Convincing my wife for the drive on the Ghat section was not as difficult as I thought it would be.
Me: How about a trip to Munnar after going to Cumbum?
Wife: Wow, it would be a wonderful trip. I would love to do that.
Me: Good, we have 5 days holiday.
Wife: Yes, it will be good to be relaxing in those greeny environemnts.
Me: Ok, I will book the hotels for Munnar.
Wife: How about the to & fro tickets? Are you not booking?
Me: WHAT? Tickets? Why?
Wife: ?? How are we going there then?
Me: How? Obviously in our car.
Wife: WHAT? In our car?
Me: Yes, and I am driving.
Wife: No, no. Its not posisble. I am not for it.
Me: Why?
Wife: Its too windy and ghat section. Its neither a easy plain nor good roads.
Me: So what? I am driving.
Wife: Oh no, I need to rethink of this vacation.
Me: Come on, as a wife of T-BHPian you should not be scared of driving unless I do some stupid moves and reckless driving, which I wont.
Wife: But still,...
Me: Ok, we are not going then. We will drive somewhere around Bangy then.
Wife: Umm, if you promise that theres absolutly no risk in doing, then I am ok.
Me: Hehe, there you go.
I login to T-BHP and show here the travelogues from our friends and it took no second for her to accept whole heartedly to go for the drive through those ghats.
Ok. Call the hotel and almost all respond same answer. Sorry sir, no rooms. Its the start of the season and so I found it difficult to get a decent rooms. Then I managed to get one in Green View Munnar. Not sure of how it would be, infact no elevation of the hotel also in the website (
www.greenviewmunnar.com). So reluctanly, I book that for 2 nights and start preparing for the trip.
I will put all those detials I collected for this trip in the end. May be useful for prospective visitors.
The current ODO in my machine was reading 4.7K. Since it would be more than 1K drive, I thought of giving it for 5K service. It was done (updates on ownership thread).
As usual, search T-BHP, take notes on routes, road conditions, call our guys get updates and all set before 1st October. The plan was to leave Bangalore by 4AM.
I should mention this here.
When I google for the routes or plans in google, the top search results was always from team-bhp. So, why am I going to google in google.com? All the further search was inside team-bhp only.
October 1st 3:00AM
Set the alaram to 3:30AM. Went to sleep, but I could not sleep due to the excitement of driving to south. Woke up every 30min checking for the time. Finally woke up and turned off the Alarm. Woke up others too and we are all ready by 4:30AM with all luggages loaded in car. We loaded the car boot with my daughters stroller, Jackets, Raincoats, Umbrella etc.
October 1st 4:35AM
ODO - 4735kms
Exactly 4:35AM I left from my parking lot. Took the Varthur-Sarjapur Road and went to Hosur through Attibelle. Btw, I saw 2 new spead breakers in the Sarjapur Road. If I am right, it was not there during the previous visit (a month and a half back?). These things grow like anything. I wish they grew trees like this.
ODO - 4802Kms
As usual, filled petrol in the BP before Krishnagiri.
ODO - 4826Kms
Took the over bridge on the Krishnagiri and was surprised to see the number of diversions after that. I was hoping to have the road like the one going to Chennai. Umm, anyway, it was not of much traffic and I was doing 80-90kmph easy.
Early morning Sun following us! ODO - 4837Kms
Reached Kaveripattanam @ 6:45am.
The road was almost on one side only till we took the exit from NH7 to Theni after Salem. So many diversions, but good stretch.
ODO - 4868Kms
Reached Dharmapuri around 7:20am after which we had some Coffee break.
Then drove to Salem and the sad thing happened. Since there was too many diversions, some marked, and some not, I missed one diversion and went straight. I followed a TSTC bus and later figured out that I should not followed him.
When I followed the bus, I saw some stones put on the roads so as to avoid traffic from coming in. But the stones was also not big and gave a look like some how it has fallen from the lorry or something. Also, since there was no traffic I thought its good to follow the bus. When I decided to take on the stone, it hit my underbody and I could feel the hit. But I just kept going on the road. The road was very good but dont know why they closed it. Later it again diverts to join the other side.
The second incident was after Dalavaipatti I think. There was a truck which was coming in the opposite direction. I saw him and stopped. He showed me hands saying to take the other side of the road. I thought I missed the diversion and so reversed a little and tried to take the mud road that connects the other side of the road. It was so steep that it stratched the bottom of my Bumper and then I decided not to take it.
Initially I was thinking that since this is usual route for all vehicle, it should be ok to take it. But seeing this, I was puzzled and asked that truck guy again. He said "I showed hands like that, because I want to go that way" OMG, mis interpretation. Anyway, nothing happened to the bumber since I took it very slowly and backed it.
Then on I was double careful taking the diversions and started to check with guys if I have even a small element of doubt.
Some pictures on the way
Contd...