Name of the Ride: Yercaud Haunting agian.
Hero: David
Actors 2 newbies Amar, Deepak.
Support Cast: me
In Villain Role: A hit villager
Cost of the Ride: A lost 80gb Ipod
Well for me Yercaud always brings haunting memories. Cant say bad because the rest of it is made up with all the riding that happens around those incidents. Last year a month before my North Trip we made a trip to Yercaud. a few of us. Yasoo, Rohit, Sandeep, me and my pillion and daniel (newbie and the last time we ever heard from him was that ride) Now you guys have to agree we are all know for not setting right example's for newbie's but it was not intentional. We left early from Chennai and were somewhere before kanchipuram and lo yesoo has a problem with his carb, Rohit went to check on that he had a flat tyre. Then I had to go and we towed the bike to kancheepuram and in the process of waiting for a mech to open his shop were advised by an elderly man there to go on rides with better bikes .....grrrr...well that was the just the starting. We started soon and did cover quite a lot of distance and were riding very fast thanks to our captain Yesoo. We actually put the newbie through quite a lot in a single day icluding riding at pretty high speeds. Then the unthinkable happens on a lonely & boring banglore road...my bike takes nice big..large...monster breath and goes off....by the way i was the last in the pack chasing a innova packed with girls...sigh...whats bad none of the rider buddies even bothered to stop....brrrr...brrr....brr they went...here i was all alone with my bike and of course my pillion.
When my so called riding buddies could not chase that truck full of chicks they decided to stop and then they realise im missing so they call and then send a search party. Well camman the towing and we tow the bike again this time to Krishnagiri (approx 30km from the spot the bike broke down). After spending precious time trying to fix the bike we park it there and decide to come next day to take it back to chennai. On the way to Dharmpuri we had a close shave with a Safari spinning on the road just before we crossed its path. It was hit by a passing Truck. We stop by and help the person in the car to come out..fortunately he was shaken but ok. He was so shocked that inspite of being hit he was sitting in the car trying to call for help. Soon the locals come to the scene and take over and with the assurance that things will be fine we continue with our journey.
We reach Yercaud close to midnight where Sim and co are already high and we tired so we hit the sack. Next it was shipping the bike back to chennai. In between the auto looses it way and its almost past midnight when we finally see him at re workshop in adyar. Two days later the re mechanic kicks the bike and it starts...dammit.
Thats the flash back. This year its been my best buddies who were riding with me for the second time, not to forget David. We start early at 4am hoping to make it early for some rest me and gay-vid had finished our shifts. All was well with a little drizzle and slippery road...missed a truck a one instance and was always wondering how these new guys will handle the wet roads....fortunately we crossed that stretch without ay issues. Before Horur the roads really were tempting and me and gay-vid decided to take off..planning to stop after sometime. We reach horur and are happy that the newbies dint try and match up to show off their riding skills....we decide to wait just outside the town when locals passing on two wheelers stop to tell us that riders behind us have hit one villager crossing. My heart started to pound at a million beats per min. I was scared and worried. This was like a nightmare. I just wanted to pinch myself and get up to realise it was a bad dream.
We wanted to go there but were scared that the village might beat the crap out of us in anger so we decided to call the guys. Were informed that the guys were punched couple of times and that later the villagers realised that the person who got hit was at fault but they would not let them go and brought the that old man to the hospital and were made to wait and pay.....finally after couple of hours delay we were asked to go after we paid a sum.
Reached Yecaud soon, as usual the Ghats where awesome. Reached the venue and was happy to see known faces. This was Camman the Enjayment. Met all the folks its always nice to see some known faces and such big crowds. Rest of the evening was spent sleeping, getting the newbies introduced to Nathari Sangam. Our boy Bansal was busy mixing things in life ;) Our other more responsible guys won the figure of 8. Then it was party time and it was funny that RTMC would show a presentation of RM09, which was rightly pointed out by Dodo. Well RTMC if MAdbulls don't come in their full strentgh to RM09 then who will. A few minutes later it was the dance floor was open and guess who the first one was on the dance floor "Cry Baby" He was truly enjoying his party. An hour later he was spotted doing something fishy and then another half an hour later it just got murkier with cry baby chasing a RTMC dude on the dance floor (pun Intended) Well we had a good laugh....i was tired as i had not slept for almost 24 hrs. we retired for the day only to realise that i was going into a snoring home. Damn the newbies and then this faulty tv which just kept coming on every now and then. I in fact remember getting up in the night to switch it off. Why dint I turn the power off...ahem ahem. Got up with a bad back pain thanks to some very hard pillows. The yercaud mornings were lovely and it had rained overnight so there was mist all around. Got ready so that we could see a few places in yercaud but realised that most riders were leaving and we dint want to get stuck behind so we decided to tag along.
We started after a quick breakfast and were on our way down. had a few close calls with mini buses pushing me of the road on our way down could have been fatal if i had slipped any more....phew that was close. I think it would have been the end of me. Once down the roads were better and more broad and we enjoyed the curves and bends ;). This time though we had lot more company as all the riders from Madbulls were on the same route....so every now and then you could see Ajith & co, Dodo, Ranga & Brijesh zip past us and make our 80+ speeds look like we were on cycles. I had leart from David earlier that he was riding with Dodo but on the highway it looked like he was chasing him rather than ride along. The most dreadfull momemnt was when we stopped for tea after thiruvannamalai and i decided to play music. Once we started the music was playing for sometime and then it stopped I thought to myself maybe the plug came off the ipod. After like a km I decided to fix it back in and i stop to find to my fa**king horror my ipod was missing. I decided to take slow ride back and see if i can find it. Crossed Dodo and Yasin the way who came along to help we rode back all the way till tea shop but it was in vain. This was my worst nightmare come true. I just hope it broke when it fell of from the bike because it had some much of personal info on it. After taking a deep breath we decided to move on and its never easy to keep up with Dodo the man. After sometime trailing us he decided to take off.
Learnt on the way that Rohit(cry baby ) had a fall but was ok, seems like the hangover was taking a toll. Once on the Pondy Highway the roads were same and I was happy that we were closing home, my back was hurting and so was my pocket.
But here are the postives out of my trip after yercaud, I made a yercaud trip last year which was a disaster and then i went up north on a solo trip which was very successfull one so i think all my problems have been taken care of now and I can make the Uttranchal trip with thought in my heart and mind that the bad things are over and now it time to enjoy TILL THE ROADS END because its DESTNATION HIGHWAY.
Thanks to RTMC for the wonderful arrangements and a gr8 party see you guys at RM09. Thanks to David for sorting the villager issue with lotsa carm nerves :)
Cheers
Shantanu
http://picasaweb.google.com/shantanu.rathore2/YercaudRTMC7A#