MUNNAR - KERALA

Munnar - The Tea Town

Oops... 1,150 km on bike !!!

Prologue: Munnar is a hill station in Kerala situated around 500 km from Bangalore. Since, I hadn't covered this much distance on bike before and never thought of doing that either, I had to give a lot of thought to prepare myself for this trip. At first it seemed crazy to me but then as a challenge I accepted it.

Riders:
Ashish - Bajaj Avenger
Ashutosh - RE Thunderbird
Kamlesh - RE Thunderbird
Gurinder - RE Thunderbird
Kartik - RE Thunderbird
Manas - Bajaj Avenger
Arnab - Bajaj Pulsar 150
Vasanth - HH Karizma
Parwez - HH Karizma
Shivank (with pillion his brother) - Bajaj Pulsar 150
Saswata - Honda Unicorn
Himanshu (with pillion Mukesh) - TVS Apache


Route taken:

Bangalore - Hosur - Rayalkottai - Palakkodu - Pennagaram - Perumbalai - Mechcheri - Mettur - Bhavani - Perundarai - Vijaymangalam - Tiruppur - Palladam - Udamalpettai - Chinnar forest - Mariyoor - Munnar

Total around 450 KM.

Stay: Deluxe Dorm at Las Palmas Resort, Devikulum Road, Munnar

Plan was pretty simple. Start early morning on 23rd. Reach Munnar by evening. Roam around in Munnar on 24th and return back on 25th. Also, we planned to take unconventional route by going through shortcuts avoiding badly shaped National Highways. It was a large group of 15 people including 2 pillions. Apart from 3-4 people, rest of us met at the designated spot,Hosur Road at 5:00 AM. We had planned for covering maximum distance in the early hours but fate had something else for us in store.

We had to take a right turn to Rayalkottai just before Hosur. The turn was very easy to miss. So few missed it and we wasted more than 2 hours and were still practically in the sub-urbs of Bangalore. We were divided into 2 groups. We, first group went thorough a "really bad road" where one of our rider Manas met an accident, he lost control over a speed breaker and fell down. We had to come back to Hosur and there 2 ppl stayed with Manas and rest went to their way. Actually we had to take a U turn after cutting off the NH at Hosur, in spite of going straight on that road which some people had told us. We then followed that path and were soon cruising at 80-90 kmph. We then planned to meet the rest at Pennagaram.

After having our lunch there we quickly sped to reach Bhavani, a decently populated town to have our lunch. There was a small section of ghat road also in between near Perumbalai and Mechcheri. We also crossed Mettur which has a cool dam. We lunched at Bhavani at around 2 PM and rushed toward our next spot.

View of Mettur Dam from the bridge

Mettur Dam is one of the largest dam in India built in 1934. It was constructed in a gorge, where the River Kaveri enters the plains. View from the hill road along the river.

On The Dam

Next big stop in between was Tiruppur. We never imagined that Tiruppur could be so big!!! It took us around an hour to cross this city full of Bangalore-like traffic and one ways! Then we took a break in Palladam. Our next stretch of Palladam to Udamalpettai was too good, "Makkhan Road" as we call it. No traffic and both sides lots of wind mills. This area is generally quite windy with wind speed reaching 60kmph easily. We covered this section too quickly.

Now we had to cross the most awaited Chinnar forest. It was already twilight and we were sure that we have to pass the forest and do the climbing on hill roads in night and everyone was game for it! :) We met Shivank's bike also waiting before the jungle.

Small fountain in the way to Munnar on Hills

We were expecting a lot of interference from wildlife during night. But again fortunately or unfortunately, we spotted only few rabbits and mongeese. Gurinder (on royal enfield) broke his clutch cable and footrest on the hilly way? Ironically he was giving us some fundas about how to drive bike in such adverse conditions but his own fundas cheated him. We entered Munnar at around 11:30 PM after crossing Chinnar and Mariyoor. We ate in the town there and went to our hotel, which we had booked in advance and was 10km from there. zzzzzZZZZ !!!

We woke up leisurely at around 7-8 AM to find some people already left for sunrise. Our first job was to get Gurinder's bike fixed and it cost us more than 4 hours. Then we took Rajasthani Thali as our lunch and left for Medupatty and Top Station(highest point of Munnar).

View from the street in Munnar

Now, we saw the real beauty of Munnar. Majestic lush green tea estates everywhere. We missed these views last day because we entered Munnar after dark. The ride to Top Station which is around 35 km from Munnar was awesome. We clicked a lot of photos with Tea Estates in background. Stopped at Medupatty Dam to admire the beauty and again clicking some snaps.

Me , Saswat and Chamoli

Chai ke Bagan...with fog

Chai ke Bagan ...without fog

We stopped at Medupatty Dam and took few pictures as the view was amazing there.

At Medupatty Dam

As we neared Top Station, fog started building. By the time we reached Top Station, we could not see more than 10 feet ahead. Top Station basically has a good view point which we could not see due to dense fog.

we gave company to stand alone.

on the way with bikes [:)] ...

On returning from top station we stopped at places which we never have imagined to be so beautiful...

I saw the pink trees first time and the looked amazing...

way to the river is through the road on this dam ...

walking on the edge [:)]

Destination Reached. The place was so amazing that you will never like to leave...

its extension...
hilly stop-by couple of miles down the road...

The return from Top Station was a breeze. We stopped on the way to buy some roasted cashews and home made chocolates.

It was dark by the time we reached Munnar. We had our dinner and since it was Christmas Eve, we visited nearby Church also.

The return route was same. Although we admired and appreciated it in daylight. We had our lunch (kerala parotta) at Udmalpettai and all but me had dinner(chicken rice) at some "thela" near Pennagram. I reached home at around 9:00 PM

Few more pics:

Beautiful River View in Munnar

Same place

Medupatty Dam

The beauty of Munnar cannot be described in words. It is a must visit place and you will be astonished to see nature in such a form. This was the longest journey of my life of bike and is kind special as it eliminated any hesitation and gave me confidence tha