[khan_sultan]

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

... And guys, it was mentioned that the 800 was never allowed to be the last in the convey, but in both the photo sets, the 800 is the last one? What happened?

Originally Posted by mjothi

... Good question. Where is Khan? Why did you overtook M800 sir ..

Originally Posted by akroy

... Khan overtook it just before reaching the resort, may be a km or two. Believe me, Khan was the last one in the entire trip and he implemented the plan to perfection. Or is it that Hari positioned the pics wrongly. If i remember correctly, Khan came last....

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

...Maybe Khan might have had a short sprint at the last moment, knowing well that the 800 won't be out of sight and all are close by.

Originally Posted by snaronikar

...Khan was last to come and join in. He never overtook anybody. I feel the placement of the pics might be wrong. Hope I'am correct, right Hari? ..

For nearly 99% of the time I was the last one in the convoy.

In the pictures mentioned by HappyWheels, this was near the resort and we knew that we were some 5-7 kms away and my wifey wanted to drive. So I stopped and changed seats. My wifey was then driving very slowly in the Ghat/turns and Perez in his 800 didn't see me in his rear view (as he had not stopped) and he came back looking for us. Then he joined behind us till the resort :-)

Apart from this, there was one section on the way back where I was not in the end of the convoy (we all know where :-().. Rest of all the trip, I was peacefully cruising at the back enjoying the drive.

Cheers,

[mjothi]

Originally Posted by ASHISHPALLOD

in last pic of official group pic, juniors are given the right pose for pics. look at jr. akroy, jr. snaronikar, jr. mjothi.

Yup. We decided that we will have 3 rows with we at the last row, followed by wife and then the kids.

Umm, only we guys in the last row know how much we struggled to make ourselves visible in the pic

[hrag]

Originally Posted by Perez

That's not relaxing, that's a demonstration of supreme articulation.
If you zoom in on his foot "gear", you can read the text "rock crawler".

[Lukeskywalker]

The return journey:

Enroute Balehonnur


Perez in Action


The art of artistic photography


Guess he didn't pray hard enough


Among the coffee plantations


The Convoy (No mixing up of sequence here)


Seen at Planter's Court Chikmagalur


One more Beauty


The Accountant


The last meal together


Planter's Court Chikmagalur

[Lukeskywalker]

After a leisurely lunch we all started our engines once again and left Chikmagalur at approximately 3.45 pm.

We first stopped at an IOCL pump just outside town to fuel up and I got a call from Snaronikar telling me he's lost. Guided him and that was about the only time a single car went missing for all of 5 minutes from the convoy.

Once Srini rejoined, we again started our journey back to Belur, about 8 kms away from Belur, I get a call from Deepak's mobile:

Mrs. Deepak: Hari!! Perez has met with an accident!!!
Myself: Whaaat? What happened?? (I slowed down and braked to a halt)
Mrs. Deepak: His car is in a ditch, but he and Sherrel seem ok.

The line disconnects and there is no signal.

I yell the news at everybody who've by now stopped, Akroy and Mjothi don't get it, they think I'm unsure of the route so am turning back, they ask some passerby the route to Belur and scream at me "Hari, this is the correct route".

I have just taken a U- turn, I park and run to them and tell them the news, run back and start, by then Vaseem has already taken off, we all head back and 2 kilometres into the drive we see a huge crowd, a few buses, Deepak's car and no sign of the Maruti.

....Contd.

[snaronikar]

Some more pics from me....Will be continued again.

The caves on boat ride (was it a cave?) just wondering


Snaronikar and Mjothi's family:


Road condition on way to Chickmaglur - A bad stretch:


The Rice Field with my wife and son:


Luke in action - Trying to show what a professional photographer does:


Khan in action (near to C'maglur):

[snaronikar]

Few more pics from me....

The boat ride with Roys:


The last lunch with the whole team:


What's life w/o some car pics in the whole of trip. My Shining Red Ikon:

Ikon rearing to go:


Ikon with wings open:


Ikon with my son (the next gen of tbhp):


More photos of Ikon:

[Lukeskywalker]

Vaseem takes off in a sprint and I park my car to a side and follow suit.
Deepak, his wife, Perez and Sherrel are huddled together and the car is out of sight.
The road was on a tank bund and almost a kilometre in length. It was narrow and winding and there was a huge lake on one side.
Perez apparently tried to overtake a slow moving bus and an error in judgement caused his car to swipe alongside the bus, which led to him losing control resulting him flying over the edge into the lake bed.

