Himalyan Duo Pics UP!!!!

Hi folks,

After a very long time, i have finally got a chance to upload the pictures of the Himalayan Ride Jag and me participated in.

The route we took was:

delhi-manali-leh
leh--ktop-diskit-panamik-ktop-leh
leh-pangong-man (got kicked out there)-leh

leh-khalse-dah-hanu-batalik-kargil (me)
leh-khalse-lamayuru-kargil (Jag)


kargil-srinagar-pathankot-delhi



The total kilometers i clocked was 3800, jaggu boy did 3600. I had 2 punctures (self fixed) and 1 instance of the tappet coming off. Jaggu had a seized carb-float and timing issues

We were on the road for 19 days (june 8th to june 28th 2007) and have been on our knees to water, snow, sand and real chill temperatures

The pics are at http://picasaweb.google.com/100kph/HimalayanDuo2007. Dont forget to leave comments !!!!!!!!!


Cheers!

-ady

Driving in the rain (Kudremukh to Bangalore)

Its 8:30 am and Kudremukh is raining heavy. We plan to start our journey back to bangalore.


The kudremukh-bangalore route we usually take is

Kudremukh-samse-kalasa-Balehonnur-chickmagalur-belur-hassan-cr patna-bg
nagar-kunigal-nelamangala-bangalore.

This is a cool smooth route. And you have a great coffee shop located in a plantation after Balehonnur. But this time we decide to go an alternate route

Kudremukh-samse-kalasa-magundi-kottigehara-mudigere-belur-hassan-cr-patna-bg nagar-kunigal-nelamangala-bangalore

The rains are tough, visibility partial, sunlight rare, here are some snaps !

One note on the road from kottigehara-mudigere is horrible, full of potholes and maniac drivers racing over them.



At mudigere, i avoid sankleshpur as the road between sankleshpur and hassan sucks and get towards belur. The road from belur to hassan is a cute highway. Hassan to Bangalore is a 4 way highway.

Lunch was at Kamat Uphar - CR Patna who make nice north indian thalis that cost 60 bucks, costly for its size.

I drive into bg nagar where tehres a very cool coffee shop that make exceptional coffee.. don't forget to try this guy out.. he is exceptional. I reach Bangalore at 4 pm, late but acceptable for the number of win-e stops, photo - stops and coffee stops :)

Retrieving Win-e boy from kudremukh

Yesterday - I just could not take life without Win-e. My bike came back in perfect condition from delhi on Wednesday. I caught the night bus to kudremukh and arrived at kalasa this morning. This Sleepy, cum holy town of Kalasa (well atleast its the gateway to horanadu) is raining cats and dogs. From kalasa, i was transported in an old battered satellite pickup kind of bus to kudremukh. I asked the bus driver to drop be a few houses away from my home so that i could walk a bit. As i approach my home, alert win-e was the first to notice me and start barking. the other dog - pookie was quick to follow suit. These dogs i must tell you are amazing..


Win-e is seeing me after 5 weeks and he is really excited. he is himself wet due to rains lashing in and he keeps rubbing against me untill we both smell the same. I was planning a trek up the north hill here with my trusted friend - win-e, but the unrelentless rains of this region is not letting me go. Kudremukh is home to a spring called Sitabhumi-Hole and it ends up joining the bhadra river (which then joins River Tunga, forming TungaBhadra). Ditching the trekking plans, we settle for a small 3 kilometer walk to source of the sita-bhoomi source. Half way win-e has 2 leeches in his wet-black-leather-nose and i have 2 more on my leg-calves. So i just pulled the leeches off (NEVER DO THAT), which i regret today, it still itches. The rains come back, and the 3 kilometer walk ended into a 3 kilometer run.


After a hair-dry session for win-e and a lavish lunch served by my mom, win-e and I sleep most of the afternoon cuddling each other, the next best sleep i had after the bharathpur burn out in the himalayan ride 2007.


My Car, The Suzuki Wagon-R is idle for 5 weeks in the garage of a vacant house in this ghost town of kudremukh. Kudremukh used to be a great township with great people where i spent most of my childhood, but its now home to uncontrolled weeds, creepers and mossy empty houses. I turn on the ignition and the car hums to life instantaneously. Not bad for a 3 year old battery.


