Wayanad Road Trip: Chapter 4

(Read the previous chapter: Chapter 3)

Chapter 4: City-City, Bang-Bang

Sunday morning and we, as usual, woke up pretty late - and we woke up hungry. Reason being we had skipped last evening's dinner and had only had the Chicken 65 that we had packed from the restaurant earlier in the day. So after we all got ready and freshened up, we checked out of Chandragiri Inn, put our bags in our cars, and went on foot to look for some restaurants where we could have our breakfast. It was about 10:30AM and we were very late because we would now have to drive through the horrible city traffic in Bangalore which we were hoping to avoid by leaving early.

The restaurant was right next to the Inn, called "Jubilee Restaurant". We didn't expect English bacon and eggs for breakfast, and what the little eatery offered was quite alright. We had "Uppam" and "Kerala Parotas" coupled with chicken and eggs, and topped it off with fresh coffee which Kerala is so famous for. Having gone hungry the previous night, we gorged on our food without speaking much!

By then, it was time to move on. The Santro that Ritu was driving had a primitive cassette player (no CD player!) and the passengers of that car had been without music the entire time since we didn't have any music cassettes with us. However, in Kalpetta, Ritu chanced upon a shop and got hold of three cassettes of Bollywood movies. But alas! As soon as the first cassette was inserted into the player, it got stuck! And wouldn't budge! Imagine their frustration!

So off we went, leaving Kalpetta behind. It was NH 212 all the way for us, and that route as we later found out was much nicer to drive on. No wonder it was the most common of the three routes we knew, and the difference between Route A (the route by which we arrived at Kalpetta) and this route, Route C, was not very much in kilometers.

In Kerala (at least what we saw of it), it was not surprising to see many, many houses painted in very bright colors. And by "bright", I mean Yellow, Pink, Orange, Bright Blue - those type of colors. I guess it just went to show that the people there are very colorful, though I'd never paint my house in those colors!

We had planned to visit Sultan Bathery on our way, but because we were pretty late by then and hadn't read good reviews about the place, we decided to skip it and continue onwards.

An interesting incident happened on the way. We stopped at some petrol pump near Kalpetta to refuel our cars, and we also wanted to check the air pressure in our tyres. First time ever in my life, I saw a petrol pump which had a "Self-service" where customers had to check and fill air in their tyres by themselves! Sachin, the ever helpful, took the responsibility on to himself to check and fill the air of both cars, and I must say he did a good job out of it - more so considering it was his first time!

The NH 212 route also goes through a forest reserve, namely the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary. The drive through this sanctuary was nice, and unlike the Nagarhole forest reserve, the roads here were smooth, and much wider. We stopped at a couple of places here and took some much needed break, and also some much needed group photographs. After that, we were on our way again.

The roads were pretty much smooth all along this route, and I didn't have much to complain about. After we entered Karnataka (that happened after we crossed Muthanga I guess because I really couldn't tell the difference), we stopped on the road to buy some really cheap and good vegetables being sold by some local people. And we did buy a lot of it, because in Bangalore, the prices for the same stuff would've been multiplied at least three-fold. On and on we went.

At one point, in the middle of nowhere, we stopped to drink some coconut water. At that time, a bike which had just crossed us took a U-Turn, and came back to where we were sipping on our coconut water. Lo and behold, it was none other than Nishant (aka Kaaley Bhai)! Now they had been road tripping as well it seems, but on their bikes, and it was good to see them on the roads in the middle of nowhere! Soon, a few more bikes of their group stopped and we met some more friends. After chit-chatting for sometime, they sped away (we were both getting late) and we joined them on the road soon after.

By the time we reached the outskirts of Bangalore (SH 17, the Bangalore-Mysore corridor), it was dusk and we were tired. Another stop was made at Cafe Coffee Day in Mandya (my guess - there are a lot of towns on that route). We were hungry and tired - and so we all had some quick bites. Now refuelled and recharged, we set off again.

Bangalore traffic welcomed us with open arms as we entered the city's limits. Given that it was now dark, my tired eyes became watery ever so frequently, yet we trudged through the city's traffic on our way to my place in Cox Town. This traffic was what we wanted to avoid by leaving early from Kalpetta, but alas, we were smack in the middle of it!

Finally, as we reached Cox Town and got off the vehicles, all I could see were a tired bunch of road trippers who'd had their day's share of road tripping!

It was good to be home, and although the road trip had not been as grand as the one to Uchila beach last year, it had been a good break, and the first-timers had hopefully enjoyed it a lot!

For more pictures, click here.