Luckily for him, the water body had just ended and his car flew through a gap in the kerb stones to land nose down into a dry area. The drop was almost 15 feet. Shahnawaz and I ran down the slope and were met by an angry swarm of bees which had just been rendered homeless as their hive in a bush had been uprooted by Perez on his way down.

Vaseem was yelling watch out for the bees, I checked the car and found that the right rear wheel had been displaced almost into the rear bumper, the crash guard in the front had crumpled into the front bumper, the inside rear view mirror was broken off, the head unit console was at an awkward angle, and the left side of the car had been scraped from the front door till the rear panel by the bus.

The biggest problem was the crowd, many were drunk and trying to get in the car, the crowd atop the bund had caused a big traffic jam. We managed to shoo them away and Srini got into the car and tried to start it. The car started immediately, but would not move as the rear wheel was stuck. He tried to move it and there was a big bang, Srini exited the car in a jiffy, we assumed that it was the tire which burst.

We along with the locals managed to lift the car physically and dragged the bush which was impeding movement. I then got into the driver's seat and discovered that the floor too had bulged upwards, I started the car and with people pushing it bounced across the field to an opening in the bushes which led to a path. tha car stalled just before we hit the path and an old gentleman assured me that he was a driver and he'd manage to take it out without stalling. He did. At one point the entire car had to be lifted across a ditch and then the old man drove the hobbling car all the way to the tar road.

Now, we had guys swarming all over, one guy said his bike got hit so we need to compensate him, another points to a drunk and says it was his field that the car fell in so we need to pay for damage of crops, some more wanted money just because they claimed they helped in salvaging the car.

But the actual people who had pushed, lifted and driven the car out had quietly disappeared.
I spotted a couple of police constables who happened to be riding by and appraoched them for help. They stopped and on hearing our plight shooed away the guys trying to make a fast buck. I asked the cops to guide us to the police station where we wanted to lodge a complaint for claiming insurance.

In the meantime all the Tbhpians and families had gathered for an impromptu chai break where the next course of action was discussed. It was decided that the guys with little kids and guys who had no way of skipping work on monday would return to Bangalore.
Now, Perez, Bombatt and I got into khan_Sultan's car and followed the cop to the station.

There we spoke to the sub inspector and he told his staff to make out a report and asked us to take one official to the accident spot in order to make out a proper report.
I asked the inspector if he could help us in towing the car to the MASS as we had not got any response over phone on account of it being a Sunday. He agreed to lend us the towing truck (Tusker in Chikmagalur) and told us to pay hire charges.

We went back to the accident spot, by then it was dark and the kids were getting restless, so it was decided that akroy,mjothi, snaronikar and a very reluctant Khan_sultan would leave immediately for Bangalore, whereas, Bombatt, Vaseem and I along with our families would stay back with Perez. Our better halves were most unwilling to leave us behind and return to Bangalore.

We bid a safe journey to the guys leaving with Shahnawaz as the sweeper again. The tow truck came and we got the rear of the car lifted and it was towed back into Chikmagalur, we had to go back to the station and finish the 'formalities'.

Back at the station we were asked to sign as witnesses to the report and then I was taken aside by a cop to complete the 'formalities'. I had to negotiate and it was settled for a sum.

Next we all went searching for the MASS where the car was taken and found that the owner of the service station had come to open the gates for us to park the car inside, he told us to come the next morning at 9.30 to get an estimate of the damage as well as the insurance formalities.
The cops had told us about a hotel Soundarya where we could stay, so we went took rooms and crashed.

Monday 17th November 2008
My brother Vaseem wakes me up at 6.30 am, says he has to leave for Bangalore, I in turn call Bombatt and ask him if he too wants to accompany him, he flatly refuses saying he'll hang around till he drops Perez back home. So Vaseem leaves along with family.

We get out of the hotel at 8.30, have breakfast and by 9.15 we are at the MASS, it is just opening and the owner is present, from then on time flew by, the damage as asessed on visual inspection:

1. The rear leaf spring/blade is cut which resulted in the axle moving backward (something like what happened to one of the gypsies in a recent OTR)
2. Front bumper needs to be replaced
3. One headlamp is cracked
4. Floor on driver's side has to be flattened
5. The cross members on which the engine sits are bent and have to be replaced
6. Inside rear view mirror has to be replaced
7. The entire left hand side from door to rear panel has to be worked upon by body shop
8. Setting of all doors
9. One steel rim is completely written off and has to be replaced
10.One tyre has to be replaced
Further parts may have to be repaired or replaced as and when discovered to be faulty.

