Road Trip From Chennai the capital city of Tamil Nadu To Bangalore the capital city of Karnataka. This was my first solo trip by motorcycle, it was 9 ½ hours long, 7 hours of ride time, 2 + hours of rest stop and taking pictures.
The plan was to ride for an hour, an hour and 30 minutes, at a time, resting between 5 to 30 minutes at stops I make. That plan went into the breezes the moment the motorcycle roared to life. A 350cc Royal Enfield Thunderbird, that deep sound of its engine letting you know it wants to fly and believe me it does fly.
Hitting the National highway the sun rising, armed with my printed out copy of Google maps showing the route to take and road instinct, the journey had started. It was a cool morning, buses had began to run, streets were still devoid of cars and people, using that window of opportunity I was able to leave the city of Chennai with little traffic on the road. Riding at a leisure pace I left the city of Chennai in about 45 minutes. Lucky for me the overhead traffic sign board pointed me in the right direction. Bangalore 320km. Seeing that sign I knew I was on the right track.
The highway road after Chennai was not a smooth ride, slowing down for people crossing, open potholes, patched potholes, the occasional cows crossing, the usual things you see on any Indian road. Looking at the signs above shop that have yet to open, I was at Poonamalle, outskirts of Chennai. Here the highway narrowed into two road lanes, so thinking to myself I will just continue to ride at 55kph and I will be alright. WRONG, at that speed I soon found myself boxed in by transport trucks, the truck in front of me was not moving fast, the truck on the inside lane decided to follow the same speed as well leavening no allowance to overtake from the inside. You are advice to overtake from the right because that is the drivers side in India. To make my situation a little dire another truck was coming up behind me and blowing its horn. Now seeing a truck cover your side mirrors can make your heart skip beats. A decision has to be made, overtake the truck in front using the road boundary on the left, as soon as the chance presented itself, pulling back on the throttle, blowing my own horn, I soon found myself free of the trucks.
The road opened up and I joined up fleets of company buses which turned out to be for Hyundai. There is a big Hyundai factory situated by the highway, finally I get to my first tollgate. The good thing is motorcycles do not pay toll fare at certain tollgates, it being the case here you just ride through on the motorcycle lane.
After the toll gate the road open up, long and smooth, the type of road where you can really open your throttle but also present you with some very scenic landscape. To me if you want to really see what India has to offer, the only way to see it all is on a motorcycle.
The trip progressed nicely, passing through pocket towns along the way, At those places it looks peaceful, no rush of the city and one thing you will notice is that the air feels free and clean, unlike the stuffy air you get in the city.
Few hours into the journey am crossing the state line between Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Majority of the highway in Andhra Pradesh is just a single lane highway and that poses a new difficulty of overtaking. Many a times i found myself behind slow drivers or auto rickshaws. Followed Them a bit till i had a window of opportunity to overtake safely. I emphasize "safely" because here is where i came across the daredevils of Indian driving. Speeding, overtaking with oncoming traffic, missing by just few inches between them but that was not the worse part of it all, the worse part was how calm everyone on the road was it.
Leaving the busy part of Andhra Pradesh highway, got into the nice lonely roads, this part also comes with its kinks of corners, a lot of them. Trusting instinct and recent experience,i took the corners a very low speed and lord and behold, cars and truck come flying out of the corners that will rival Formula 1. Another issue is rock slides, for came where they had to cut through granite hills.
From Andhra Pradesh into Karnata, a lot of highway construction are going on so there were a lot of diversions. After passind all of the road constructions, what laid there were some of the best road i have ever rode on, To me that was the best part of the whole trip, the last 100km to home.
I had fun taking this road trip, saw new things, learnt new things, experienced the freedom of the open road. If you can when you can, pick a place you can ride or drive to, whichever is your way. Its you , the machine and the road. I found mine while taking this road trip and i do plan to take more in the future.
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| Planned Route |
Starting at 6am, the beginning of the road trip. At the garage of the hotel, its name Mallika Residency, I could feel the bust of excitement, energy and anticipation. The day had finally arrived. The previous night I did not get much sleep, I mean how could l? With the anticipation already build up. So I spent the time getting what I call me gear in place. Boots all laced up, helmet visor cleaned out, gloves where I could find them, bags all packed cloths all arranged for easy picking. In my mind my top priority was efficiency. Finally when all was done, was able to drift into sleep. Woke up at 4:30am way before the alarm I set, bath and dressed by 5:10am. A light breakfast of bananas and water so to minimize stopping for a toilet run, and checked out of my room by 5:30am. Final check on the motorcycle, strapped my travel bag on, everything A-OK. There lay before me, FREEDOM OF THE OPEN ROAD.
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Hitting the National highway the sun rising, armed with my printed out copy of Google maps showing the route to take and road instinct, the journey had started. It was a cool morning, buses had began to run, streets were still devoid of cars and people, using that window of opportunity I was able to leave the city of Chennai with little traffic on the road. Riding at a leisure pace I left the city of Chennai in about 45 minutes. Lucky for me the overhead traffic sign board pointed me in the right direction. Bangalore 320km. Seeing that sign I knew I was on the right track.
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The road opened up and I joined up fleets of company buses which turned out to be for Hyundai. There is a big Hyundai factory situated by the highway, finally I get to my first tollgate. The good thing is motorcycles do not pay toll fare at certain tollgates, it being the case here you just ride through on the motorcycle lane.
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After the toll gate the road open up, long and smooth, the type of road where you can really open your throttle but also present you with some very scenic landscape. To me if you want to really see what India has to offer, the only way to see it all is on a motorcycle.
The trip progressed nicely, passing through pocket towns along the way, At those places it looks peaceful, no rush of the city and one thing you will notice is that the air feels free and clean, unlike the stuffy air you get in the city.
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