steer! you were serious about the trip to idukki?????
doesnt matter, wouldnt have been able to come anyway.
will you be going again on monday? or is this it?

[hydrashok]

Originally Posted by jkdas

Bit confusing You guys drove till idukki ? and ?

They probably snapped a few photos in the early morning light and started driving back

[ram_hyundai]

I am starting from alleppey now ,see you all guys there.
ram

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by rippergeo

steer! you were serious about the trip to idukki?????

Originally Posted by hydrashok

They probably snapped a few photos in the early morning light and started driving back

Let the pictures do the talking....for now (at the track, waiting for all the heros to get here!):

[Sankar]

Wow! I like that last picture of the Idukki dam. Beautiful.

And nice to see the mallu mullah in 'colour'

[kphilip]

Karting was just cool!! Me and my wife(Jake) has enjoyed every bit of it.Thank u bhpians for another wonderful evening..zac pics please..

we had agreed on monday for ramakkalmedu. you guys have no idea how many promises I had to make,for my wife to agree to it.

what happens then? you guys go all spontaneous on me and drive off at 2AM on saturday night!

show some consideration for less experienced married members like me!

BETRAYAL!!!!

Karting was better this time, i didnt hit anyone, go the wrong way, or fly through the tyre wall in 20 laps, and i only spun out once!

thats way better than spinning out twice in every lap on my last outing.

Steer did show everyone how to turn a weight disadvantage into an advantage by putting ram hyundai into the wall several times! now i know, who not to race with.

had a great post race session at hotel highway garden. finished by 11.30

got home. currently in the doghouse.
chances of my attending the mini meet with samurai san looks bleak.

[Steeroid]

It all started out with Saturday Night's meet at the Casino Hotel. As is well known by now, Zak was late picking me up and we (Zak, Quicksilver and me) landed up late - at around 10.30 for the 9.00 meet.


The hotel kindly kept the bar open for us for a long, long, long time, well beyond closing hours.

After several rounds and 2-3 hours later, everyone decided they were hungry. We were in the mood for "puttu-kadala" and so we headed to BTH - only to find out that they were in the last legs of their overnight service and had nothing other than Dosas to spare.

So we hightailed it to Pai Thattu (38 varieties of Dosa fame) and had dinner there, gorging on Dosas, Omelettes, Duck Omelettes, Quails Eggs etc...by then it was 2 pm and we decided we hadnt really had a 'meet' yet - we wanted to go on. So we picked up on what was originally a joke on rippergeo and decided to actually make that happen - it made sense since it was a sunday, most people were free, the roads would be relatively peaceful and it was perfect for me for it would leave Monday free.

Therefore we tanked up on Fuel (before which the Mallu Mullah was stopped by the cops for finding out how much Quicksilver's headers would open out - they even backed up a police jeep in front of the Honda after cutting it off) and waited for the Mullah to go pick up his kit. That took time, as usual.

THerefore at 2.47 AM on Sunday morning, a Scorpio (Mansidea, A S H V I N & Quicksilver) and a Safari (Zak, Duboy and self) left for Ramakkalmedu. We drove fast and hard - the roads were good, twisty and challenging.

Tyres squealed and rubber burnt as we drove down the route: Cochin - Trippunithura - Muvattupuzha - Kothamangalam - Neriamangalam - Cheruthoni - Kattapana - Nedumkandam). We set some records in the process - the Cochin - Kattapana section is completely on Ghats after Kothamangalam (and the roads are full of twists and turns even before that) and normally takes 4 hours (fast) to 5 hours. We did this section in 3 hours and were in Kattapana before daybreak - we didnt realize it was daybreak because we found ourselves wondering why people in these parts were waiting at bus-stops in the middle of the night...only to find out that it was indeed 5 pm.

