journeytothepoint

Down into Kerala: Mysore-Gundlupet-Sultanbattery-Calicut

Chris | October 17th, 2009

So we find ourselves in the rather chaotic city of Calicut, which has both the positive aspects of being in the Northern plains of Kerala, and within one day’s ride of where we hope to celebrate Diwali on the 19th – Thrissur. It’s been two relatively easy days of riding and one longer day, at 60 km and 100 km respectively.

We headed out early on Tuesday morning, cycling along Highway 212 to the city of Gundlupet. Unfortunately, I also left one of my fake Reebok sandals on the highway (misspelt as ‘Reedoks’). We were both down to one flip flop and currently there is a very happy Indian wandering around with a black Reedok on one of his feet. These were replaced in Gundlupet by a new pair, but at 120 rupees, suffice to say they lack the same quality and comfort. The ride itself was easy in the sense it could all be done in the morning in one go (with chai stops along the way of course!), but the final late morning session was hard work as humidity rose and we were riding uphill for a long time. At the truck/bus stop off town of Gundlupet we stayed in a cheap guesthouse with a very friendly owner, we felt a little bad having to do repairs to both our bikes that evening.

The next morning we had a big decision to make. We had been told by more than a couple of Indians there were dacoits (bandits) in the forests along the road up to Ooty, and that we were to be very careful. We were both in a dilemna as Ooty had been on the itinerary from a very early stage. However, despite the chances of any mishaps occurring were small, they were significant with only two of us, on bicycles – foreigners to boot. We decided to take the road to the small hill station of Sultanbattery, I have to say we both felt a little justified as we cycled past the junction of the road to Ooty – the road did look a little bit hairy.

The road to Sultanbattery turned out to be really nice. We cycled up to a big plain full of conical haystacks and occasional friendly villagers drying produce on the road. We went through the edge of the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary and into Muthanga National Park. As we entered the park, one of the touts on the gate offered us an elephant. Slightly confused as to how we would be able to fit two touring bikes on top of an elephant, we politely declined – to which he shouted after us “Road very difficulty”. We soon found out what this meant as we reached a ‘Beware of Tigers’ sign further up. We cycled on as quietly as we could. Bicycles proved to be the ultimate stealth form of transport as we surprised several spotted deer with our engineless motorbikes, one startled family running onto the road right in front of us. I couldn’t help but give Jason the surprise of his life, shouting “Tiger 6 o’clock” and cycling off as quickly as I could while he was taking another photo of scenery.

As we descended out of the park, we were pleasantly surprised by a border check post telling us we were already in ‘God’s own Country’ Kerala. Our standard procedure with these is to cycle as quickly as possible, to stop the police giving us any hastle for bribe money.

The next morning proved to be the most enjoyable, as we pedalled up hills into groves of mangoes and orderly tea plantations, before descending steeply through the clouds and over 600 metres, riding through several hairpins with sheer drops to the side. Suffice to say we cycled very carefully, especially as the road had been churned up into deep potholes by the buses charging up the mountain. We christened the place ‘Monkey Mountain’, after all the monkeys sitting precariously on the ledges playing with rubbish and debris humans had left behind. There must have been more than a hundred of them. We stopped for lunch at Thamaraserry, which had no hotels geared towards accepting foreigners for us to rest.

That afternoon we cycled into the Northern Keralan city of Calicut, surprised by the number of undulations along a coastal plains road and braving the crazy Keralan driving for the final 15 km. Particularly annoying were the buses, who would overtake you and then pull-in hard right in front of you to let their passengers off. The Lonely Planet had informed us we would come in along a road which would end in a T-junction with the hotel we were looking for.

After cycling deep into the city, we discovered this was not correct and had come in along a completely different road. We also found out the scale of the map was also tiny, and were pretty frustrated finding our way back to the hotel, tired with sunset approaching. Next we found out this hotel’s rates were triple those quoted in the book, having to trek to the other side of the city to find another hotel. Thankfully we were aided by another friendly Indian, who guided us to the hotel by driving ahead of us on his motorbike. We ended up in a hotel which although basic, is very clean and has an excellent restaurant, for those of you who know me well they will appreciate this is of course extremely important.

We’ve taken a couple of rest days here as both of us have been slightly under the weather, hopefully I’ll be right to cycle into Thrissur tomorrow.