the town. Went to coaker’s walk but could not see anything as there was a lot of fog that day. (Got to know from the locals that the day before it was very much clear). After that, went to Kodaikanal Lake for a walk. I wanted to go for boating but as there were no boats available for a single person, I had to drop that plan. I thought of finding some lonely creature like me and go for boating but then I started feeling hungry and dropped that plan too.

Instead of clicking lot of pictures on first day, i fiddled around with GoPro and tried shooting some videos. What came out was extremely weird stuff and it’s too embarrassing to post, hence only 3 pics!