I went on a biking (motorcycles) trip with a few colleagues from ThoughtWorks last weekend. We rode from Bangalore to Calicut and back (about 750 Kms in all). It was such an amazing experience --- good highways, lovely countryside and an great set of bikers to go along with. We took the following route..
Bangalore >> Mysore >> Gundlupet >> Sultan Bathery >> Kalpetta >> Lakkidi >> Calicut
We rode upto Lakkidi on the first day which is about 320 Kms from Bangalore. The roads are amazing till lakkidi -- first the Bangalore-Mysore highway. We were doing 100-110 Kmph on this highway. The road from Mysore to Gundlupet is also quite good. Then comes the ride through the Bandipur forest, which is simply superb. Lovely forests on both sides and very little traffic. This led us till Sultan Bathery where we entered the Kerala state border. The roads from Sultan Bathery to Lakkidi were well made narrow winding roads. It feels great to tilt your bike to such an extent on these winding roads; sometimes you almost feel you're gonna fall of the bike!!
We reached Lakkidi about 4pm and decided to stay there for the night. After dumping our bags in the rooms, we headed out on a small trail up the tea estate, which was quite scenic. We ended the day with some beer and silly jokes :)
The next day we went down the ghats and rode up to Calicut where we stopped for lunch (about 60 kms from Lakkidi). We visited the beach for a short period of time and then decided get back to Lakkidi. Once again we ended the day with some beer and silly jokes :)
On the following day (the 3rd day) we decided to head back to Bangalore. On our way back, we stopped at Edakkal caves at Wayanad for a couple of hours. Most of us were quite tired climbing up the hill to reach the mouth of the cave. The cave is huge and contains some caveman art; nothing much to explore there though.
We headed out from there at about 1:30 pm. We took the same route back and were back in bangalore by 8pm (with some breaks to rest our sore butts :). All in all, it was a great 3 day road trip. Most of us weren't really sure we could do over 300 kms a day. Now, we are quite sure we can easily do 400 kms per day. Should soon do a biking trip to Kanyakumari or probably Pune (visit the new TW office there :)
Here is a video of 2 camp elephants searching Sumukh for food.
