The ride to the edge of the world...

Finally it has happened!!! I've waited for this for a full year and boy oh boy!! What a ride!!! Below is my version of it!!

As planned, we departed Chennai on August 14th at 4.00 pm. The 'we' consisted of me, the missus, Raja and his wife Lakshmi. We were on the Unicorn and Raja was on the Thunderbird. We made steady progress towards the airport and exited the city pretty quickly!! The first stop we made was for water and small refreshments about 80 kms from the city. The roads were beautifully straight and smooth, plus the unicorn had splendid suspension!! Our only issue was that we had only 2 good hours of daylight before dusk settled in and we wanted to cover a good distance before that set in. Raja was not sure about the route and was hesitant about leading. So caman the throttle opening!! We did non stop riding for about 150kms and reached Tindivanam is good time. Here's when we took our real long break. Had tea, refreshments and other condiments and double checked the harnesses and cramsters for secure holdings. The other reason we stopped was it was almost dusk and the insects would come out. Riding amongst them was a pain and we decided to halt for an hour to let them pass so that we would have minimal intrusion. This was a blessing in one way, but we did'nt realise that 6.30 onwards the lorries start their daily grind!!

We slowly packed up again and started out to Trichy at speeds not exceeding 80 kmph. Blinding lights from opposite vehicles and ill mannered Sumo's and Qualis' made our journey a tiresome one. No one was willing to give way although they knew a bike would cover that gaps they were trying to do, way faster!! Finally after about 80 kms, my eyes were killing me with all the dust, grime, bugs and flashing lights. I hailed raja down and washed my face completely to find black water and dead bugs falling off my face!! damn!!! Raja also washed up as he was in the same situation too. The roads from here also were turning pathetic as there were deviations every 300 metres!! We slowed down further to speeds of 60 kmph and moved along to reach Villupuram. Thats when i noticed the board!! Pondy was only 40 kms from there!!! DAMN!! I had travelled 100 kms of bad roads just to find i had missed out on the lovely ECR that was just running parallel!!! Mentally made a note to return via Pondy!!

We trudged along and stopped again about 50 kms later. The oncoming lights were getting a bit too much to handle and the roads were not helping us too. We had a little snack here and I thought i heard bullets approaching. I turned around and LO!!! Dosai just zoomed by on his 220, followed by the entire battalion who started at 5PM!!! I was more than happy by this addition, mainly because now, i knew someone else would lead the way, secondly 8 bullets definitely create a ruckus on the road!! More than enough for the unruly oncoming lights and the Taxi's who thought the road was theirs!! I happily followed this group until we reached Perambulur where suddenly the roads seemed to widen and everyone was on their own trip!! So, there we were again, back to square one!! Me and Raja moved at 90 kph while the others felt triple digits were the need of the day!! They were never too far away though!! We all took another stop near Siruganur where much needed chai and smokes were available. This was a good 30 minute break.

We saddled up again and sms'ed Simmrit about our whereabouts, just to hear him howl his lungs out at how slow we were!! He had arranged food and drinks at his farmhouse and was waiting for us!! We promised to be there and sped away. This time i made sure i stuck to Dosai as he had the most powerful lights of all and maintained a constant 90-100. Signalled to Raja to follow up and he did it, although i could see he was a tad uncomfortable with all the luggage and night riding. He did manage pretty well though!! The last 50 kms to Trichy were the most painful as the roads were the worst i'd have seen!! We were stopped just before Trichy by the local police and a quick mention about Sim's dad made us feel treated like VIP's!! The cops were more than glad to show us the way and about 15 kms later we saw an Ikon zigzagging across the road with strobe lights on and all chamak!! We knew who this joker was!! Sim, with all the bleeng bleeng in his car joined up and led us on to his farm house where we joined up with the gang that had left chennai in the morning at 6.30.

The rest of the night was a complete relaxation session with alcohol and food flowing freely and everyone cracking jokes and taking each others trip!! The food was awesome and we had a great night enjoying everyone's company!! I crashed at around 2 after everyone had a blissful sleep!! Woke up at around 10 in the morning to see everyone was cleaning their bikes!! No idea why!!! Walked down and joined them up for some casual banter. Hari managed to change the oil on MAK's thunderbird. The oil in the eninge was more like grease!! No idea how MAK was riding this!! By this time I learnt that everyone, other than us 4, had already woken up earlier and had breakfast too!! Given that, me swapna, raja and lakshmi set off to find breakfsat and settled down in a decent looking place. Had my fill of idlies and vadas and made sure everyone had a good breakfast.

We went back to find everyone saddling up. They wanted to have lunch and leave to Rameshwaram ASAP!! We geared up and decided to stop for lunch later!! Again, just me and Raja sped away, towards Rameshwaram. It was daytime, the roads were good and we had a good nights sleep. This time the speedo maintained triple digits!! We reached Pudukottai in record time and took our first break. A good 20 minutes later, we started off towards Karaikudi and reached Karaikudi in about an hour. We stopped by a good hotel to taste authentic Chettinad food!! The food was fantastic and we gorged on it, a mistake we realised about 10 minutes later!! There was only one loo and everyone made a run for it!! We emerged 'releived' about 10 minutes later and sms'ed Sim about our whereabouts. They had just crossed us and were about 5 minutes away taking a break. We joined up with them and caman the belting sessions began!! It was a great ride all the way upto Devakottai, where we stopped at Dosai's ancestral house for a cuppa chai!!

The whole village came out to see what the ruckus was all about!! 30 bikes rolled in and that seemed to be enough to stop the village's proceedings for the rest of the evening!! This is where we discovered that Raja had a puncture!! Hari immediately started work on it and we all rested and made banter while the puncture was getting fixed. The village by itself was very small but had a beautiful lake in the middle. We took tons of photographs and thanked the hosts for the delicious tea and zoomed away once the puncture was fixed!! The next stop was going to be at the Pamban bridge and we started in earnest!! All plans came crashing down as soon as i saw Prabu's car parked waiting for us. I could'nt resist playing with that uber cute son of his!! We stopped for another 20 minutes and realised daylight was fast fading. Prabu led the way with his esteem and Sim and me followed him as we really were fighting against time to reach the bridge before sunset!! We did eventually manage to do that, but had about 2 minutes to relish the bridge!! The sun, as stated rightly, did not wait for anyone, and went about it's own business and let the moon take over!!

The Pamban bridge connects the Rameshwaram island to the rest of the world. It's a natural wonder by itself!! We all marvelled in it's glory and spent a good hour on the bridge watching traffic go by and generally talking around. Rameshwaram was only about 20 kms from there, so we knew we had nothing else to do. Started later and went straight to the hotel that was booked for us. Checked in and had a 'refreshing' kwaaack thoooo salt water bath!! We joined up later with Muthu and gang for another round of drinking and making merry!! The agenda from last night continued and we tripped on Bra and his numerous girlfriends!! We slept at about 11 as we planned to catch the sunrise at the ghost town of Dhanushkodi.

To be continued....