Tomorrows - sunday, a great day to drive back to Bangalore.

We are Back!

Jaggu and me have returned back to cool bangalore today. We had a great bumpy flight with go-air.


YES WE HAVE DONE IT! Minus Zanskar.


Bangalore feels soooooo good. 3700 odd kilometers of riding and we are home baby!


The himalayan duo web site will be updated within say 2-3 weeks... lots of material :)

Life without win-e

My bikes in delhi, my cars in kudremukh, win-e's off too.

Win-E is better off at kudremukh, my home town with my mom and dad. Its a selfless sacrifice my parents have done to raise the kith and kin of us (namely pookie and win-e, just kidding :) )

Win-e is a go getter, he needs an entire forest to a home! Win-E was running thru the wild kudremukh. AND Win-e loves kudremukh

I commute to the office in my mountain bike

Pics later

My first photography classes

SMS'd chandra (an avid photographer and biker) about my new camera and asked him if he would give me lessons on photographing the Lakes of laddakh in low light. He gladly accepted and turned up at HSR Layout in his "Gangster" kind of spacious SUV (Tata safari). That was some seating comfort !!


So we ended up at coffee day with camera gear, talking of photography. Chandra started off with aparture, shutter speed, ISO settings.. a cool 2 hours of his precious time! Thank you dude !




Here are MY FIRST DLSR images after his classes



I tried to focus on the red ball that Gowda is trying to pocket.

The red is not that good but thats my first ones :)

The NEW CLUBHOUSE Building and the swimming pool

Exposure Time = 20 sec
F Number = 7/2 [3.500]
Exposure Program = Shutter priority
ISO Speed Ratings = 100








Ok Heres a clearer one with a 10 sec more aperture

Exposure Time = 30 sec
F Number = 7/2 [3.500]
Exposure Program = Shutter priority
ISO Speed Ratings = 100



And how can any photography from me go without Win-E around ;)

Exposure Time = 1/40 sec [0.025]

F Number = 28/5 [5.600]

Exposure Program = Aperture priority

ISO Speed Ratings = 100

Say hello to my new camera

I was always looking to improve the quality of my photographs since the last himalayan trip. And so i though , hey - a DSLR is the one.

Went to brigade road and they were having a 1-week offer "by the showroom" for a olympus evolt 500 DSLR.

e-500 body, 17.5 - 45 mm, 40-150 mm, 1gb cf-1 card (basically the e-500 dzk package), and tripod for 40k.

Went to Jayesh's shop in chickpet and the same was like 8 k cheaper ;)

So i call up Kam, and DJ Sameer and they suggest me the Cannon 350D or the digital rebel XT.


So it is !!!

Cannon Body, Lens, CPL Filter, UV Filter, Case - 23k INR
Memory card - 2GB EXTREME-III some 3 k

26k in total.

Now let me go and learn some thing about photography ;)

How to kill your brand (The PS3 Song)

This is a very funny video i stumbled across!



This video give a nice message for product oriented guys (like me) - "Dont make stuff people dont want"!

Enjoy !

The Long Weekend - Games and Fun, Gautham Kalra

Woke up after a wonderful nourishing sleep after the previous day's PT exercises....here are details, Biker Rajesh (don't have his blog URL) dropped in to my home at HSR layout. The plan was that we play Table Tennis at the club. We ended up buying a set of boxers, and swimming at the club for 2 hours.

Rajesh made me do the "Iron Man" where you lie on your toes and elbows. That pains at the ab.

And later we ran for some good time on the thread mill. That was really really tiring sheesh!!!!

With so many calories burnt,
With the Srilanka - Australia final match being displayed by a projector,
With Rajesh leaving to singapore in 2 weeks,
With the club offering 1 peg free with every 2 pegs of black dog whiskey
With our other biker friends partying at Yelagiri (Tamil Nadu) with the madras bikers,
With my Oxodo Aviators crushed by Rajesh's pathetic ass,

We decided to celebrate !!!! And this was reason GOOD enough.

