When i was a kid i used to watch a TV serial "Street Hawk" -- The man ...The machine.. The power.... This is exactly what i remembered when i first drove Thunder Bird from Royal Enfield.... The sheer sound.. the stability has made a big dent in my mind to own this bike.... its a passion to drive this bike....its a feel like people just respect you for driving this bike on road... once you drive this bike you would never love to drive any other bike....
Through our friend sripad we came to know that Royal Enfield sponsors few bikes for adventure lovers to promote biking..... we contacted them and we were able to get 4 Birds.... for our trip to Bandipur,Masanagudi.... Well we didn't have a definite plan to the place the whole idea was to enjoy the drive.... so planed to start as early as possible....
We started as early as 6.30 in the morning.... 4 birds rocked all along the road.... the formation we kept made people wonder all along..... taking snaps from their cars.... such was the beauty....... The first stop was in Lakshmi's house in mysore..... We had a heavy breakfast and started to move towards Himavad Gopalswamy betta..... We were a bit unlucky as the day was very bright and we couldn't see much clouds in this place otherwise its like walking in the clouds... its a beautiful place with a small temple often visited by elephants..... we walked a bit along the grasslands just have a view of the beautiful forests.....
From gopalswamy betta we started moving towards masanagudi.... Masanagudi is around 15kms from Bandipur but it is in tamilnadu... hence we need to cross the checkpost.... but what was strange was... bandipur even though it is with in karnataka.... you are put in roaming and you will be charged for roaming calls.... we discussed how the telephone operators take the customers for a ride with no one asking against the same..... But probably to be realistic its a bit difficult to define boundaries for signals.....
The drive on our birds along this route between gopalswamy betta to masanagudi was really great.... its thick reserve forest on both sides, with your eyes not able to see anything beyond a few 100mtrs.... And going by bike in the evening was pleasing, however we had taken a bit of risk as well.... On the way we found elephants, spotted deers, peacocks lucky we didn't land in any trouble.... especially after diwi doing the stupid thing of getting down from bike and taking the snap of the elephant... about which we later came to know that it had killed few people in recent times....
This stretch of drive was one of the best drives.... for bullet boys... coool breeze... thick forests on both sides of the roads... and every individual driving at 40km/hr feeling every bit of breeze against them.... enjoying the beauty of the empty roads... We reached masanagudi at around 7 and then we went to a hotel to have dinner.... the dinner was pretty good.... i dont remember the name of the hotel but it should be green park i belive... it was very calm and tasty food....
The lucky thing was sandeep had his relatives in masanagudi and our issue of staying for the night was solved.... well i would love to make a strong point on this small family.... that was an amazing display of love and affection for the people who they had never seen before.... its very difficult to show such care in this current materialistic world..... well this is one reason why we indians should be proud of our culture..... The food served by meera aunty and the hospitality shown the entire family was simply amazing.... no words....to match.....and also not to forget the enthu of our rajni fan sachin....
Early sunday morning we decided to drive towards ooty as we came to know that the drive would be very great..... yes it was cold and pleasing especially the ghat section drive was very cool.... we were not interested in visiting Ooty as we knew it would be overcrowded... we enjoyed the drive and started turning back around 5kms from ooty... Again it was amazing fun to switch off your engine and just feel the bike on the return....well we could see that it reached the speeds of 60kms/hr such were the slopes.....
Such was the impression of bullet formation that once we parked our bikes in masanagudi people used to come and take snaps with our bikes........ We started back to bangalore from masanagudi at around 1pm.... Well everything was very smooth until gundlupete were in i was last in the formation and my bike broke down with a flat tyre.... i was lucky that my "hutch ka kutta" had followed me there i was able to establish contact with others who returned back to get a mechanic to fix it up........
Just after nanjangood we found a canal.... just instincts drive you guys crazy at times we just parked our bike and jumped into water..... the wilderness of bullet boys at its best.... it was great feeling to swim after a 2 day drive...... we finished our packed foods and again started back after an hours time in water.....
It was amazing drive back to bangalore on the mysore road with lights... we could see the indicators of all the 4 bikes following each other.... people loved the formation so much that they were not interested in breaking the formation.... they used to take snaps from their cars....such was the beauty....well got the feeling like you just deserve all the respect driving such an majestic bike.....
Route map:
Start time : 6.45am-Bangalore -- Mysore - Reached: 9am --140kms
Start time :12.30pm-Mysore -- Nanjangood -- Gundlupete - Reached: 3pm -- Take a right along the arch and drive 15kms to reach Gopalswamy betta (65kms + 15kms)
Start time : 5.30 pm Gundlupete -- Bandipur - Reached :6pm-- 20kms
Start time : 6.30pm Bandipur - Masangudi - Reached: 7pm - 15kms
Start time : 6.30am Masandagudi -- Ooty- Reached 8.30am - 30kms
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