Ride Story: Tada falls

3 day long weekend and we have another write-up here. Don’t worry I will keep it short this time. I was clear that I wanted to do a day-ride this time meant I wanted to be back by 5-6pm at my home. This meant that the ride has to be around 100-200km one way but there are not many places around Chennai apart from regular Mahabs and Pondi which I have done several times. However asked some friends around and they suggested Venkatagiri falls, Tada falls etc. I looked up both and finalized Tada falls which is 115km one way from my home. Also did some research and came to know that it has a bit of off-roading and a lot of trekking inside the jungle. Sounds exciting to me! So the route map:

And you see the dotted line there? This means only trekking:

Now I have ridden on this road before so route planning wasn’t a big task. I just wanted to start early and be back early and take rest. But I had no idea of the fun which was in store this time for me. So I started at 7am from my home and doing moderate speeds of 90-100kmph I reached 23km from my destination which was at about 08:25am and I was very hungry by this time and stopped for breakfast. Felt better after satisfying my stomach and I was back on the bike again. This road offered the views of clear blue sky ­­and greenery around.

Following the straight roads after taking a left from the main highway, few kilometers from the TADA falls parking spot the roads will end and the off-roading will start.

It’s not very tough but just kaccha road. Here first stop is for getting the entry ticket which is Rs. 25, they will charge Rs. 50 for a camera but they didn’t understand my action cam and I didn’t have to pay for it.

So the gates were opened and  off-roading started. I always enjoy riding off-road , fun!

More off-roading for 3km and you reach the parking spot and no car or motorcycle can go further. There is a small shop here where you can get tea and stuff. Also remember that this is your last stop to stock water, biscuits and such items because inside you will not get any. DO NOT GO INSIDE WITHOUT CARRYING WATER.

There are lot of monkeys around so be careful of your food and stuff.

As soon as you enter the place you witness this:

And after coming down the bridge, you are given the option of two paths (Sorry I don't have a pic to explain this). One which goes to your left and another towards right. If you choose to walk on the trail on your right, it’s tough but relatively easy. Lots of ups and downs, rocks etc. But if you choose to walk on the trail on your left, you are sure to have a good time and here you can experience proper ‘trekking’ inside a jungle. Lots of rocks, you will walk around/inside the water and this makes the experience the real deal. I chose the left trail.

The natural water is so clear that you do not get it see every day and suddenly realize that you are away from the noisy chaos that city life is. Once inside it’s just you and the sound of birds you get to hear. There are lot of butterflies inside and they will love to fly with you as you walk.

The trek towards the main falls can be divided into ..say 6-7 stages. If you choose the left trail near the stream of water as I did, you will realize that as you progress and walk/climb, the flow of water increases slightly. The trek consists of climbing and crossing several rocks, stream of water, you have to make your way between the trees and plants and be careful here some thorns might rub your skin off so make sure you are covered completely. At some points you will see that you cannot move ahead near the stream of water, here you have to climb your way towards the land if you wish you can come back to the stream of water. I was enjoying the sound of water flowing and it kept me going. The water was so clear.more pics:

 Someone felt the need of changing into new clothes in the mid of the jungle:

After trekking for sometime, you will reach a point where you have no option but to walk along the main trail. Walk on this for sometime again and reach the rocks and the waters. One thing is clear(apart from the water, as you are moving ahead, the curiosity and the excitement to reach to the main source of water also keeps increasing.

It’s just a challenging trek ahead keep going ahead you will not regret till you reach the end. More pics during the trek:

After a tiring walk and trek, I reached the final point. Once you reach here you realize that it was totally worth it. Because I had started to this place early , there was no one, absolutely no one around here and it’s just you and the nature. I decided to take a dip!

The view when you lie down in water and look up. The feeling here cannot be explained in words...this is pure and untouched nature.

The water is cold and there are lot of fishes inside the water but they will not harm you. However be careful of slippery surfaces on the rocks otherwise you can easily fall and break your head lol.

Now if you are expecting a huge water fall here, I would say you will be disappointed. There is just moderate amount of water flowing which the locals started calling as falls. Also this time when I went the water falls magnitude was reduced as told by someone. Personally for me, the whole experience of trekking inside the jungle and climbing up the tough terrain to reach all the way to up this point was what counted. I will never forget this experience.

By the time I finished relaxing in the water, people had started coming in, I asked someone to click a picture of me. Notice the huge rocks!

As I walked back I chose the main trail on the land side which is comparatively flat and easy. This because now I had experienced the trek in the jungle and had to reach back to the bike little faster. 

As promised, I am keeping this travelogue short. This time I realized that the trekking part was more fun than the riding part and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have lot of footage from the action cam which needs sorting and stuff so I will try to add a video to this post later, till then please manage with the pics!

Update (5th Feb): Here is the video! 

Anyways when I reached back to the bike it I decided to have a tea. While sitting amongst monkeys I relaxed for sometime and started riding back at 12:30 and reached home by 2:15pm. Some pics while riding back:

This place is a trekking paradise and if you love trekking you should definitely visit this place. I can’t deny that the sound of water is still ringing in my head :) 

Once in a while, go to some place which makes you feel one with the nature.

Keep Riding.

New Motorcycle

It's a dream come true for me. Last week on October 12th I got my KTM Duke 390 after a long wait of 3 months. Riding a beauty and (beast) like this one is such boost to my inner self. Bike is head turner and the public attention is awesome. It's evident from my smile in the picture that how happy I am. Touring will start now. Let's ride.