The match was delayed due to rain and we got drunk watching the last match's highlights. So pathethic..... this is worse than the P.E's ;)

So I Woke up after a wonderful nourishing sleep after the previous day's PT exercises and saw an ad in the news paper, Gautham Kalra dressed in a Tartan Tam, Shoulder bag and a black cloak.

the ad reads "HE CAN GIVE YOU A NEW LOOK AND A NEW GIRLFRIEND."

Anyways i thought let me go see this hot shot.

but o-wait i had to drop the crushed-oxodo-aviator at Shades residency road... Now parking is a real problem anywhere in central bangalore, so i drive in to the Taj Gateway, residency road and park the car, visit the reception, say hi to the guy at the counter and get to the shades-shop. The parking in Taj is never utilized so guys please make use of it.

Oh enough of this shit... lets go on.

So i get to commercial street.... the parking is a real problem there too... oh phuleeze.

So i get into the indigo showroom and i meet gautham, kevin and an Indian Air Force Chick (She's good, smart and can give you a great smile). Well gautham came out and shook hands with me. Gautham made me try a few formals, helped me get rid of pink-o-phobia. Met kevin too who helped me with some tips for my "long hair" experiment. Gautham (all 36) and single, lives in delhi/noida, tells me he loves living life full. He makes his own clothes. Used to stay in koramangala, He has no pets, He has all the time for his customers, and he definitely has at least 50x times the time for "his" women.

Started leaving to home at 9 pm, Guys honking, driving like a rabid dog (hehehe that should be a nonsensical original).

and reached by 10:30, that my friends is about bangalore traffic.

That's all for now, thanks for your wasted time (hope that wasn't rude) !!!

The himalayan ride - status

Jug met me at my office today and we charted out the plan for the Himalayan ride. Its finally happening. This ride, i plan to deploy a better camera than the one on the last Himalayan ride ( Its a cannon A80 ).

So i post up a message in my group:

I am in need of a camera that's state of art, digital and has at least a
10x ++ optical zoom .

Picture details should be good (towards the better). i should not have have problems like bakery did for switching lenses (he mentioned Nikon)

thanks a lot !

-adarsh

and hear this.. Arun replies

"Sorry sir, your demands are too high. What we recommend though is a mobile phone and a magnifying lenses. You are welcome J"

OH MY GOD ! I JUST CANT HELP LAUGHING AT THIS ONE !

Bheja Fry !

Woke up at 11 to a nice not so bright sunday morning. I spent the previous night watching documentaries - The Iron Wall (Its about Palestinian apartheid, Zionism) and a conspiracy theory of the CIA and the Nazis. Life seems so easy for us huh... we are so freaking lucky

Called up kam and asked him if he would wanna join in for lunch, which he gladly accepted. As usual we did a COP and headed to innovative multiplex in my car to watch a movie called provoked. The idea was to see Aish while she was still single ;) We would have to wait 3 hours for the next show, so we settled for a movie called bheja fry (bheja is brain (colloquial) in hindi)

I could relate to the hero of the movie Rajat Kapoor, the friday parties with friends, the party 1st campaign. What he does in the movie almost juxtaposes with the way i am with my wife....deja-vu!. The remarkable Vinay Pathak did an amazing job playing the bloke. Sagarika is HOT HOT HOT! Milind Soman, and his infectious laughter makes me feel really good. This is a definate must watch movie. Definately too good for Sagar Ballary's directorial debut.

Win-E's pics

For all of you asking for pics of my son - Win-E , Here's my brother Aditya, Win-E and me!

PS: As usual win-e is looking at the "migrating" birds without permits

Picture Courtesy: Uncle Seena, Somewhere in sankleshpur

This is win-e with pook-e at my hometown. Pookie is a gachibowli bred sweetheart (she is the begaum of nampalli!!) . She beats win-e in speed.. in fact she thrashes win-e in a fight. Call it female-dominance ;)

And thats proud Win-E with his nose up!

PS: He does know when to bend down to a female of his species.

PS: And i never take my wife's comment on "learn from win-e" too seriously, LOL

Rambling on

One of the riders are dropping out.. Rajesh is opting for a job in singapore. Best of lucks, rajesh. I'm gonna miss a great football teammate and a great comrade at the bar-stool. Hope those cute cross-eyed singapore babes are really worth this ride.