Mr. D'Souza, the owner of Aamantran Motors suggested that we don't claim insurance as the IDV of the car which is 17 yrs old is just 56k. He said after calculating depreciation we could maybe get about 8to10k as insurance and the total cost of repair would work out to 30k.

So Perez spoke to his dad and then decided that he'd just get the car repaired without claiming insurance. In the meantime the development officer of the insurance firm came over since perez had called up some contact in Mangalore and my cousin in chikmagalur too had called up as he too knew him.
The insurance guy too was of the opinion that it would cause us less headache and it would be cheaper to get the work carried out without insurance.

Then it came down to straight forward haggling and some crocodile tears shed by the ladies in our group who all happened to be Konkani speaking like Mr.D'souza. So finally we got the price down to 18k for all repairs as seen then along with painting of the entire car and not just the damaged parts. Any further damage found will be charged accordingly.

All this done, we were exhausted, I decided that we have lunch and rest for an hour before the long drive back to Bangalore.
We started from Chikmagalur by 3.45 pm and drove back leisurely to reach Bangalore by 8.45 pm. Bombatt and Perez took the NICE road from Tumkur road and I drove to Yelahanka from the Peenya Dasarahalli turning.

Some pics of the car at Aamantran Motors:



















Now a few pics of the journey back to Bangalore.

My Love My Optra


It's Baby sister


The survivors


Mods please move this post if it is not supposed to be in travelogues section, I have posted it here as it was part of the whole journey.

I thank all the guys and ladies who came for this drive and made it a whomping success, we all had great fun and we all were united in times of crisis too, that is what counts, that is what this forum stands for.

Thank you all for taking time to read this.

Regards,
Hari.

[mclaren1885]

Perez, thank god you both are all right. That incident reminded me of a crash a fellow bhpians baleno suffered. I can understand how horrifying the whole incident must have been.

Kudos to Hari, Bombatt and all those who helped Perez. This undying spirit to help one another is what makes these meets so pleasurable and in return some of us end up finding friends who will last more than just this life time.

[snaronikar]

The console box looks empty (fallen down) as I have removed the whole ICE set (the head unit, the amp, the woofer). Just in case if we have to leave the car on road side in night. It is still in my car.

Perez, ping me when you want to take it from me. You have my contact no.

One good lesson learnt from this whole incident is that when going on long drives, it pays to be going and coming back in a convoy and wherein if any untoward incidents happen like this, then, the team can help out the person/s out of the crisis as everybody will stand up during that occasion instead of dispersing after the meet. This is my opinion as others may differ from what I have mentioned.

[Perez]

Thanks Rahul, somewhere i feel the car took the beating that was originally meant for sherrel and me. She has never let any of my family down in the 17 years hence the reluctance to just let her go like this.

On the rest of the team all i can say is a version of the old adage "when god could not be there he sent a mother"; in my case "when god could not be there he sent the bhpians", truly a team i am very proud to be a part of.

Cheers,
Perez.

[Spitfire]

Good to hear the support and help Perez got. It can be very disturbing after an accident to deal with all the problems that come up. Hats off to the guys who stayed back and helped him. May your tribe grow. Three cheers for showing what friends are for.

[Lukeskywalker]

One good lesson learnt from this whole incident is that when going on long drives, it pays to be going and coming back in a convoy and wherein if any untoward incidents happen like this, then, the team can help out the person/s out of the crisis as everybody will stand up during that occasion instead of dispersing after the meet.

I completely agree, in fact we did maintain this convoy throughout and still did good time, when we all gathered for breakfast at Kyathsandra on day one, I discussed this point that everyone, but the last man, keeps the car behind him in his rear view mirror at all times and if the car behind him is not visible, he slows down till the car catches up, this would result in all of us maintaining the convoy at all times.

[-GT-]

I was reading the whole thread with lot of interest since yesterday - the pics are great; the write-ups are fantastic et al.

And then comes the shocker - the accident and its aftermath - Thank God, the Perez's came out unscathed. Hats off to the spirit of T-BHPians!

I guess you guys, all together, decided to post the details of the incident quite at the end!

[Samurai]

Phew! The ending turned out to be something completely out of ordinary. Perez and Sherrel, as you said your car took all the beating and saved you both. Kudos to the team members who rallied around and pulled you out of trouble and saw you through the ordeal.