In between, we stopped for Tea at an ICE Shop:





After Kattapana, fatigue hit me - HARD. We had stopped to check on Duboy and after driving up another ghat (about 10 kms) I suddenly felt giddy and nauseous - quickly stopped the truck and Zak took over from there, showing no mercy on the Dicor as he threw it into tight mountain corners. I tried to go to sleep and not throw up.

Meanwhile, in the other car, A S H W I N and Mansidea had exchanged driver roles and Quicksilver suffered as a result - shortly after I exchanged positions with Zak, we stopped and I could hear Duboy (who had hardly slept thru the night and was still running strong) say "Quicksilver is throwing up!!!" - I shut my eyes tighter and closed my ears so that I wouldnt follow him.

Soon enough we stopped at "Hotel High Range" at Nedunkandam and I felt my way groggily to the room where I went out like a light. The others meanwhile continued comparing snaps and trying to upload them onto TBHP - during all this while the Team BHP Cochin Theme Song was being played out non-stop by A S H V I N - more on that later.






By the time I woke up a couple of hours later, the guys hadnt managed to upload any snaps, and I had to do the honours - here's a photo of the first upload shots (the hazy night shots by Zak)...EVERYONE including Duboy is trying to upload through various devices (Quicksilver on his Asus, Zak on his cellphone, someone else on Quicksilver's HTC Exec, Duboy on my HTC Tytn II and me on my Dell):

[quicksilver]

And what a drive it was!!! Talk about spontaneous plans.

Not ONE thing went as per plans on my trip, but everything was just great, if not better than what we had planned originally.

My only gripe is that I had to leave earlier on Sunday night and could not have a go on the track or spend more time with the new members.

Thanks for the hospitality guys, I had a great time!

Let me know if you guys are game for a long, boring meet report from my end (without pics, as I did not carry my camera with me).

[trrk]

Hi guys,

Samurai is back from his trip.

What are the plans of meeting him today?

[jkdas]

Kolle kolle! evanmar seriakkola alle ripper?

Dont tell me you guys didnt take more photos at Idukki especially the two cars

[ram_hyundai]

JK you could have easily sandwitched the scorpio with steers help.You missed it buddie.
ram

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by jkdas

Kolle kolle! evanmar seriakkola alle ripper?

Dont tell me you guys didnt take more photos at Idukki especially the two cars

Here you go:

The two vehicles at the start (02:47 am)




BHPians at the start of the trek to Ramakkalmedu, which is a rock formation which locals claim is in the shape of Hanuman's head. The rock overlooks Tamil Nadu.



They trek UP - this is quite a distance and we were climbing (panting!) right in the middle of the day. Temperature were in the high 30s with very high humidity.




But not of this deterred a 9-year old, who soon build up a sizeable lead on the rest of the field till we sent the Safety Car out. The safety car ran on an organic diet of Potato Chips and Appy Fizz and was called Speedzak.

On the top of the greens in the snap below you will see the tip of the rock formation that is Ramakkalmedu.


On the hill facing Ramakkalmedu is a rather large sculpture of the Tribal Couple who suggested the site of the present 3 small dams (Idukki, Cheruthoni & Kulamavu) to the Japanese or Canadian team of engineers who were originally planning a MEGA dam at another site.



Another shot from my zoom lens:


As you climb, you see Tamil Nadu on the other side of the hill. The difference in Geography is amazing - its almost like someone drew a line on the earth. To the left you see the brown plains of Kambam/Theni (?) and to the right are the green hills where Idukki district starts:



And finally, Ramakkalmedu - the head of Hanuman:


And some random shots. I'm sorry but I just cannot build a storyline around pictures using this new system of uploading pictures - the attachments take different names/numbers when you paste them here and there is no way you can correlate the original file name with the attachment number. I give up trying to make a story.

[benbsb29]

Lovely snaps of the Scorp and the Safari together. They look so much at peace with each other, no opposite camps at war trying to defend one over the other.

[jkdas]

Awesome pix Steer.

ramji; another time! BUT! next time there may be 3 Safaris