The blue lakes, the deserts of nubra, the cute DOGS of khalsar, the excitement of this ride is keeping me awake!

No name yet for the yearly himalayan episode

Well i still don't have a name for the yearly Himalayan biking episode. There are NO promising suggestions out of the many i got!

The way i would love to describe this adventure is a "ride that churns out adrenalin which fuels your adventure and die hard, tough get going attitude". What we need is a proper name.

Just noticed that Win-E has put on a few kilos. And he has a paunch. That joker keeps sleeping the whole day. When i woke up this afternoon, i found him sleeping on his back, with his 4 legs up!

In Win-e boy's interest, i had a run with him from HSR Layout Club, thru NIFT, AGHARA Lake, back thru BDA complex and to the club. As memories come thru, At chang-la i could just run (I felt my lungs were burning) half what i could in bangalore.

I plan to do the same again this ride, infact here is what i hope to do.

1. Run a few kilometers in shorts at khardungla ;)
2. Swim in Pangong-Tso Lake ;)
3. Sleep on ice at Tanglang-la ;)
4. Visit URI in kashmir !!!! :)

( ;) )COLD is the least common denominator here

The himalayan biking adventure - revisited

With the magic magnetic powers of Pangong Tso, the contours of Nubra Valley, the altitude of khardungla still in my head, i just decided to revisit the place again.

This time i weighed the option of a solo ride.

The advantages of a solo ride is quite clear:

• You ride fast.
• You can stop where ever you want and photograph the place.
• Its all fun until your bike breaks down ( Click here to see normal human reaction when the breakdown is trivial ;) )

The disadvantages:

• You are lonely, You get depressed (when nature weakens you off) and when you are alone.
• You tend to sleep... you need to keep working in your brain.
• Stay/Accommodation is costly
• No high altitude party's
• Other motorists tend to push you off the road...
  

I called up my biker pals Rajesh and another guy called Jag and told them of this plan. Rajesh asked me to book the plane tickets to delhi... Well i still have a lot of pressure to put on the home ministry to persuade them to allow me to visit some "forward" positions.

This looks like a perennial craze and I am thinking of giving it (this event) a name (Can some one suggest me a name)

June 1st 2007 is the potential date i plan to embark on this trip.

Solo Ride to the Himalayas

I have posted a new blog called Adarsh's Solo ride to the himalayas.


You can find it at http://himalayan-solo.blogspot.com

A Sangam - Bheemeshwari cross country ride story

Before I start my tale, its mandatory that I feed some background to this saga. It all started on 21st of May this Year Something looked strange at sangam (The place where Mild River Arkavathy and the Wild River Kauveri meet)… The water was at knee level, unlike on August of 2004 when it was at waist level. While I thought of driving the car across the river, acknowledging the fact that it's not a 4x4 car, I perceived it as a bad idea. Ending the holiday with a trek to Mekedhatu we got back to Bangalore.

Days back, Sarath from the 60kph group posted a Request For Riders (RFR) and opportunity knocked on my door. Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared. I saw the opportunity to cross mekedhatu with the Thunderbird and I was still screaming for more. After touch-basing with Sarath on the 60kph forum, we decide to leave 4 days later on a Saturday. These 4 days gave me ample time to plan ride and synchronize with the forest officials for permission to ride on the fabled forest road between sangam and muthathi.

The Plan

A quick plan was hatched among (pretty much almost among) the riders

Pre-Ride

I obtain permission from the forest department for sarath, his wife, and me, to protect ourselves against trespassing and definite arrest.

Ride

Ride from Bangalore to Sangam,

Ride From Sangam to Mekehat, Across the river (this was my idea of fun)

Back from mekedhat to Sangam

Sangam to Galibore (here is where the forest permission comes needed)

And Galibore to Muthathi

Muthathi to Bheemeshwari

Lunch at Bheemeshwari (organized by the kind grace of Sarath - the Chief Naturalist of Galibore)

Back to Bangalore.

