When Using Google Maps Resulted in Me Falling down from a Hill

It was a beautiful day in winter. My husband and I had come for a year-end holiday to Kerala. It is an Indian state situated on the Arabian sea. Known for its palm-lined beaches, backwaters, networks of canals, and inland tea/coffee/spice plantations, it is truly god’s gift to mankind.

We traveled to Cochin (Kochi), which has been a port city from 1341 by bus. We then rented a Royal Enfield bike for 10 days and took off on our first ever road trip to travel the entire state. It was amazing.

The unparalleled scenic beauty of the land, the sea view, and traditional people warmed our hearts. We started from Cochin and left for Munnar. It is one of the beautiful hill stations, filled with tea, coffee, and cinnamon plantations.

The distance between Munnar and Cochin is about 130 km. And since most of the route was filled with hills, we assumed it was going to take us, approximately 5 hours to reach. My husband was riding the bike while I was helping him in navigation using Google maps.

The bike was completely packed with all our bags and belongings (as seen in the picture), and we felt proud when we strapped everything onto the vehicle. After all, it was our first road trip, and we were excited as hell!

During the journey, we had to pass through many villages filled with scenic beauty. I could feel the cold air on my face, my hair swaying in the wind, and the warmth of the sun. It was beautiful. There were roads covered with trees on both sides, farm fields stretching out for as far the eye could see, and rivers/backwater canals everywhere.

The structure of homes in Kerala is also different from the buildings we find in cities. On the way, we saw some beautiful homes with luscious gardens. Made me want to stay there and never leave. I still remember how gorgeous the day was and the feeling of calm that I had never experienced before. That is the beauty of travel, isn’t it?

Fast forward to a few hours later, we were glad that we had downloaded our map for navigation. Because there was no network in such remote places. My phone was in “Emergency call only” mode for hours, I suppose. If you have used the downloaded version of google maps before, you would have noticed that if you do take a detour by mistake, it will not get updated, right? You would have to find some way back to the original route and continue on from there.

Yes, that’s what happened with us too. The problem with my phone was, the location had not got updated thus, we never realized that we had taken the wrong lane till we had reached somewhere further. Then, I had the genius idea that we should just continue since I saw a way to come back to our original route.

The route was basically a right angle of sorts, where, the original route was the hypotenuse. This led us, traveling for about 8 to 10 km more than the original route, while also asking for directions from the locals. Yaayy me!

Our frustration levels had already reached peaks when we joined in our final route. We had traveled for about 5 hours straight, and our back had started to hurt. It had taken a lot more time than we anticipated. We also had not eaten anything on the way, other than the breakfast in the morning.

En route, our dear friend google maps asked us to take a turn in a much smaller lane than the one we were currently traveling in. Again the genius in me suggested that this was probably a shortcut. We had already wasted so much time on the detour, so it would help if we take this path, right?

Everything was normal in the beginning.

We started to go uphill after some time with all sorts of twists, turns and U- bends. The last thing I remember is joking about something with my husband. The next thing I know, I had fallen off the bike and rolled downwards (thankfully not off the side — there was a tree branch that stopped me). My helmet was somewhere else, my back and left hand was hurting so much, and my husband thankfully had held the bike before it fell too.

By some miracle, some locals came running from the top of the hill to help us out. Parked the bike safely and helped me get up. At that time, they felt god sent, and still today we do not know what we would have done without their help. It was then they informed that many accidents had taken place there already — tourists had got misguided by google maps, and there was actually no route that way. Screw you google maps!

Two pieces of advice I would remember throughout my lifetime? One- always keep the map mode to “car”, rather than bike while setting the destination on google maps. Two- always lock the hatch in your helmet! Yes, I hadn’t locked my helmet, which was why it had come off. Again, genius me!

We finally re-started our journey and took the path as guided by the locals there. Reached a nearby town for medical assistance and got my wounds cleaned. It was then I got to know, that I was hit in the head too and had a bump there. I also got scolded by the doctor, who was an old woman. Bless her heart.

We were so glad and left out a sigh of relief when we finally reached our destination. The bathtub had never seen more inviting, and I was ready to gorge on anything given to me.

I was damn lucky that day. I know there was a huge probability that something extremely serious could have occurred if not for those locals and the doctor who helped us out. While I will definitely be more careful of road trips in the future, the incident restored my faith in humanity. In a world that is filled with so much negative news and people, these locals seemed like a god to us in that time of need. I will never be able to forget them for sure.

They say the imprint places have on us is more emotional, than the actual experience. For me, this was very true. The trip which after this incident lasted for 9 more days, left me with a feeling of gratitude, peace, calm, and close to mother nature.