Ride to NH7 Weekender-100kmph never seemed so slow

Old Post:

So I missed the Royal Enfield Rider Mania this year but had to have my share of a big party this year too. And things happened to be in my favor to ride for the NH7 weekender Bangalore. Rest of the blog will deal with ride to Bangalore from Chennai, 2 days at the weekender party and then the ride back to Chennai.

I was riding a Classic Chrome and Akash was riding his Anesthesia, as he likes to call his bike. And I’m sure riding on his bike anyone would lose his senses and set himself free. We started at 6 am on December 15th. We had plenty of time as the event was to start at 4pm . Akash’s engine was almost new so we had to stop every 100km for his bike to cool down. This is the pic when we stopped for a tea. 

We were comfortably doing speeds of 80-100 and entered Bangalore by 12.30pm and after that we got stuck in Bangalore traffic for an hour. We rode straight to the venue which was Embassy Horse Riding school, quiet far at the outskirts. We reached the venue at 2.30pm. There was special parking zone for Royal Enfield riders and inside RE had set up a special Royal Enfield zone. So here is the layout of the venue, which consisted of different music stations playing their music at the same time

The Layout of the venue

So there were stations for rock bands, dubstep,the dewarists, heavy metal , wolves den(Bacardi) . Over 2 days number of bands will play live. So the agenda was to get drunk and dance to the tunes of favorite bands! They called the happiest music festival, and yes it was for sure.

Whenever the heavy metal arena echoed with the heavy riffs, you would notice people in black tee rushing and running to that place. Few ground rules about the music there:

 

Royal Enfield had set up a riders café inside with their motorcycles parked inside including a Bacardi bar with drinks on the menu like:

Whenever we found some quiet time when bands  stopped playing we would start all the bikes and revv them up high , which was a crowd puller for sure J . Second day at the riders café , we had called in straight from factory Mr, Jai Kumar who does the golden pin striping on Royal Enfield tanks. People were clicking pictures with him and he was a star for sure. People tried their hand at painting on the tank and the best one won a Royal Enfield tank signed by many of the bands playing at all the legs of NH7 weekender bash( Noida,Pune,Bangalore).

So now something about the bands that played there. I witnessed many bands for the first time playing live. Demonic Resurrection, Parikrama, Pentagram(Vishal Dadlani), Shair n Func(Monica Dongra), Midivel Punditz(Karsh Kale), East India Company(Papon),Raghu Dixit Project, Susheela Raman,Bhayanak Maut,Galeez Guruz, Alien Chutney(Vir Das) and others were Scribe, Indian Ocean and many others . For the first time I was open to all genres of music and I quiet liked the progressive beat shit.

Some pictures:

Monica Dongra-Shaair func

Parikrama

Pentagram-Vishal Dadlani

Demonic Resurrection

Bhayanak Maut

Raghu Dixit Project

Vardenchi Custom-Karma

I got one, I wont give it you , its called fuck

First day I got drunk like shit and after that I was sure of one thing that I am not getting back on the bike to go to my friends place. So I went to hotel in cab with colleague where he was staying.

Came back next day for the same fun and masti. I felt there were better bands playing on the second day and I was confused where to go when the bands were playing because I did not want to miss many of them and timings were matching. Well I managed to see everyone in pieces. I became instant fan of Vir Das and his band Alien Chutney when they started playing. Comedy Rock genre. Songs like Harry Potter is a Randi,  You’re a dude if you got the manboobs, The Village man , and gangnam style parody, it was awesome and a hilarious performance by the band and crowd loved it. Later I got a chance to talk to Vir Das for few seconds when he was hanging out with his buddies at the RE café.

Alien Chutney-Vir Das

(I didn’t take my DSLR with me because I wanted to keep my backpack weight as less as possible).

And on the second day I made sure I didn’t even touch alcohol because I had to ride back to my friends place which was quiet far from the venue. As I believe I need to be responsible for others’ safety as well as my own (someone called that ‘sexy’!). So at night 10pm I took the bike and came out of the venue, only to see a car banged into a tree, people were already there to help so I moved on. This is the thing which ruins it all, after so much fun you had, you get a horrible memory for life to spoil by making a small mistake, getting drunk and driving. Its sad.

While asking my way for Indira Nagar, around 10.45pm I stopped at a place and asked directions form a lady who was standing, before she could answer I realized she was a prostitute, biker rule, Thou Shalt open full throttle when a prostitute is spotted. I was thumping away before she came forward and answer.  At last at an easy speed of 60 in the dark, I reached my friends place and slept .

Next day we started the ride quiet late because there was fog early morning. It was almost 9am coming out of Bangalore , and we stopped 28km before Krishnagiri for fueling up and having breakfast. That petrol pump and McD/CCD spot is quiet a breaking spot for riders. Our colleague Adarsh joined us while we were having our coffee. Now he is a ‘rider’, by rider I mean a real rider. So with Akash and Adarsh, I started our ride back to Chennai, and with such good riders your average speed increases easily. They were cruising at 120 easily and I was easily doing 110kmph speed on the 500cc Classic. At 120kmph my bike was shaking which I was not able to control, unlike them. I chose to be in my comfort zone and we all reached Chennai safely at 3pm.

100kmph never seemed so slow. Ride Safe.

(It was great catching up back with Mr. Praveen, and meeting some new people at the after party after the first day. Oh I almost forgot to mention that it was completely a company sponsored trip including petrol :P )

(P.S. : if you think I’m bad at writing, sorry but no sorry.)