I then touch base with Mr Sarath of Jungle Lodges and tell him of my plan. He was visibly very, very upset that we were riding on bikes on the jungle trail. He even conveyed his feeling about our selfishness and warned us about the elephants. But the forest permission had already been sought for and there was not much he could do. But like all sports, he offered us lunch at bheemeshwari. Special thanks to you Sarath of Jungle Lodges, you were a major source of information. The bikes were definitely non polluting Thunderbird and a Std 350

The Ride Day

We are scheduled to meet up at Khodays Factory Kanakpura Road. But out our-of-towner biker boy Sarath was hovering around katriguppe. After synching on phone, we meet way away from our intended spot in a petrol bunk where I was checking tyre pressure.

We planned to meet at 08:00 hours and its now 08:30. This called for a Non-Stop dash to Kanakapura. We stopped at a lovely kanakapura restaurant that serves breakfast (Its called Raju Hotel) and then I went to the forest department on permit business. Special thanks to this non-corrupt, adventure loving, speedy procedural department.

Bidding adieu to this lazy town, we move towards sangam on the dodda-alla-dahally road.

Mekedhatu is a notified property. This means vehicles just cant enter that place. Two condemned busses lie there that are used to transport passengers across the 4 kilometer forest trail. These two busses are refueled by jerri-cans and do not cross the river. You, the traveler are supposed to cross the river by foot.

Crossing the arkavathi river by bikes, we land on the other bank of sangam. My partner-rider, sarath's, poor wife had to cross walking. Wet sands, 1st gear, sliding thunderbird. This was my idea of fun. Realizing that we are in notified area, un-willing to violate the law for adventure, we back out and get back to sangam.

Sangam to Galibore

Galibore is a fishing camp that is situated on the bank of river cauvery, 9 kilometers from mekedhat. This is run by Jungle Lodges and its famous for those huge fishes. The approach to Galibore is a road (what road????), a mud trail that runs along side river cauvery. Stopping by a huge white tree (terminus arjuna) we were found chilling out by the bank of the river.

After being stopped at galibore by the Jungle Lodge guys, permit in hand, we were let off with a warning that the gate is closed.

The warning looming over my head, we left galibore towards muthathi, again on a rough unexplored road. For some reason I thought the route was just 4 kilometers long. But as we continued riding the end of the road was as evasive as it could get. Dogged with high ups and downs, the trail was getting tougher and tougher. The thunderbird was at its best but the standard 350 was leaking oil. Sharath then confronts me, if we don't see road in 15 minutes, we ride back to sangam. After a small meeting and assuring sarath that the end of the road is near, we are back to what we do best... riding. Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.

In time I see a gate and a beautiful tar road outside it. Sarath has reached first. The forest gate is closed.

I am damn hungry. Is this why we ran around for so long? Is this the reward? A Tide of panic shakes my body, propagates through my nerves, blood rushing up my head, despair approaching me, I switch the engine off and sit on the bike while I ponder. Leadership has been defined as the ability to hide your panic from others. I was like the Prince Of Persia who was caught in the 7th level when the door closes. Ideas come pouring, maybe we carry the bikes over the forest check post gate…..

Then like the mouse who opens the gate in Prince Of Persia, Sarath, alights from the bike and opens the gate… The forest guards at muthathi were given the wireless message from kanakpura and they kept the gate open!

Crossing Muthathi, we then ride to cauvery fishing camp in bheemeshwari and have a great lavish non vegetarian buffet. After the wonderful service bestowed on us, I leave this wonderful place, indebted to Sarath (for whom we had food) and the guards who were kind and hospitable to us.

Warned by the guards not to go thru Halgoor due to bad roads, we just did just that. Leaving bheemeshwari and heading to halgoor, the roads were initially a pain.

Halgoor-Kanakpura-kaalglipura-bangalore was the route we took back to Bangalore. We arrived at Bangalore at 6 PM.

PICS: http://100kph.fotopic.net/c594365.html

I decided to BLOG!

November 5th 2004, 19:30 hours:

So I finally decided to blog. Why would i want to blog? Well i have a
pretty colourful life that i want to share with my near and dear and
the would be near and dears ;)

Oh its late, i gotta run to the RTMC meet.. For guys who dont know,
Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club is a bangalore based motorcycle club.