Hi everyone,
I am trying my hand at writing a travelogue for the 1st time, having been inspired by the many others who have written some really nice interesting travelogues on this forum. So if this travelogue is not really upto the mark, please do not mind it.
I have recently got a group of Avenger owners together at Tidel Park where my office is located (3 of them), along with 2 others whom I knew a little earlier too. So now we are totally 6 people, all with Avy 200s except one guy who has a silver grey Avy 180. One of these guys Vivek has one of the earliest Avy 200s - it was purchased in Oct 2007 / early Nov 2007 soon after the bike was launched. He and I were very excited about doing rides, and we just decided to start off the "rides" thing in this group with just the 2 of us taking a ride down the East Coast Rd to Mahabalipuram from Chennai.
We met at Adyar near the Malar Hospitals by 1pm, filled up our fuel tanks to the brim, checked air pressure in the tyres and headed off through ECR to Mahabs (short form for Mahabalipuram, commonly used, for those not familiar with Chennai). On the way, we stopped at Hot Kitchen for lunch. Those guys really delayed the food like hell since the place was full due to the public holiday, so we ended up wasting almost 2 hours there for lunch. But we got good food which we enjoyed, and then proceeded on ECR.
One of my friends, actually a close colleague from a company where we both worked together from 2000-2003 (who has bought a blue Pulsar 220 last month) told me that there was a street from ECR not far from
Mayajaal, which led straight to the beach. Vivek and I were really excited about this and decided to check it out. We found that turning and went straight in for about 500-600 metres and there we were !!
We literally squeezed our brakes, skidded and stopped at the edge on that road as there was drop into the sand after that !!! What a shock. The sea was facing us and we just stopped there with our bikes looking at the
ocean and the waves for a while. What a beautiful sight it was. Once we started enjoying this view and the serenity there, we felt that we wouldn't have minded even riding straight and just dropping onto the sandy area with our bikes !! It was just a beautiful view. And not much of a crowd so it could actually be enjoyed, listening to the sound of the waves. So peaceful, and it wasn't something we could have done in
any of the city beaches. We just loved this.
Since I had taken my Canon PowerShot S3 digital camera (6 megapixel, 12x optical zoom) and the tripod with me, we decided to get some shots there and we did. The photos are attached at the bottom of this
travelogue. We got a few photos at the Hot Kitchen restaurant too and in the parking lot with both our bikes as is described with the photo attachments. The snaps have come out pretty well.
We then decided to keep going till Mahabs and just started from there. On the way, I decided to check out the supposedly excellent photo and video capabilities in my new Nokia N96 mobile phone (which I got just
12 days back on 18 Sep 2008. So I took a nice video clip of us riding the bikes on ECR .... wow !! It's come out really well. I took 2 video clips at the highest quality and for about 2 minutes duration - they are about
64 MB each in size. So I definitely can't attach the videos here. However the clips have been uploaded on YouTube and the links are as follows:
Mahabs ride - part 1
Mahabs ride - Part 2
While doing the ride itself, I had decided to post the photos and a description of the ride on the forum as it would also serve as a practice for me in writing a travelogue. My dad being such a great scholar (he'd got 2 Ph.Ds and a D.Litt in Indian Philosophy - one Ph.D. from Madras Univ & another from McMaster univ, Canada) I hope I've inherited at least a bit of his excellent writing skills !!
Anyway once I was done with the video clips, we rode straight to Mahabs and then stopped there since Vivek wanted to have a smoke. We also had some nice cold Maaza to drink and we were off from there in about 15-20 mins or so. We decided to come back through OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Rd) on our way back since we found there was a lot of traffic on ECR for quite some distance. Another reason was the umpteen police check posts (and random stopping & harassing of 2 wheeler riders by the cops for no rhyme or reason) and the ridiculously low 40 kmph speed limit boards in so many sections on the ECR. We hear that the cops stop many 2 wheelers in those 40 kmph zones for over speeding !! We did not take a risk and maintained the speed around 45-50 kmph in those zones which eventually made our ride a much longer one in terms of duration. So we rode upto the Kelambakkam turning on ECR and turned left there - this is a lovely curvy road with water and greenery on both sides and leads to OMR. Going straight down OMR would lead to Tidel Park and then on to the Madhya Kailash temple, Adyar, IIT Madras etc. Once we got to the OMR junction, we simply had to turn right and keep going straight till Tidel Park signal with no turns or deviations anywhere.
OMR was where we both actually enjoyed the ride - do you guys know why ? Cos there were 3 lanes on each side with a divider so it was safe. 2nd thing was we could both ride side by side on the same lane, listening to the sounds of each other's bike engines !! We also tried riding on adjacent lanes, in sections where there was no traffic - which was practically 50 to 60% of the way. We were totally relaxed and just didn't care about the time, so by the time we reached the OMR junction on that connecting road, it was dark. And it was time to turn on my HID !!! Well well .... a long stretch on OMR had no lighting yet. This was the case for nearly 10-12 kms I think. However there was not much traffic and we both really enjoyed the ride there, my HID beautifully lighting up the road ahead. Vivek's Avy 200 is in stock setup and now he wants to go for some add-ons like my Avy 200.
Once we got to Vivek's apartment complex (he's a bachelor who's been placed in TCS, Chennai for the last 2 years and stays with 3 room mates) on OMR on the left side, we were totally shocked since the Chennai Corporation had dug up the entire front of the apartment complex, so there was no way to enter !!! But Vivek said he could take a U turn and enter the complex through the back, from somewhere near Lifeline Hospitals (apologies for those not familiar with Chennai, once again). So he took a U turn shortly after the complex, while I continued on the ride and got back home. We waved a "bye, see you soon on another nice ride" kind of goodbye to each other and proceeded to our respective homes. His apartment is only about 2-3 kms from the Tidel Park signal. So I reached home from there in about 10 mins flat. I happily cruised on that Tidel Park Road (continuation of the OMR) - a stretch of about 3 to 4 kms at a nice 70 kmph.
The maximum speed we ever touched on this ride was only about 80 kmph but we really enjoyed the ride. The stops for photos, videos, drinks, lunch etc was good too. We really felt that we were going out of town somewhere but before we knew it we were back in town - our own Good Old Chennai !!
From the Malar Hospitals petrol bunk where I reset my tripmeter at Adyar, the total distance covered when I parked the bike at home in the evening was 101 kms.
Whew !!! That was one superb ride. Hope you all enjoyed this travelogue, and please do see the snaps attached and enjoy the video clips too. All your comments are most welcome.
Thanks and warm regards,
Venkat